G&W, underrated or bad?

[sadistic]

Have you seen his shield? Even at full strength, like half his body is exposed to shield pokes.

 

[MudkipUniverse]

I think G&W Is underrated.

reasons include throws, Nair, smashes, and maybe Dair. however, there is alot of bad stuff (weight, defensive options)

 

[MudkipUniverse]

I think G&W Is underrated.

reasons include throws, Nair, smashes, and maybe Dair. however, there is alot of bad stuff (weight, defensive options)

 

[FrenkM0J0]

I think G&W Is underrated.

reasons include throws, Nair, smashes, and maybe Dair. however, there is alot of bad stuff (weight, defensive options)

I think you're right. The only problem with G&W seems to be the fact that no-one (except QERB) can really put these pros to good use in practice, because it's hard to overcome the cons. However I think that it is definitely possible, as the real problem with playing him is his lack of options. His combos mostly consist of dtilts, fairs and a nair as finisher. Also bair can be used to rack up damage but is in mu opinion hard to combo with. That's pretty much it i guess.

 

[Ridel]

I think you're right. The only problem with G&W seems to be the fact that no-one (except QERB) can really put these pros to good use in practice.

I've done some thorough observation comparing QERB's G&W to other players G&W. QERB plays very defensively but not in a traditional way, as he as limited use of his shields and roles as those are some of G&W's worst options. QERB seems to play to play the baiting game, siting back and waiting for one little slip up even on the tiniest things like missed Shines. He then compliments this baiting game with a brutal punish game mainly through the use of G&W's amazing gimping abilities and powerful disjoints. QERB also doesn't put an emphasis on his combo game usually landing two to three good hit before returning to neutral. Other G&W players seem to want to try to be very aggressive trying to get in and try to land powerful blows and combos as quickly as possible. In a way their not playing G&W wrong as they're trying to avoid as much pressure as possible but they seem to lack any knowledge of playing G&W defensively since they assume it's terrible anyways so they get destroyed with just one hit, doesn't help that G&W is extremely light. I don't know what QERB focuses on when he trains but based on his play-style he seems to wants to make G&W's negligible defensive options better by use of different methods.

I could be completely wrong about this as this is all purely based on observation, I have never spoken to QERB or even met the guy so this is all just a QERBall. Alright I couldn't resits making that pun.

 

[Ridel]

I think G&W Is underrated.

reasons include throws, Nair, smashes, and maybe Dair. however, there is alot of bad stuff (weight, defensive options)

Don't forget about D-Tilt, F-Air, and Side-B if you land a 9. B-Air would actually be good if it could be L-Cancelled as it pops the opponent up allowing for decent follow-ups. Also his D-Smash and U-Smash are pretty terrible; D-Smash because it has a very very strict sweetspot, and U-Smash is too slow to use effectively.

 

[RetroGamersGuru]

I'm late to the discussion, but I have a training partner who knows G&W. Our discussion of him basically led me to the conclusion that he's pretty underrated, but it will be hard to improve his meta due to his poor design choices like with shield and lack of l-canceling most aerials.

 

[Temkin]

Really more people should be playing him and improving the meta. Like a lot of people have already said. Qerb has shown that he can take on the top players and win. Just have to let people know that they can play other characters in the game and still have fun and win.

 

[RetroGamersGuru]

Really more people should be playing him and improving the meta. Like a lot of people have already said. Qerb has shown that he can take on the top players and win. Just have to let people know that they can play other characters in the game and still have fun and win.

Exactly! There's a reason that I decided to stick with my main! Besides, it's basically a sin with the current mid and low tiers since all of them are pretty underdeveloped. The main one that I think is in trouble has been in trouble with going from high to low over the years: Zelda. Or maybe Bowser since his best player is DJ Nintendo and ends up not used often.

I've talked with other players, and they hate watching low-tiers since they seem "one-dimensional." It's frustrating since most of what they see is what the players do know currently.

 

[Temkin]

Exactly! There's a reason that I decided to stick with my main! Besides, it's basically a sin with the current mid and low tiers since all of them are pretty underdeveloped. The main one that I think is in trouble has been in trouble with going from high to low over the years: Zelda. Or maybe Bowser since his best player is DJ Nintendo and ends up not used often.

I've talked with other players, and they hate watching low-tiers since they seem "one-dimensional." It's frustrating since most of what they see is what the players do know currently.

They're just played differently. And ever since the big movement for smash these past years everyone just has grown to picking high tiers. Because they're easier to be good with and their meta game is so developed. I am sure over the next few years, Low Tiers will stay low unless someone that is amazing at the character, like Amsa's Yoshi, comes by and just blows everyone away with the character.

 

[felipe_9595]

I forgot i commented here.

