What's so great about tossing items?

[Zauron]

Just as an FYI, I never played Brawl (or Project M) after deciding I didn't like it a few months after release, I've been playing Melee this whole time, if that helps explain my ignorance here...

Item tossing is the best attack in the game

I've never figured out what's so great about characters that can generate items (like Peach's Turnips) and throw them, can someone enlighten me about what's so good about them? What makes them better than a projectile?

Also, holding an item prevents you from doing any attack but your B specials, right? That seems very limiting to me, and yet players seem to want to have an item in hand as much as possible. And some characters, like Link, can't even drop an item from the air any more without being forced into their tether animation. Plus, its much easier than it was in Melee to grab items thrown at you, since you can just use an air attack to grab it, you don't have to perfectly time a Z button press to grab any more (in fact, is it even possible to grab an item in the air without also executing an attack at the same time in this game?), which means throwing an item gives any character the ability to catch it and toss it back, no reflector required!

I used to think their strength was just in the fact that you could toss them in multiple directions, adding versatility, but is there more to it than that? What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cheesemonk66]

Items change your smash attacks and tilts although usually just the forward ones, however, your specials should still be accessible. Some items have special properties that affect how it works as a projectile. Mr. Saturn for instance breaks shields and the home run bat has a healthy amount of knockback and launch for a projectile when thrown. That being said I prefer to only use items in larger battles with four or more people because at that point I just find the chaos to be fun. In single battles they aren't as fun but I do still find them useful. I don't play with pro level players so I can't speak to people being able to catch them very frequently. I've scored lots of kills with a well timed home run bat throw.

 

[Zauron]

Items change your smash attacks and tilts although usually just the forward ones, however, your specials should still be accessible. Some items have special properties that affect how it works as a projectile. Mr. Saturn for instance breaks shields and the home run bat has a healthy amount of knockback and launch for a projectile when thrown. That being said I prefer to only use items in larger battles with four or more people because at that point I just find the chaos to be fun. In single battles they aren't as fun but I do still find them useful. I don't play with pro level players so I can't speak to people being able to catch them very frequently. I've scored lots of kills with a well timed home run bat throw.

In this case I mean items that can be generated by characters themselves, such as Link's bombs, Peach's Turnips, Pac-Man's fruit, ROB's gyro thingy, Diddy's Banana, etc. I don't play with items turned on (actually before your reply I kinda forgot about items existing in Smash outside of these examples, its been so long since I've used them hehe).

Anyway is there attacks you can still do holding an item besides the B special moves? Can you do a back air, I thought you just threw the item behind you when you did that?

 

[David Viran]

I think using the c stick doesn't throw items so you can use Smash attacks and aerials.

 

[Pazx]

In this case I mean items that can be generated by characters themselves, such as Link's bombs, Peach's Turnips, Pac-Man's fruit, ROB's gyro thingy, Diddy's Banana, etc. I don't play with items turned on (actually before your reply I kinda forgot about items existing in Smash outside of these examples, its been so long since I've used them hehe).

Anyway is there attacks you can still do holding an item besides the B special moves? Can you do a back air, I thought you just threw the item behind you when you did that?

You can z-drop an item and then catch it with an aerial move to use the aerial whilst retaining control of the item. I'm not sure if glide tossing is in this game but that was another massive benefit to item tossing in Brawl.

 

[David Viran]

Glide tossing is gone.

 

[Zauron]

I think using the c stick doesn't throw items so you can use Smash attacks and aerials.

Actually when I tried it, the c-stick did throw items (at least when set to the default Smash setting).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Item tossing is:
Near instant
Can be done in any direction
Item Dropping is really stupid to defend against
Can be done out of shield
Has no ending lag

I mean...it's that simple. Item tossing in general is the best attack in the game. It's safe, and absolutely nothing is safe against it, even shielding can be risky to do against item tossing!

Being a character that can generate items gives you punish and pressure options that simply don't exist for most of the cast. It's why Peach and Diddy have generally been strong, and most item generating characters tend to have tether grabs otherwise because item drop pressure + standard grab is often NONSENSE. Catching items doesn't stop item tossing from being strong, when you consider what options are unsafe against item tosses.

In ROB's case, item tossing is very win-more because he depends on winning neutral to set up his Gyro.

 

[shapular]

You can think of them as a special kind of projectile if you want. They're more versatile in how you use them since you can throw them in four directions, hard or soft, dash throw them, or Z-drop them. Throwing and dropping animations have low cooldown so you can follow up easily, which is even bigger in this game since projectiles in general are laggy. Characters with items tend to have good setups off them. Peach can get some heavy pressure off a turnip combined with her aerials. She can do aerials while floating without throwing her turnip. If your item gets caught, think about it this way: they probably know how to use your item way less than you do (which is why chucking armor pieces off the stage is usually the best idea if you're facing a ZSS in Brawl), and if they caught it with an aerial you can possibly punish them for it.

