Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Djent]

So guys, I just wanna ask if we could talk more on Palutena (customs off).

I think we somehow managed to simultaneously overrate her customs and underrate her default kit. She's not good, and I doubt she'll even win a large regional, but I think she has what it takes to compete in large locals and small regionals. Reflect would actually be the optimal pick in some MUs even if Super Speed was available. Warp and Autoreticle are about as good as her other custom options for those slots, so no big deal there. Really the only thing she seriously misses is Lightweight, which she would prefer to take in every MU. As it stands, she really can't kill consistently (which is definitely true if Sheik/Pika are examples of characters who "can't kill"). She has to play defensively by chipping away at an opponent from neutral and holding a lead, but she can actually do that well.

 

[Woohoo982]

need ike treatment. By that i mean massive is OP is really needed.

Mid tiers getting the Ike treatment? *shudders*

 

[LancerStaff]

Ganon really doesn't need any buffs at this point. There's a few luxuries he'd like to have (F6 jab, slightly longer grab range, and the grab on Dark Dive being stronger), but he's in a pretty good position as is. What he really needs is a few top tiers, especially Sheik, to get some changes/nerfs. He's a perfectly functional character with too many bad top tier matchups.

That's most characters... Actually, I imagine that some characters would suddenly become top tiers if the current top tiers got nerfed a bunch. Kinda like Luigi but less extreme.

 

[adom4]

No i play multiples match against ganon. I made mistakes, not a lot but more than 3. I didn't die, and i never play heavy character.
He is supposed to hit like if you run into a truck, but the truck seems to be stoped.
He doesn't kill like he's supposed to, and how he's supposed to come back, or punish semi safe move on shield? He's Bair is weak, his ftilt and dtilt are weak, his fair need the hardest read and depending of your stage position you may live, his downB his useless most of the time and his side B doesn't guarented follow up on ton of character.
Same with link, you may be playing the character, but i see him as an opponent. What can you do if i come in your face and never let you space. What the purpose of his bomb, his bommerang, why his tilt are this slow? Why i feel like he has many weaknesses, that his strenghts don't balance.

When you look at ROB you see balance, when you look at Marcina and roy, or megaman you see a form of balance.
When you look at ganondorf and others you have the impression sakurai totally underate their strenghts or the crippleness of their weaknesses.

His Bair, F-tilt & D-tilt are all some of the strongest in their class, and even if choke doesn't guarantee follow ups it always puts them in a bad position allowing Ganondorf to make a read.
I don't even think that Dorf is that great but at least try to learn about the character before saying things that just aren't true.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Regarding Ike, apparently the general belief in my region is that he's still bad, or at least high mid at best. The mid boggles. Unfortunately I'm not sufficiently versed in Ike data to refute it.

I think we somehow managed to simultaneously overrate her customs and underrate her default kit. She's not good, and I doubt she'll even win a large regional, but I think she has what it takes to compete in large locals and small regionals. Reflect would actually be the optimal pick in some MUs even if Super Speed was available. Warp and Autoreticle are about as good as her other custom options for those slots, so no big deal there. Really the only thing she seriously misses is Lightweight, which she would prefer to take in every MU. As it stands, she really can't kill consistently (which is definitely true if Sheik/Pika are examples of characters who "can't kill"). She has to play defensively by chipping away at an opponent from neutral and holding a lead, but she can actually do that well.

I now feel somewhat vindicated for being that guy who kept suggesting maybe Palutena should have at least one set with Reflect instead of keeping Super Speed across the board.

 

[Mario766]

High mid to bottom of high for Ike.

 

[TriTails]

I always see people mentioning Fox vs Luigi like its straight up terrible for Fox, which really isnt the case. That matchup is honestly pretty close to even.

Most Fox mains and Fox board seem to agree this MU is 60:40 Luigi. While it's still perfectly manageable it's not close to even. And I can see why it's 60:40.

That's most characters... Actually, I imagine that some characters would suddenly become top tiers if the current top tiers got nerfed a bunch. Kinda like Luigi but less extreme.

Mario I can see to fit that position due to the devs thinking he is perfectly balanced and refuse to buff or nerf him.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Regarding Ike, apparently the general belief in my region is that he's still bad, or at least high mid at best. The mid boggles. Unfortunately I'm not sufficiently versed in Ike data to refute it.

Just show them Ryo stomping Static Manny several times. Should clear things up.

 

[PUK]

His Bair, F-tilt & D-tilt are all some of the strongest in their class, and even if choke doesn't guarantee follow ups it always puts them in a bad position allowing Ganondorf to make a read.
I don't even think that Dorf is that great but at least try to learn about the character before saying things that just aren't true.

