Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[FullMoon]

Interesting. Personally, I expect Lucas and Ryu to be top 10 when this happens. Ryu has all the potential in the world, and Lucas has stupid footstool shenanigans.

If footstool shenanigans with a character that sets them up with a throw using one of the worst grabs in the game makes said character top 10, then Greninja would be like top 5 lol.

 

[Blobface]

I could honestly see Smash 4 20XX hurting Sheik simply because, assuming 100% optimization, she would get bopped every time she uses her Up-B on the 1 frame of ledge vulnerability.

Also, speaking of optimization, I successfully used a Tip N Slide combo during a Wifi match with someone here on smashboards.

 

[Antonykun]

I could honestly see Smash 4 20XX hurting Sheik simply because, assuming 100% optimization, she would get bopped every time she uses her Up-B on the 1 frame of ledge vulnerability.

Also, speaking of optimization, I successfully used a Tip N Slide combo during a Wifi match with someone here on smashboards.

I doubt something as simple as that would stop her.
As a game gets closer to being optimized. Safe moves and characters with relatively high rewards will always be favored. Thats pretty much smash 4 sheik in a nutshell

 

[YoshiYoshi]

I've been thinking about this too much lately and I feel like I can't coexist with the Yoshi boards with my feelings, but Yoshi is the worst character in the game.

I don't say this without excessive study of gameplay and data. I've learned a lot about this game and I can say that Yoshi is fundamentally flawed and doesn't have the tools to compete against the top characters at the highest level.

1. His shield radius is poor. I've learned a lot about shield radius playing all these months. Every character besides Yoshi has a shield that is quite a bit larger than Yoshi's while full. This allows them to block attacks/projectiles inches sooner than Yoshi. Large characters like Bowser and DK benefit from their excessive shield radius...Yoshi has an introverted shield. He's taller than his shield, so his head is especially vulnerable.

2. Frame 16 Fair, Frame 11 Bair. Besides Dedede and Shulk, Yoshi has the slowest combination of side-airs in the game. Every character besides Yoshi has either a faster Fair, faster Bair, or faster Fair and Bair than Yoshi's Bair, which is his fastest side-air. Every character has at least one better air attack to spam than Yoshi. Yoshi depends on Nair to get quick hits, but Nair requires that Yoshi put himself into vulnerable situations (overlapping hurtboxes).

3. Bad grab, bad grab game. Not much more to be said than that. At least ZZS can lock you into a grab and 0-death you. Yoshi's grab game depends entirely on the opponent screwing up their landings or air-dodging at the wrong time. It's a slow grab with poor tether range and a weak throw - truly the worst grab in the game.

4. He's really hard to play against, but the matchup is still in the opponent's favor. There are many things Yoshi can do to you, but for the most part they can all be played around. Yoshi, as a character is more or less a barometer for whether or not you are good at the game or not. If you play fundamentally well and can react to his unusual movement, Yoshi is very easy to predict and punish.

5. Overall, bad frame data. Besides Jab, F-tilt, N-air, and U-air, Yoshi has mediocre to bottom ten frame data. Frame data compares poorly to just about every match-up in key areas, especially side-airs. Yoshi has more endlag than most characters (except he doesn't have a jab combo, which is where most characters suffer from lag, and where most scrubs perceive Yoshi as 'laggless'). I'm not going to ramble on about the bad comparisons, but you have to look at the numbers, analyse them to understand them.

Yoshi has a lot of unique positives in his favor, but he also has unique flaws and some of his positive qualities work against him (his high double jump makes it impossible to 'feint' away and retaliate).

I love Yoshi, Yoshi stands tall in this game, but he isn't viable. He's overrated by the community, often hated by the community, but he's just a fictional dinosaur frog horse who isn't viable in this game against good players.

Anyways, I figured I'd say this here because no one reads the Yoshi threads because people don't like Yoshi anyways I'll retire from posting now for sure so Yoshi thread can go back to normal (and toil away trying to improve a character who is destined for bottom tier five years from now unless the community never improves).

 

[Ikes]

One frustrating thing as a Falcon main recovering is that if you go below the ledge and Up-B someone, you have 40 frames of cooldown where you do your cool flip. If you send the opponent into the stage and he techs, chances are he can get a free hit.

