Why don't more people main Jigglypuff?

[Shadow Light Master]

I just realized the only Jigglypuff main I can name is Hungrybox. I might be mistaken, but it seems like very few people main her. Is there a reason for this? My best guess is that most people drawn to Melee don't want to play a "campy" style and prefer aggressive characters like Fox. I know the Puff-Fox match-up is considered to be largely in Fox's favor, and the prevalence of Fox might be a large reason why people don't want to use Puff.

But do you think that the lack of Puffs might lead to a beneficial environment for a Puff main? If it goes on like this for a long time, it might breed match-up ignorance, right? In addition, Puff's campy playstyle might really throw a wrench into peoples' games, since they won't know how to deal with it.

What do you think?

 

[Flippy Flippersen]

Hungrybox gets too far in bracket for your theory. Because of this people can just check out how people deal with him in top 8 and they take notes. It also helps that puff is a slower character making the playstyle against her pretty simple.
So no I don't think she will benefit from matchup unfamiliarity. (she's still a pretty good character though so she still has that going for her)

 

[AirFair]

I can think of two more lol which are prince abu and s0ft.

I think people would rather play fast characters lmao.

I don't think there is an extreme lack of puffs, bc there are just enough in my area for me to at least practice the matchup a little. I can't tell you much on puff's future as a character.

 

[Xyzz]

Matchup ignorance is a little much; it's still Jigglypuff, not G&W. People will be more familiar with spacies, marth and sheik, but still have a decent enough idea how to go about fighting a puff.
And yeah, I guess people who like melee in the first place, do like faster characters.

 

[GenNyan]

The old matchup chart said Fox-Puff was 70-30, Fox's favor, So yes that can discourage people. The current MU is much less skewed, but obviously still soundly in Fox's favor.

However I think the primary reason people don't use puff is that she's too hard to learn. With any of the other top tiers, especially spacies, you can go years learning tech skill, while with puff, there is nothing concrete to practice by yourself. Rest setups don't take very long to get consistently and players can easily hit a mental block or plateau.

 

[V-K]

There are a decent amount of Puffs but she is so hard to play consistently at a high level that she is never seen in the upper brackets of big tournaments. That is why it seems like there are no Puffs except Hbox.

 

[GenNyan]

There are a decent amount of Puffs but she is so hard to play consistently at a high level that she is never seen in the upper brackets of big tournaments. That is why it seems like there are no Puffs except Hbox.

I don't think consistency is the problem, its easier to be consistent with the less technical characters; Hbox has said his fox can be good sometimes, but his puff is more consistent, and Armada also says his peach is more consistent than his fox (which is why he used peach for all of EVO except top 8 where he used Fox). If a spacie player is just a little on tilt or their tech skill is slightly off, it can be disastrous for 'em.

 

[V-K]

I don't think consistency is the problem, its easier to be consistent with the less technical characters; Hbox has said his fox can be good sometimes, but his puff is more consistent, and Armada also says his peach is more consistent than his fox (which is why he used peach for all of EVO except top 8 where he used Fox). If a spacie player is just a little on tilt or their tech skill is slightly off, it can be disastrous for 'em.

I don't necessarily mean consistently executing the techniques you want to execute, I mean to consistently win against people who know how to deal with Puff. She dies at like 60-70% if she gets Fox upsmashed or Marth tippered etc.
Also if you miss that rest it means death a lot of times.

People who know how to play the neutral (especially good Foxes) kinda destroy most Puff players.

 

[GenNyan]

I don't necessarily mean consistently executing the techniques you want to execute, I mean to consistently win against people who know how to deal with Puff. She dies at like 60-70% if she gets Fox upsmashed or Marth tippered etc.
Also if you miss that rest it means death a lot of times.

People who know how to play the neutral (especially good Foxes) kinda destroy most Puff players.

Well then you tried to argue the wrong point. You should have said "No one plays puff because fox wrecks puff" instead of "she is so hard to play consistently at a high level." In your description above, you pointed out flaws in her character, not consistency of player skill.

