Weekly Character Discussion: Game & Watch

[alphameric]

for the record, bucketing pikachu's thunder was possible in melee and is not a new addition to brawl.
if anything it's a little harder to do in brawl since the range of the thunder is a little more and it can ko gaw if not careful

 

[itsthebigfoot]

no, G&W does die to fast, I play my friends G&W a lot with my dk, he juggles me forever, but if i get one hit off i can rack up an easy 50-60%, and by then an fsmash or bpunch kills him, also, once you get used to hitting him in recovery he's somewhat gimpable (still incredibly hard, but possible)

 

[Mr Mattastic]

for the record, bucketing pikachu's thunder was possible in melee and is not a new addition to brawl.
if anything it's a little harder to do in brawl since the range of the thunder is a little more and it can ko gaw if not careful

If it has more range than in will absorb it even better. I don't even think its possible for GW to get energy damage as long as the bucket is out

 

[alphameric]

If it has more range than in will absorb it even better. I don't even think its possible for GW to get energy damage as long as the bucket is out

If you know the thunder is coming, yes it's easier.
The thing is that you need to be close enough to catch it in time, and quick enough to bucket without hitting yourself.
On top of that, if you are in the air trying to catch it, it becomes especially dangerous since it can kill GaW rather easily. I've died at 26% on corneria mistiming an aerial bucket.

Don't forget that the attack comes from the top down, so the closer you are to the cloud, the more difficult it is to time. However, if you are already in the line of fire when it comes its pretty much a free bucket... unless hitlagged of course.

 

[daytimeninja]

If you know the thunder is coming, yes it's easier.
The thing is that you need to be close enough to catch it in time, and quick enough to bucket without hitting yourself.
On top of that, if you are in the air trying to catch it, it becomes especially dangerous since it can kill GaW rather easily. I've died at 26% on corneria mistiming an aerial bucket.

Don't forget that the attack comes from the top down, so the closer you are to the cloud, the more difficult it is to time. However, if you are already in the line of fire when it comes its pretty much a free bucket... unless hitlagged of course.

I don't know. I don't seem to have any trouble bucketing pikachu's lightning. You can pretty much get the bucket and get by unscathed if you just jump forward and fly through it; GaW gets a few frames of invincibility as well while bucketing, so with little practice, bucketing lightning is easy...

 

[napZzz]

dont know if this has been discussed really but while playing in a team tourny we used Lucas/G&W and we tried to abuse the fact you can fill the bucket with one thunder. Simplest method we found was the Lucas shoots the thunder straight up and the G&W jumps up and uses the bucket then. He seems to start off taking the stream and then gets the head of the thunder at the end giving him the full bucket. It does around 25% dmg and Im unsure exactly of the knock back, but this seems to be a fairly fast and effective way to use the bucket in teams.

we would have experimented more but we found that diddy/snake is a much more fun and effective team for us ^_^

zelda+g&w is the unstoppable team. OHKO's from dins fire.

 

[A2ZOMG]

no, G&W does die to fast, I play my friends G&W a lot with my dk, he juggles me forever, but if i get one hit off i can rack up an easy 50-60%, and by then an fsmash or bpunch kills him, also, once you get used to hitting him in recovery he's somewhat gimpable (still incredibly hard, but possible)

G&W honestly shouldn't be getting juggled too often...I mean seriously getting out of juggling is easy. Most of the time your opponent can't do much about a well placed D-air or air dodge. And wtf at saying he gets gimped...

You seemed to miss my point. Does G&W die at low percents? Yeah he does. Is it easy to get him to the percents where he dies? Hell no. His defensive options are amazingly strong. His high priority attacks alone deter most offensive advances. He NEVER gets gimped unless the player using him is doing things wrong. G&W almost always is able to recover from way above or way below the range where any character can get intercepted, and he has a huge number of options to further prevent ledgeguarders from doing anything to him.

