Wolf Competitive Discussion - Everyone mains Wolf now lol

[hermes]

As far as I remember, wolf's brawl dthtow had a diagonally downwards trajectory which made a tech chase and it was really good near ledge. I hope it keeps the same property

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Dthrow has been confirmed changed. It sends people at a 45°~ angle

It's also a slam dunk now. So if that isn't cool I don't know what is.

 

[AlphaSSB]

Yeah, Wolf's Down Throw looks pretty damn great.

Hopefully it'll be useful with follow-ups.

 

[Walfan]

It looks pretty cool indeed.
I'm liking the changes to his animations so far, he's as brutal as ever while striking a better balance between man and beast.

 

[T!t!]

Since the gameplay thread is now open again, I'll just copy my reply from the social thread.

I just noticed nobody in that thread talked about one thing we barely saw in footage because Daddy Sakurai was hiding it pretty well. May not be too big of a deal, but still we saw Wolf using his f-throw against Ice Climbers in the blink of a second:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCeEylbl3Oc&t=280s
I had to rewatch a couple of times even in slowmotion but I'm pretty sure I saw F-throw right there. Also I may be mistaken but I think nobody has mentioned it in this thread either. Looks to me like a typical f-throw that only has as it's purpose to keep somebody offstage. Don't think it will be a combo throw. Still I like the animation in itself. Looks brutal and that's kind of what I relate to Wolf the most.

Besides this, I also wanted to link a great video focusing on Wolf gameplay analysis (although also missing out on Wolf f-throw, but other than that it gives u a great idea about Wolf in Smash Ultimate and even making comparisons to Wolf in Brawl by visualizing the differences for dash attack, nair and his overall dash)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElZwTSwlBO0
Just to be clear: I'm not the owner of the video but I wanted to shared it with u folks to make sure everyone interested can watch it. Enjoy!

Your thoughts on fthrow? u like the animation and the angle it sends opponents flying? To me as I already wrote it looks to be a generic f-throw that has his main use at getting people offstage and away from yourself while not being useful for combos.

 

[MERPIS]

Could wolf be a top tier? His only real weakness was abolished from the game and his recovery might also be better if his side b gets the same treatment as fox's did. That and apparently his moveset was "enhanced", whatever nintendo's definition of that is, it's probably good.

 

[Noventiaa]

Wolf's new nair looks really good. If you haven't seen it, it's a sex kick that combos into jab. It probably can be followed up with grab as well. Any ideas what else it could be used for?

 

[The21stSmasher]

Wolf's new nair looks really good. If you haven't seen it, it's a sex kick that combos into jab. It probably can be followed up with grab as well. Any ideas what else it could be used for?

More than likely U-Tilt to get some good juggles in, assuming it's the same as Brawl.

 

[MERPIS]

Could wolf be a top tier? His only real weakness was abolished from the game and his recovery might also be better if his side b gets the same treatment as fox's did. That and apparently his moveset was "enhanced", whatever nintendo's definition of that is, it's probably good.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

WOLF NAIR INTO TECH CHASE USMASH PLEASE WE FOX NOW

 

[Ishiey]

I still wish we kept Brawl nair for the combos into grab at mid-%s and dsmash at KO %s tbh

 

[Boartobewild]

I still wish we kept Brawl nair for the combos into grab at mid-%s and dsmash at KO %s tbh

The old "salto mortale" animation that was reminsicient of meta knight's nair (who attacked with his sword during the spin) looked pretty whack and out of place though. It also did hardly any damge, so as long as his sex kick comboes into anything and does more damage than his old one, I'll gladly abandon his "spin to win".

 

[Noventiaa]

The old "salto mortale" animation that was reminsicient of meta knight's nair (who attacked with his sword during the spin) looked pretty whack and out of place though. It also did hardly any damge, so as long as his sex kick comboes into anything and does more damage than his old one, I'll gladly abandon his "spin to win".

The animation might have something to do with how wolf was made very late in development, which is also why he limped and his idle animation is weirdly spastic and becomes fox's sometimes - so he also borrowed a lot of animations.

 

[OhMyBanana54]

Here’s to hoping Wolf has a good up and down smash still. I think Wolf can be very good again but I wanna see more of him.

 

[SinisterB]

@Ishey

I was thinking something along those lines as well. Not to mention, given how multihits seem to work in Smash 4, I feel like it would be perfect for dragging opponents back to the stage or just as a combo tool in general. I'll definitely miss the brawl NAir, but sex kicks are usually just all-around better in general.