Hbox plays puff and is easily one of the most consistent top players, in both results and execution. You'll hear "Mango is playing amazing today" or "PPMD is on a hot streak right now," but you never hear commentators say "Hbox is playing out of his mind," because he almost always plays at around the same level. He'll play slightly better or worse some days, but its nowhere near as drastic as with spacies.

 

[Shadow Light Master]

Well then you tried to argue the wrong point. You should have said "No one plays puff because fox wrecks puff" instead of "she is so hard to play consistently at a high level." In your description above, you pointed out flaws in her character, not consistency of player skill.

Hbox plays puff and is easily one of the most consistent top players, in both results and execution. You'll hear "Mango is playing amazing today" or "PPMD is on a hot streak right now," but you never hear commentators say "Hbox is playing out of his mind," because he almost always plays at around the same level. He'll play slightly better or worse some days, but its nowhere near as drastic as with spacies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiX9CYrNb6c&t=15m5s

 

[GenNyan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiX9CYrNb6c&t=15m5s

...

...

...

Shutup Toph.

My first point still stands though.

 

[Massive]

Puff may be the hardest "good" character you could choose to play.

She is basically the archetypical "glass cannon" character in melee.
The higher the level you play at, the more easily and reliably your opponents take advantage of your mistakes and the less useful/viable her trump card, Rest, becomes.

 

[zero sum]

to be honest, the complete absence of other puffs around the top 20–30 level probably does have a positive influence on hungrybox's placings. like, it'd be silly to say that hungrybox isn't incredible at this game, but at the same time it seems almost as silly to argue that he'd be doing just as well if there were puffs even remotely close to his level. i think there are a lot of reasons why people don't want to play jigglypuff, a few of them being:

1. she probably has the worst matchup of the top 8 against fox.

Spoiler

it's either her or ics. mango himself has said on stream, ‘pretty much everything you do has to be a read [in puff vs fox].’ watching lesser puff players against leffen, mango, etc. just makes the matchup look hilariously free for fox. remember seeing leffen 3-0 soft, probably the second-best puff right now (or maybe that's darc i don't know), only losing one stock in the process? how many other top 75ish players would leffen nearly triple four-stock? it's an incredibly hard matchup and when you consider how different each individual fox is it becomes even more frustrating. consider the difference between how leffen and hax play the mu for instance. it's a wonder hbox doesn't drop sets left and right to foxmaster96, for instance, even though part of it is likely due to matchup inexperience

2. in spite of how hard she is, people are always going to see her as a easy, gimmicky character.

Spoiler

you don't necessarily have to like her (i don't like her that much) but if you think she's easy it'd be really interesting to watch you play her against top 100 foxes. anyways, i think it's fair to think of her as gimmicky, at least in part, but if you think she's easy, it's really likely that you're not very good at this game. this community does have an anti-puff sentiment; i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but i just hate how the reasoning for it is often so scrubby, especially when it comes from people i could probably body with my terrible puff, lol

3. for most people it's not really that exciting to play as puff and it's not really that exciting to play against puff.

Spoiler

in order to really be into playing puff as opposed to merely appreciating her you have to like playing repetitively and honestly really slow compared to every other character. you have to get used to attrition wars and you have to grow to love them. i hate when people use the word ‘methodical’, though, because i think emphasizing that implies that other matchups aren't as methodical when imo that's wrong. but playing puff is not only hard but it's also draining because of how slow it is. it isn't uncommon to see a set with puff vs a not-spacie last 5-6 minutes per game, lol. imagine playing a game that long against a character you probably lose to and having to outplay your opponent for that long. it sounds horrible. on the other side, it's sort of boring playing puff, but also sort of scary since the threat of getting rested is always present. you can outplay puff for 90% of the match but four rest set-ups mean four stocks which means suddenly you're down a game

 

[GenNyan]

it's either her or ics. mango himself has said on stream, ‘pretty much everything you do has to be a read [in puff vs fox].’ watching lesser puff players against leffen, mango, etc. just makes the matchup look hilariously free for fox. remember seeing leffen 3-0 soft, probably the second-best puff right now, only losing one stock in the process? how many other top 75ish players would leffen nearly triple four-stock? it's an incredibly hard matchup and when you consider how different each individual fox is it becomes even more frustrating. consider the difference between how leffen and hax play the mu for instance. it's a wonder hbox doesn't drop sets left and right to foxmaster96, for instance, even though part of it is likely due to matchup inexperience

You have some very good, valid points, but putting a lesser fox against Hbox would yield ~the same results as the Leffen Soft set, so going off that is... well that example means nothing whatsoever.