If we're talking them teching when they're practically touching the stage, thats not possible

Beefy Smash Dudes covered how there comes a point where you cannot tech whatsoever

and the tech animation as well as the frames where you're going towards the stage will probably make it impossible or near impossible to punish, especially since he gains fair distance

Theory time! In the real smash 4 20XX, when everyone does everything optimally, what characters will rise? As a starting point, lets say everyone masters and always applies everything MySmashCorner has made a vid on.

Ryu is a very obvious one, Peach would probably be very high tier at absolute optimal sub-TAS levels of play, Diddy will get even higher since his banana shenanigans would be optimized, same with his momentum things, his combos and all. Mega Man seems like he'd go up, Lucas Pac Man, Wario, Sheik obviously, Rosalina, G&W, Marth (absolute perfect spacing would be terrifying), Roy for the same reason, DK, Zelda, Fox, ZSS, Wii Fit. All of these characters are ones I think would benefit more than any else with optimal play. I probably missed a few though.

-snip oops double post-

 

[Blobface]

Actually, since Falcon Dive is a grab, and thus releases them like one, I'm not sure if it actually has any hitlag. It might be techable no matter what.

And urgh I feel your pain @ TheReflexWonder , it's so silly that Captain Falcon/Ganondorf put themselves at risk of death just to look cool.

 

[Yonder]

I've been thinking about this too much lately and I feel like I can't coexist with the Yoshi boards with my feelings, but Yoshi is the worst character in the game.

I don't say this without excessive study of gameplay and data. I've learned a lot about this game and I can say that Yoshi is fundamentally flawed and doesn't have the tools to compete against the top characters at the highest level.

1. His shield radius is poor. I've learned a lot about shield radius playing all these months. Every character besides Yoshi has a shield that is quite a bit larger than Yoshi's while full. This allows them to block attacks/projectiles inches sooner than Yoshi. Large characters like Bowser and DK benefit from their excessive shield radius...Yoshi has an introverted shield. He's taller than his shield, so his head is especially vulnerable.

2. Frame 16 Fair, Frame 11 Bair. Besides Dedede and Shulk, Yoshi has the slowest combination of side-airs in the game. Every character besides Yoshi has either a faster Fair, faster Bair, or faster Fair and Bair than Yoshi's Bair, which is his fastest side-air. Every character has at least one better air attack to spam than Yoshi. Yoshi depends on Nair to get quick hits, but Nair requires that Yoshi put himself into vulnerable situations (overlapping hurtboxes).

3. Bad grab, bad grab game. Not much more to be said than that. At least ZZS can lock you into a grab and 0-death you. Yoshi's grab game depends entirely on the opponent screwing up their landings or air-dodging at the wrong time. It's a slow grab with poor tether range and a weak throw - truly the worst grab in the game.

4. He's really hard to play against, but the matchup is still in the opponent's favor. There are many things Yoshi can do to you, but for the most part they can all be played around. Yoshi, as a character is more or less a barometer for whether or not you are good at the game or not. If you play fundamentally well and can react to his unusual movement, Yoshi is very easy to predict and punish.

5. Overall, bad frame data. Besides Jab, F-tilt, N-air, and U-air, Yoshi has mediocre to bottom ten frame data. Frame data compares poorly to just about every match-up in key areas, especially side-airs. Yoshi has more endlag than most characters (except he doesn't have a jab combo, which is where most characters suffer from lag, and where most scrubs perceive Yoshi as 'laggless'). I'm not going to ramble on about the bad comparisons, but you have to look at the numbers, analyse them to understand them.

Yoshi has a lot of unique positives in his favor, but he also has unique flaws and some of his positive qualities work against him (his high double jump makes it impossible to 'feint' away and retaliate).

I love Yoshi, Yoshi stands tall in this game, but he isn't viable. He's overrated by the community, often hated by the community, but he's just a fictional dinosaur frog horse who isn't viable in this game against good players.

Anyways, I figured I'd say this here because no one reads the Yoshi threads because people don't like Yoshi anyways I'll retire from posting now for sure so Yoshi thread can go back to normal (and toil away trying to improve a character who is destined for bottom tier five years from now unless the community never improves).