I'll miss the unique-ness about certain aspects of his brawl kit, but the sex kick is probably a really great change overall. I imagine you could do 90%of the same stuff as the multihit along with some new options we never had before.

Now, Flash on the other hand really intrigues me. If I could have all my christmas presents this year I'd ask for shortened Flash to still have the sweetspot hitbox as that would be KILLER for his combo game. Add in the no special fall after a succesful Flash and I will be a very happy Wolf.

I am quite curious to see how his kit will be changed as whole since Sakurai genuinley has the time to give him some love this time around. I am OK with keeping his Brawl kit, but I have a feeling Ultimate will give him more of his own identity which is something he missed out on.

Wolf was always an impeccable character who's true downfall was the game engine he was placed in. Ultimate is starting to look really great for him.

As a side note, I hope I can still do all of the Flash cancel momentum stuff he had previously- And I REALLY want his Brawl taunts/voice.

#Don'tChangeTheHOWL

 

[SmasherWolf]

Did anyone else notice that he doesn't have any kind of shine/shield device on his back or anywhere else anymore?
I wonder if that means he'll get something new. Could be a nice way to set him apart even more from the other space animals.

Indeed, wasn't his reflector that big thing he carried on his back? I don't remember him carrying anything else on his belt aside from his gun.
Unless they come with some ridiculous reason like the reflector being his belt buckle, we might be seeing a new down-b, and hey, I wouldn't mind that. It could be a counter though, given Fox and Falco have reflectors, or "long-range counters", Wolf might be given the opposite.
I might be wrong though... Is it official that the big thing he used to carry on his back was his reflector?

 

[Walfan]

Is it official that the big thing he used to carry on his back was his reflector?

I'm positive it is. It's been a very long while but I clearly remember it was pointed out, although I can't for the life of me remember where. It's not in his trophy description nor in his Smash Dojo page so I'm a bit at a loss. It's on his smash wiki page at least although that's not a official source, but it means it probably wasn't a fever dream of mine.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

The real question is will Wolf have his Brawl Air-Speed or maybe even more better than before?

 

[Boartobewild]

Indeed, wasn't his reflector that big thing he carried on his back? I don't remember him carrying anything else on his belt aside from his gun.
Unless they come with some ridiculous reason like the reflector being his belt buckle, we might be seeing a new down-b, and hey, I wouldn't mind that. It could be a counter though, given Fox and Falco have reflectors, or "long-range counters", Wolf might be given the opposite.
I might be wrong though... Is it official that the big thing he used to carry on his back was his reflector?

Way ahead of you buddy , if you had kept reading for a couple more posts, you would have seen that you were not the first to come up with the idea. But whatever, I guess it's at least cool someone else seems to think the same way, the question remains though what sort of counter should wolf use? It can't be like all the sword user ones and I also just don't want wolf to have a simple counter like anybody else.

My main idea would be very similair to the WaterstreamRocksmashing fist, repelling all your opponents attacks meanwhile countering them with a barrage of your own, so at the very least I want this attack to be multi-hit based to further differentiate it from other counters.

There's two concrete versions I have in mind:

1st) As ****ing broken of a mess as witch time is, I have always found the idea of a time stop move fascinating, which is why I was hoping that link might get to use Stasis + on his opponent and instead of opening yourself up to an nearly unescapable combo string, he would simply get the oppoturnity to wail on you, til time moves again( ZA WARUDO!!!). Though if there's any move that would be the perfect template for wolf's version, it's this one ---->
Akuma's Shun-goku-satsu
( Damn site, won't let me upload the gif for some reason)

2nd) Since I already mentionned the WSRS Fist, let's just go along with the idea, shall we? There's one thing I always noticed, multi-hit moves by their nature are relatively safe or not as risky to use against counters vs other moves, simply due to the fact that just one tiny weak hit gets countered and thus you don't receive as much recoil as with any single hit attack. So why not make a counter that's specifcally more effective against multi-hit moves? The way I imagine it working would be like this: Take Dk's upb for example, Dk uses the move on wolf, who , to compensate/balance for what's about to happen to poor Dk, might get the shortest counter window and only get a 1.2 multiplier on every hit, will block every single hit in a flash forward ( otherwise this animation will take ages) and then finishes with a strike very similair to Lucario's double team( who's pretty much already using the WSRS-F so it would fit perfectly) and redirects all the damage he's repelled on Dk at once. Here's an example from Garou ( Wolf's Human/monster counterpart himself) :

Ofc most of that is wishful thinking at this point, but hey, a man can dream right?