Oh yes they are strong, but they are not strong enough. Dtilt kill early compared to most Dtilt, but at this point ganondorf did eat way more damage. And usually a stock.
Everyone sell the character with "it's ok now but don't dare to screw up". But you know what, you can screw A LOT. Dtilt and Ftilt are frame 10 moves with some endlag and are the only ground kill options Ganondorf can land on someone who don't play totally bad. They do 13 percent hurrah, most dash attack will clank with, some dash grab will come faster, and well, even if you take it you won't gonna die unless you are at 80% already, and at this point it means that you've been hit by a lot (well too much) of thing.
Oh and the whole " once he get in" thing is BS, once he gets in he hit you, you live (unless it's the 6th time he gets in what the **** are you doing?), and everything start again.
Oh and why if you miss the tech on his side b you can be safe if you play some characters?
Or why if you sure to kill him as soon as you go offstage to chase him because, because if you time the moment where you force a reaction you can kill him whithout doing anything?
This character is not fine, he may be the closest of what a heavy should be, but unless your opponent as some pity, you have to be 2 time better than him to win. At this point going with a mid tier will result in a slaughter.

 

[Mario766]

Ike is what heavies want to be. Good ko power, combos with his fast moves with some safety in his moves. He also isn't slow as molasses unlike Ganon...or Brawl Ike.

 

[Shaya]

No reflector on any Palutena sets ensures she doesn't have winnable match ups with the likes of Luigi and Diddy Kong. I wasn't aware none of her evo sets had it, lol.

Back in the day, what was laughable about Palutena? Her tilts.
The joke being her jab is water bubbles, auto reticule is shooting guppies at you, her hair is seaweed and overall you could relate her moveset to some fishy motif. Then it came to all of her tilts: "Sashimi" because you're going to be that after EVER using one of them. So at tournaments prior to those buffs, every time our Palutena would tilt (and usually get wrecked for it) the crowd would yell at him "Oh no, Sashimi attack!"

I'm under the impression all of her tilts have been buffed since then. Down Tilt and Up Tilt have their niches, and forward tilt isn't as laughable as it once was.
Her 1111 kit is close to her best averaged across the cast bar the kinda superfluous counter.

Dthrow fair at nearly all percent is alright. Palutena players are starting to realise up throw exists at early/mid percent too (and relatively alright kill throw) and side throws lead to follow ups on typical down throw DI. If you mess up DI on down throw from mix ups, uair is always comboing out of it and will kill you sub 100%.

Then remember, she still has literally broken moves in her dash attack and back air. When you're a light character against Palutena past 110% or so, you're really really really scared of her dash attack, the sweetspot with rage/no staling/etc can readily kill. BAH.

I still maintain her customs are mostly gimmicks. The rest of her abilities have been underplayed/ignored for a long time in contrast to customs, yet a majority of her results I'm aware of are actually customs off.

-

"Kirby, Lucario, MK go even or beat Sheik". Please don't say such laughable things. You probably have no way to explain why you think that's possible either. Sure, all these characters don't seem to get destroyed by Sheik (bar Lucario) inherently, MK could very well be it but no one is going to assert that with confidence right now and Kirby is just... silly.
Kirby doesn't do well against ZSS either. Being small/hard to hit doesn't change his lack of neutral game against her that doesn't involve crouch, roll, down tilt or up tilt, if he even breathes near ZSS' shield he's taking up-b, he lacks true safety on landing aerials and relies on his small size to avoid punishment but ZSS has all the spacing tools she needs to negate his neutral + doesn't struggle to mutilate him as much as you would think.

Also why did Nairo lose his first set against ESAM?
Because ESAM, like any player who frequently gets to practice against Zero Suit Samus knows how to punish flip jump/down-b used poorly.
You may have noticed that every flip jump used by him outside of heavy advantaged state was punished. Every single one.
The lack of comfortability/overzealous usages of it cost him the set for sure. And by the second set? Nairo just didn't seem to be playing the same.

 

[RayNoire]

Mid tiers getting the Ike treatment? *shudders*

I would call both those characters fairly terrible. Bottom 5 is not a stretch.

 

[the king of murder]

Ganon is a really weird character. You see a lot of those charcters who should be really good in theory but they have few results to back them up. (Ike has proven his potential however, because Ike mains are already tearing things apart right after the patches.)

Then you see Ganon, who is supposed to be the worst character bar Samus/Zelda according to a lot of people's theory yet he has results of a high or at least mid tier if you look at SmashCapps powerranking list.

You could argue overrepresentation but let's be real. Just because a character is popular, doesn't guarantee them results. If a character is bad, popularity is not going to help get results against all these characters who have arguably equally as much skilled players. You could argue ignorance but if Ganon is overrepresented, shouldn't people know how to deal with him? They all say the same thing about Ganon, play safe keep away and you win agianst him but it just doesn't work that way because by playing safe all the time, you are playing predictable and thus allow Ganon to read you.

People seriously need to rethink that mindset against old manondorf that he needs a mistake on his opponents part to hit you. NO, he can hit you by outspacing, conditioning or light reading(which doesn't have to be a mistake) to enter the best advantage in the game. I was an advocator of Ganon being a low tier if you view my previous posts here but I am slowly changing my mind. His big flaws still remain however and I can see him dropping in terms of results as people with other characters will get better but I seriously doubt he is a low tier now.

No i play multiples match against ganon. I made mistakes, not a lot but more than 3. I didn't die, and i never play heavy character.
He is supposed to hit like if you run into a truck, but the truck seems to be stoped.
He doesn't kill like he's supposed to, and how he's supposed to come back, or punish semi safe move on shield? He's Bair is weak, his ftilt and dtilt are weak, his fair need the hardest read and depending of your stage position you may live, his downB his useless most of the time and his side B doesn't guarented follow up on ton of character.
Same with link, you may be playing the character, but i see him as an opponent. What can you do if i come in your face and never let you space. What the purpose of his bomb, his bommerang, why his tilt are this slow? Why i feel like he has many weaknesses, that his strenghts don't balance.

