Social Wolf Social Discussion

[Krysco]

Buddy just left about half an hour ago and we had played since midnight. Tried quite a few characters including Wolf and...I gotta say, I'm not too big a fan of him in this game. His recovery is so bad, he has no kill set ups that I'm aware of and his bair is so incredibly slow. If there's any spacie I'll be using this game, it'll be Falco. Feels bad too since I was so hyped for Wolf coming back but he just doesn't play like Brawl Wolf.

 

[MERPIS]

I was so hyped for Wolf coming back but he just doesn't play like Brawl Wolf.

This isn't brawl

 

[Lt. Sykes]

Wolf is so much better in this game than he was in Brawl. People who pick up wolf and write him off right away really need to take a better look at him. No kill setups? His up air can kill fairly reliably and he has lots of moves that launch his opponents into an unfavorable position for sparking. Not to mention, the more familiar you are with when you can combo flash out of a throw or something else, the more ridiculous Wolf can look. I’ve had so many people straight up give up online after a down throw into flash combo that kills. Wolfs f-tilt, b-air, flash, up smash, down smash, back throw, fire wolf, up tilt, up air, neutral air, and f-smash all can kill at high percents especially if you’re keeping some of these options fresh and it’s not like he has a hard time racking up damage

 

[Ishiey]

Wolf isn't better or worse in Ultimate than in Brawl, they're very different characters from games with very different base mechanics. If you try to play them the same it doesn't really work out imo :x Consistent kill setups are still a bit tough for me but everything starts to kill around 140% so I'm not too concerned lol

 

[KRDsonic]

I feel like Wolf has more options and mixups in Ultimate, but played more smoothly in Brawl. They definitely are very different characters though, and if you go into it trying to play Ultimate Wolf as if he was Brawl Wolf, you won't have a good time.

 

[Seagull Joe]

is OD.

 

[Krysco]

I'm aware that Ultimate isn't Brawl and that characters don't transition from one game to another perfectly but some do better than others. Look at Snake. He can't slide around with his mortar anymore or force a thrown grenade to drop by shield dropping a second one and he lost his mine but the rest of his kit is largely intact from Brawl. The fact that he can shield drop grenades still is honestly surprising since that always felt like an oversight in Brawl since other items didn't do that, he still has them and his C4 for stage control, his dthrow still leads to tech chases, his utilt is still super poweful, his upb to C4 recovery is still intact and he can now airdodge out of it AND the cypher itself has a hitbox. Overall, the animations for his moves weren't changed much and as a result, his hitboxes and the function of each move is largely similar to Brawl.

Like, I'll probably still give Wolf a few more tries but let's not pretend that my waning interest is entirely unwarranted. The main issue is his much slower bair and his nerfed recovery. His jab doesn't lunge him out as much, his dthrow no longer semi spikes and his fsmash lost range for power but those are minor changes I can see myself getting used to. Another issue I'm having in general is thanks to the changes to dashing, it's harder to do an approaching rar bair with any character. If you dash forward and then try to turn around jump to be able to bair, you end up dashing back to where you started if you don't enter your run animation, effectively limiting that middle range with approaching bairs. I've found it to be a pretty big issue with DK and Falco and to an extent Wolf.

Wolf DOES has quite a few positives that he lacked in Brawl. Ftilt is likely safer due to how different shields work plus it kills now. Nair actually has a use now. Wolf Flash can be angled more easily than in Brawl where it had to be cancelled by pressing B again on a specific frame. His Blaster is still amazing. Bthrow kills now. Pretty sure fair doesn't go as far down as it did in Brawl but it still sends up for juggles and potentially kills, especially if you're already near the top. From what I've heard, Wolf's best gameplan at the moment sounds like constantly forcing approaches with Blaster and Reflector and then making use of his cqc options once they get close enough. I do find this largely different from Brawl where Wolf could choose to approach at anytime given how fast, ranged and safe his bair was so to go from the freeflow defense/offense to focusing on defense until they approach is a bit jarring. It reminds me of the change Falco went through from Melee to Brawl where in Melee, you could camp with blaster but Falco had good enough tools to make approaching always an option whereas in Brawl, his Blaster was so overwhelmingly good that the best thing to do was always use it until the opponent approached. Go figure, Brawl is the only game where I don't like Falco.

