Meta Zero's Advice: General Matchup Q&A

[Nu~]

Why you guys preach melon when key accomplishes the same thing better, for more damage, with less chance of being caught is also beyond me.


On a side note I did get a few friendlies against a MM player named MoarD (At least that was his tag) at an IN event this weekend. He mentioned this thread so he may be on here? Anyway he might have more to say on the MU now that he's had a chance to play it. TBH felt pretty even to me, and despite being friendlies they went back and forth.

I think it's because they appreciate the lower charge time, but I agree with you.

 

[PEPESPAIN]

Add me pacs if you wanna play. I can upload the videos.

I'm gold3 silver 1 on anthers

Nnid: 1-337-PWN-CALL

PEPESPAIN Nu~

I haven't internet on my WiiU right now, sorry guys

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

I still think this is slightly in our favor no better than 60-40

 

[Just a Random Guy]

Welp, as I have been playing against a few Clouds, I think he shares the same atributes as shulk, some of his attacks reach max pellet range, and some other moves deal a lot of damage, probably the best way way to outplay him is to play defensively, since neutral b clashes with lemons, and cross slash deals heavy shield pressure but it's easily punishable

Edit: it seems that cloud does not get super armor while on finishing touch, so its possible to disrupt the startup with lemons

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Here is that video. This is about how all of my games with pac man go.

PEPESPAIN Nu~

 

[Nu~]

Here is that video. This is about how all of my games with pac man go.

PEPESPAIN Nu~

That PacMan's nuetral game is pretty atrocious...all he did most of the time was jump above you, drop hydrant, and air dodge. The other half of his gameplay was running away to the other side of the screen to set up camp...against a mega man. He also rarely ever followed up on his fruits.

He played incredibly predictably and had next to no clever setups.

If these are the Pac-Men you normally face, then I'm not surprised why you think mega man wins.

 

[BSP]

I picture leaf shield + shield to be very potent in this MU, due to Pac's horrendous grab i cant see much he can do about it. This sets up into high damage leaf shield grabs.

If you're obvious with your shielding, Pac-Man will trampoline you for free. Yes, it's only 7%, but hey, lemons are only 2%. Everything adds up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the general strategy with leaf shield is getting on top of people and going for grabs while the leaves disrupt them. If Pac-Man mashes trampoline when you go for this, I predict meg man taking 7-16% from multiple trampoline hits while Pac-Man takes leaf damage. Probably not a good trade.

edit: in general from Pac-Man's side, I wouldn't bother with fruits below Apple too much. The lowest three are easily stopped by mega man's general zoning.

 

[PEPESPAIN]

Red Shirt KRT I think like Nu~ & BSP .

I'll try to add you and we'll try to play. I'm trying to solve my internet problems!

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

I didn't know the trampoline did damage when we jumped on it. Good to know.

 

[meleebrawler]

I didn't know the trampoline did damage when we jumped on it. Good to know.

It's not the trampoline that does damage, it's Pac-Man jumping off of it (the second Up B custom Power Pac-Jump is literally just this). The reason it's "unblockable" is because the jump caused by the trampoline forces you out of your shield, thus causing you to get hit by Pac's jump.

 

[CopShowGuy]

This Pac-Mega Man debate must be resolved!

 

[xIvan321]

I consider the match up to be equal to our favor. Pac Man for the longest time was considered underrated due to how under represented he once was and honestly he kinda still is. I've played plenty of decent Pac Man and I know the match up pretty well. How well Mega Man will play will mostly be based on how well a Mega Man can perfect shield and use his leaf shield effectively. Pac Man is very easy for us to gimp, a character with a projectile in this game helps edge guarding and if we force him to use trampoline in the worst spot, he'll parish since we'll make him land on the red trampoline.

Taking account for Pac Man's numerous projectiles, I believe Key and Melon go through everything. Fortunately, the leaf shield behaves in a similar way and can diminish a handful of neutral b's forms while also hurting Pac Man. I also know Pac Man isn't the type of grab character, but even if you were to go for that, our pellets have more than enough to beat that with a simple f-tilt.

I know I'm making this sound easy to beat Pac-Man, but its not as simple when they have a set up going on, although I feel like I know enough to be a bit mindful of such things. It can be a boring match to play to some, but I do enjoy it myself.

I'm also willing to play any Pac-Man wanting to put this to the test.

 

[Nu~]

Happy holidays everyone!!!

I'm willing to challenge any mega man that wants to put this matchup to the test right now
xIvan321 Red Shirt KRT Sleek Media

 

[xIvan321]

Happy holidays!