 

[Noventiaa]

It could be basically an opposite to ryu's focus attack - amazing against multi hit attacks but can't handle one big strong hit.

 

[castorpollux]

Serious question.

Do you guys think the advanced Wofl strategy of BAIR dancing will be a thing in the new game?

 

[MarioMeteor]

Do we know anything about the speed of Wolf’s dash? Because I remember his dash only being barely faster than his walk and I really hope they sped it up.

 

[JosePollo]

Spoiler: E3 nair

Spoiler: 8.8 nair

The balance team must think highly of Wolf lol

Oh yeah I should probably mention: Wolf is upside down in the middle of his jump before the 8.8 nair gif starts, so it's pretty easy to see when the attack begins as he immediately snaps upright and starts to pull his leg in

 

[T!t!]

I don't think there was a change in terms of frames from the first clip to the second one. To me it looks as 2 times a frame 5 nair with the difference that u start counting while Wolf still is in his drop-through-platform-animation for 2 frames. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[JosePollo]

I don't think there was a change in terms of frames from the first clip to the second one. To me it looks as 2 times a frame 5 nair with the difference that u start counting while Wolf still is in his drop-through-platform-animation for 2 frames. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Nahh. There wasn't even any drop through in the clip where I got this gif. Wolf is in the middle of a jump, as I mentioned. It's from the 8.8 direct, at the section where they show off Abra's Teleport on Pirate Ship. Wolf is jumping on the platforms. 20:38 mark in the video from Nintendo's official YouTube channel

 

[T!t!]

well then I have no clue why they would already nerf Wolf nair.

I mean if Wolf's other moves are almost identical to the Brawl iteration, he should have a decent kit of moves but nothing op. One possible question regarding his nair nerf would be that it works too good as a combobreaker which they may not want. Perhaps they are evaluating weaknesses and strengths of each character and how to enable a way to abuse weaknesses as much as you can abuse the strengths.

Then again we are talking about Nintendo who had some strange opinions on how characters will work out.

I'm curious to see if they learned in terms of balancing characters. To be fair Sm4sh was their first attempt to make the game better balanced with every patch they released, although it sometimes backfired hard. (i.e. Ding Dong calling, certain DLC characters) Maybe they now have a better understanding of how to make sure most characters have relevant strong points and weak points in most matches without too much focus on comeback factor which was a really huge deal in Sm4sh. So far there are some nice changes that seem to prioritize aggressive options to defensive ones.

I do think that with the new ledgemechanics that debuted in Sm4sh and return in Ultimate, Wolf could be really scary offstage. I mean he doesn't have to fear to not be able to recover for most of the time. His side b allows him to recover from a bit lower so he should be able to go deep offstage. I'm also not sure how easy it'll be to edgeguard Wolf in Ultimate. Ledgetrumping is in my opinion a big deal for him.

Depending on how much landing lag he'll have on his upair, he could also be decent at sharking below platforms. So while doing some theorycrafting I could see potential to a good advantage state for Wolf which would mean his disadvantage state needs to have some clear downsides as well. Being able to combo him at low % due to the lack of a combobreaker could therefore be an option.

Anyways, we're pretty much only a bit more than a month away of the Smash Ultimate release and we will soon be able to get our hands on Wolf. Hope you are all as excited to play him as I am

 

[MarioMeteor]

So we finally got to see actual Wolf gameplay in the Treehouse stream, and for the most part he looks to be unchanged from Brawl.

His forward smash looks to be really slow now, though.

 

[Chiroz]

I think he’s severely different from Brawl.

F-Smash is now twice as slow and covers much less distance.

D-Smash is also twice as slow and we have no idea if it is still a kill move.

U-Smash is also slower (not as much though).

Tilts all have better range.

B-Air was nerfed in speed too.

U-Air seems to be buffed slightly in damage and the area it covers.

F-Air seems to cover more area too.

Down-B no longer frame 1 intangible, I would say it seems it’s frame 6-9 now.




I think Wolf won’t be able to play relying on B-Air, F-Smash, (DACUS) U-Smash and D-Smash. In fact all 4 of those moves seem outright nerfed substantially.

From my mostly “top of mid-level” player perspective I would say he will be a very juggle heavy character. Utilizing mostly his blaster, reflector and his tilts to control space and juggling with his U-Air and F-Air to rack up %.

IDK about how he will try to score kills just yet though.