I'll see about watching some tournament matches of Wolf to try and get a better idea of how to use him, namely any with Seagull Joe since I always loved watching his Wolf back in Brawl.

 

[Lt. Sykes]

I never felt like Wolf was a terrific offensive character in Brawl. Wolf is an underrated character in Brawl and is only as low as he is due to the chaingrabs, and because of those largely had to be defensive. There aren’t chaingrabs in Ultimate, and Nintendo is likely to nerf or take out things that could happen or be abused in competitive play that would put characters (Wolf or anyone as the meta develops) in overly disadvantageous matchups via patches. This alone makes Wolf a more viable character in Ultimate. When discussing B-air between the two games, nerf is a subjective take. Yes it’s not the crazy fast safe utility move that it was in Brawl, but its still useful for catching opponents off guard, has solid range, and it’s a better kill option. Fair and Nair have been so buffed in different ways compared to Brawl that they serve almost the same purpose as bair did in Brawl.

Wolfs initial dash speed is one of the better ones in Ultimate, and the fact that he has so many solid options out of dash in this game where dash is likely to be a major part of how the meta develops I really think he has more agro potential than the initial test drive would lead a player who liked Wolf in Brawl to believe. I was highly down on Wolf day one of release, and also felt like he would have to stick with blaster defense as his major play style but I kept playing him and there’s way more potential with him to be a jack of all trades type character. His biggest weakness is clearly his recovery but that’s something that can be mitigated as of now with practice. Who knows, maybe a future patch will increase the distance fire wolf covers or something like that, or maybe they’ll make it so he can act out of flash in some way. We won’t really know for sure what will be the final take on wolf but now I think he has potential which is a lot better than some other characters right now

 

[Rizen]

When discussing B-air between the two games, nerf is a subjective take. Yes it’s not the crazy fast safe utility move that it was in Brawl, but its still useful for catching opponents off guard, has solid range, and it’s a better kill option. Fair and Nair have been so buffed in different ways compared to Brawl that they serve almost the same purpose as bair did in Brawl.

No when a f6 move turns into a f13 move that's a nerf, nothing subjective about it. I'm not saying Wolf's a bad character, he plays differently than SSBB, but he did get several nerfs in frame data and recovery.
Fair and Nair do not serve the same purpose as Brawl's Bair. In Brawl Wolf had a great SH RAR Bair poke game and he can't do that anymore. SSBU's Fair and Nair are both good moves; Fair sets up juggles and Nair does general sex kick things. Wolf can't play how he did in Brawl.

 

[Sean²]

At least he can't get chaingrabbed to death any longer. That alone is an extreme buff.

But comparing Brawl's physics to Ultimate's is still like apples to oranges.

 

[Krysco]

Chaingrabs in general are gone and it's a buff to everybody. Wolf is still a fastfaller and he's the heaviest of the spacies, being the same weight as Ice Climbers, Villager and Lucario. Not enough weight to be considered a heavyweight by any means but he's still combo food and has the worst recovery of the three since he can't use his up special after his side one along with the poor distance Fire Wolf covers. Not that Wolf's recovery in Brawl was too remarkable. It had a small ledge sweetspot making it very easy to edgehog him and the only real thing he had to further help was cancelling Wolf Flash.

For those that are enjoying Ultimate Wolf, great. Keep enjoying him. But Wolf is one of numerous characters who has changed drastically from one game to another and it is off-putting to some. Link, Dedede, Meta Knight and Falco players can all relate depending on what game transition you look at.

 

[valkiriforce]

Given that many are playing Smash Ultimate these days, I would very much like to see some more Wolf screens floating around these parts. I don't have Smash Ultimate yet (or even a Switch) so I'd very much appreciate if anyone is open to posting some more awesome screens. I've been seeing some good ones on Twitter lately and I wonder if anyone else has played around with the camera options (also I'm curious if anyone else got a Wolf Amiibo?)

Here's a couple of very good ones as posted by this user

 

[KRDsonic]

I hadn't gotten to play Smash Ultimate for the past week because I was in the process of moving, and I lost Elite Smash with Wolf because of decay I guess. Unfortunate. I tried getting it back with him and I was having a lot of trouble because I was having trouble killing in pretty much every game.