In the end i didn't drop him after all .3

http://www.twitch.tv/usmash/b/653356318?t=3h21m59s

 

[RetroGamersGuru]

Really once someone gets attached to a character, the character never goes away.

 

[Arrogant Commander]

Bad. Definitely bad.

Underrated. Definitely underrated. I can beat anyone as G&W.

 

[Temkin]

Money match?????¿

 

[Arrogant Commander]

Money match?????¿

ok where u at??

 

[Temkin]

ok where u at??

Kansas city right now. At a tournament.

 

[Arrogant Commander]

Kansas city right now. At a tournament.

im in southern ontario

 

[Temkin]

im in southern ontario

Ahh I see. Well maybe if I ever see you. Lol.

 

[404House]

I believe underrated. He has a very undeveloped meta as one of the least popular characters, almost on the same level as Kirby and Zelda's popularity. His flaws stand out for sure, like the lack of an L-cancel for some of his attacks and an awful shield.

I'm going to go off record though, and just say; his nair is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in smash history. It has a hitbox surrounding his whole body and even slightly larger, does big damage, and has big KO potential. He has many kill moves as well other than just nair, notably 9-Hammer and fsmash.

He has decent matchups, but not the best; I feel he struggles the most against Peach, Marth, and Samus, simply because he has just about no defense and no approach that works well. Some other bad ones might be Captain Falcon, Ganon, Link, and Young Link. The knee, Ganon's ridiculous power, and Y.Link/Link's projectiles block GnW from fully starting something.

Some decent MUs to look towards for are Jigglypuff, Kirby, and Pichu. Versus Jigglypuff, I find it a little in GnW's favor, if it were, say, Qerb. Jigglypuff's weight can be taken against him/her, and along with GnW's easy kill moves, this helps, the only hard thing to counter being the bair and fair, boy I can't tell you how much I hate that. Pichu is not hard (and usually never is anyways), the big disjointed hitboxes help to kill the small little *******. And Kirby, well, it's just Kirby, lightweight and not hard to counter with anything.

TL;DR - GnW has bad shield and awful defense/shield, while he has much KO potential with very strong and damaging moves.

 

[ErXtDe]

Even if he is bad, I'll never give up on him. I'm gonna be the G&W master, and never stop playing him no matter what.

 

[FrenkM0J0]

Even if he is bad, I'll never give up on him. I'm gonna be the G&W master, and never stop playing him no matter what.

Dat mentality doe

 

[ErXtDe]

Dat mentality doe

ya damn right

 

[Xtra_Crispy]

Utilt is an incredible combo extender that I think is pretty underused. WD under/ into an opponent --> utilt after any combo starter pops up fast fallers so nicely for whatever you want.

I kind of see G&W as the ultimate glass canon against fast fallers, since he really lacks any defense except WD back and stuffing with disjoints. Falco lasers straight wreck him because powersheilding is hard as **** and dair edgeguards the hell out of him so personally I think that's more difficult than fox. Fox is pretty winnable if they don't run away and laser on a big stage.

Optimally played, honestly I could see falcon being an even matchup since jab, dtilt, and utilt stuff all of his approaches on "reaction". Spacing fairs on top of that to rack up percent and you should be able to kill falcon off one of the three above. Edgeguarding is pretty much guaranteed if you are smart. Unfortunately, he kills you just as easy if he lands one knee so I'd say even at best.

Edit: Marth vs. G&W is honestly my least favorite matchup in Melee. Most of what Gdubs has going for him is disjoint and marth just ****s all over that. (I honestly think he's the character most similar to G&W but that's just me). Pile that on top of the fact that you can't really combo him that well and it's bad news...

 

[Parttimenoob]

Optimally played, honestly I could see falcon being an even matchup since jab, dtilt, and utilt stuff all of his approaches on "reaction". Spacing fairs on top of that to rack up percent and you should be able to kill falcon off one of the three above. Edgeguarding is pretty much guaranteed if you are smart. Unfortunately, he kills you just as easy if he lands one knee so I'd say even at best.

Edit: Marth vs. G&W is honestly my least favorite matchup in Melee. Most of what Gdubs has going for him is disjoint and marth just ****s all over that. (I honestly think he's the character most similar to G&W but that's just me). Pile that on top of the fact that you can't really combo him that well and it's bad news...

Agreed in both points. Considering you also have easy chaingrabs on Falcon from 0-30 and from 60-kill, and your Nair is amazing for edgeguards (and edgeguard setups), i would give it even.

Marth vs. GW is a super hard matchup, because, as you already said, Marth basically does the same things that GW does, but better. I think your best bet are Juggles, and as usual, every edgeguard should be deth for both of you.


