Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Emblem Lord]

Meh. Marth wins neutral but Robin can clutch wins thanks to high reward.

 

[Shaya]

Being "OP" on wifi, as much as it seems to hurt people (who are probably wifi players :|, although not to say she is -always- OP on wifi), means that character cannot be buffed without a LOT of love/luck.

Samus has a roll longer than everyone else. Standard roll punishes on Wifi in conditions which you can't appropriately react essentially don't work against her. By the time your roll punish whiff is over she's already the other side of the stage from you.
Other characters can achieve this but the kicker is:
CHARGING KILLING PROJECTILE SPECIAL: [and apparently]

means they're broken. In fighting games efficiency is important, charge special characters are going to be attempting to be evasive to get it by default, that's not the problem; the problem is just how much physically harder it is to deal with them. Remember, if they're charging their release windows are shorter, they cancel into rolls or dodges in most cases nearly instantly. Blame Sakurai, but this dynamic is cancer in a nutshell. These characters essentially have a defensive posture in charging a special move that everyone else would require the use of shield or 'waiting' to deal with. Make the speed at which they can cancel their specials a lot worse (in some cases), or hard code no invincibility on rolls for it (this is probably a big reason why universal ground dodge nerfs, I really doubt they did it for offline play) . Then they can start to be buffed/compensated for losing wifi cheese with actual PvP dynamic mechanics.

thank god pac man is unpopular because his evasion on wifi is ludicrously stronger than the rest (WiiFit takes the cake offline though). In fact over all this time, I'm surprised he hasn't received further nerfs. I don't think I've had a single japanese wifi pacman match not go to 4.30minutes or more on For Glory. And I'm sure the balance team sees the usage of this character using only 2 moves for 99% of a match and is wondering "what the **** are we meant to do about this?". That or 3rd party bias. If you get the slightly better Pacs who also use trampoline? Straight up absurd.

As much as all these characters seem weak offline, the risk/reward for them is beyond balanced in lag and if they were freely giving out buffs to those characters like they were with MELEE, APPROACHING ONLY characters like the swordsmen, then there would be absolutely no point in playing ForCancer anymore (although perhaps Falco/Pit/ROB/Villager would get to have more fun on average).

The fact that it's now come down to them balancing those specials on Robin and WiiFit (smoking crack WARNING FLAGS), at least in the former case it's not the same to have the 1-3 buffed as much as it would've been Thoron, which as I'm sure we all noticed, was not given any buffs while the rest of it was. 1% to 2% on healing isn't that bad either.


In Samus' case, I suppose she's the easiest to be the lamest with, due to those roll lengths and having the most powerful special of them all (bar aura lucario).
Maybe if we're lucky the balance team will start to rebalance those specials and buff the remaining character up; they'll be a lot better for just about everyone bar those who like to be sadists on wifi..

 

[oldkingcroz]

This isn't part of my post and this doesn't sound like a chain of fairs, but I'll answer it anyways. Move away and mash out or move on stage when you're in the egg. Why put yourself in the worst position? If you are put offstage guaranteed, adjust your mashing speed based on yoshi's position. Yoshi can't go too deep since aether becomes a threat if he fails. Fair in general is pretty slow and can be air dodged on reaction anyways.



Ness hitting with an fsmash.. Anyways, how is PK thunder descending when Ike is recovering high? If Ike is close enough where PKT is a threat to reach him horizontally, he's already released on the start of PKT to the edge. If Ness committed himself to using PKT right after hitting Ike, Ike has all the time in the world with his double jump and offstage position to adjust to PKT's placement. If Ike is below the stage, Ike has to try to get aether to hit ness, or perform an early aether and DI correctly.

Both of these situations aren't very plausible until Ike already chose bad DI + option choice.



I never said it was very risky (or at least I don't think I did), it's just not as easy as eruption. Counter is somewhat easy to use but it gives Ness the opportunity to adjust his timing. Default eruption is better since it hits farther below for 7 frames (or 5 frames once fully charged), while the others hit higher, allowing ness to be safe for some angles. Wind eruption gimps Ness when he's offstage, but why go through the work when you can just hold default at the edge and even have trouble reaching him if he's directly below?