Essentially, he takes damage a lot more slowly than most characters. Which is amazing when he's got the follow up options to be able to dish out damage really really fast, and often kill at lower percents than he himself gets killed at. Not to mention also being really apt to gimping.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

no, he juggles me, i can do it just cause my utilt > the key, but he usually juggles me, and he can be gimped, did it like 2-3 times, you just gotta see it coming, when hes smacking me around i can get off like 2-3 backairs and do a couple ftilts and he's in kill range, he dies way to fast, especially to people like dk and wario who can just super armor through his attacks

 

[A2ZOMG]

Oh whoops, I misread that completely.

But seriously Donkey Kong can't really gimp G&W. G&W recovers from way too high or low if he's doing things right, and he isn't supposed to be predictable at all especially if he DIs right. You also must factor in G&W's amazing ledgeguard abilities since he can jump out much farther than Donkey Kong, and he has better aerial attacks for intercepting people. Seriously, almost nobody has ledgeguarding and anti-ledgeguarding that compares to G&W's. It's really silly to say that you can gimp G&W when he's doing that 100x more than most characters, and when in fact that really shouldn't be happening in the first place.

And what? That G&W is like not air dodging or something? It's not like he's going to give the chance for DK or Wario to just land their Super Armored attacks through his attacks. He moves much too fast for that to reliably happen. Sure I mean Super armor is nice and all, but it doesn't change the fact that G&W has a ton of defensive options. Not just his walls of priority, but he can also persay escape anything with an Up-B. Seriously his Up-B can almost never be punished if escaping is what G&W is trying to do.

I honestly think you're not playing good G&Ws. G&W doesn't die fast unless his player is doing things wrong.

 

[aznxk3vi17]

Dying at low percentages seems to be a common disadvantage to many of the currently perceived as "high tier." However, as has been stated, this is not as much of a con as one would think.

Toon Link, Metaknight, G&W. All three of these characters are very light, but that does not matter. They are often taking their opponents to high percentages and getting KOs without taking nearly as much in return, due to their superior maneuverability and priority. Also, good DI helps these characters live much past their "normal" kill %s.

Also, I'm having trouble finding moves that KO upwards that are easy to hit. Most have little to no range, while others are slow/easily telegraphed, while the others don't have killing power. Examples:

Dedede up tilt - short range
Metaknight up smash - doesn't seem to KO very well
Ike up smash - slow
G&W up smash - powerful, but slow with little range

I could go on, but it just seems more difficult to star KO in Brawl, thus putting a lot of the weight issues in the backseat.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

I just played DC yesterday, who is one of the better G&Ws in socal, and no, the super armor does work, it eats both the turtle and the credit card thing, I might no be able to force the move, but he can't attack me without getting hit by the punch.

I think you just aren't playing good dks and warios

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

I personally think that G&W is a great character in the sense that he is great on paper. He have all the stats; priority, speed, power, range etc. He only has one poor stat, which is weight, which only really matter against Snake and Ike.

However, I haven't been seeing many character specific techs arising for him. His mind-games also seem lacking compared to many characters. He's kinda like Marth, he gets the job done with straight-forward attacks and strategies, where general, universal mindgaming is applicable.

But characters like Pikachu and Snake have been gaining so much ground because of the many tricks they can pull off. Think of Fox and the Ice Climbers in Melee. They crawled up the tier list because their multitude of tricks allowed them to stay unpredictable and do CRAZY damage through the whole match. G&W lacks that depth to his gameplay. Because of this, I place him very similarly to Marth in Melee, that character that you keep as a backup because he's based on the basic aspects of the game (spacing/timing) rather than a slew of nifty tricks (Snake).

 

[behemoth]

Not disagreeing with the above post, not entirely. However, those nifty tricks can only get you so far, and many of them only have real value as surprise tactics. Once an opponent has caught on to them, they aren't as effective.

Just because G&W is simple doesn't mean that he is inferior.