Though, yeah, Fox is a really hard MU for puff.

 

[zero sum]

You have some very good, valid points, but putting a lesser fox against Hbox would yield ~the same results as the Leffen Soft set, so going off that is... well that example means nothing whatsoever.

Though, yeah, Fox is a really hard MU for puff.

ehhhh i agree that it wasn't the smartest thing to put in my post without any further substantiation but i think hbox would definitely drop more than a stock throughout a set. a top 75 fox would probably get outplayed to a similar extent but fox is silly and that matchup is pretty bad since you can get kills at like 50% on a good day and like… 65-75 otherwise. i'd need to look through his past broadcasts but i know hbox said while talking about double four-stocking mew2king that he definitely drops stocks sometimes even in pools to random foxes because of how bad the matchup is.

finding recent games of hbox against top-75ish foxes is actually sort of hard though: from what i see he's definitely dropped a game to KJH this year (goml 2015), for instance, whom i'd put at around that level. on the other hand he beat druggedfox pretty badly at bad moon rising. i guess it depends on the player though that doesn't mean too much. also maybe soft was having a really bad day…

also whoooops lol, forgot about darc in my original post with the whole ‘second-best puff’ thing. my bad, didn't mean to take him out of consideration

 

[Dolla Pills]

Honestly one of the biggest things is there is a huge stigma against Puff that discourages people from playing it, so we have to keep in mind the Puff vs People's Opinions match up as well which is probably like an 8-2. That being said, I don't think a lack of Puff's will breed ignorance of the Puff match up, especially with the recent attention being drawn to it with Hbox's ledge stalling.

 

[EPsilon933]

Multi aerial jumpers can turn around in the air by jumping, which can make her more difficult to become familiar with. This can prevent players from wanting to use her early in their attempts to just try playing as her. Standard aerial jumpers are too much more common and easier to understand

 

[V-K]

Well then you tried to argue the wrong point. You should have said "No one plays puff because fox wrecks puff" instead of "she is so hard to play consistently at a high level." In your description above, you pointed out flaws in her character, not consistency of player skill.

Hbox plays puff and is easily one of the most consistent top players, in both results and execution. You'll hear "Mango is playing amazing today" or "PPMD is on a hot streak right now," but you never hear commentators say "Hbox is playing out of his mind," because he almost always plays at around the same level. He'll play slightly better or worse some days, but its nowhere near as drastic as with spacies.

She is hard to play consistently at high level because making little mistakes means certain death against a lot of characters, also she heavily relies on rest which is very risky.

Hbox being able to do it consistently doesn't mean that she is easy to play consistently otherwise there would maybe be other Puff players.

 

[Dafrancoman]

My reason is that jigglypuff is just to light and can be killed by about every smash attack at 50% and that scares people away from using jigglypuff.

Another reason is that darn insta-kill shield break, This makes shielding really risky for jigglypuffs especially against marth.


The third reason is that jigglypuff dose not have a lot of results. The only people who consistently got good results with jigglypuff were Mango and Hbox.

I still love playing jiggs though

 

[GenNyan]

She is hard to play consistently at high level because making little mistakes means certain death against a lot of characters, also she heavily relies on rest which is very risky.

Hbox being able to do it consistently doesn't mean that she is easy to play consistently otherwise there would maybe be other Puff players.

Making little mistakes as any character can mean certain death. I don't see your point here. And you overestimate how risky rest is. Sure, if you go for a hard read and try to rest, its a huge risk, but her setups are very easy to do consistently, and even Hbox doesn't go for "raw" rests very often. (Raw meaning resting the opponent when not in hitstun)

My reason is that jigglypuff is just to light and can be killed by about every smash attack at 50% and that scares people away from using jigglypuff.

