Wolf's char matchups, who counters who.

[snadmonkey]

So there is an official what char counters who thread and all, but I care to disagree with some of it. This is an attempt to look at wolf's 36 char matchups. I'll provide a reason for each. My data will be based solely on high lvl play. > is advantage wolf, < is disadvantage wolf = is even matchup.

> Mario - Main reason is that mario is an aerial character, and wolf can beat him out in the air, should be able to avoid the cape when recovery.

> DK - Wolf's spacing game with backairs and lasers give him fits, his recovery is kinda ez to spike. Only real threat is if you make a mistake and get killed at low precent, which shouldn't happen at high levels.

> Link - Dsmash can kill him at like 60% cause of his poor recovery, can reflect projectiles, no realimmenent threats.

> Samus - He lanks kills moves, he relies mostly on tethers in air but you can counter with lasers and shines. Your long lifes should give u a major advantage.

> ZSS - He has laggy attacks and tilts are weak, if wolf stays grounded ZSS is extremely limited do to high shop. should be a win for wolf.

= Kirby - I use to think wolf had advantage, but with good low precent combo's on wolf and a good kirby wall, it makes it alot harder than it seems. At the same time wolf still has projectile advantage and can get in his own bairs.

> Fox - Fox is actually kinda limited here, his big advantage is quick ground speed, but wolf has better ground game, with proper defence its incredibly hard for fox to kill wolf.

= Pikachu - Chain grab and down smash keep him challenging. Wolf can out projectile and has better air priority, also being able to reflect thunder and thundershock keep it even.

= Marth - I've never been beaten by a Marth, but it seems that with a defensive game it could be came a game of forward air to back air, I think it should be slight advantage wolf, if others agree I'll change it.

< G&W - Bucket/downair/back air, these moves will give wolf hell. Then facotr in smashes that kill at 80%, deffinent disadvantage for wolf

= Luigi - He has about same priority in the air as wolf but alot better control, tornado and 2 low precent ko moves always make him dangerous. Wolf's projectiles and backair and keep it close.

> Diddy Kong - Projectiles can stop his dash attack which is his best weapon, can reflect or grab bananas, better air game, gives u an overall advantage against diddy.

> Shiek - Sure he has ftilt combo's etc, but poor killing moves, his best ones aren't as good as wolf's opposite moves. Avoid the low precent ftilt combo's and should be ez victory.

< Zelda - I've never lost to a Zelda but others seem to. The fact she can kill at 60% makes her dangerous, you can use reflector to stop din fire. She has good smashes and a reflector. ON paper it seems Zelda should win, though I've never lost to one.

= Pit -He can projectile so can't be reflected, and can mess up recovery. great smashes and a few combos. Wolf's back is better than Pits air moves and can be downspiked. Its pretty even in all aspects here imo.

< MK - Down smash/Tornado/Upb and glide attack. These moves are just so good. THen u factor in that MK can chain downairs to kill wolf at any precent from a gimps. Dieing at 35% sucks.

< Falco - Chain grab is basically what gives him advantage, rest is about even.

> Pt - Lasers and back spacing is key to stopping charizard, Back air drives squirtle crazy. Ivysaur is dangerous with 50% neutral B attacks, but can be relitvely ez to gimp.

> Ike - He's just to slow for wolf, I don't think any more detail is needed on this matchup.

< Snake - Ftilt and utilt, ugh. Dash glide and endless source of mindgames from projectiles make this such a hard matchup, its not out of reach, but deffinently an advantage for snake.

> Peach - His low jumps and lack of killing moves makes him predictable and ez to punish while living to high precents.

> Yoshi - Sure his back air combo's can give you lots of fits. But it can be coutnered with backair and lasers, then just learn to footstool his second jump and its a big advantage for wolf.

> Ganon - He's just to slow again. Sry Kos its true.

> Ic - this one is trickey, atm I give wolf advantage caus ehe can smash the hell out of nana cause of delay, but if people start to really get ahold of chain grabs wolf is done. 0-death chain grabs are so op. But till this becomes common wolf has advantage.

< D3- 45% damage from one grab is dumb, his grab range is crazy good can grab you mid-air. Then can kill you at like 110% with back air. Factor in his swallow defence and its such tough matchup. Proper spacing and such can keep you away from grabs, but it only takes 3 grabs to put u in kill range so I gotta give D3 advantage.