Again, I know that's not really what you were saying, so don't take that as a disagreement, I just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

he never said he was, i mean, marth wasn't inferior in melee, just kinda... general, i mean not everyone could play fox or samus, but you could pick up marth pretty quick because he just used basic know-how it was how good you were at the game over how good you were with that character

 

[A2ZOMG]

I just played DC yesterday, who is one of the better G&Ws in socal, and no, the super armor does work, it eats both the turtle and the credit card thing, I might no be able to force the move, but he can't attack me without getting hit by the punch.

I think you just aren't playing good dks and warios

Up-B. Seriously. That's how G&W can attack while avoiding anything. <_<

If he really wants to, he can also shield attacks, and grabs can go through super armor, but you probably already knew that. Btw, his shield doesn't suck in Brawl.

And dude, G&W has crazy mindgames. His attacks do a ton of unorthodox things. If you don't know what I mean, try using his aerial attacks, his Up-B, and his D-throw. And the best part is these attacks are really easy to use, which means he has immediate access to something that can handle any situation. Saying he's predictable is completely untrue. It just means he's really straightforward to pick up. Playing against him is completely different when he has tons of very difficult to punish options.

If you're looking for glitches though, try G&W's glide toss against Diddy.

 

[itsthebigfoot]

grabs do not go through super armor attacks, any fast attack will beat out a grab, dk has super armor on every frame his punch is out, so trying to grab him at that time is kinda dumb, also i never said he didn't have mindgames, seperate my post from the other guy

on a side note, G&W's glide toss is insane, and the only one i've seen go farther is dk

on another side note i think the G&W is the marth of brawlis a perfect comparison, good, but not perfect, and straight forward (except for uair) enough for it to be fairly easy to pick up and play

 

[SnaggleTooth]

@ itsthebigfoot

You seem to be quite partial to DK. DK has serious lag on his Super Punch and it is easily punishable by a dash grab, once the initial attack frames have finished. While his punch may push a character back, there is serious ending lag. Besides the fact that a super punch is predictable, and GaW can easily UpB to a Dair, hitting a slow character pretty quickly... A lot quicker than you can react to. Don't believe me? Just look up Hylian or NoJ or even Cosmo, and you'll see what his mindgames can do to a players game

 

[Mr Mattastic]

If you know the thunder is coming, yes it's easier.
The thing is that you need to be close enough to catch it in time, and quick enough to bucket without hitting yourself.
On top of that, if you are in the air trying to catch it, it becomes especially dangerous since it can kill GaW rather easily. I've died at 26% on corneria mistiming an aerial bucket.

Don't forget that the attack comes from the top down, so the closer you are to the cloud, the more difficult it is to time. However, if you are already in the line of fire when it comes its pretty much a free bucket... unless hitlagged of course.

Most people that use thunder are very predictable. anyways, if your over Pikachua and high enougth theres no reason why you shouldn't just keep it out, untill you get close enougth to use an aerial.

 

[Mr Mattastic]

Dying at low percentages seems to be a common disadvantage to many of the currently perceived as "high tier." However, as has been stated, this is not as much of a con as one would think.

Toon Link, Metaknight, G&W. All three of these characters are very light, but that does not matter. They are often taking their opponents to high percentages and getting KOs without taking nearly as much in return, due to their superior maneuverability and priority. Also, good DI helps these characters live much past their "normal" kill %s.

Also, I'm having trouble finding moves that KO upwards that are easy to hit. Most have little to no range, while others are slow/easily telegraphed, while the others don't have killing power. Examples:

Dedede up tilt - short range
Metaknight up smash - doesn't seem to KO very well
Ike up smash - slow
G&W up smash - powerful, but slow with little range

I could go on, but it just seems more difficult to star KO in Brawl, thus putting a lot of the weight issues in the backseat.

G&W downsmash is fast, strong and can send people straight up.