To give my overall opinion on GW, i think he is harshly underrated. With lightshielding, clanging and movement, i feel like you might be able to work on a better defense (mind you i said better, not good). His offense is really good, and can be developed even more. For example, while most GWs know the chaingrabs (those on fastfallers anyway) i havent seen too many sets where they actually get utilized (espacially of Dthrow, f.x. vs. Shiek, YL, Pika, Falcon). I feel like with efficient edgeguarding, alternate defense and appropriate punishes, Game-and-Watch can really be a good contender.

 

[Xtra_Crispy]

I really hadn't thought of clanking as a defensive option. I feel like the chair could be a pretty good move for this since it's not too strong and has a giant hitbox. IIRC the weaker move can be acted out of quicker?

 

[ChivalRuse]

Nobody makes use of those good things but QERB because nobody puts any time into the character besides QERB. If people actually would try to work on Game and Watch's metagame, we might get somewhere.

 

[Parttimenoob]

I really hadn't thought of clanking as a defensive option. I feel like the chair could be a pretty good move for this since it's not too strong and has a giant hitbox. IIRC the weaker move can be acted out of quicker?

Ftilt might be good, but frame 14 (iirc) is too slow most of the time. Dashattack is really good for clanking, it clanks (f.x.) with Marth Fsmash and Peach Dsmash, allowing you to habe frame advantage. If you search for it, there is a really good Kadano video on that. (melee mechanics)

 

[SPoitter]

I think poor G&W is terrible, he has a bunch of room to improve, and much more people should play him competitively, but right now as I see it, G&W is a giant flawed gimmick, you can shield only a couple attacks, he's easy to combo and is light-weight, his defensive options aren't very well, he can't roll either, but he does a have a couple good moves and a entertaining combo game, while being relatively easy to use, he'll probably win a major in like, 10 years maybe? I give us 10 years to make G&W 20xx techs

 

[Xtra_Crispy]

He's kinda got that falcon syndrome where if he had like 1-2 little things adjusted he'd be lightyears better. But they aren't, so he's stuck in low tier city

 

[FrutSnax]

I honestly think he is underrated, but I'm a bit bias of course.

His combo game has a potential to be one of the best, just look at Qerb and what he can do. That being said, he can be easily comboed, but if you can overcome that you can dominate with just a couple of moves. His wavedash is pretty good, so if you can figure it out, you can move around well.

Honestly, I just want to see G&W move up in the tier list, certainly above Roy at the very least.

 

[PinballWizard00]

I don't find G&W to be as good as his future outings, such as horrible defense game and not being able to L-cancel three of his aerials, but he has positives. His positives including a good comboing ability, small size, and having a good waved ash. Overall, aside from Qerb, representation has been very little, and his potential is not as high as Roy.

 

[Plunder]

Yea G&W's lack of shield and defensive handicaps (terrible techs and roll) are really the most crippling feature when you look at Melee and every other character. It basically makes everything pretty much 100% safe on him, so most top/mid tiers can attack him without fear of retaliation. That is a SERIOUS problem and it's what made me put him on the back burner, you can't go all out offense in Melee you will lose half of all neutral encounters (especially since GW doesn't have the safest attacks or approaches)

I wanted to talk about his size too, he's not actually small when using him in practical matches. When he's in hitstun or jumping/DJing....his body spreds out and contorts all over the place making him quite a large target (combine that with his weight and fall speed he's too easy to combo). He does have the small crouch but it's not entirely useful since he can't CC to high percents. His nose also stick out quite far and is easy to grab and hit.....It's all very sad when I think about it.

His recovery is also not as good as many think, when a good player knows how to exploit it it becomes quite bad.

 

[PinballWizard00]

His recovery is also not as good as many think, when a good player knows how to exploit it it becomes quite bad.

Yeah, his recovery is not good as the newer games. Also, his grabs aren't really useful and doesn't help with his poor grab range and one of the slowest pummels.

 

[Parttimenoob]

I would disagree on the "grabs arent useful" thing. Grabs are great, the problem is getting them. Dthrow can set up techchases, chaingrabs, aerial finishers, it launches Juggles. I wouldnt count that as bad. The other grabs are not as good, but they still all have mixup-potential, notably because three of the throw-animations are the same.

 

[PinballWizard00]

I would disagree on the "grabs arent useful" thing. Grabs are great, the problem is getting them. Dthrow can set up techchases, chaingrabs, aerial finishers, it launches Juggles. I wouldnt count that as bad. The other grabs are not as good, but they still all have mixup-potential, notably because three of the throw-animations are the same.

You're right, at least G&W has grabs, the problem is grabbing, other than that, his grabs are decent.

