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Well, we're no Fox, but Usmash, while being a little difficult to safely land, has pretty insane knockback.
Really? Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but there've been so many times when it felt like my Pikmin were very unreliable and I assumed Olimar was bottom tier. There'd be times when my Pikmin were right next to me, but when I do an f-smash, they don't respond and I get punished. Or if I do a grab and I'm right in front of someone, but the Pikmin just goes right through my opponent instead of grabbing them. With only three Pikmin that love to scatter and derp about, sometimes without even doing an attack, it really feels like Olimar's zoning abilities are weak. His Pikmin are far less dependable as they were in Brawl.
Well, maybe not as much Olimar, but he's definitely not bottom tier. Look at players like Dabuz.
The BEST ADVICE IVE SEEN ON SONIC ALL DAY THANK U & I TOO ARE A SONIC MAIN.... WELLL the Picture givess it away... lol..I'd have preferred if this was taken to the FAQ thread, but...
Sonic is actually more commonly played defensively, which I'll touch on later. He's not a true rushdown character at all, and only appears that way if the Sonic is of a very high caliber or higher caliber of their opponent. Also, of course Sonic has weaknesses... Most people don't take the time to recognize them though. More people complain about a character that isn't even top 5 yet they just are okay with half the cast having Hoo-Hahs and the like.
Sonic himself not having a projectile isn't necessarily inherently bad. It doesn't help though, as a lot of top tiers have them like Diddy's bananas, Sheik's needles, Rosalina & Luma, Luigi's fireballs, ZSS stungun, Pikachu's thunderbolts, etc...
Spring is great but is a completely different projectile fundamentally so we can't really count that as a projectile (it's not used for zoning, spacing, etc.) We actually forfeit stage control by using it, since it is great for edgeguarding or getting out of a situation, it puts us high above in the air, which is somewhere you never want to be in Smash 4, especially when your landing options aren't great, which is a weakness I will also get to.
KO power isn't so much a problem (besides the Bthrow nerf RIP) but his set-ups still are lacking. Better than Brawl, but aren't as free or safe as others (Hoo-hah, bouncing fish, Luma, Luigi Dthrow, etc.)
Ultimately, Sonic's problems lie in his approaches and landing. With the spring autocancel distance heightened, it's hard to safely spring and dair to the ground without it being easily baited and punished. We lack moves that put a hitbox below us that autocancel, so falling nairs are okay but we have to basically fall into you which leads to us getting shieldgrabbed.
Approaching is difficult against zoner heavy characters. Getting walled out is brutal, despite popular belief. For bad projectiles (Samus) then yes, Sonic is "2 fast" and can get through walls easily. But GOOD PLAYERS with GOOD CHARACTERS (like Rosalina and Luma or Olimar and Pikmin) can make approaching hell. We have to approach, or just hope you mess up and we can run and punish. Sonic's game is primarily punish based, so if you're just creating SAFE walls, then Sonic is in such an awful situation.
It takes a huge understanding of yourself, the player, and the match-up to actually be aggressive and break down good walls. Sonic requires reads so heavily that a scrubby Sonic can get shut down easy.
Scrubby players will lose to mediocre Sonics because they can't handle spins, but spins themselves aren't that strong. It's the mix-ups and options that come with them that make him good, when utilized by a smart player who avoids patterns but finds yours.
At the end of the day, Sonic has to be in your face to do anything. His speed and lack of commitment to approaches leads to a heavy bait-and-punish playstyle. It's not true rushdown like Diddy or Sheik who can safely poke just out of range while also pushing you out.
There are benefits to spins as their shield pressure and mix-ups on shield are safer from Brawl, but with the damage nerf, more things clank with spins and they do less damage so it's even more work than before.
Sonic really just resets on neutral a lot, and while this is annoying, it's not particularly amazing either. It doesn't inherently put us in an advantage if we're not gaining ground either...
This is also why characters like Fox are very good against Sonic, as Fox totally wins the neutral game, so if all we're doing is resetting neutral, we're putting ourselves in a bad position.
Hey, anytime. I'm happy when people learn, lol.This was really helpful.
Thanks @Camalange for showing this to me, next time I'll look before asking
Yes. Most moves clank, but some moves beat it out completely. Almost all jabs will clank. Little Mac's is the best because of how fast it is so it will just eat Sonic completely.
For me that's not killing power, but maybe that's just my interpretation. A character may be phenomenal at gimping and getting early cheesy kills but for me killing power is landing standard attacks and Smash-Attacks without huge efforts and get kills.
The SDJ would still only go over your opponent, and most jabs are fast enough that they can react to a HA, unless they completely commit to mashing a jab which they shouldn't do.