... Meanwhile I wound up getting Elite Smash with Chrom, who I hadn't played until today, since I was just using different characters to try to get the challenge done that requires you to play 30 different characters on wifi. Chrom feels hmm... a tad overpowered.


Also, MERRY CHRISTMAS WOLF BOARDS!

 

[valkiriforce]

Yes, Merry Christmas Wolf folks! I managed a Switch + Smash Ultimate so it won't be long before I get some hands-on experience with Wolf in the new game.

In the meantime, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

 

[Altais]

A thought recently occurred to me: I wouldn't mind Wolf starring in his own game. Obviously, it would be called Star Wolf: Something. Unlike Star Fox Zero, it would be much darker in tone--but at the same time retain that "Sci-fi but Silly" element. Frankly, troublemakers are seldom born; they're usually created. Ergo, mine idea is that it that Star Fox wouldn't be involved at all--instead, the game could delve into Wolf's past, and why he became a wanted criminal. As his secrets are revealed, he comes face-to-face with a childhood enemy whom, bluntly put, is much eviler than Andross.

[Shrugs] That just popped in mine head while I was watching Starlink: Battle for Atlas gameplay. Maybe not the best idea.

Anyhow, though I knew I wasn't going to be good with him, among the Smash 4-cut fighters, Wolf was the one I wanted to try the most. I must say, he has some impressive changes from his Smash 3 counterpart. When practising with Robin in two-against-one battles with the computer, I usually have Wolf and Zero Suit Samus as mine opponents; the former for his reflector, and the latter for her agility.

 

[Idon]

A thought recently occurred to me: I wouldn't mind Wolf starring in his own game. Obviously, it would be called Star Wolf: Something. Unlike Star Fox Zero, it would be much darker in tone--but at the same time retain that "Sci-fi but Silly" element. Frankly, troublemakers are seldom born; they're usually created. Ergo, mine idea is that it that Star Fox wouldn't be involved at all--instead, the game could delve into Wolf's past, and why he became a wanted criminal. As his secrets are revealed, he comes face-to-face with a childhood enemy whom, bluntly put, is much eviler than Andross.

[Shrugs] That just popped in mine head while I was watching Starlink: Battle for Atlas gameplay. Maybe not the best idea.

Anyhow, though I knew I wasn't going to be good with him, among the Smash 4-cut fighters, Wolf was the one I wanted to try the most. I must say, he has some impressive changes from his Smash 3 counterpart. When practising with Robin in two-against-one battles with the computer, I usually have Wolf and Zero Suit Samus as mine opponents; the former for his reflector, and the latter for her agility.

I hold to this day the Wolfen is just a cooler Arwing.

Also, it turns into AN ACTUAL WOLF while the Arwing gets... a chicken.

 

[Whitephoenixace]

What is the best way to secure kills with wolf ? I know he has moves that kill at decnd tpercent like up smash, f smash and bair, f tilit and up tilit. But honestly how i get in my my kill options better as wolf ? I find i can rack up dmg quickly but cant secure the kill and then end up either getten beaten back or winning by timer

 

[Rizen]

What is the best way to secure kills with wolf ? I know he has moves that kill at decnd tpercent like up smash, f smash and bair, f tilit and up tilit. But honestly how i get in my my kill options better as wolf ? I find i can rack up dmg quickly but cant secure the kill and then end up either getten beaten back or winning by timer

I kind of agree with this. I end up fishing for Bair or Dsmash too much. Sorry I don't have an answer.

Wolf's looking really good in terms of results. It's early but he might end up a high tier. I confess he's doing better than I expected.

 

[Sean²]

What is the best way to secure kills with wolf ? I know he has moves that kill at decnd tpercent like up smash, f smash and bair, f tilit and up tilit. But honestly how i get in my my kill options better as wolf ? I find i can rack up dmg quickly but cant secure the kill and then end up either getten beaten back or winning by timer

Get a good read on a roll or at the ledge with dsmash, bair, or up B. Nair off the ledge if someone has a bad recovery and tries to recover low. Or dair spike if it’s someone like DK with a bad hitbox on top of their recovery. I’d say Bair offstage stage spike but people are a lot better at teching now. Get a grab at the perfect percent and dthrow combo into side B offstage, but it has to be the last stock or you need to be a stock up because you’re going to die as well.