 

[Mr Mattastic]

@ itsthebigfoot

You seem to be quite partial to DK. DK has serious lag on his Super Punch and it is easily punishable by a dash grab, once the initial attack frames have finished. While his punch may push a character back, there is serious ending lag. Besides the fact that a super punch is predictable, and GaW can easily UpB to a Dair, hitting a slow character pretty quickly... A lot quicker than you can react to. Don't believe me? Just look up Hylian or NoJ or even Cosmo, and you'll see what his mindgames can do to a players game

Not to mention turtles and fishbowls can get off more hits on DK than somone like Diddy

 

[woah42]

G&W is just a great character.

PERIOD.

Yeah.

 

[spacemanspiff]

Rather than discuss how amazing G&W is until I truly believe he is the master of the first 2 dimensions (did the universe implode yet?), I want to go over how to beat him.

Depending on the weight list you look at, G&W is either the second or third easiest character in the game to KO off the top of the stage. I guess my main can be considered Snake right now, so I don't have too much trouble KOing G&W because of his up-tilt. Also, its fun to nade-sidestep the turtle and watch G&W suffer for it. Throw in his heaviness, and Snake really seems like one of the best counters against G&W. But I guess anybody that is good at killing upwards would be a good pick against G&W.

Also, I hear that the "Cypher grab" that works on Snake to eliminate his up-B also works on G&W, Sonic, and Pit. Although G&W and Pit are almost immune to this due to the auto-sweetspot.

on counters to him I've had major difficulties against good olimars lately. He seems to be the only character who can effectively sheild grab the turtle.

now this is my first post on this thread so i'll do my impressions on G&W here super quick.

I love the Fireman move cancelled into aerials. I love his new D-throw.
I'm still on the fence as to whether the fishbowl is better than having the parachute. With the deterioration of hit knockback after repeated use of moves I can't lie and say i wouldn't appreciate one extra aerial KO move. I know the fishbowl is used as a combo breaker/ starter but can't airdodges and turtles fill in place?

 

[DanGR]

"I know the fishbowl is used as a combo breaker/ starter but can't airdodges and turtles fill in place?"

i didn't feel like quoting you, but yes and no. his nair is quicker and should be used when you happen to be beside them or in them. It doesn't induce as much knockback so it can be used to combo effectively also. fairs should be used when you both are in the air and you're a little bit ahead of them. remember the hitbox of the move. bair is good at approaches and multihits opponents that may try to dodge. it's also used as a combo starter.

 

[Steck]

I find it really cool that sometimes if you do UpB at the exact right moment both G&W and his opponent will be launched up. This allows G&W to strike with nair or fair (could lead to dair if your lucky)

 

[DanGR]

I find it really cool that sometimes if you do UpB at the exact right moment both G&W and his opponent will be launched up. This allows G&W to strike with nair or fair (could lead to dair if your lucky)

assuming bad DI maybe? that's cool though even if.

 

[spacemanspiff]

"I know the fishbowl is used as a combo breaker/ starter but can't airdodges and turtles fill in place?"

i didn't feel like quoting you, but yes and no. his nair is quicker and should be used when you happen to be beside them or in them. It doesn't induce as much knockback so it can be used to combo effectively also. fairs should be used when you both are in the air and you're a little bit ahead of them. remember the hitbox of the move. bair is good at approaches and multihits opponents that may try to dodge. it's also used as a combo starter.

ah i understand that. my dilemma was whether or not it was better than having the parachute.

 

[Neb]

About what Steck said, yeah, I noticed that a few times, I believe when your close enough, your opponent springs off the trampoline with G&W. It works pretty well as a "gimper" to off-stage/returning foes, since you can bounce them away from the ledge after they up-b. I actually spiked someone up to the bottom of FD and sent them rocketing to their death, of course I died in the process; not sure if I keyed/turtled or boxed, it was too quick.

Aside from that, has anyone every used manhole as a makeshift defense? It can repel pikmin, halt smashes and diminish other projectiles with just a small cancel-lag after performing it. I say it could become quite useful for shielding.

 

[DanGR]

ah i understand that. my dilemma was whether or not it was better than having the parachute.

I guess i don't really understand your question. would you care to elaborate?