When you look at ROB you see balance, when you look at Marcina and roy, or megaman you see a form of balance.
When you look at ganondorf and others you have the impression sakurai totally underate their strenghts or the crippleness of their weaknesses.

*sigh
Ganon's bair is the 3rd stongest bair in the game after Zelda and Bowser. It kills Mario at like 80% near the ledge without rage. Is that your definition of weak?
His F-tilt does more damage than Ikes and Bowsers, what?
Please list me all the D-tilts that kill earlier than Ganons.

Ganon doesn't want to get in.
Ganon is like a sword character, he has so many disjoints(more than Captain), he wants to outspace you. Midrange is his most preferable range to hit you. If he hits you, you either take massive damage(people seem to forget that he has low-mid% combos and really big juggle potential because his aerials are godly) or you just die. He kinda works like Ike except more killpower than Ike and Ike has a workable Jab to fix his close quarter combat game(and mobilty).

 

[NachoOfCheese]

need to see their strenght slightly strenghted or some of their weaknesses slightly reduced.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

No reflector on any Palutena sets ensures she doesn't have winnable match ups with the likes of Luigi and Diddy Kong. I wasn't aware none of her evo sets had it, lol.

Back in the day, what was laughable about Palutena? Her tilts.
The joke being her jab is water bubbles, auto reticule is shooting guppies at you, her hair is seaweed and overall you could relate her moveset to some fishy motif. Then it came to all of her tilts: "Sashimi" because you're going to be that after EVER using one of them. So at tournaments prior to those buffs, every time our Palutena would tilt (and usually get wrecked for it) the crowd would yell at him "Oh no, Sashimi attack!"

I'm under the impression all of her tilts have been buffed since then. Down Tilt and Up Tilt have their niches, and forward tilt isn't as laughable as it once was.
Her 1111 kit is close to her best averaged across the cast bar the kinda superfluous counter.

Dthrow fair at nearly all percent is alright. Palutena players are starting to realise up throw exists at early/mid percent too (and relatively alright kill throw) and side throws lead to follow ups on typical down throw DI. If you mess up DI on down throw from mix ups, uair is always comboing out of it and will kill you sub 100%.

Then remember, she still has literally broken moves in her dash attack and back air. When you're a light character against Palutena past 110% or so, you're really really really scared of her dash attack, the sweetspot with rage/no staling/etc can readily kill. BAH.

I still maintain her customs are mostly gimmicks. The rest of her abilities have been underplayed/ignored for a long time in contrast to customs, yet a majority of her results I'm aware of are actually customs off.

-

"Kirby, Lucario, MK go even or beat Sheik". Please don't say such laughable things. You probably have no way to explain why you think that's possible either. Sure, all these characters don't seem to get destroyed by Sheik (bar Lucario) inherently, MK could very well be it but no one is going to assert that with confidence right now and Kirby is just... silly.
Kirby doesn't do well against ZSS either. Being small/hard to hit doesn't change his lack of neutral game against her that doesn't involve crouch, roll, down tilt or up tilt, if he even breathes near ZSS' shield he's taking up-b, he lacks true safety on landing aerials and relies on his small size to avoid punishment but ZSS has all the spacing tools she needs to negate his neutral + doesn't struggle to mutilate him as much as you would think.

Also why did Nairo lose his first set against ESAM?
Because ESAM, like any player who frequently gets to practice against Zero Suit Samus knows how to punish flip jump/down-b used poorly.
You may have noticed that every flip jump used by him outside of heavy advantaged state was punished. Every single one.
The lack of comfortability/overzealous usages of it cost him the set for sure. And by the second set? Nairo just didn't seem to be playing the same.

Her tilts are still pretty bad and so is her jab. There's way too much start up on these moves. They're such a huge commitment it's a joke. She has to be one of the worst designed characters in smash history.*sigh*

 

[|RK|]

No reflector on any Palutena sets ensures she doesn't have winnable match ups with the likes of Luigi and Diddy Kong. I wasn't aware none of her evo sets had it, lol.

Back in the day, what was laughable about Palutena? Her tilts.
The joke being her jab is water bubbles, auto reticule is shooting guppies at you, her hair is seaweed and overall you could relate her moveset to some fishy motif. Then it came to all of her tilts: "Sashimi" because you're going to be that after EVER using one of them. So at tournaments prior to those buffs, every time our Palutena would tilt (and usually get wrecked for it) the crowd would yell at him "Oh no, Sashimi attack!"

I'm under the impression all of her tilts have been buffed since then. Down Tilt and Up Tilt have their niches, and forward tilt isn't as laughable as it once was.
Her 1111 kit is close to her best averaged across the cast bar the kinda superfluous counter.

Dthrow fair at nearly all percent is alright. Palutena players are starting to realise up throw exists at early/mid percent too (and relatively alright kill throw) and side throws lead to follow ups on typical down throw DI. If you mess up DI on down throw from mix ups, uair is always comboing out of it and will kill you sub 100%.