 

[JosePollo]

Pour one out y'all

Also, Wolf's SH air time is 30 frames

 

[MagnesD3]

Man they destroyed wolfs forward smash

 

[Freelance Spy]

Are you guys figuring out the frame data? That's some dedication!

 

[QJD1381]

Wolf is put into helpless state after using Side B. Technically it's the same as in Brawl, but considering Fox and Falco had this same detriment removed in Smash 4...

 

[Garo]

I'm surprised U-tilt and U-smash are basically the same as in Brawl but the latter's new animation is at least neat. I also like Wolf Flash's trail effect with the long claw marks, didn't notice it before, if it was even there. The move also looks pretty powerful and has a nice angle. Fire Wolf is probably the same, but the player really did his best not to use it.

 

[Hokori]

I'm surprised U-tilt and U-smash are basically the same as in Brawl but the latter's new animation is at least neat. I also like Wolf Flash's trail effect with the long claw marks, didn't notice it before, if it was even there. The move also looks pretty powerful and has a nice angle. Fire Wolf is probably the same, but the player really did his best not to use it.

Only showcase of Fire Wolf that I've seen

 

[JosePollo]

I'm surprised U-tilt and U-smash are basically the same as in Brawl but the latter's new animation is at least neat. I also like Wolf Flash's trail effect with the long claw marks, didn't notice it before, if it was even there. The move also looks pretty powerful and has a nice angle. Fire Wolf is probably the same, but the player really did his best not to use it.

Up smash and Wolf Flash are probably two of the most visually impressive moves I've seen from the entire cast

Up smash: https://gfycat.com/NextDentalHake
Flash: https://gfycat.com/ChiefFatBrahmanbull

Up air has a crazy good hitbox
https://gfycat.com/HollowLimpDog

Shine still seems to have intangibility on it, too, albeit not to the extent it had in Brawl
https://gfycat.com/HugeVainCottontail

Wolf's looking real nice, so far. Even the more disappointing moves seem to have their merits. Back air is frame 13 now, but people have been saying it reminds them quite a lot of Bayo's or Sonic's back airs (slow, but strong, and with pretty low endlag), while Fsmash is drawing comparisons to Meta Knight's Fsmash, being slow to hit but with pretty fast cooldown (frame 20 hit, FAF: 44)

Back air: https://gfycat.com/BraveGorgeousAxisdeer
Fsmash: https://gfycat.com/WearyUntriedDairycow

 

[Freelance Spy]

Up smash and Wolf Flash are probably two of the most visually impressive moves I've seen from the entire cast

Up smash: https://gfycat.com/NextDentalHake
Flash: https://gfycat.com/ChiefFatBrahmanbull

Up air has a crazy good hitbox
https://gfycat.com/HollowLimpDog

Shine still seems to have intangibility on it, too, albeit not to the extent it had in Brawl
https://gfycat.com/HugeVainCottontail

Wolf's looking real nice, so far. Even the more disappointing moves seem to have their merits. Back air is frame 13 now, but people have been saying it reminds them quite a lot of Bayo's or Sonic's back airs (slow, but strong, and with pretty low endlag), while Fsmash is drawing comparisons to Meta Knight's Fsmash, being slow to hit but with pretty fast cooldown (frame 20 hit, FAF: 44)

Back air: https://gfycat.com/BraveGorgeousAxisdeer
Fsmash: https://gfycat.com/WearyUntriedDairycow

Interesting stuff. That Bair did 20% geez. Nice gifs btw.

 

[JosePollo]

It only did 13%, but due to where the collision happened (up around Wolf's hip, even though his leg is cleanly going into Simon's hurtbox) I'm guessing it was a sourspot hit, and the sourspot hitbox outprioritizes the sweetspot hitbox around his lower leg, much the same way it happens if you hit Sheik's bair too close to her body.

If the leg hitbox had precedence over the hip hitbox the collision graphic would've happened much farther along Wolf's leg

 

[Rhus]

Are you guys figuring out the frame data? That's some dedication!

Never underestimate us space animal mains.

Wolf's looking great - looks like they've done some power distribution on his kit to make some of his obnoxious moves (Fsmash) noticeably weaker but improving his poorer options (Nair, Uair, Blaster all look dramatically improved). Hope to see more gameplay trickle out soon.

 

[Sensoker]

I hope he is mid/high tier. I really want to main him.

 

[JesseMcCloud]

I understand not liking his new Fsmash, but if it hits as hard as it looks, it could be a great kill move when punishing rolls.