Needless to say nothing mindlessly easy or guaranteed.


Going to edit this because I want to ask a question as well - What controls do you guys use for Wolf? Until a few days ago I had basically used the default control set for every smash game. I can't kick the Melee habits very well. I'm trying out tilt stick for the first time ever. It seems to help me land more consistent KOs in the 140+ range with utilt being a lot easier to perform. I still get dash attack here and there when I try to do a running utilt when I play online but I think that's due to some latency versus my inputs. Same with ftilt, I can punish with it a lot faster now considering Wolf's grab range is ...not the best. Also ftilts at the ledge without accidentally falling off

I got really sick of my dash back ftilts turning into fsmash so I thought I'd give it a shot. Seems to be working well.

 

[KRDsonic]

Going to edit this because I want to ask a question as well - What controls do you guys use for Wolf? Until a few days ago I had basically used the default control set for every smash game. I can't kick the Melee habits very well. I'm trying out tilt stick for the first time ever. It seems to help me land more consistent KOs in the 140+ range with utilt being a lot easier to perform. I still get dash attack here and there when I try to do a running utilt when I play online but I think that's due to some latency versus my inputs. Same with ftilt, I can punish with it a lot faster now considering Wolf's grab range is ...not the best. Also ftilts at the ledge without accidentally falling off

I got really sick of my dash back ftilts turning into fsmash so I thought I'd give it a shot. Seems to be working well.

I use Tilt stick with tap jump off, and changed my L button to jump. I'm not using a GC controller though, so I have two left and right triggers, so I'm able to still have both shield buttons.

Tilt stick because doing fast tilts in this game is difficult, especially reverse Ftilt or Utilt out of dash. I turned off Tap Jump as Bowser because I kept getting buffered jumps when I was trying to Up B out of shield. I have L as jump to make instant turn-around Bairs easier, since I don't feel like playing Claw style this time around like I did back in Brawl.

Having two shield buttons is still needed since if you hold both, you can move your shield around without rolling or spot dodging.

 

[Ishiey]

Tilt stick is great imo, given how strong Wolf's tilts are wrt range/speed. For kills I feel like I get a good deal by edgeguarding, since we don't have the best setups. Thankfully a bunch of our stray hits start killing around 150%.

 

[RWyvern]

It’s hilarious switching from my Ridley (which holds a decent 2,800,000 GPS) to my Wolf, which barely scrapes 2 mil. It’s a little disheartening to get beaten almost every match, especially with playstyles I can tackle just fine with Ridley, and even more so when those players start realising I suck and begin going ham or using super cheese strats like spamming the same move because I just can’t stop running into them. I also can’t play him to his fullest speed, at least not without a tremendous loss in accuracy.
But I’m very fond of the character and I hope if I keep grinding through these losses, I’ll end up somewhat decent with him!

 

[Sean²]

Something about Wolf (and spacies in general I guess) feels more responsive to inputs than a lot of other characters. It can almost be too sensitive till you get used to it. I still find myself getting turned around by accident when I barely touch the control stick with Wolf and it rarely happens with other characters. As a result though, other characters tend to feel stiff and sluggish to play now. You also need to have more patience with Wolf than one may think...you can’t get away with constantly throwing out huge hitboxes to pressure like some of the sword characters can. I think if you keep practicing you can get him down. He takes a tiny bit more precision than some characters but nothing insane.

 

[RWyvern]

I certainly noticed the apparent increase in sensitivity. I guess it also doesn’t help that online comes with plenty of lag, but beggars can’t be choosers since I can’t access my ‘local’ tournament scene. I’ll definitely try out a more patient game, for sure, and keep on watching the pros to see what they do.

 

[Sean²]

Since switching to tilt stick for Wolf, ftilt saves my life like no other. The hitbox is gargantuan, rushdown characters have to respect it since the disjoint outranges most grounded attacks, and it gives you breathing room. It’s generally my primary follow up tool if there’s no clear opening to spring anything else. I was beginning to get frustrated with the character and my ability to play him until I made this one change. Maybe it can help you out as well.