Then remember, she still has literally broken moves in her dash attack and back air. When you're a light character against Palutena past 110% or so, you're really really really scared of her dash attack, the sweetspot with rage/no staling/etc can readily kill. BAH.

I still maintain her customs are mostly gimmicks. The rest of her abilities have been underplayed/ignored for a long time in contrast to customs, yet a majority of her results I'm aware of are actually customs off.

-

"Kirby, Lucario, MK go even or beat Sheik". Please don't say such laughable things. You probably have no way to explain why you think that's possible either. Sure, all these characters don't seem to get destroyed by Sheik (bar Lucario) inherently, MK could very well be it but no one is going to assert that with confidence right now and Kirby is just... silly.
Kirby doesn't do well against ZSS either. Being small/hard to hit doesn't change his lack of neutral game against her that doesn't involve crouch, roll, down tilt or up tilt, if he even breathes near ZSS' shield he's taking up-b, he lacks true safety on landing aerials and relies on his small size to avoid punishment but ZSS has all the spacing tools she needs to negate his neutral + doesn't struggle to mutilate him as much as you would think.

Also why did Nairo lose his first set against ESAM?
Because ESAM, like any player who frequently gets to practice against Zero Suit Samus knows how to punish flip jump/down-b used poorly.
You may have noticed that every flip jump used by him outside of heavy advantaged state was punished. Every single one.
The lack of comfortability/overzealous usages of it cost him the set for sure. And by the second set? Nairo just didn't seem to be playing the same.

Eh. I mean I have my reasons for the opinion on Kirby's matchups, but no one has anything but theorycraft either way. I do know that SmashGod beat VaBengal's ZSS without crouching once, but I digress.

And Sheik? I don't truly see how Kirby is at a disadvantage, particularly when he has Needles. Much of Sheik's ability to kill comes from incredible kill setups and edgeguarding. Both of these things are harder to do against Kirby. Then you have Sheik's combo game, which is again, amazing, but less effective against Kirby. On the opposite end, Kirby's combos love Sheik's fall speed.

IDK. I'm not going to pretend I'm some analytical god - I just don't see it skew hard in either direction. I'm also biased, clearly.

 

[Wintropy]

I kinda feel that Palutena is a weird design in concept: a defensive zoner with pathetic tilts, slow yet intense smashes, a few invincible moves here and there and an entire cornucopia of unique moves to play with. A comparison I've made before is Squigly in Skullgirls: near-impossible for a beginner or casual player to use competently, yet has a ton of potential if you can get into the finer details of her moveset (both characters are also, coincidentally enough, low-tier in their respective games - or maybe that's why both characters are indeed low-tier).

I went off on a tirade against Palutena's design recently, but come to think of it, I don't think she's really that wonky. Her tilts and smashes are hit 'n' miss, but she's got some good tools too: her jab may be slow, but it trades favourably with damn near everything and sets up into grab, the divine cross upon which Palutena's gameplan is founded. D-throw is a setup for just about every truly good move Palutena has: n-air itself sets up for combos and can carry the opponent to anywhere you fancy, f-air is a good poke and has a decent wall-of-pain application, b-air is an invincible kill option, u-air is the stuff conceived of only by the maddest prophet...really, except for d-air, Palutena's aerials are pretty decent and work well with her d-throw setup.

The real critique I have with Palutena's design is that it's very difficult to set up for grab beyond jab (which, as mentioned, has questionable frame data and mediocre range to hold it back) or a well-timed pivot grab. To grab, you must, by definition of the mechanic itself, get close to the opponent; to get close to the opponent, you must have a reliable approach option or a very good bait. Palutena comes up short on both. This is essentially why Super Speed and Lightweight (the latter especially) are so ubiquitous in custom sets: it's essentially a free approach at the tap of a button! If Palutena can get in, she can do what she needs to to chip enough damage onto the other fellow to eventually bait a kill with her myriad of kill options. Unreliable her KO tools may be, she's got enough clout in her punish options to just need a good read to seal the stock. The fact that at least two of her d-throw followups are kill moves and can react to different kinds of DI is just magical.

Whiiiich ultimately brings me back to my original point: Palutena's a defensive zoner who relies on her grab to get decent results. She'd be kinda-maybe-sorta in the same metaphorical boat as Luigi is she had the means to force the approach, rather than just rely on whiffy smashes and self-harmful tilts to toddle her way drunkenly to a terminal read. Ho hum~

 

[Emblem Lord]

Her tools do not allow her to create optimal situations which allow her to win games. Instead they more often then not get her killed.

This is called a "dysfunctional character"

 

[C0rvus]

I mean, at the end of the day, Kirby's biggest issue against Sheik is in the neutral, where she has a clear advantage. Kirby does have the near unique ability to duck under Needles (Jiggs can do this too, and her whole crouching idle animation stays low enough as well) and acquire Needles himself, but it's not like it's easy to get them at all. But Sheik can run circles around Kirby and has a nearly-as-good-if-not-better disadvantaged state. And, as was posted on here earlier, Sheik mains are labbing it up hard and getting better at kill confirms and combos, so that gap in advantage will slowly close as time goes on. Kirby does have stake in the matchup, but he doesn't win by any stretch of the imagination.