= Lucario - Wolf can reflect his auro spheres and can kill him kinda ez if you save kill mvoes. His smashes are slow nand wolf usually doesn't approach from below. Sure he can side B chain wolf, but he is even easier to gimp than wolf. Lucario has great air priority though and low precent combo's.

>Ness - I do this solely cause of ness's recovery

>Sonic - Laser stops all this annoying spin attacks. I've never lost to a sonic, avoid the obvious kill moves when u get high and u win

>Bowser - You can outrange his klaw with back air, and lasers are ez to land on him. Be careful of fortress and you should win

<Wario - Such good air game and sidesteps/air dodges. His damage racking is so good, and his defence is good enough he can stall u until fart is up if he really needed to. Then fact he can killat 60% with a half waft is dumb. WOlf can try and use a wolf air defence, but wario is a tough mofo in good hands

>TL - This is pretty common knowledge lasers > his projectiles. Back air works really well also. just avoid backair combo's and u'll be fine.

>ROB - I actuall think wolf has advantage here. I just space backaris on him all day, shine his obvious neutral airs and its all gravy. Just don't smash into his sidestep downsmash trick.

>Olimar - Laser spam works well cause it pulls of pikmin to. Just gotta avoid tether grabs and upsmash. ON the stage I'd make this an even, but since Wolf can gimp Oli, he gets advantage

>Cpt. Falcon - Come on, slow smashes and weak air game. Poor specials and weak to projectiles.

>Jiggs - He's just so light, he dies really low precents. Also even though he's heavy air game, he seems to struggle with gimping wolf which would be his biggest advantage.

=Lucas - His absorb thing stops lasers and bstick makes him annoying. He's got good low precent kills moves, but he's weak to back air spacing and can also be gimped like ness, though not as ez. Lucas's upb can gimp wolf though, so I'm going with even here.


Anyways guys this is rough juob, did it in 25 minutes or so, leave feedback I'll read and adjust this as others see fit.

 

[dguy6789]

A few points.

Wolf vs Olimar is absolutely atrocious for Olimar, it isn't close to being even. Lasers make pikmin throwing obsolete completely. If a pikmin happens to get on you by chance, shooting another laser gets them all off. Olimar is forced to approach and can't use pikmin throwing as a realistic option.

Lucario vs Wolf would be even or closer to in favor for Lucario. Lucario isn't easy to gimp unless the player is horrible. Lucario's up b doesn't hit anyone, but it can curve around a person hogging a ledge, or if hogging on a flat edge, the Lucario can wall cling the same ledge that someone is grabbing on to. Aside from that, Lucario falls very slowly and has aerials that make him stop falling completely in the air. He can recover from very long distances and use high priority aerials to stop Wolf from doing things like bair.

Wario has a good selection of moves and setups, but his waft is nothing special, same as a rest in Melee was. Just learn the setup for it and you won't get hit by it much anymore. I would put this in Wolf's favor.

G&W is a glass canon. He kills Wolf early, but as long as you don't let your dsmash get stale, you should kill G&W early.

Take note that Ness and Lucas can be killed from a throw from Wolf guaranteed. When they are at killable percent, grab them, mash down on the cstick. This will just jab them over and over. Don't stop hitting down on the cstick. They will break away on the ground and get hit by downsmash. Works 100% without fail on flat terrain. The numerous jabs also contribute to making your dsmash less stale if it is stale.

Rob would be advantage Wolf from my own personal experience. Rob has some good moves, but I don't see how that makes him counter Wolf, not at all.

DDD, Pikachu, and Falco can chain grab Wolf, and that alone makes them troublesome. However, if you try to do shine repeatedly while being chaingrabbed, if the enemy grabs slightly slower than he should have, you will be freed.

Snake and Wolf isn't really a bad matchup. Snake's uptilt and ftilt beat most moves in the game, that is nothing unique to Wolf. Laser beats an approaching ftilt, and laser beats the mortar slide. The grenades and motion sensor mines are easily dealt with. If a grenade is near Wolf, just shine. It will explode the grenade and not cause you any damage. If a motion sensor mine is on the ground, just shoot at laser at it and it will explode. Besides that, you have the shine for general use. Reflect upsmash, side b, and grenades.

That's all for now.

 

[castorpollux]

Snad, ur basically saying wolf is good against every bad character and bad against every good character?

 

[AquaTech]

I think Wolf can hold his own against Wario, provided the two players are both near the same skill level.