I don't quite think either or us are understanding each other, but I was trying to relate the situation/ physics that Ike is in, when he is trying to recover when he is being physically pushed in one direction (like in a fair chain or Yoshi egg launch), he has trouble getting back to stage. Because the position he is off stage is very difficult to get back stage from (near the blast zone and equal to stage height, or slightly below stage height), he can't recover. He can't double jump and charge a quick draw (it doesn't go far enough if you are going for the ledge, and it might activate and put Ike into helpless state), and recovering low puts him at risk of being gimped/ stage spiked/ spiked. Yes, you can DI out of a chain of fairs, but much like Jigilypuff's fair/bair in Melee, it is sometimes too late, at low percents (or poor DI at high percents) sometimes you just can't get out. That was what my original post was about. Fair combos work pretty good against Ike (from Ness, Sheik, Pikachu, etc).

As for the PK thunder, I may have misspoke and said "staying at the same horizontal level" opposed to "staying at the same vertical level". I'm really confused how Ike has "all the time in the world" (he has to immediately choose to use side B/ up B). Either way- If Ike is choosing to use quick draw, and he can either choose to recover as high as possible, at stage level, or any height in between. Ness chooses to use PK thunder. Ness can just keep his bolt at the same elevation as Ike, so Ike is forced to rush into it. Or Ike chooses to recover low- Ness can just choose to chase him with the thunder. I'm just saying PK thunder messes up his recovery, is all.

As for the counter thing, San, buddy, I was responding to some posts earlier, where 2 people suggested to use counter. I said it wasn't the best option (because it could accidentally go off at the wrong time, has a lot of end lag, and as you said Ness can change the timing on it). I completely agree with you that eruption is a [much] better option.

 

[FullMoon]

Unrelated to these combos, but @RK Joker brought up a good point on the Kirby boards. If you DI away from F-Throw, Kirby's B-Throw has you DI in. This means that on characters B-Throw > B-Air works (around half the cast), Kirby can get the combo at higher percents against opponents who try to DI away from F-Throw (which is the best option against it).

After looking it up, I'm so glad B-Throw -> B-Air doesn't work on Greninja.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Nairo bringing out Robin was pretty cool. Everyone, but Ike was there... Thanks a lot, FE crew. Ike fights for his friends and you abandon him.

Hmm, False has a Sheik, Luigi, Peach, and Marth now while Nairo still has his usual ZSS, Robin, Zelda, and Lucina. Didn't see much, but considering Marth's ground speed, Elthunder probably isn't that useful against him, right? Also, every time I see Keitaro go against Nairo, it makes me sad because Nairo literally stomps Keitaro's Falco with Zelda. ;_;

Marth can approach with short hop + air dodge + aerial (remember DeLux cancelling? LOL). So Robin's elthunder is usless unless timed right. Also GunBlade said on stream that the fair takes away the arcfire when it's activated, never saw it in the set, probably true though.

 

[Shaya]

Oh yeah and "marth with a better grab game"
You guys realise Marth does have a better grab game now though right?

He can fast fall into grab because people are more afraid of landing aerials.

He can actually use the fact that he has a disjoint to frame trap people landing without being at a disadvantage to those who landed with an air dodge.
Nair landing lag reductions did not cut it in this regard. But now I can dthrow, jump, fast fall up air/bair at around the right time and know I'm safer and not being screwed over for trying.
I'm surprised 2 frames makes that much of a difference, but it does.

I guess it's more of a mindset difference really.
If you threw out an aerial in the air before, the least laggy option was to actually wait for the end lag a lot of the time. If you got a hit, to get another hit would require staying in the air. That constraint on someone's actions is pretty debilitating.

Now I can fast fall, assuming I'd get a hit and be in a much stronger position 90% of the time. Staying in the air still has it's perks (fair chaining forever).
But it's now a lot clearer what's the better/smarter option most of the time.

 

[san.]