 

[spacemanspiff]

To Neb:
about the manhole yes i've been trying to incorperate it more. trying to see if i can us it to start combo's. it's good against over aggressive opponents i find. can stop running attacks, running grabs and such

to Dan:
it wasn't really a question.. i more just wanted opinions on whether they prefer the Parachute of Melee or the fishbowl of brawl

 

[Needle of Juntah]

Yeah of course being the main GW player i initially loved GW, just like i did in melee, which is why i masterd him. But as things progressed i realized GW wasnt worth the effort to play when there was chars like sheik and fox(among others)

I love GW now and i hope he continues to get better and better like all the other chars, it would suck to have to shelve him yet again due to lack of _insert here_ and just play DDD

 

[KingofCereal]

Game & Watch will be around for a long time. His moves' versatility alone will ensure that. D-smash for instance is a ridiculous killer that somehow kills in 2 different directions. I think one of the most important move types in Brawl is the multi-hit move, and G&W has 2 great ones (nair and bair). He is an absurdly good character in just about every aspect.

 

[T-REX!]

Dude G&W is a strait beast. Main for sure

 

[House M.D.]

one thing i noticed people doing in videos was approaching with upb to dair. this seemed weird to me, like it would be too predictable. however, whenever i try it, it works. either i surprise my opponent with a dair from above or i put him in a bad position; i was rarely punished.

my guess is that it's such an unconventional approach, especially in terms of the pacing, it just catches people off guard. in general, approaches that people don't commonly encounter may be effective.

thoughts?

 

[S2]

G&W griefs certain projectile characters like no other. Characters like Zelda basically lose projectile spamming, since risk of him getting a bucket hit on you at any percent equals a lost stock.


It doesn't get mentioned a lot, but like a certain other character with a high priority fastfalling d-air (cough Toon Link), G&W gives a lot of trouble to characters with high priority up-smashes.

I'll mention Zelda again, since G&W is easily one of her worst matchups. Normally Zelda's up-smash can be used to protect herself completely from above, since the attack is high priority and the hitbox extends above her body. There's only a handful of d-airs that are either high priority emough to knock her out of it everytime.

G&W's d-air is not only high priority, but the fact that it makes him fall let's him fly right through her upsmash and hit her before he's knocked out of his move.

Obviously, the d-air creates a lot of grief for nearly every character, but its especially irritating to characters who normally are protected from above via upsmashes (Olimar, Zelda, etc) since what is usually a safe KO move, is now pretty much useless.

 

[spacemanspiff]

one thing i noticed people doing in videos was approaching with upb to dair. this seemed weird to me, like it would be too predictable. however, whenever i try it, it works. either i surprise my opponent with a dair from above or i put him in a bad position; i was rarely punished.

my guess is that it's such an unconventional approach, especially in terms of the pacing, it just catches people off guard. in general, approaches that people don't commonly encounter may be effective.

thoughts?

its unconventional when taking melee into context. but for brawl its really not that unconventional to have a d air that shoots you down. personally i find myself b airing out of fire man's more than d airs.

 

[Blistering Speed]

G&W will stay in the top 5 until further notice.

 

[Crizthakidd]

why is he soo much better than he was in melee? like what changed exactly that hes so good lol i woudlnt know because unlike brawl i dont evne use a secondary in melee

 

[spacemanspiff]

^ he can combo a lot better now. throws are more useful. fire man into other moves. better range from what i've seen. super buff on his d smash. his shield doesn't expose his face lol and the brawl system is a lot more game and watch friendly.

 

[SlickSlicer]

One thing I'm noticing (and loving a lot, since I'm a g&w main) is that Game and Watch's B+up move can deflect or destroy many attacks. Certain snake bombs, toon link's boomerang, etc. all are canceled out by this move, with G&W often taking no damage in the process.

 

[Mr. Game and Penguin]

In fact, it may lead to the fact that G&W's up-b is one of the best up-b moves in the game, generally speaking.