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

I'll be on most of the day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of next week I'm ready.

 

[Blue Banana]

Hi, the Olimar board is now discussing the Mega Man matchup. Any input is appreciated.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Here are the matches from my stream against Nu~

I still think it is a very even matchup, (that is slightly in our favor )

Stream at twitch.tv/1337pwncall/

 

[Nu~]

I still think Pac wins, but that's just me.

There was a lot of player error on my part. Like when I got hit by that repeated crash bomb, metal blade, pellet lol. I got frustrated and started falling apart. I need to work on keeping my patience.

As you can see in the matchup, pacman dishes out more consistent damage. We also combo you incredibly well. Where I flubbed up is not being patient when you starting shooting pellets. I should have just charged up to galaxian and ate through the wall. Instead I kept running up like a moron. And where I failed to tech everything
My fingers are slow today.

Oh, and when I kept getting hit by crash bomb explosions on battlefield , I was testing to see I I could pellet heal. My fault for continuing to do it even when it failed lol.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

That was exactly how I felt on the first two matches, kept running into everything.

Mega takes a lot of patience to play against.

 

[Mega-Spider]

I have limited experience in the Pac-Man v Mega Man match up, but I consider it to be an even match up. Much like the Sonic match up, it's up to interpretation. Unlike the Sonic match up to where I feel it's slightly in Megs' favor, this match up is even all things considered. This might be a weird analogy to some, but I consider this match up like a game of chess. Both characters need to have all their bases considered and need to have back up plans in case something goes wrong. If one of them starts to panic, then the match is set to whoever was able to keep their head in the game. To both, don't be careless/reckless and play smart. This is a match up where patience is key to victory.

 

[Sorichuudo]

I will say this:
I laughed a lot around the 22:10 mark, its like Pwncall's dog hated that he landed the spike XD

I still think its slightly in favour of the Pac, but again, not by much.

Red Shirt missed a lot of punishes in the earlier matches, and kept going for the dair when Pacman was recovering, not only you missed everytime essentially letting Pacman9 get back on stage for free, but even if you hit, the trampoline would save him, it stays there a long time(you did get that one on game 5 but thats cause he used it close to the stage, away from the ledge). Also i think we should hold on to the fruit as much as we can if we manage to get it.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Yea I kept going for it and it didn't work out at all. Nothing was working out for me those first two matches. I missed a few easy punishes on missed grabs too.

 

[xIvan321]

Pacman9 should fight me some time. Send me your Skype information if you have an account. I'll be available all day tomorrow if you're there.

I'm a little disappointed how Pwncall's gameplay sorta went down, and not to knock you out, but it seems like you had a lot of missed a handful of opportunities to reverse Pac-Man's neutral and instead opted for stiff gameplay. How often do you face Pac-Man? I know I've faced a lot and seen a lot of gameplay. Enough not to completely throw the character's viability in the MU and enough to still feel mildly confident to still say yeah we can beat Pac-Man.

But I guess you did your best pwncall and it was still fun watching.

 

[Nu~]

Pacman9 should fight me some time. Send me your Skype information if you have an account. I'll be available all day tomorrow if you're there.

I'm a little disappointed how Pwncall's gameplay sorta went down, and not to knock you out, but it seems like you had a lot of missed a handful of opportunities to reverse Pac-Man's neutral and instead opted for stiff gameplay. How often do you face Pac-Man? I know I've faced a lot and seen a lot of gameplay. Enough not to completely throw the character's viability in the MU and enough to still feel mildly confident to still say yeah we can beat Pac-Man.

But I guess you did your best pwncall and it was still fun watching.

I have no skype unfortunately, but I'm down to play tomorrow.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

I'm not exactly what you mean by this.

I do feel like we have a slight advantage in the matchup somewhere between 55-45 and 60-40 for us.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Let me know if the audio sounds better on this set. This was also from my stream against EeveeMark who is a Plat II player.
I started to get hit by all of his shenanigans later in the matches even though I knew what was coming.

 

[Nu~]

Me and xIvan321 are going to play today, so I'll upload any matches that I can.

 

[Nu~]

One of the many matches me and xIvan321 had. This was the only one that fell under 3 minutes, so I could upload it without using my toaster.

 

[CopShowGuy]

How did things go?

 

[Nu~]

How did things go?

I won 10-11 of the matches, while xIvan won 1.

It was a rocky start as first, but eventually the matches started getting closer.