I don't quite think either or us are understanding each other, but I was trying to relate the situation/ physics that Ike is in, when he is trying to recover when he is being physically pushed in one direction (like in a fair chain or Yoshi egg launch), he has trouble getting back to stage. Because the position he is off stage is very difficult to get back stage from (near the blast zone and equal to stage height, or slightly below stage height), he can't recover. He can't double jump and charge a quick draw (it doesn't go far enough if you are going for the ledge, and it might activate and put Ike into helpless state), and recovering low puts him at risk of being gimped/ stage spiked/ spiked. Yes, you can DI out of a chain of fairs, but much like Jigilypuff's fair/bair in Melee, it is sometimes too late, at low percents (or poor DI at high percents) sometimes you just can't get out. That was what my original post was about. Fair combos work pretty good against Ike (from Ness, Sheik, Pikachu, etc).

I think I may have initially read high recovery wrong. You can go low for an aether recovery, you only need to fast fall. Yoshi sure isn't going to catch you within the 18 frames before the hitbox+super armor comes out. A lot of what I say is in response to your opponent's movement. You aren't going to randomly recover low when the opponent is preparing to hit aether (if they're capable) for instance without positioning yourself properly.

As for the PK thunder, I may have misspoke and said "staying at the same horizontal level" opposed to "staying at the same vertical level". I'm really confused how Ike has "all the time in the world" (he has to immediately choose to use side B/ up B). Either way- If Ike is choosing to use quick draw, and he can either choose to recover as high as possible, at stage level, or any height in between. Ness chooses to use PK thunder. Ness can just keep his bolt at the same elevation as Ike, so Ike is forced to rush into it. Or Ike chooses to recover low- Ness can just choose to chase him with the thunder. I'm just saying PK thunder messes up his recovery, is all.

The scenario in my mind is that Ness hits you away and you're getting out of hitstun. At that point, you can just QD to the ledge. If ness begins PKT, depending on your position and PKT's speed, there is a lot of time to decide how to recover. Even better if you DI'd well and are on the upper corner of the screen.

Ike's quick draw is more than capable of recovering somewhat quickly if needed:

We agree on the counter stuff, I was just speaking semantics about the wording lol.

 

[MachoCheeze]

No please we've been slightly nerfed almost every patch no more Pac-Man nerfs.

 

[Ghostbone]

We know the dev team balances mostly around for glory winrates/usage yea? Probably why falcon keeps getting slight nerfs, he's played a tonne on for glory (same reason release little mac got nerfed)

I'd assume that Samus does fine in for glory because lol lag, and that's why the devs aren't buffing her (and Sakurai likely thinks she's still the best character or something)

 

[LightLV]

Guess I should note i quit Ike months ago and havent put much time into these patches. Thanks for correcting me.

Like you I'm an OG, and I have long since passed the point of wanting to be nice.

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

Haha. Whatever.

 

[Ikes]

You really don't want that

I do though

its not like any of his other moves do any shield damage besides hyper-unsafe moves

having one shield-breaker option would be nice for him.

 

[Firefoxx]

If they only looked at for glory for balancing, Link wouldn't have gotten the buffs he has gotten

 

[LightLV]

Just putting it out there, shield regen is the lowest it's been in any smash game AFAIK.

I keep seeing this, but shields are very noticeably more lenient this time around. This may be true, but something is working against it to make it unnoticable.

 

[Kofu]

The thing is shielding is only particularly helpful against certain characters (mainly those with slow grabs or short grab range). Most of these characters have options to deal with shields (Villager has projectiles/shield damage axe, ZSS is disgustingly mobile, Ganon does heavy damage and has a command grab). Except against projectiles or frame traps you probably don't want to shield too much.

Also @ rolls, Samus's rolls also notably reduce her hurtbox which is a big deal.

 

[Ghostbone]

The main issue with shields is the fact they don't decay while you hold them.

You can literally hold your shield on the smashville platform as it goes all the way from one side to the other and you're mostly safe from shield pokes >.>

 

[Pyr]

I keep seeing this, but shields are very noticeably more lenient this time around. This may be true, but something is working against it to make it unnoticable.