Also @ Emblem Lord could you elaborate on that? I don't see what you mean about Palutena. Sure she isn't great at approaching or footsies, but her tools "end up getting her killed" doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Wintropy]

Also @ Emblem Lord could you elaborate on that? I don't see what you mean about Palutena. Sure she isn't great at approaching or footsies, but her tools "end up getting her killed" doesn't make any sense to me.

Every tilt but d-tilt is horribly laggy, her smashes even more so. If you whiff either (which is very easy to do, especially with the poor range and weak frame data), you can leave yourself wide open for punishment.

Often it's best to just forgo her smashes full-stop in favour of a grab setup. It's difficult, but the reward of the move versus the potential danger of execution is more beneficial.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Risk outweighs reward generally on moves that SHOULD be the inverse.

When Ganons ftilt is less risky then yours AND more rewarding, thats a ****ing problem.

 

[Djent]

No reflector on any Palutena sets ensures she doesn't have winnable match ups with the likes of Luigi and Diddy Kong. I wasn't aware none of her evo sets had it, lol.

They did have a few. 21x2 was practically a ledge-camping Villager counter that I wish someone would have used. There was at least one Autoreflecticle set which was probably the optimal pick vs. Luigi.

Plus, it's not like one couldn't have forgone Lightweight (like now ) if it meant the difference between viable and unviable.

 

[C0rvus]

Well sure Palutena's tilts are pretty bad, but you could always not use them. Plenty of characters have nearly useless moves. And it's not like they have no uses at all. Up tilt can cover ledge options and is a decent anti-air since she lowers her hurtbox during its animation. Down tilt used to kill at pretty weirdly low percents, though I don't know if that's still the case. Forward tilt is bad, though. Of course it goes without saying that she would benefit from having better moves, but I hardly think bad tilts make her totally disfunctional.

 

[Wintropy]

Well sure Palutena's tilts are pretty bad, but you could always not use them. Plenty of characters have nearly useless moves. And it's not like they have no uses at all. Up tilt can cover ledge options and is a decent anti-air since she lowers her hurtbox during its animation. Down tilt used to kill at pretty weirdly low percents, though I don't know if that's still the case. Forward tilt is bad, though. Of course it goes without saying that she would benefit from having better moves, but I hardly think bad tilts make her totally disfunctional.

I never said they were bad. Every move has its niche (except f-tilt - I can't conceive of a single reason why you'd consciously use it over her other tilts).

You asked why her moves can get her killed. That's why: poor frame data, wonky hitboxes, reliance on hard read, weak risk / reward ratio. You can definitely choose to forgo them, of course. But if you do use them, you put yourself at risk, which is why her moves feel poorly-crafted in execution.

I think "dysfunctional" may be a tad overstated, but a good deal of her moveset just doesn't work very well. Doesn't mean she's a poor character, she's just a character with a more self-evident quantity of sub-optimal moves than others.

EDIT: To add onto this, it's the fact that her smashes - to wit: the moves most characters use to seal a stock - are unviable in most circumstances. That means she has to rely on other options, such as her grab, to kill.

The issue is that she doesn't have much in the way of options to set up for grab. It isn't her moves in themselves that make her a tricky character to use, it's the fact that the moves wouldn't really work overall in her fundamental gameplan.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Samus uair fails to link? You sure about this one?

It links fine if you follow DI well. Otherwise, it doesn't. It's annoying, but tolerable. It's just another thing that Samus has to deal with. Not the first priority by a long shot, because u-air is already one of Samus's three best moves. (Her entire game revolves around Charge Shot, zair, and u-air.)

I have a much bigger issue with f-air failing to link, although I'm pretty sure even that's better than it used to be. There are three big issues with Samus that should be the priority: dysfunctional jab, bad hitboxes, and excessive lag on grab. Although, at this point, I've gotten so used to how bad her grab is that I'd almost prefer a buff to make n-air useful.

Ganon really doesn't need any buffs at this point. There's a few luxuries he'd like to have (F6 jab, slightly longer grab range, and the grab on Dark Dive being stronger), but he's in a pretty good position as is. What he really needs is a few top tiers, especially Sheik, to get some changes/nerfs. He's a perfectly functional character with too many bad top tier matchups.

The issue is that the game just doesn't favor characters like him. How would you change Sheik to make her not invalidate Ganondorf? You'd have to change a lot. I agree that Ganon needs a faster jab and longer grab range though. Beyond that, he doesn't need much in the way of buffs. Because small changes to specific moves won't change his fatal flaw, which is that his basic character archetype, despite being fun, is not suited for top-level play in smash games.

The most frustrating thing about Samus is that she's so almost good. Seriously, you could make her mid-tier just by fixing all her stupid hitbox/linking nonsense. U-air fails to link (sheik's is identical and it almost never fails), F-air is just goofy, U-smash still doesn't link, F-smash has a hitbox the size of a pool ball, the list goes on.

Dedede would be a lot better automatically if Gordo's just had more health (6? 7? not sure). As is a lot of characters just blow past the ledge trap game he's practically based on.

I know, right? We're almost there. She's bottom tier, but a couple well-placed buffs could make her viable. It's just that a lot of her moves don't work the way they should.