 

[GGLN]

G&W Strengths:

STRONGEST Nair in the game does 16% damage
Forward smash has the 3RD highest knockback of any forward smash. Also the hitbox stays out after the initial hit, I've thrown out the move early and had people walk into the lingering hitbox to set them up for combos.
D-tilt has insane edge guard potential, can gimp Falcon, Ganon, and Spacies unless you **** up your timing
D-tilt comes out quickly, leads to fair, dair, nair, and a lot of solid combos.
Up tilt has huge priority and can cut through almost anyone trying to come down on you.(I've cut through a Falco's down air)
His wavedash easily makes up for his dodge and roll
His recovery is insane, can easily gimp almost any character if you can get them offstage
Grabs: can chain grab most characters if you follow their DI, easily chaingrabs spacies with upthrow, I've seen Qerb chain grab a sheik. Also has great combo game off of his grabs, at high percents downthrow to upsmash against spacies is guaranteed to hit and to kill. Also opponent cannot follow grab animation
MU: No one knows the G&W matchup, you can use this to your advantage.
Disjointed hitboxes on most attacks.
Low start up lag on most attacks.
Up B sweet spots the edge, very difficult to edge guard.
Good spacing on nair, fair, and f-smash.

G&W Weakness:
CANNOT play defensively due to roll, dodge, and shield.
CANNOT play offensively due to speed, weight, and inability to L-cancel. if you put too much pressure on the person G&W will get punished.
B-moves are almost completely useless (Except recovery). Spacing for side B is too tight, also not a reliable kill or damage move, you have tons of better options to rack up damage and at mid-high percentages your best kill moves are your side smash or a nair. G&W's down B (bucket) has too much start up lag, too much ending lag, cannot be used reliably in high level or even low level tourney. Even if you fill the bucket up the lag on oil spill is too readable.
Lack of edge game: it's easy for G&W to get back on the ledge to to his sweetspotted up B but once you're on the ledge it's very tricky to get back on stage due to G&W's movement speed.
Attacks have long ending lag, any missed attacks will be punished.
Projectile is gimmicky and unreliable. I've occasionally used it to stall my opponents aerials and lead into fair, nair, of f-smash, but it's easy to get around and leaves G&W in a solid amount of lag.
D-smash is worthless. Spacing isn't that great, damage and knockback aren't great, only kills at high percents when spaced CORRECTLY and is too slow.
Up smash is powerful, but it's spacing is very tight and it's start up lag makes it highly readable and it's ending lag makes it highly punishable.
Slow recovery: (This problem also affect C.Falcon) Once G&W gets hit he's stuck in a massive amount of hitstun, you will get combo'd too **** so you have to rely heavily on DI.

I see people using up-b to break combos and as an oos option (G&W's up special comes out on frame 3 or something like that, it's practically a shine) however it leaves G&W vulnerable on the way down and due to his slow falling speed this is a terrible option that easily leads to a punish.


MY THOUGHTS:
I've always thought of G&W as F rank. I don't know how Qerb does so well with him. I mained him for about a year before switching to Sheik. I pull G&W out when up against spacies, mostly because I think it's a really fun MU. Once a spacie's off stage all G&W needs to do is follow him and fair, his recovery generally allows him to safely come back from most distances. Sometime you don't even need to do that work. I've jumped and naird on the ledge and if timed right the nair will out prioritize a spacies up b and side b. I think this is actually a matchup G&W does pretty well in. Fox is harder than Falco, because a Fox will kill you up and unless your DI is really good you'll be dying around 60-90%. The Falco matchup is better, as long as you sweetspot the ledge his spike becomes useless and he has to kill you horizontally which is where G&W's recovery really shines. I've lived up to 200% against Falco with G&W. All other S-tiers the MU's pretty abyssmal, C. Falcon and IC's aren't too bad, but I'd rather pull out Sheik, Marth, Ganon, or even C. Falcon. Jigglypuff can rest like a MOFO due to G&W's sheild, Peach's float takes G&W's downtilt away and that's a core part of G&W's play. Marth outspaces G&W and destroys, I don't care that Querb beat the Moon, play G&W against any Marth and tell me what happens. Sheik is pretty terrible, once you get grabbed your only real option is to spam up B until you get a chance where you're not in hitstun, or pray the Sheik messes up her chaingrab.

Overall the only real MU I can recommend with G&W is spacies, because it's really easy to wavedash and downtilt to outspace their shines and once you take their shines away most mid-level players don't know how to actually play spacies.Then it's just a simple matter of getting the spacy off stage and gimping his recovery. It's not an even MU or even an MU in G&W's favor but it's an MU I've had a lot of experience in, it's one I enjoy, and it's one I've done well in for the most part. But all it takes is one mistake and the game's over. You basically have to play G&W perfectly to have a chance in this, or any match-up. And for the most part, even if you play him perfectly and your opponent plays their character mediocre they're still having an easier time than you.

Playing G&W is an uphill climb and I would not recommend anyone ever main him because you have so many better options. Even if you don't want to main an S-rank their are some amazing low tier characters with a lot more potential than G&W with similar play styles.