I think it's because Brawl's depletion rate was so insanely massive that it's skewing the perspective of shield strength a lot.

For perspective, In Smash 4, you lose about 8 points a second. In Melee, you lose 8.4 (light shield is less obviously). Brawl? 16.8 points a second. You literally only have 3 seconds of shield in SSBB.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Also @ rolls, Samus's rolls also notably reduce her hurtbox which is a big deal.

I thought it was pretty much agreed that Samus had the worst roll in the game. Or is Yoshi's worse? Still, it's absolutely terrible. It covers a lot of ground and reduces her hurtbox size, but it's ridiculously slow and very, very punishable. I pretty much never roll, except sometimes out of Charge Shot. But it's a terrible option.

 

[Jehtt]

The main issue with shields is the fact they don't decay while you hold them.

You can literally hold your shield on the smashville platform as it goes all the way from one side to the other and you're mostly safe from shield pokes >.>

What? This is completely false.

 

[Kofu]

I think it's because Brawl's depletion rate was so insanely massive that it's skewing the perspective of shield strength a lot.

For perspective, In Smash 4, you lose about 8 points a second. In Melee, you lose 8.4 (light shield is less obviously). Brawl? 16.8 points a second. You literally only have 3 seconds of shield in SSBB.

That's probably where my misunderstanding on Brawl's shield recovery came from, they have a lot more to recover from on average than this game. I haven't done my research here anyway.

I thought it was pretty much agreed that Samus had the worst roll in the game. Or is Yoshi's worse? Still, it's absolutely terrible. It covers a lot of ground and reduces her hurtbox size, but it's ridiculously slow and very, very punishable. I pretty much never roll, except sometimes out of Charge Shot. But it's a terrible option.

Oh, it's a very bad roll in terms of frame data. But it does move Samus a good distance and her hurtbox is smaller than normal during some of the vulnerable frames which can make it less punishable on Wi-Fi (my initial comment was kind of directed at @ Shaya after his commentary on chargeable projectile characters and Wi-Fi).

It's weird to think that Game & Watch now has very average roll frame data now. I'm used to Brawl where his rolls were bad and so I probably don't roll as often as I should.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

If they only looked at for glory for balancing, Link wouldn't have gotten the buffs he has gotten

That's a valid point.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

That's probably where my misunderstanding on Brawl's shield recovery came from, they have a lot more to recover from on average than this game. I haven't done my research here anyway.


Oh, it's a very bad roll in terms of frame data. But it does move Samus a good distance and her hurtbox is smaller than normal during some of the vulnerable frames which can make it less punishable on Wi-Fi (my initial comment was kind of directed at @ Shaya after his commentary on chargeable projectile characters and Wi-Fi).

It's weird to think that Game & Watch now has very average roll frame data now. I'm used to Brawl where his rolls were bad and so I probably don't roll as often as I should.

Ah, I gotcha. Yeah, her roll probably does seem pretty OP on wi-fi.

 

[BSP]

-snip-

Agree with your post for the most part. The difference between Pac-Man and those other charge B projectile KO'ing move characters though is that all of his stuff can be turned against him quite easily. Like you said, lag makes it much harder to do that, so he's royally screwed as far as offline goes if the devs continue to pay more attention to FG where 98% of people don't know how to exploit Pac-Man.

As for being surprised he hasn't gotten further nerfs, the first patch gutted him majorly. The trampoline nerf weakened his zoning game immensely for no bad reasons. The hydrant HP increase directly hurt his zonig capability and indirectly nerfed Bonus Fruit since Melon lost a good bit of utility. I don't have hard proof, but based on how clanking usually works, the galaxian % nerf should've made it easier to outprioritize, along with making its hits less rewarding. Then the Usmash nerf sealed the deal on making going for KOs even more unsafe with the character.

Notice that his grab hasn't been touched since day 1 either. I think you're right. Online must be making them think Pac-Man is fine. Which is surprising because there are so few Pac-Man players online.