 

[RWyvern]

Bless your soul for that suggestion! I generally use smash stick for Ridley since reads and reactions are more my game with him, so tilt stick’s gonna take a while to get used to but... I think I’ll get it down. Hardest is timing my smash attacks now lol

ETA yeah my smash attack game is rough now ouch. GSP’s plummeted by 500,000 just because I can’t kill now, better make that deficit up with improvement.

oh god never mind, dropped below a mil, I suck, time to just versus cpu for a bit till I get the hang of this, this is terrifying

 

[valkiriforce]

Hey, I'm not as tech-savvy as the rest of you, but I've been having a blast with Wolf lately. All of his moves are satisfying, and I didn't have much trouble at all adjusting to him from Brawl. I was surprised I wasn't mistakenly using side-B off-stage more often (although I did make that mistake a few times recently) since I unlocked him it's been hard to go back to anyone else. He's clearly one of my favorite fighters in Ultimate. I've also been taking lots of videos/screens and such.

 

[I'd Negæte That]

Like this post if you accidentally side-b'd off a cliff more than once

 

[Coccinelle]

Like this post if you accidentally side-b'd off a cliff more than once

Should give you 1000 likes !
That said Wolf is my favorite and main character. He would be perfect for me if he did not make me feel unconfortable when playing off stage.

 

[Sean²]

He has a wall jump so if you play stages like Kalos, Yoshi's Brawl, or Yoshi's Melee you can go offstage more easily

 

[Ridley_Prime]

Wall jump huh? Good to know.

I think I’ve finally found my footing with Wolf again. Was kind of a matter of getting the aerials back into muscle memory I guess and not being afraid to use them despite his recovery. And yeah, those tilts, f-tilt being the rule of cool.

 

[T-Donor66]

My Wolf Amiibo arrives today! Can’t wait to have all of my mains in amiibo form!

 

[valkiriforce]

What characters do you guys think are the hardest to face with Wolf? For some reason I've found Bowser and Pokemon Trainer annoying to fight, and Bowser Jr. is annoying to fight no matter what lol.

 

[Sean²]

Probably Pikachu or Pichu. That matchup has to be at least -1 for Wolf.

 

[Captain Sa10]

So they finally brought my boy back huh? He feels so different from when I played him back in brawl.

Well, none the less I’m back in the saddle with wolf again I believe(granted I’m still having a bit of character crisis). Nice to see a lot of new folks and a few of the old guys too

 

[Sean²]

Special thanks to ZeRo for making a video saying Wolf is broken, so all the online kids are wanting to do Wolf dittos now. I love it, really.

It was only like two weeks ago that 90% of Leffen's stream chat were spamming "Wolf is bad" when he had trouble killing Gluttony's Wario at like 130% and died to a waft.

How long till they get bored and go back to badly playing their own main? Will ZeRo have to make another video? Mob mentality is wonderful.

 

[Ultomato]

Special thanks to ZeRo for making a video saying Wolf is broken, so all the online kids are wanting to do Wolf dittos now. I love it, really.

It was only like two weeks ago that 90% of Leffen's stream chat were spamming "Wolf is bad" when he had trouble killing Gluttony's Wario at like 130% and died to a waft.

How long till they get bored and go back to badly playing their own main? Will ZeRo have to make another video? Mob mentality is wonderful.

Zero calls every character he plays OP, that's kinda his thing.
As for Leffen, the amount of "Melee is better" jokes he makes prevent me from taking anything he does seriously

 

[Reila]

I hope he says Isabelle is OP so I can enjoy the free wins.

 

[Sean²]

Zero calls every character he plays OP, that's kinda his thing.
As for Leffen, the amount of "Melee is better" jokes he makes prevent me from taking anything he does seriously

Regardless, there is a pretty good connection that Zero greatly influences who becomes the flavor of the week online.

And Leffen never said Wolf is bad. People in his chat did because he died to a fart when he had Wario we’ll above kill percent. He does have some stupid opinions (still thinks Falco is the best space animal, I think) but actually uses Wolf well as a secondary.

 

[Mellos]

For the life of me…
I can figure out what Wolf is saying in his victory poses.
Does anyone have some suggestions?