 

[Ffamran]

Ever heard of being a person who's from a country that doesn't have English as a main language? PUK's French if anyone's wondering.

 

[PUK]

Ganon is a really weird character. You see a lot of those charcters who should be really good in theory but they have few results to back them up. (Ike has proven his potential however, because Ike mains are already tearing things apart right after the patches.)

Then you see Ganon, who is supposed to be the worst character bar Samus/Zelda according to a lot of people's theory yet he has results of a high or at least mid tier if you look at SmashCapps powerranking list.

You could argue overrepresentation but let's be real. Just because a character is popular, doesn't guarantee them results. If a character is bad, popularity is not going to help get results against all these characters who have arguably equally as much skilled players. You could argue ignorance but if Ganon is overrepresented, shouldn't people know how to deal with him? They all say the same thing about Ganon, play safe keep away and you win agianst him but it just doesn't work that way because by playing safe all the time, you are playing predictable and thus allow Ganon to read you.

People seriously need to rethink that mindset against old manondorf that he needs a mistake on his opponents part to hit you. NO, he can hit you by outspacing, conditioning or light reading(which doesn't have to be a mistake) to enter the best advantage in the game. I was an advocator of Ganon being a low tier if you view my previous posts here but I am slowly changing my mind. His big flaws still remain however and I can see him dropping in terms of results as people with other characters will get better but I seriously doubt he is a low tier now.



*sigh
Ganon's bair is the 3rd stongest bair in the game after Zelda and Bowser. It kills Mario at like 80% near the ledge without rage. Is that your definition of weak?
His F-tilt does more damage than Ikes and Bowsers, what?
Please list me all the D-tilts that kill earlier than Ganons.

Ganon doesn't want to get in.
Ganon is like a sword character, he has so many disjoints(more than Captain), he wants to outspace you. Midrange is his most preferable range to hit you. If he hits you, you either take massive damage(people seem to forget that he has low-mid% combos and really big juggle potential because his aerials are godly) or you just die. He kinda works like Ike except more killpower than Ike and Ike has a workable Jab to fix his close quarter combat game(and mobilty).

You see (well i think you don't) when a character has one strenght, it needs to be awesum.
Ganondorf strenght is his power, combined with the double edge sword that his tall is.
Zelda strenght is her power when she manage to land surgical move
Bowser is overall like ganon
They don't rack damage easily, they are slow, they are quite easy to kill (bowser may be the exception) because each time you read any of there move you know they won't escape the punish and because they lack escape. They look like Annie in LOL, yeah they are scarry but one mistake from them is asking for a huge punish.
But Annie is actually dangerous even if you're full life and well prepared.
An optimal ganondorf need to read you 4 to 5 times in the neutral before killing you, as need zelda and bowser. Because even if they read, they usually won't be able to hit with there strongest move.
To compare it's like if the best gimper of the game had no way to send you offstage bar his smashes.
An optimal sheik will take two stocks in 5 reads. Small reads "he will be on this side of the stage"
An optimal MK will take your three stocks
Seriously, each time a ganondorf kill me i deserved to die at least 3 time. Each time i took the advantage i keep it until he fall to his death.
You ganondorf mains are overrating his power, not because he's weak, but because he's not strong enough. He's not supposed to beat sheik or even go toes to toes with her, but killing a mid weight at the edge of the stage, with a slow telegraphed move on a slow character, at 80, where some smashes on weaker char are as powerful and safer/easier to land and kill; that's not impressive. There should be something else, somewhere in this awful strange data that explain why they are barely stronger than char that have more in everything else. But no, nothing. Enjoy your mediocrity, and if your opponent doesn't respect you like he needs he will eat a smash and die, at least.

 

[Nu~]

On a completely unrelated topic, @PEPESPAIN has created a video of many of the traps that we Pac-Man boards members have come up with.
A compilation of our shenanigans if you will.

Some situational, all lethal.

Man, my love of this character grows every day lol

 

[SpottedCerberus]

On a completely unrelated topic, @PEPESPAIN has created a video of many of the traps that we Pac-Man boards members have come up with.
A compilation of our shenanigans if you will.

Some situational, all lethal.

Man, my love of this character grows every day lol

This masterpiece just got replaced as my favorite Pac-Man video. The character is just so cool.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Ever heard of being a person who's from a country that doesn't have English as a main language? PUK's French if anyone's wondering.

I wasn't referring to any grammatical error. I was referring to the idea that DK, Charizard, and Ganon "need" any changes at all.

 

[FullMoon]

On a completely unrelated topic, @PEPESPAIN has created a video of many of the traps that we Pac-Man boards members have come up with.
A compilation of our shenanigans if you will.

Some situational, all lethal.

Man, my love of this character grows every day lol

2:06 was just too good.

Though looking at it a lot of those clips had the opponent be at 120% or higher.

The struggle to kill is real.

 

[Cassio]

I've been handed down the dark secret of Kirby vs sheik according to SoCal lore. Revealed for all to see now it is....roll > uptilt .

Ganon really doesn't need any buffs at this point. There's a few luxuries he'd like to have (F6 jab, slightly longer grab range, and the grab on Dark Dive being stronger), but he's in a pretty good position as is.