 

[Loup17]

er, i've never really had that much trouble with zelda. that's not to say she's a piece of cake or anything, but she never seemed to have a real advantage.

also, you referred to almost every female character as a him or used the word his. it's a little thing, but it bugs.

 

[snadmonkey]

Well dguy ness can kill from grab also, but its already advantage wolf. As long as I could justify an advantage I didn't provide all points. Also Lucas can spam shop bstick'd pk fires on wolf all day and making approaching so hard.

GW should be wolf everytime though, just do turtle all day and wolf can't do much.

Lucario's air moves don't have that great of priority, they are just extremely quick and have weird hit boxes, stay to the side of him while in the air and backair wins out. But on the ground wolf dominates this mtachup, his smashes are so slow, and since his up B can't hit u can feel as free as you want to try and intercept with backair. PLease prvoide a little more info, or some from others, before I change this.

Olimar is already at disadvantage, his throws can be troublesome is only reason I'd consider it otherwise.

I also wanna put Wolf advantage over ROb, but lots of people claim that ROB counters wolf. I'll change it till someone can disporve me since u agree dguy.

From my experiences against blueshell and Futile' warios, I'm not sure how you can say wolf has advantage in this matchup. He can do so much damage with his air moves and be so incredibly hard to punish. Show me evidence of top end wolf player beating top end wario player and I'll change. I can understand y u say what u can, but I've yet to see it work out like that.

True plenty of ways to fight Snake as wolf, but I still think he has a clear advantage, though not nearly as bad as other chars.

Chian grabbers, yes you can break out if they mess up, but the fact that they can do it makes them have an advantage imo. Most pro falco's and D3's never mess up chain grabs.

 

[dguy6789]

Well dguy ness can kill from grab also, but its already advantage wolf. As long as I could justify an advantage I didn't provide all points. Also Lucas can spam shop bstick'd pk fires on wolf all day and making approaching so hard.

I was just pointing out something that makes killing the two of them extremely easy. PK fire isn't a big deal. Your blaster outranges it and has a higher rate of fire. Your shine can also deal with PK fire.

GW should be wolf everytime though, just do turtle all day and wolf can't do much.

Care to explain that? G&W isn't even close to being so good that a Wolf can't win, not even Snake is that good and Snake is WAY better than G&W.

Lucario's air moves don't have that great of priority, they are just extremely quick and have weird hit boxes, stay to the side of him while in the air and backair wins out. But on the ground wolf dominates this mtachup, his smashes are so slow, and since his up B can't hit u can feel as free as you want to try and intercept with backair. PLease prvoide a little more info, or some from others, before I change this.

You are severely underestimating Lucario's priority. He has among the highest priority moves out of any character in the entire game, and has quite a few of them, with some of them being quite fast. Wolf's bair will lose to every one of Lucario's aerials every single time. The only time a Wolf can hit Lucario with an aerial is if Wolf's move just plain hits before Lucario does the proper move. Wolf doesn't dominate on the ground either. Every fsmash Wolf tries, Lucario can just fsmash Wolf and beat it out if Wolf tries to hit from far away. Lucario's ground game does not rely completely on his smashes. Like I said before
If you knock Lucario far off stage, he can come back and remain mostly high up still. Most of the time, he doesn't have to even use up b. If he is at a point where wolf can try bair, Lucario should be able to just do his own aerial and slap Wolf away.

From my experiences against blueshell and Futile' warios, I'm not sure how you can say wolf has advantage in this matchup. He can do so much damage with his air moves and be so incredibly hard to punish. Show me evidence of top end wolf player beating top end wario player and I'll change. I can understand y u say what u can, but I've yet to see it work out like that.

I still haven't seen Wolf players complain about Wario much at all. I have played tons of Wario players across the whole skill level spectrum, they don't play a character I actively worry about beating. Wario has a lot of good stuff going for him, but he has nothing that is too hard for Wolf to deal with.

True plenty of ways to fight Snake as wolf, but I still think he has a clear advantage, though not nearly as bad as other chars.

Snake is the best character in the entire game. As such, he would have a slight or more than slight advantage vs most characters. I am just saying this matchup is far from "bad" for Wolf. It isn't perfect, but it is totally doable. I can go even with the very best Snake players in the country with my Wolf.

Chian grabbers, yes you can break out if they mess up, but the fact that they can do it makes them have an advantage imo. Most pro falco's and D3's never mess up chain grabs.