I've hit many good players with this. It's another mixup like any other. You can do SDJ to not run into the jab and immediately do a no charge homing attack. If you read it and do it a little before the opponent does his jab, you'll beat their jab. Most characters will eat it.The SDJ would still only go over your opponent, and most jabs are fast enough that they can react to a HA, unless they completely commit to mashing a jab which they shouldn't do.
Knowing all of Sonic's mix ups will make him "weaker" and easier to deal with hence why it's relevant to this topic.Right. Still just a mix-up.
I hate Sonic and struggle a lot in this match-up so today I took the time to learn Sonic (and that's the only reason why I'm here on these boards) and geez I can't agree much more with most of what was said. I used to think this character was braindead and OP and although he definitely is a top tier and well it is my first day using him, he's no doubt not as easy as I thought he was.I'd have preferred if this was taken to the FAQ thread, but...
Sonic is actually more commonly played defensively, which I'll touch on later. He's not a true rushdown character at all, and only appears that way if the Sonic is of a very high caliber or higher caliber of their opponent. Also, of course Sonic has weaknesses... Most people don't take the time to recognize them though. More people complain about a character that isn't even top 5 yet they just are okay with half the cast having Hoo-Hahs and the like. This isn't to say Sonic still isn't a top character, but some aspects of his character are severely overhyped.
Sonic himself not having a projectile isn't necessarily inherently bad. It doesn't help though, as a lot of top tiers have them like Diddy's bananas, Sheik's needles, Rosalina & Luma, Luigi's fireballs, ZSS stungun, Pikachu's thunderbolts, etc…
Spring is great but is a completely different projectile fundamentally so we can't really count that as a projectile (it's not used for zoning, spacing, etc.) We actually forfeit stage control by using it since it puts us high above in the air, which is somewhere you never want to be in Smash 4, especially when your landing options aren't great, which is a weakness I will also get to. Spring is only great for edgeguarding or temporarily getting out of a situation, but can sometimes lead to a harder punish based off the reasons I just mentioned.
KO power isn't so much a problem (besides the Bthrow nerf RIP) but his set-ups still are lacking. Better than Brawl, but aren't as free or safe as others (Hoo-hah, bouncing fish, Luma, Luigi Dthrow, etc.)
Ultimately, Sonic's problems lie in his approaches and landing. With the spring autocancel distance heightened, it's hard to safely spring and dair to the ground without it being easily baited and punished. We lack moves that put a hitbox below us that autocancel, so falling nairs are okay but we have to basically fall into you which leads to us getting shieldgrabbed.
Approaching is difficult against zoner heavy characters. Getting walled out is brutal, despite popular belief. For bad projectiles (Samus) then yes, Sonic is "2 fast" and can get through walls easily. But GOOD PLAYERS with GOOD CHARACTERS (like Rosalina and Luma or Olimar and Pikmin) can make approaching hell. We have to approach, or just hope you mess up and we can run and punish. Sonic's game is primarily punish based, so if you're just creating SAFE walls, then Sonic is in such an awful situation. Sonic's approaches only seem great if you're pressing buttons from across the screen for no rhyme or reason, as Sonic has easy, let's say, auto-punishes, because we can get there in a second whereas most characters don't have a response to people pressing buttons from the opposite side of the map.
It takes a huge understanding of yourself, the player, and the match-up to actually be aggressive and break down good walls. Sonic requires reads so heavily that a scrubby Sonic can get shut down easy.
Scrubby players will lose to mediocre Sonics because they can't handle spins, but spins themselves aren't that strong. It's the mix-ups and options that come with them that make him good, when utilized by a smart player who avoids patterns but finds yours.
At the end of the day, Sonic has to be in your face to do anything. His speed and lack of commitment to approaches leads to a heavy bait-and-punish playstyle. It's not true rushdown like Diddy or Sheik who can safely poke just out of range while also pushing you out.
There are benefits to spins as their shield pressure and mix-ups on shield are safer from Brawl, but with the damage nerf, more things clank with spins and they do less damage so it's even more work than before. The only true buff that spins got at all from Brawl to Smash 4 is that due to the change in engine itself, Sonic's spins have more shield stun making them harder to respond to. The only additional mix-up on shield we gained is the slow, multi-hit spin roll. This is the sole reason for spins being better. Other than that, they've literally been nerfed in every other way or remained exactly the same. Sonic being remotely good was completely unintentional from a programming perspective.
Sonic really just resets neutral a lot, and while this is annoying, it's not particularly amazing either. It doesn't inherently put us in an advantage if we're not gaining ground either… At that point, it becomes more of a battle of frames and reactions.