 

[xIvan321]

it actually took a little to warm up, but then I actually fought him around 5-6 rounds in and I think and those were the rounds that were probably the most heated of them. When I finally won, the following matches started to lag and then I quit after that. I wish I could have played longer, but I think I did display enough of what you can do in the match up. I made a lot of mistakes actually and sometimes I wanted to perfect shield but would get hit with everything instead. (lmao) Sometimes I'd also forget I should just up tilt the hydrant which was effective in my previous Pac-Man encounter especially when I just wanted to get rid of it.

After fighting I think its pretty equal, and that's for certain this time. I know Pacman9 is petitioning in his charcter's favor, but its in my strongest belief that no matter what damage Pac-Man could inflict from his own gear, its the very same gear that can work entirely against Pac-Man when dealt correctly. There's still there's still the mix ups, but its not like they are uber hard for either of us to deal with and it seems to definitely be a match up of patience. If either side wrong moves the situation, it calls for check mate. As Mega Man you definitely have to know the match up and as somebody who does, then in reality Pac-Man definitely beats all the Mega Man blissfully unaware of the setups to hydrant, which for the most part Mega Man can actually avoid more often than a lot of characters actually can.

The item interaction is also one other big factor that makes it tough to say its concrete that either Pac-Man or Mega Man wins the camp. For instance, specials can stop the ever translucent f-smash but can't stop the leaf shield. He could short hop crash bomb his neutral special thus auto detonating it which is also the same deal with hydrant when idle. Pac-Man however does rely a lot on well executed plans to overwhelm us while were more heavy on how fast we can turn it against him. In terms of projectiles, were faster, he's slower but its not a bad thing for each character respectively, it just means when both do play effectively, it leads to the most equal match up for both.

The item game can be potentially be stuffed reliably by the leaf shield (projectile) aside from the key. While its worn, Mega Man should be concerned about the bell/flan, melon, or the key. DITCIT can be used here to speed in from long range while the metal blade will defend incoming projectiles, aside from key or melon. Since I did brought up DITCIT, let me start with you can't actually expect to combo an item against Pac-Man unless its his own which means we can't do it as freely as other MUs until we steal his item. When we hold his, he can't spawn another one and has to use hydrant from longer range to even projectile which as silly as it sounds, could be completely unnecessary, but that's a habit he can resort to especially when you have him cornered. Mega Man could use his pellets while holding his item if he z-drops and Pac-Man's projectiles are tougher to expire compared to ours which is very useful especially when we get our hands on something like the key or the bell.

Pac-Man's fastest way to launch the hydrant seems to be z-dropping an item which we have to respect and not get caught up in attack endlag. When Pac-Man has to spend more time inflicting the hydrant, he has to respect the fact that Mega Man can easily take advantage of that especially when Pac-Man inflicts damage on it first thanks to all the range Mega Man has.

With all of this explained, this is why I believe its a 50:50. I wrote pretty extensively, but I hope you have the patience to read what I've reflected. Right now I'm burning a lot of midnight oil. Feel free to respond or ask any questions, I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Again, I want to thank you Nu~ for the incredible matches, because they were a lot of fun and I think I've learned a couple new things about Pac-Man. I still need to practice the MU a little more, even if I do know a lot about the match up. Your Pac-Man is simply amazing.

 

[Sleek Media]

@xlvan321 That's the first time I've seen you play, but I didn't realize that it was you when I was watching. I thought to myself: "Why can this Mega forward boost blade? His fundamentals are terrible". Maybe it was just a bad match to watch, but coupled with the long post above, it looks to me like you were working mostly off of theorycraft or something, and hadn't fought many actual Pacs before. Pac9 is a very good Pac who makes use of some of his less conventional tools, so it's not surprising that he got you, but what is surprising is that he caught you with stuff like jab hydrant at the ledge. If you need help working out the MU I have a good Pac. It's not as good as Pac9, but it can get you familiar with his weaknesses and properties. I still contend that it's our advantage anywhere except FD and Lylat.

 

[xIvan321]

I'd admit maybe I don't play enough Pac-Man but when I had, they've all been really good which had guided me present day. The only two things I really learned from the MU is the hydrant doesn't hurt pac-man mid up b and the mixups to the recovery. It would be too late since the games just lagged unplayable after when I finally won thus quitting soon after, but to be fair I felt it probably took game 5 to finally warm up, the rest that followed was just a lot of reflecting. I'm confident I can beat Pac-Man, but I definitely did a lot of stuff wrong in the matches you saw. There was stuff I wanted to do but didn't do it, and just would preform the worst option being misinput.

Actually, just now I watched the match and I think that was the first game. I believe Pac9 could confirm that, the later matches were actually much better. (as I said before.)