Edit: I don't think Pac-Man throwing fruit mid charge is any faster either. Samus shoots immediately, M2 throws immediately, Robin shoots immediately, etc. Pac-Man still lifts his arm up, then throws the fruit just as if you used BF from neutral position.

Edit2: Not surprisingly, ZeRo didn't mention Pac-Man in the list of characters that give Luigi a hard time. Luigi is not fast enough to punish a whiffed trampoline (outside of a misfire) as long as Pac-Man retreats to the side he's not on, so Pac-Man will never get grabbed unless he allows Luigi to do so. Also, trampoline shuts down his grab game in general, make his bad approach worse than usual, and side B messes up his fireball game too.

 

[Shaya]

They're a lot more frequent in Asian regions (i.e. Japan).
I know what counterplay Pac has. They're all completely reactive though, and as I'm sure you know Wifi kills that ability.
So despite those WiiU release nerfs, he's still stupidly hard to deal with only using 2 or 3 moves.

So no, him getting nerfs definitely had reason. If there's only a small amount of people playing that character online and they're all doing the exact same thing with probably quite surprisingly high win rates (because the character doesn't have universal counter play on wifi), which I'm almost certain is the case, then you get pacman.

Offline pac needs mix ups and smart set ups. On wifi he just needs to press the right b button in any given second (not tight quarter read/reactive level, just paying attention to what's happening a second in advance) to continue zoning with near impervious strength. Stuff like the hitlag of water usually causing the game to lag (something that happens with many "fast" projectiles: megaman, luigi) culling any chance of consistent inputs increases how demonic he is as well.

So yeah, balance team probably realises they can't do anything to him without ruining people's lives (if forcing people to deal with 5 minute matches or losing isn't ruining them already) or completely annihilating any reason to play him.
Nearly every buff to any move he has directly buffs his zoning game. Samus ftilt buffs didn't really in my mind, nor would her having smash attacks fixed to be consistent or otherwise either; her zoning is completely long range only.

 

[Fatmanonice]

If they only looked at for glory for balancing, Link wouldn't have gotten the buffs he has gotten

I don't know about that, and I say this as someone who has close to 12,000 fights on For Glory 1 on 1. I do think For Glory heavily contributed to the amount of buffs Link has gotten and how quickly he got them. Link's pretty popular and most of the people who use him on For Glory are, scientifically speaking, hilariously god awful. Same could be said for , which is why I think the red flag for buffs was raised so quickly for all of them while it took almost a year for them to get around to unpopular characters like . What about the likes of Little Mac then, the Patron Saint of Youtube SSB4 Compilations? He's popular, most people are seppuku degrees of terrible with him, BUT Mac is inherently good against bad players so, even in the hands of a bad player, he has an advantage even if his player is even worse than his depressingly incompetent opponent. In short, in the Land of Suck, Little Mac is king.

I feel like this makes sense because it helps explain why some characters haven't been gotten around to yet. haven't gotten much love in the buff (oh my...) department despite glaring flaws that hold them back. For these characters, sometimes I've gone an entire week without seeing someone use them online. When I do come across these players, they're usually better than average and I feel like that may hurt them because it sends back skewed data. Bowser may have a better record than, say, Falco (I honestly don't know, this is just hypothetical) but that's only because Falco has a bunch of players herp-a-derping around while a good number of Bowser players are serious players. This gives the impression that Bowser's much better than Falco so Falco gets the buff dump while Bowser gives off the impression of being "okay" so he's left alone. As I noted earlier, however, some unpopular characters have finally gotten noticed so I do agree that they do look at other factors but I think For Glory results still play a big role in who Santa Sakurai's delivers a Christmas Miracle to.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I don't know about that, and I say this as someone who has close to 12,000 fights on For Glory 1 on 1. I do think For Glory heavily contributed to the amount of buffs Link has gotten and how quickly he got them. Link's pretty popular and most of the people who use him on For Glory are, scientifically speaking, hilariously god awful. Same could be said for , which is why I think the red flag for buffs was raised so quickly for all of them while it took almost a year for them to get around to unpopular characters like . What about the likes of Little Mac then, the Patron Saint of Youtube SSB4 Compilations? He's popular, most people are seppuku degrees of terrible with him, BUT Mac is inherently good against bad players so, even in the hands of a bad player, he has an advantage even if his player is even worse than his depressingly incompetent opponent. In short, in the Land of Suck, Little Mac is king.