This is also why characters like Fox are very good against Sonic, as Fox totally wins the neutral game, so if all we're doing is resetting neutral, we're putting ourselves in a bad position.
I actually want to be legitimately good at Sm4sh so I'm doing a lot to get better at the game and this is one of the few steps that I'm taking. I also plan on learning the basics of characters like Rosalina, Sheik, Yoshi, etc. all other problematic match-ups for Mega Man. Meanwhile Sonic is more of a player problematic match-up and less of a character match-up for me.It's a miracle that this actually worked.
People are willing to learn.
#blessed
lol, then I must be a horrible Fox player lolI'd have preferred if this was taken to the FAQ thread, but...
Sonic is actually more commonly played defensively, which I'll touch on later. He's not a true rushdown character at all, and only appears that way if the Sonic is of a very high caliber or higher caliber of their opponent. Also, of course Sonic has weaknesses... Most people don't take the time to recognize them though. More people complain about a character that isn't even top 5 yet they just are okay with half the cast having Hoo-Hahs and the like. This isn't to say Sonic still isn't a top character, but some aspects of his character are severely overhyped.
Sonic himself not having a projectile isn't necessarily inherently bad. It doesn't help though, as a lot of top tiers have them like Diddy's bananas, Sheik's needles, Rosalina & Luma, Luigi's fireballs, ZSS stungun, Pikachu's thunderbolts, etc…
Spring is great but is a completely different projectile fundamentally so we can't really count that as a projectile (it's not used for zoning, spacing, etc.) We actually forfeit stage control by using it since it puts us high above in the air, which is somewhere you never want to be in Smash 4, especially when your landing options aren't great, which is a weakness I will also get to. Spring is only great for edgeguarding or temporarily getting out of a situation, but can sometimes lead to a harder punish based off the reasons I just mentioned.
KO power isn't so much a problem (besides the Bthrow nerf RIP) but his set-ups still are lacking. Better than Brawl, but aren't as free or safe as others (Hoo-hah, bouncing fish, Luma, Luigi Dthrow, etc.)
Ultimately, Sonic's problems lie in his approaches and landing. With the spring autocancel distance heightened, it's hard to safely spring and dair to the ground without it being easily baited and punished. We lack moves that put a hitbox below us that autocancel, so falling nairs are okay but we have to basically fall into you which leads to us getting shieldgrabbed.
Approaching is difficult against zoner heavy characters. Getting walled out is brutal, despite popular belief. For bad projectiles (Samus) then yes, Sonic is "2 fast" and can get through walls easily. But GOOD PLAYERS with GOOD CHARACTERS (like Rosalina and Luma or Olimar and Pikmin) can make approaching hell. We have to approach, or just hope you mess up and we can run and punish. Sonic's game is primarily punish based, so if you're just creating SAFE walls, then Sonic is in such an awful situation. Sonic's approaches only seem great if you're pressing buttons from across the screen for no rhyme or reason, as Sonic has easy, let's say, auto-punishes, because we can get there in a second whereas most characters don't have a response to people pressing buttons from the opposite side of the map.
It takes a huge understanding of yourself, the player, and the match-up to actually be aggressive and break down good walls. Sonic requires reads so heavily that a scrubby Sonic can get shut down easy.
Scrubby players will lose to mediocre Sonics because they can't handle spins, but spins themselves aren't that strong. It's the mix-ups and options that come with them that make him good, when utilized by a smart player who avoids patterns but finds yours.
At the end of the day, Sonic has to be in your face to do anything. His speed and lack of commitment to approaches leads to a heavy bait-and-punish playstyle. It's not true rushdown like Diddy or Sheik who can safely poke just out of range while also pushing you out.
There are benefits to spins as their shield pressure and mix-ups on shield are safer from Brawl, but with the damage nerf, more things clank with spins and they do less damage so it's even more work than before. The only true buff that spins got at all from Brawl to Smash 4 is that due to the change in engine itself, Sonic's spins have more shield stun making them harder to respond to. The only additional mix-up on shield we gained is the slow, multi-hit spin roll. This is the sole reason for spins being better. Other than that, they've literally been nerfed in every other way or remained exactly the same. Sonic being remotely good was completely unintentional from a programming perspective.
Sonic really just resets neutral a lot, and while this is annoying, it's not particularly amazing either. It doesn't inherently put us in an advantage if we're not gaining ground either… At that point, it becomes more of a battle of frames and reactions.
This is also why characters like Fox are very good against Sonic, as Fox totally wins the neutral game, so if all we're doing is resetting neutral, we're putting ourselves in a bad position.