I wasn't attempting to change your mind on the matchups with chaingrabbers. I was mainly offering a tactic up that would help players vs these characters.

 

[:034:]

I'd like to give some input..

= Pikachu - Chain grab and down smash keep him challenging. Wolf can out projectile and has better air priority, also being able to reflect thunder and thundershock keep it even.

You can DI out of Pikachu's downsmash by tapping up.

Yeah, that's all I got. >_>

 

[Shake~]

Lucario's a tough one. Higher priority aerials, a useful chain, aura sphere, and an excellent forward smash. You may want to save your down smash, or use it as little as possible, as leaving him alive at a high % is very dangerous. Gimping Lucario can be somewhat difficult too at times. Wolf's blaster and reflector is quite useful against Lucario. Wolf has a better ground game, but Lucario's is still good. In the end I'd say it's an equal match-up

 

[Browny]

normally i wouldnt bother, but theres too many obvious mistakes that need to be fixed (besides spelling...)

> DK - Wolf's spacing game with backairs and lasers give him fits, his recovery is kinda ez to spike. Only real threat is if you make a mistake and get killed at low precent, which shouldn't happen at high levels. wolf is very laggy, one mistake at 70% or higher, and your gone. dont understimate that

= Luigi - He has about same priority in the air as wolf but alot better control, tornado and 2 low precent ko moves always make him dangerous. Wolf's projectiles and backair and keep it close. wolf might as well have no aerial priority compared to luigi. luigi is god when it comes to aerials

> Ic - this one is trickey, atm I give wolf advantage caus ehe can smash the hell out of nana cause of delay, but if people start to really get ahold of chain grabs wolf is done. 0-death chain grabs are so op. But till this becomes common wolf has advantage. as with DK, wolf is still laggy. miss one smash attack/blaster at 0%, and your gone. its important to remember what can happen

> Lucario - Wolf can reflect his auro spheres and can kill him kinda ez if you save kill mvoes. His smashes are slow nand wolf usually doesn't approach from below. Sure he can side B chain wolf, but he is even easier to gimp than wolf, so thsi one goes to wolf wolf cant touch lucario in the air, you cant gimp what you cant touch. lucario can chain wolf up to 70%, far more devastating than pikachus

>Sonic - Laser stops all this annoying spin attacks. I've never lost to a sonic, avoid the obvious kill moves when u get high and u winand ive never lost to a wolf user as sonic. honestly i see no reason why wolf is assumed to have an advantage here

 

[snadmonkey]

OK well I totally disagree on the sonic part on all regards, how doesn't wolf beat sonic? , Wolf is also not extremely laggy like you say. Certain mvoes can be so don't use em if ur in that situation. Luigi's range is not greater than wolf's back air.

Anyways this Lucario thing seems to be underestimated by me i guess. TBH I've only played 2 Lucario's you can consider to be good and don't struggle with either. Also doesn't germ have video of him beating a top end lucario? I'll move it to even for now, though if the basic ideas is that it should be disadvantage I'll make that. Besides I though his forward air had largest priority at a downside angle and if you approach from the side, chest or higher ur generally in greater priority. Also, Lucario can't combo wolf to 70% with one combo. Anyways maybe I just don't have enough exposure with this matchup.

In regards to Wario, can I get someone else's input in regards to this matchup, as it stands right now I'm debating making neutrals, but still haven't found any evidence of good wario losing to wolf.

Finally side note guys, this is not a how do I beat XXX, or how do I escape/counter XXX. Its a XXX > Wolf or < wolf because of YYY. I'll keep checking in there, I'm hoping to get a general posting what entire community thinks, as it stands its mostly me cause i just made this so keep input flowing.


P.S. I know some spelling errors but like i said it was a rush job, one day soon I'll have time to go back and spell check. Most of them are just typos.

 

[dguy6789]

What's with the Wolf being laggy? His fsmash and dsmash have some ending lag, but that's about it, don't spam them and you're good.

0-death IC chaingrabs apply to everyone, not just Wolf. Ice Climbers in melee had 0-death grabs as well and they were still not top tier. This doesn't make ICs automatically win a match, since grabbing the enemy is required.

Wolf has no problems with beating Luigi. This matchup is of no particular interest to a Wolf player. Just back air all day when Luigi gets in the air.

Lucario vs Wolf I would put at even.