I feel like this makes sense because it helps explain why some characters haven't been gotten around to yet. haven't gotten much love in the buff (oh my...) department despite glaring flaws that hold them back. For these characters, sometimes I've gone an entire week without seeing someone use them online. When I do come across these players, they're usually better than average and I feel like that may hurt them because it sends back skewed data. Bowser may have a better record than, say, Falco (I honestly don't know, this is just hypothetical) but that's only because Falco has a bunch of players herp-a-derping around while a good number of Bowser players are serious players. This gives the impression that Bowser's much better than Falco so Falco gets the buff dump while Bowser gives off the impression of being "okay" so he's left alone. As I noted earlier, however, some unpopular characters have finally gotten noticed so I do agree that they do look at other factors but I think For Glory results still play a big role in who Santa Sakurai's delivers a Christmas Miracle to.

Why in the world would you play FG that much?

 

[TurboLink]

They're a lot more frequent in Asian regions (i.e. Japan).
I know what counterplay Pac has. They're all completely reactive though, and as I'm sure you know Wifi kills that ability.
So despite those WiiU release nerfs, he's still stupidly hard to deal with only using 2 or 3 moves.

So no, him getting nerfs definitely had reason. If there's only a small amount of people playing that character online and they're all doing the exact same thing with probably quite surprisingly high win rates (because the character doesn't have universal counter play on wifi), which I'm almost certain is the case, then you get pacman.

Offline pac needs mix ups and smart set ups. On wifi he just needs to press the right b button in any given second (not tight quarter read/reactive level, just paying attention to what's happening a second in advance) to continue zoning with near impervious strength. Stuff like the hitlag of water usually causing the game to lag (something that happens with many fast projectiles: megaman, luigi) making any chance of consistent inputs increases how demonic he is as well.

So yeah, balance team probably realises they can't do anything to him without ruining people's lives (if forcing people to deal with 5 minute matches or losing isn't ruining them already) or completely annihilating any reason to play him.
Every buff to any move he has directly buffs his zoning game, no matter what. Samus ftilt buffs didn't really in my mind, nor would her having smash attacks fixed to be consistent or otherwise either; her zoning is completely long range only.

Why in the world would you play FG that much?

Because it's convenient?

 

[Fatmanonice]

Why in the world would you play FG that much?

A wonderful combination of lack of time and finances to go to tournaments and the fact that most of the worthwhile tournaments are at least two hours away in any given direction. I pretty much live in a Smash dead zone. Due to my Oliver Twist levels of poverty, I also only have the 3DS version too so there's that.

 

[Shaya]