Another reason is that darn insta-kill shield break, This makes shielding really risky for jigglypuffs especially against marth.

Not even Fox's U-smash will kill at 50%, thats a huge exaggeration. Add DI and dual stick teching, and you can survive even Marth's tipper F-smash up to 120. The shield break rarely if ever comes into play, because you can easily just stop pressing shield, or WD out.

 

[GenNyan]

Accidentally hit reply instead of edit.

 

[pagedMov]

spamming bair all day and no shine just isn't fun for most people

 

[V-K]

Making little mistakes as any character can mean certain death. I don't see your point here.

Can mean certain death but not to the same degree like Jigglypuff. A good Fox player can kill you at 40% by stringing together a few upairs. Not to mention his uair --> uthrow that is pretty easy or Marth's fthrow to tipper fsmash.

And you overestimate how risky rest is. Sure, if you go for a hard read and try to rest, its a huge risk, but her setups are very easy to do consistently, and even Hbox doesn't go for "raw" rests very often. (Raw meaning resting the opponent when not in hitstun)

Kinda depends on the opponent's DI and how often you get the opportunity to rest him. A good player will constantly DI well and sometimes you have to make difficult sharp manouvers to get the rest.

It's funny how you say it's very easy to do them consistently when even Hbox misses rests in tournaments against good players.

 

[GenNyan]

Can mean certain death but not to the same degree like Jigglypuff. A good Fox player can kill you at 40% by stringing together a few upairs. Not to mention his uair --> uthrow that is pretty easy or Marth's fthrow to tipper fsmash.

She is basically the archetypical "glass cannon" character in melee.

That being said, Marth's f-throw--> tipper f-smash is not guaranteed (DI-able) and "A good player will constantly DI well."

Kinda depends on the opponent's DI and how often you get the opportunity to rest him. A good player will constantly DI well and sometimes you have to make difficult sharp manouvers to get the rest.

Almost every combo depends on the opponents DI btw.

It's funny how you say it's very easy to do them consistently when even Hbox misses rests in tournaments against good players.

I have only seen that happen once in a set vs Armada. Link to others?

 

[Dolla Pills]

HBox definitely misses rests, probably the most infamous one being in a Puff ditto versus Mango where Mango punished with a jab and Hbox quit. Rest is has a small, very short lasting hitbox. One may be able to get them down fairly consistently, but no one will ever get it 100% of the time.

 

[the muted smasher]

You can't really learn as puff. Main a low tier You'll learn a bunch of niche small amazing details for days but You'll never get any good because You know a bunch of once in ever 20 games tech, where play a high/top tier You'll have more options and die less easily and You'll play the game more instead of being auto gimp ed and etc.

Puff tho can't be grind ed on and puts a stop to most early players, You gotta be smart and it's easier to learn as most others than as puff.

It's hard to explain what I mean by smart when not talking about tech, mind games or learning curves. It's like being able to rapidly adapt and soak as much knowledge in as rapidly as possible and adapt and create new options as You go.

 

[Massive]

You can't really learn as puff....
Puff tho can't be grind ed on and puts a stop to most early players, You gotta be smart and it's easier to learn as most others than as puff.

This is likely the real reason there aren't many puff mains. The same amount of practice with another top tier will likely yield a much better apparent skill level in the same amount time.

I usually try to dissuade newer players from maining puff if possible simply because it's that much easier to get discouraged. To win consistently with puff need to absolutely outspace and outplay your opponent, and getting to the skill level where can do that will take an unpleasantly long time (and may never happen all).

 

[V-K]

That being said, Marth's f-throw--> tipper f-smash is not guaranteed (DI-able) and "A good player will constantly DI well."

Pivot Fsmash is guaranteed afaik.

 

[the muted smasher]

Nah look up the details

 

[Pachinkosam]

That Down B the timing is hard to pull of but i play her once in awhile.