Why is Wario not as popular as he should be?

[Octagon]

I used Wario as a secondary back in the 3ds days and once the Wii U came out i stopped using him. A couple months ago i picked up Wario as a tertiary for specific counterpicks but i honestly love using him in friendlies with my practice partners. Wario has pretty good frame data, a strong forward and up smash (while his down smash catches rolls well), a great percentage builder with his neutral b, lethal pressure with his bike, an almost guaranteed kill with waft, and arguably the best air mobility in the game.

Even with all of these outstanding features, Wario is not a popular pick among the Smash 4 scene. I think it may be due to the fact that waft is mostly unreliable and takes about 2 and a half minutes to use it to the fullest. However, i feel like his pros greatly outweigh the cons. I'd love to know what you Wario mains and other Wario fans have to say about his popularity.

 

[Magik0722]

He does not have reliable KO moves. This makes him difficult to play.

 

[WRECK-IT MUNDO]

Wario is one of those characters that has

- No Grab Combo's
- Doesn't have a Safe Jab nor Ground Frame Data
- Has poor range on most of his moves
- No reliable KO moves besides waft (like Magik0722 said)
- Moves that has no Intangible parts, which is most of the time stupid.
- It's most of time all up to Wario's Waft to win your set or not (especially in 2 stock matches, which gives you nearly almost 1 waft chance)

If you want to win Major or Big Tourneys with Wario, you nearly always have to relay on your waft, which most people dislike about him, Also, Waft is the main reason why he's high tier.

Most people want characters who has an easy combo game, grab set-ups + Safe moves to cover them up. Wario isn't that character. Wario isn't a standard Smash 4 character, which why Wario is difficult to play in the competitive scene.

 

[Octagon]

Wario is one of those characters that has
If you want to win Major or Big Tourneys with Wario, you nearly always have to relay on your waft, which most people dislike about him, Also, Waft is the main reason why he's high tier.

Most people want characters who has an easy combo game, grab set-ups + Safe moves to cover them up. Wario isn't that character. Wario isn't a standard Smash 4 character, which why Wario is difficult to play in the competitive scene.

Man thats so true man...there's nothing we can do about the lack of grab set-ups and easy combos but i feel like if Wario players concentrate on getting better in the neutral game and kill set-ups not relying on waft, then the scene may see a popularity increase in Wario but i dont know for sure.

 

[Steeler]

I feel like he should have been more popular with customs, because Rose Waft is actually a ridiculous move.

 

[Adrian Marin]

I believe that Wario isn't a very consistent character. You need ridiculous reflexes just to land the waft against competent opponents. People should also realise that his bike is absolutely bonkers at the edge; it is extremely difficult to deal with Wario's edgeguarding. Lack of bike knowledge is a huge weakspot in today's metagame. I've even fought players from Canada and the like in my scene. They really don't know what to do when the bike is in midair. If people knew about what Wario could do, he would be more popular. But let's face it, the weird characters lack rep, and Wario might be perceived as the weirdest of them all! I have no complaints! Love that fatso to death!

 

[Axel311]

Mains reasons:

- He's inconsistent. He often relies on waft. It's frustrating for many matches to come down to one input.

- One of the harder characters to play and you aren't rewarded for the extra effort. There's a lot of characters that are both better and also much easier to play.

- He's defensive, most prefer rush down types

- Irregular, not much of a ground game and no throw combo game.

- Most people find his moveset very awkward, he moves very different from most characters

- Lack of reliable kill moves. His smashes are all extremely laggy and not usable for reliably closing stocks. Fsmash and Usmash are both extremely punishable, and fsmash comes out slow, so you can only use them for hard reads or punishing mistakes. He has one of the worst Dsmashes in the game, it's both weak and very laggy.

- He's not that good. He's MAYBE high tier right now. Hard to put him out of mid right now to be honest because of the lack of representation. And as others have mentioned a lot of his placement is due to waft. So if you don't connect with a waft you're basically playing a low mid tier character.