DK has the earliest KO power in the game. That said, Wolf ***** him horribly. Wolf can spam laser all day and DK has a hard as heck time approaching. Get DK on the ledge and laser and it hits him while he is hanging off. DK's bair beats Wolf's bair, but all you have to do to beat that is out space your opponent or blaster them, since blaster will out prioritize almost any move.

Sonic gets ***** by so many characters in this game, it isn't even funny. Don't be trying to play that Sonic beats Wolf nonsense in here. Sonic gets out prioritized, out ranged, out damaged.

A pro Wolf may have beaten a pro Lucario in a match, but one match doesn't decide the matchup. Same thing with a couple good Warios beating your Wolf or someone else's. Could just be that you haven't played vs Wario enough to fully grasp how to fight him.

 

[Shake~]

The chain he mentions is the force palm chain I believe, but I don't know if it works all the way to 70%.

 

[Ookami-kun]

Really, the only thing Sonic has over Wolf is recovery and speed... which isn't really much when you know how to use Wolf's ability to outprioritize Sonic.

 

[Blue sHell]

Wolf vs Wario:

Alot of Wolves don't understand what others are saying about this matchup. Snad is right on what he is saying. If a Wario isn't giving your Wolf a hard time it probably doesn't automatically mean that the Wario sucks, but that the Wario doesn't know the best way to fight against a Wolf. Bite absolutely wrecks Wolf. It destroys all of his midrange ground approaches and ignores all of his grounded defensive strategies. Wario is based on preasuring up close, with his aerial game, Wolf has to abuse his spacing as best as he can in the air to combat Wario's constant approaches.

Also lets not forget that Wario has amazing gimping potential and that Wolf has a recovery that screams "ZOMG PLEASE GIMP ME!!!"

If you are not forced to completely change around your strategy vs a Wario, the Wario isn't doing a good job. Snad understands this really really well. If its not battlefield you have to play an offensive-defense. As of now alot of great wolfs haven't played alot of the high end Wario players so its hard to have this point come across too well. It's just a itty bitty advantage on Wario's part if the Wolf knows how to play against Warios and the Wario knows how to play against Wolf. But since its not a major disadvantage I guess some people could accept it as an even matchup.

*Bites Snad's fsmash*

 

[Fugu15]

In the hands of a few people, such as the one above =), Wario becomes a very hard matchup for wolf. The incredible air control and short hop air dodging of Wario makes it very hard to set up an air game. You are forced to go ground defensive and if you are not careful or get frustrated, the bite just owns wolf that stays on the ground. It's good to just stay patient and try to sit on wario to land and fsmash, which is pretty easy to sidestep. Mixing up bairs also helps, but consistently doing a wolf wall will just get you abused if wario air dodges a lot.

I think the Ice Climber matchup is a big disadvantage for wolf though. Wolf is so susceptible to chain grabbing it's scary. IC also seem to have to easiest time out of anyone ice locking wolf. THe entire fight is just a nightmare. You can be doing incredibly well and one mistake and your gone. Your main goal is to split up the IC and there are a number of ways to do this, but IC players who are very patient and don't force attacks, instead just space the spin, are an awful matchup for wolf.

I totally agree with Snad on the Rob matchup. So many people counterpick ROB vs wolf, that it's becoming one of my favorite fights. In the end, ROB has a lot of trouble KO'ing wolf. Just follow a few simple rules. 1. Never allow yourself to get shield grabbed near an edge. 2. Don't play sidestep games or roll into ROB, the downsmash will own you. 3. Stay toward the center of the stage. 4. Watch carefully for gimp setups. Use your reflector and establish ROB's projectile spam to be worthless and then all they really got is the neutral air and back airs. Neutral airs are incredibly easy to predict and punish.

 

[Ghost07]

ROB kills wolf. wolf cant do much against robs fairs and once rob gets wolf off the stage its usually over fast. ROBs beyblade stops most of wolfs attacks. Wolf problem is he relies on 2-3 moves to kill so he gonna have a hard time killing rob.

 

[snadmonkey]

Well Wolf has 5 good KO moves Ghost not counting the downspike which ROb can easily fall victim to since he can't air dodge while doing his upb.

 

[Kashakunaki]

I stopped reading at Marth because I find what I did read of the opening post to be so atrociously over simplified and wrong that it wasn't worth going on.

Care to prove me wrong?

 

[snadmonkey]

Provide an arguement for something kashakunaki and I'll debate changin it. Als no need to go into excessive detail since most people should know the match-ups. This is to be more of a list. Not sure what ur beef is unless you speak up.