 

[Funkermonster]

Bit sudden to ask and I hate to interrupt the Pac Man discussion, but would anybody be willing to play some matches with me this weekend or early next week (got a buttload of schoolwork to do first before I can play, dunno when I'll get it done)? Been awhile since I last entered any tournies so when I get my game back I wanna practice a little bit to prepare for my next one. Its not often I get to play against any other Mega Men and I find it rather fun to fight against him, so I wanted to play the MU with my since I find Gren vs MM to be one of my favorite MUs to play, and maybe even a few dittos here and there too.

Would not be opposed to playing a few Pac-Men here either. I'll probably get creamed, but I need to practice that MU anyway.

 

[Mega-Spider]

Bit sudden to ask and I hate to interrupt the Pac Man discussion, but would anybody be willing to play some matches with me this weekend or early next week (got a buttload of schoolwork to do first before I can play, dunno when I'll get it done)? Been awhile since I last entered any tournies so when I get my game back I wanna practice a little bit to prepare for my next one. Its not often I get to play against any other Mega Men and I find it rather fun to fight against him, so I wanted to play the MU with my since I find Gren vs MM to be one of my favorite MUs to play, and maybe even a few dittos here and there too.

Would not be opposed to playing a few Pac-Men here either. I'll probably get creamed, but I need to practice that MU anyway.

If I have time, I'll message you. I have a Pre-Cal project over the weekend, but I can squeeze some time in if I can.

 

[Eren Swaeger]

Megaman loses the mu against cloud. Yes I've tried short hop lemons to get my space and try to hold onto the little space control I have, but his sword goes through the lemons and his fair and nair cover your retreat length. Onpy way to really get a hand on cloud is to use uair to get him in the air.

 

[xIvan321]

I think we beat Cloud to be honest, because once off stage there is really nothing he can do while we charge forward smash on him since he misses his sweetspot on the ledge. He's dead meat to us. There really isn't much he can do pre-limit and combos come near and far on the ground until his stats finally change and even then he really doesn't feel like he threatens us that much.

He has a long initial dash too so it can also make it difficult for the most aggressive Cloud players to shield on moment's notice. Its actually quite large. Perhaps he can nair in range as mobile protection, however pre-limit Cloud is actually slower than us in midair speed, therefore we CAN camp him. Limit Cloud might be a little trickier, but we have nothing to worry about in terms of his limit breaker attacks, its the stat changes that could be put into much better use against us. Other than that, I do feel like Cloud struggles against certain projectile character and one of them is us.

And Cloud's nair isn't really safe on shield either unless you space it. He's a character that rewards good spacing over aggression.

 

[CopShowGuy]

We really just have to respect Clouds dair, uair, fair, and dash attack. Then we have to be even more cautious when he gets his Limit Break filled. That projectile of his becomes transcendent and is a kill move.

 

[Sorichuudo]

Went to a small tourney yesterday, played a LOT of friendlies against two Cloud players.

Definitely feels even to me. Careless projectile usage will get you punished by a dash attack or nair, and then getting juggled.
Don't air dodge at kill percents, i don't know if his fast fall uair combos into finishing touch/uair at very high percents, but said uair hitbox stays active way too long, he doesn't even need to wait for an airdodge, if you try it you still get hit.

With both players i went even in win/loss ratio. Every time i lost was by trying to airdodge after he threw me/hit me upwards, or when trying to attack him on the way down.
The best of the two guys liked to run up to plataforms and charge his limit wating to see what i would do. I dealed with that mixing up uairs/MBs, empty jumps,bairs etc.

We must keep pestering him while he charges his limit, but be carefull with your projectiles. Sometimes i ran and shield, jumped then back and forth.

When he tried to approach with nair, i would either get back then shot some pellets as they landed; run, shield and jump out/run away; jump with an airdodge and fall with uair, or simply go for a rar bair. Doing this keeps them guessing, trying only to back away while firing pellets will get you hit and juggled.

Edge guarding him is relatively easy, but keep in mind:

If Cloud has his limit charged, he can shoot his neutral B to cover his recovery;

He may do the same with his side B, either the limit version to punish edge guard attempts, or the normal version to stall a little in the air;

Fair will spike you really hard, so if don't try to jump out in front of him and read an airdodge, that might end badly for you.

Having projectiles really help, along with leaf shield, and is what makes me think this MU is even, cause even when i was down a stock early, a quick edge guard and its even game again.

 

[CopShowGuy]

Like Ike, Cloud (limitless) will have a bad day if he is forced to recover low and doesn't space it properly. Just charge a fsmash and enjoy your stock.