Pls, we need the return of SH autcancel dair idc how good it is .

 

[Nu~]

2:06 was just too good.

Though looking at it a lot of those clips had the opponent be at 120% or higher.

The struggle to kill is real.

Mainly because PEPE had to fish for the setups and ended up prolonging the battle. Most of them kill a LOT earlier ( the dash attack to bell to side B which kills at 60%). When practiced more, they can all land at earlier percentages and kill.

Like, that bell to back throw to usmash will not only kill at 150 lol. You're looking more at 80-100% depending on weight.

 

[outfoxd]

2:06 was just too good.

Though looking at it a lot of those clips had the opponent be at 120% or higher.

The struggle to kill is real.

Duck hunt laughs at everyone's struggles.

 

[Nobie]

The key factor to remember when discussing Ganondorf is Rage. When you've knocked him around for a while, suddenly needing only three good reads becomes two good reads.

 

[Mario766]

That's a hyperbole. Ganon doesn't kill you in 3 good reads, he just gets percent. There's no normal situation where Ganon would kill you in 2 reads when he wouldn't already kill you in that time, unless you ran straight into an up tilt or a smash attack.

 

[Shaya]

Eh. I mean I have my reasons for the opinion on Kirby's matchups, but no one has anything but theorycraft either way. I do know that SmashGod beat VaBengal's ZSS without crouching once, but I digress.

And Sheik? I don't truly see how Kirby is at a disadvantage, particularly when he has Needles. Much of Sheik's ability to kill comes from incredible kill setups and edgeguarding. Both of these things are harder to do against Kirby. Then you have Sheik's combo game, which is again, amazing, but less effective against Kirby. On the opposite end, Kirby's combos love Sheik's fall speed.

IDK. I'm not going to pretend I'm some analytical god - I just don't see it skew hard in either direction. I'm also biased, clearly.

Sorry, came off the wrong way there (as per usual). I think Kirby does fine against Sheik in a way that gives merit to the character in the sense that there's stuff to explore. But if we're thinking customs off I don't see how it could be argued even, let alone in his favour. No.1 character in the metagame doesn't just fart counters, otherwise they wouldn't be no.1 in the metagame. In a 1 to 4 scale, it wouldn't be worse than -1 though.

I think if Kirby was "high tier" or so power level, he would be ridiculous in all the fast fall match ups. His mobility just comes off as just too underpar to compete fluidly enough to be a notable meta threat to some of the characters Kirby's traits do well in. Minor buffs here and there are continually pushing him into a nice spot, but he's probably around the point where he won't be considered undertuned by the balance team due to his apparent wifi-strengths.
He kinda feels like he's suffering something similar to Falco, but the buffs that came to falco amping up his amazingly strong combo game has (in my mind at least) turned him into an overall worthwhile character. I'm not really sure what "strength" Kirby has in this game though, he's somewhat average in so many areas. I think at best you find Kirby to be pseudo-ganon fear inducing.
His very average mid-range is likely the non-adhesion he sorely needs. Imagine if he had a good dash attack or pivot sliding for spacing (hence my Falco comparison)?

I did watch that set with SmashGod/Bengals too. Bengals adapted to the match up over the course of the games (he didn't realise how poorly kirby deals with zss shield) and in a last stock last hit situation which ZSS was solidly in the lead for, he got outclutched by back air. The woes of playing a feather weight with no vertical forgiveness available with 2 frame active moves.

 

[Ffamran]

I wasn't referring to any grammatical error. I was referring to the idea that DK, Charizard, and Ganon "need" any changes at all.

Oh, well, "need" would imply something necessary for survival which technically, nobody in the game needs anything. Now, "wants" and "shoulds" are different. Should Ganondorf have a change? Maybe. I mean, nobody was complaining that his Down Smash was less useful than Samus's, but his Down Smash was changed. Would we want changes to Sheik? A majority would.

Anyway, more Falco ranting. Edit: To clarify, it's less of ranting, but pointing out how if customs is allowed, Fox will abuse that reduced end lag on his Impact Blaster. Falco can mess with your momentum, but Fox is going to take it on a new level of annoyance. Rant is more towards Burst Blaster being a pile of crap.

Falco's default Blaster vs. Fox's default Blaster range. Falco's default Blaster travels 15 blocks. Very reasonable when you people have PTSD remembering that Brawl Falco's Blaster fired lasers that traveled past Final Destination's ledge while he was at the other end of the stage. Oh, and it fired faster. Brawl Blaster was horribly broken. It's fine and all for Falco just looking at this, right? ... Wait until you scroll down...

This is Fox's default Blaster range at 17 blocks. Notice the range and notice how Fox after the laser hits, he's already holstering. This is fine for Fox since his Blaster does no hit stun. Even the range is fine, but remember that his Impact Blaster shares the same end lag...

Burst Blaster has less range than both of their defaults... and yes, that's a glancing hit at its max range. Yes, in return for 2 less frames of startup, but only on the ground as both their defaults fire at frame 9 in the air, Falco loses range, loses overall damage, and actually fires slower than Fox by 2 frames. Falco's trigger frames happen at frame 23 on the ground and 21 in the air while Fox's is frame 21 on the ground and 19 in the air. Should I also remind people that Fox's default Blaster travels 17 blocks while Falco's only travels 13.5? Oh, yeah, Fox can have that insane range, but Falco? Nah, this Blaster-abusing bird that we allowed to happen in both Melee and Brawl can't.