 

[David Viran]

Actually when I tried it, the c-stick did throw items (at least when set to the default Smash setting).

My bad.

 

[Zauron]

Item tossing is:
Near instant
Can be done in any direction
Item Dropping is really stupid to defend against
Can be done out of shield
Has no ending lag

I mean...it's that simple. Item tossing in general is the best attack in the game. It's safe, and absolutely nothing is safe against it, even shielding can be risky to do against item tossing!

Being a character that can generate items gives you punish and pressure options that simply don't exist for most of the cast. It's why Peach and Diddy have generally been strong, and most item generating characters tend to have tether grabs otherwise because item drop pressure + standard grab is often NONSENSE. Catching items doesn't stop item tossing from being strong, when you consider what options are unsafe against item tosses.

In ROB's case, item tossing is very win-more because he depends on winning neutral to set up his Gyro.

Can you go into more detail about the usefulness of Item Dropping? Why is it "really stupid to defend against"? What makes dropping items good for applying pressure, such that you would say "item drop pressure + standard grab is often NONSENSE." I'm sorry for sounding like such as ignoramus here, this just isn't clicking for me for some reason, even seeing competitive match videos from tournaments where they use items, I'm not sure what they are doing with them that makes them so dangerous. The other things you mentioned (fast and OOS) make sense though, I didn't realize you could toss items while shielding.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Basically when you item drop, you have a hitbox out, and then you're able to do moves while that hitbox is out. So this is most powerful when you're just above someone and then you slowly drop the item. Meaning if your opponent tried to say, shieldgrab for instance before the item connected their shield, you would be broken out of the grab. Or if for instance, they could be forced to shield, and you grab them before the item connects.

What gets even better is if you actually mix this up with recatching items by activating aerials, which you can't do in Melee, but you can do in Brawl and Smash 4. So holding an item in this game does not actually prevent you from using aerials.

Item tossing in general has the best punish utility and some of the best space control utility in the game by a pretty huge margin.

Pac-Man is an item generating character who would very clearly break the game with a normal grab due to his combined ability to limit approach options and punish from many angles. Him having a tether grab is not an accident.

 

[Zauron]

Basically when you item drop, you have a hitbox out, and then you're able to do moves while that hitbox is out. So this is most powerful when you're just above someone and then you slowly drop the item. Meaning if your opponent tried to say, shieldgrab for instance before the item connected their shield, you would be broken out of the grab. Or if for instance, they could be forced to shield, and you grab them before the item connects.

What gets even better is if you actually mix this up with recatching items by activating aerials, which you can't do in Melee, but you can do in Brawl and Smash 4. So holding an item in this game does not actually prevent you from using aerials.

Item tossing in general has the best punish utility and some of the best space control utility in the game by a pretty huge margin.

Pac-Man is an item generating character who would very clearly break the game with a normal grab due to his combined ability to limit approach options and punish from many angles. Him having a tether grab is not an accident.

I see! Okay, thanks for clearing that up! I guess when I've tried dropping items on someone they've always just rolled to the side avoiding both the item and any other attacks I might do to follow it, so I didn't see how it was all that useful, despite frequently hearing how amazingly useful it was. I probably am just too slow or don't know how to mind game my opponent such to make scenarios like you describe make a significant difference.

 

[shapular]

Pac-Man is an item generating character who would very clearly break the game with a normal grab due to his combined ability to limit approach options and punish from many angles. Him having a tether grab is not an accident.

Holy crap. I never thought about that.

 

[Reaperfan]

Anyway is there attacks you can still do holding an item besides the B special moves? Can you do a back air, I thought you just threw the item behind you when you did that?

While Peach is floating she will still use aerials even if she's holding a turnip. I don't think there's any other situation though.

 

[BTVolta]

Anyway is there attacks you can still do holding an item besides the B special moves? Can you do a back air, I thought you just threw the item behind you when you did that?

You can F-smash while holding and item if you hold A and use c-stick. It was called bomb smashing in brawl I think ,but peach ,and I'm sure any character, can do this.

 

[Jellyfish4102]

You can do forward tilts and f smashes while holding an item. Shown in video by Ninjalink.
http://youtu.be/CqjqxVuLMf4

 

[BSP]

Pac-Man is an item generating character who would very clearly break the game with a normal grab due to his combined ability to limit approach options and punish from many angles. Him having a tether grab is not an accident.

He may still turn out extremely good because

Item tossing is:

Can be done out of shield

addresses his grab weakness significantly.