Pretty off-topic.

~~~~

On Palutena:
She's been getting small buffs for a while now, it definitely helps. I've also been playing with a Palutena main since the beginning of 3DS who has transitioned away from using customs (and honestly being way ahead of the ball on it) to opting for 1111 and preferring it (even when customs are available), quipping "she is balanced around her default moveset", if he can say that I can believe it, he's had greater success with her once the top players in our region got used to her customs playing as default than otherwise. The reflector of hers is really good in some match ups (like Luigi and better than the alternatives against Diddy and probably most of the good characters), pushing people back with a windbox + reflecting is quite difficult for some characters to deal with and can slow down the pace of the game (can be used for aerials too, which can be set up for a dash attack wrecking your landing) to something she can better manage.

I say this in relation to the Miis/Palutena comparisons a bit. I would say most Miis don't function well being restricted to 1111 (bar swordfighter?), but Palutena can. Overall with all those small helps and honestly showing me she's quite capable playing "honest" over a gimmick I don't know if she's in that shoe in bottom tier spot we tend to think she's in. Bottom 10? I guess at this point you can hold that title even if you're a solid character, but she's probably better than people give her credit for.

On Luigi:
I kinda echo @ChileZeRo. While I don't think he'll end up top 5 in the long-term, he's definitely top 5 in relevance still, national results or not. But he dominates his match ups for the most part, but loses poorly to the best three characters. Honestly though I wouldn't doubt the idea that Luigi is beating:


And that's many many MANY good characters. And not just beating them, but able to dominate them if the opponent's skill differential isn't massive. I'd guess that it's not a good match up for Meta Knight, it could go either way against Ness, fireball shuts down Olimar from what I hear. It's kinda crazy. He WRECKS all these good characters, more so than maybe anyone else in the cast does... maybe there is not enough information for there to be consensus on this yet but they could feasibly be multiple of these character's worst match up.

This is dedede all over again but there are a lot more applicable characters with issues.
Ultimately the best characters didn't have issues with Dedede on average, letting characters like Marth, Wario and Snake all have their times in top 5/top tier whilst he wasn't tournament relevant.

But now? It's hard to not think Luigi will have huge impacts on who ends up viable (and why those top 3 are probably fair to still say are top 3). Yeah, 3 obviously good characters are going to stop Luigi getting to top 8 in nationals, but when you're forcing ESAM (of all players) to switch off to Samus on a pocket Luigi (and all the other anecdotes), I can't help but think "if this character doesn't actually get serious changes he's going to be the most polarizing and meta defining character".

Characters like Donkey Kong, Lucario and ROB were considered around top 10 at the start of Brawl. But they all dropped in light of generally poor match ups against top tiers; but with near unwinnable match ups against Dedede, who started off as third.

 

[Balgorxz]

Luigi is overrated, but not in a bad way.
people are getting so good at edgeguarding that in the future luigi will become worse and worse, even at xanadu where boss used to dominate with luigi he has a lot of problems now that everyone else character's are making a comeback, this is happening in a lot of scenes already.
false is dropping luigi and in the future top players will do as well when they come to realize this, he is still gonna be good but its going to be a requirement to have a really solid secondary.
are more solid options for a solo main.
Real luigi mains will probably still do good, but people picking up luigi for fast results won't produce good results in the mid term.

 

[Routa]

A wonderful combination of lack of time and finances to go to tournaments and the fact that most of the worthwhile tournaments are at least two hours away in any given direction. I pretty much live in a Smash dead zone. Due to my Oliver Twist levels of poverty, I also only have the 3DS version too so there's that.

2h? Lucky you.

Everyone agrees that FG would be far more bare able if it had at least 1 stage with plathforms. Also characters with disjoints or projectiles are "high tier" in online.

 

[Ikes]

I think if luigi stays overall the same in the long run, he'll stay top 10 honestly

his frame data and reward off grabs is too good to overlook and his mobility is a negligible downside due to his ability to take neutral so easily. The only people he significantly loses to are those above him on the tier list and a very small handful of matchups across the boards. We're talking 3, maybe. Not many upper-high tiers can say the same honestly.
Ness has trouble with bowser
Sonic has trouble with Wario and isn't incredibly hard to counter (IMHO Toon Link goes even with him, potentially even 55:45 but nothing severe)
Sheik herself goes even with some upper mid tiers (Kirby and Lucario are a couple of notable ones)