Impact Blaster seems reasonable, right? Notice what's happening: the laser just hit Marth and Fox is already holstering his Blaster. At most, Fox is like -10 - random guess here, so bear with me - since the laser does set knockback. Now, bear in mind that Impact only travels 2 blocks less and does 1% less than Falco's default Blaster, but Fox can act at frame 40, 19 frames earlier than Falco and also, Fox is the 4th fastest runner in the game. -10 at that range is nothing. See the issue here?

 

[|RK|]

Sorry, came off the wrong way there (as per usual). I think Kirby does fine against Sheik in a way that gives merit to the character in the sense that there's stuff to explore. But if we're thinking customs off I don't see how it could be argued even, let alone in his favour. No.1 character in the metagame doesn't just fart counters, otherwise they wouldn't be no.1 in the metagame. In a 1 to 4 scale, it wouldn't be worse than -1 though.

I think if Kirby was "high tier" or so power level, he would be ridiculous in all the fast fall match ups. His mobility just comes off as just too underpar to compete fluidly enough to be a notable meta threat to some of the characters Kirby's traits do well in. Minor buffs here and there are continually pushing him into a nice spot, but he's probably around the point where he won't be considered undertuned by the balance team due to his apparent wifi-strengths.
He kinda feels like he's suffering something similar to Falco, but the buffs that came to falco amping up his amazingly strong combo game has (in my mind at least) turned him into an overall worthwhile character. I'm not really sure what "strength" Kirby has in this game though, he's somewhat average in so many areas. I think at best you find Kirby to be pseudo-ganon fear inducing.
His very average mid-range is likely the non-adhesion he sorely needs. Imagine if he had a good dash attack or pivot sliding for spacing (hence my Falco comparison)?

I did watch that set with SmashGod/Bengals too. Bengals adapted to the match up over the course of the games (he didn't realise how poorly kirby deals with zss shield) and in a last stock last hit situation which ZSS was solidly in the lead for, he got outclutched by back air. The woes of playing a feather weight with no vertical forgiveness available with 2 frame active moves.

That's definitely fair. I don't think Kirby is high-tier for the record, nor do I think he counters Sheik. Just that many of Sheik's advantages don't hurt him as much as they do everyone else. Sheik still (as someone else said) has the Neutral (moreso if Kirby has no needles), and the mobility (as you said). Advantaged state... not certain since, again, Kirby falls out of combos and has multi-jumps. I imagine he might have the edge in keeping advantage going. Sheik has the footsies and disadvantaged states are about even?

I can accept slight disadvantage Kirby's side. I'm still waiting to see this matchup played at high/top level between equal players.

 

[meleebrawler]

You see (well i think you don't) when a character has one strenght, it needs to be awesum.
Ganondorf strenght is his power, combined with the double edge sword that his tall is.
Zelda strenght is her power when she manage to land surgical move
Bowser is overall like ganon
They don't rack damage easily, they are slow, they are quite easy to kill (bowser may be the exception) because each time you read any of there move you know they won't escape the punish and because they lack escape. They look like Annie in LOL, yeah they are scarry but one mistake from them is asking for a huge punish.
But Annie is actually dangerous even if you're full life and well prepared.
An optimal ganondorf need to read you 4 to 5 times in the neutral before killing you, as need zelda and bowser. Because even if they read, they usually won't be able to hit with there strongest move.
To compare it's like if the best gimper of the game had no way to send you offstage bar his smashes.
An optimal sheik will take two stocks in 5 reads. Small reads "he will be on this side of the stage"
An optimal MK will take your three stocks
Seriously, each time a ganondorf kill me i deserved to die at least 3 time. Each time i took the advantage i keep it until he fall to his death.
You ganondorf mains are overrating his power, not because he's weak, but because he's not strong enough. He's not supposed to beat sheik or even go toes to toes with her, but killing a mid weight at the edge of the stage, with a slow telegraphed move on a slow character, at 80, where some smashes on weaker char are as powerful and safer/easier to land and kill; that's not impressive. There should be something else, somewhere in this awful strange data that explain why they are barely stronger than char that have more in everything else. But no, nothing. Enjoy your mediocrity, and if your opponent doesn't respect you like he needs he will eat a smash and die, at least.

I don't think it's nice to diss players for using a character you deem mediocre or bad.

Yes the notion that Ganon only needs 3 or so reads is hyperbole, but he still has overall the strongest moveset in terms of knockback and damage (you can count the moves he has that DON'T kill on one hand), and he actually does have some relatively speedy moves in uair and his good tilts.

His real problem, along with most of the other heavyweights, is that he's just too slow in a game full of mobility options making it easier for others to evade his highly damaging moves. Take Zangief in Street Fighter: he too can be prone to being walled out or outrun but if he gets you cornered you'll have a hell of a time getting away without taking serious damage when the only real escape option you have is a highly lariat punishable jump. If he was in Smash, you could just airdodge through his nonsense and ruin him.