ZSS is the only character besides Sheik, Pikachu, and maybe Rosalina that I am sure are 100% viable without any sort of secondary to counter X or Y matchup. Mario is a maybe but he doesn't have the advantageous matchups luigi has across the board. Mario is almost exclusively 50:50 with a lot of the cast, loses and wins to a few here and there, But luigi has advantage across a lot of the board and only loses a couple more matchups than Mario.

 

[Shaya]

Mid level players are going to stop being able to beat high level players with Luigi. If that wasn't the case already.
But who is a top 8 major threat with a pocket Luigi? LarryLurr / DEHF. False?

He's gotten a lot of hate from all sorts of players: ZeRo and Ally being particularly vocal and nearly all players in and around them sharing the opinion. I think many were expecting him to get big changes, and I wouldn't doubt still believe so. This assumption is just an assumption right now, but what if it wasn't? What if knowing your effort put into them wouldn't be wasted within a short period of time? (which is now stretching 6+ months).

We know Luigi can have national/major relevance going by CEO. It seems competent Luigi is forcing
ALLY, ESAM, NAKAT, ZERO (ORIGINALLY), MEGAFOX (*COUGH*, IIRC what Espy said) off of their main characters in tournament. It just those players aren't getting the opportunities at nationals.

 

[Ikes]

I don't understand the luigi hate, is it because you have to play the game much differently versus him? Maybe. Not so much for me though, Toon Link has a pretty universally functional game plan and he's very dynamic.

 

[Pyr]

Main biased or w/e, but I think Luigi is going to pull a Brawl G&W where everyone's like "Oh my god he's so good!" and he just falls and falls as his gimmicks and strengths are labbed out and worked around, along with weaknesses being exploited. G&W started as number 4, then fell to 16 (as of the most recent list). I 100% think it's an issue of people not knowing how to play against him. Half the people I see still don't know how to DI down-B properly. It doesn't even kill at 130% in the mirror with 90% rage. (FD Blast Zones)

 

[DD_]

Not so much for me though, Toon Link has a pretty universally functional game plan and he's very dynamic.

"Universal Game Plan" and "Dynamic" are opposite things. you may as well be saying "I MESH ALL THE BUTTONS AGAINST LUIGI AND DIFFERENT MOVES COME OUT AND SOME HIT SOMETIMES"

Toon Link (just like everyone else against Luigi) does not want to get grabbed. It is a much less acceptable situation to be in against him as apposed to someone else who gets little off a grab. approaching him is risky for this reason and is something you have to accommodate for in your game plan

 

[thehard]

Not to tread off-topic, but I watched Fatality's run through Xanadu last night and oh my god, I see the light finally. Good Falcons are STUPID. I GET IT NOW, @ Shaya .

I mean I've watched vods of Fatality before, but I wasn't quite as moved as I was yesterday. (The product of MD/FreeA being bodied by an OOS? Possibly)

Every dash grab is LITERALLY a potential stock. It's pretty overwhelming... but I dig it. His slaps on the wrist courtesy of Nintendo have all been for the better though.

 

[Shaya]

Yeah, to me, he could have all of his moves do 1.xx% (adjusted knockback, obv) and still be able to be pretty much a murdering machine/amazing at top level.
I should watch the vods, I missed xanadu yesterday.

He really doesn't need to be as capable in a passive way (i.e. high damage) as he used to have. Up Air and Back Air were comparatively ridiculous moves compared to any other in a similar class really; every time I barely survive a Falcon back air now I'm smiling ear to ear because it feels BALANCED (and it happens almost every falcon match so you can only imagine I'm elated most of the time fighting him now).

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Luigi is overrated, but not in a bad way.
people are getting so good at edgeguarding that in the future luigi will become worse and worse, even at xanadu where boss used to dominate with luigi he has a lot of problems now that everyone else character's are making a comeback, this is happening in a lot of scenes already.
false is dropping luigi and in the future top players will do as well when they come to realize this, he is going to be good but its going to be a requirement to have a really solid secondary.
are more solid options for a solo main.
Real luigi mains will probably still do good, but people picking up luigi for fast results won't produce good results in the mid term.

Rosalina isn't a viable solo main. Too many poor matchups vs the top characters.

 

[PK Gaming]

Oh damn I missed the Robin vs Marth final

anyone got a link for it?

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Not to tread off-topic, but I watched Fatality's run through Xanadu last night and oh my god, I see the light finally. Good Falcons are STUPID. I GET IT NOW, @ Shaya .

I mean I've watched vods of Fatality before, but I wasn't quite as moved as I was yesterday. (The product of MD/FreeA being bodied by an OOS? Possibly)

Every dash grab is LITERALLY a potential stock. It's pretty overwhelming... but I dig it. His slaps on the wrist courtesy of Nintendo have all been for the better though.

And his dash grab has the length of a tether without the lag. Because balance...

Captain Falcon is absolutely insane as a character.