"Yoshi is the worst character in the game." ...I'm not usually one to say or do this, but I stopped reading there. Are you seriously stating that Yoshi is worse than Zelda, Samus, and Palutena?

Am I missing someone? I know it's late over here in Canada but I must be missing someone here. I'm not saying Yoshi's top tier or anything [Lower high] but worst eh? Umm...no. I'm not a Yoshi main but...no.

 

[Shaya]

After playing Ike for a while recently (using him in tournament a little too), while making no claims that I've mastered him or fully grasped his potential, don't think he's necessarily high tier.
He's definitely strong though. Like very strong, and maybe the fact that he has amazing read punishes (I tend to focus on reaction) combined with an overall solid kit correlates to a high viability character.

He combos you to around 70% practically (especially on fast fallers) for free every stock and this combined with being one of the heaviest characters allows him to almost always bring a game back. However for confirming kills and actually having a solid neutral game? I'm worried. I don't think up throw confirms at a wide range of percent with good DI, unless I'm really really bad. He suffers against non-close range shielding a lot from the faster well rounded oos characters and although he can be safe from well placed aerials, they by no means function as a shield trap like ... again, the fast characters. Shield in general seems to be a strong answer to him and he fortunately has the mobility specs to feint out into grab against those you've conditioned or do little else, but I feel he does so in a really telegraphed manner. Ike jumping towards you or dashing towards you doesn't cause much fear; especially if you're shorter than pivot back air.

His edgeguarding game may be the business/truth though, fair is good enough and he has means for his other aerials too but whatever shenanigans that can be guaranteed-stocks will help I'm sure.

If I were to guess the upper limit of Ike, it would be around the same level as Brawl Tink/Peach/Fox/Wolf, as he currently stands in my mind. His deficiencies aren't enough to limit him from anyone "below" (I feel confident asserting this), as high damage long range arcing disjoints with auto cancels can be pretty overbearing. But I still feel he's lacking the glue to be a consistent threat with his out of shield options being overall too slow.

Look forward to seeing more Ike though, no reason not to believe he can pull in results.

 

[Ikes]

is anyone gonna mention how DK can kill Ike guaranteed out of two hits and two grabs?

1 DA
1 Bair
1 Up B
2 cargo uthrows
2 uairs
3 pummels
1 dtilt

everything outside DA and dtilt were part of the combos
and IIRC both combos are guaranteed

Could this make DK a hard counter to Ike?

 

[-RedX-]

I'm pretty sure that combo works on a few more other characters. The Pits being 2 of them.

 

[Blobface]

Could this make DK a hard counter to Ike?

Nope, one especially strong combo does not define a matchup, especially such a knockback specific one. It is something that's dangerous for sure, but I would definitely not say it's a hard counter.

Mew2King's trademark elbow strike attack is a hard counter to every character though.

 

[Minordeth]

Theory time! In the real smash 4 20XX, when everyone does everything optimally, what characters will rise? As a starting point, lets say everyone masters and always applies everything MySmashCorner has made a vid on.

I love hypotheticals.

I'd say as people master more of the... well... Smash Corner stuff, I'd say these characters will crawl up into a more consistent contender status more than others: Little Mac and Ryu.

Little Mac is actually a disgusting character mercifully blessed with awful recovery and limited options once he gets off the ground. I realize the popular meme is "Just grab and gimp lol" in regards to playing him, but have you played a really good Mac? Or seen one? Look at Sol from MVG. Imagine that dude with spot on perfect pivots, perfect shielding, and utilizing Mac's absurd frame data and super armor in conjunction with all that plus whatever footstool techs and jab locks this man can do (keep in mind Sol actually implements a lot of this already, and it's what makes his Mac so formidable). Grab the guy who pivots and perfect pivots his absurd Ftilt or messes with your dash grab with his frame 1 jab. He has abusive moves everywhere.

Fortunately, his skill floor to reach tourney play is extremely high.

Ryu should be more or less self-explanatory. He is basically Traps: The Character. Couple that with constant perfect shielding and fast forward the development of his movement options and you have a beast.

 

[Shaya]

"Yoshi is the worst character in the game." ...I'm not usually one to say or do this, but I stopped reading there. Are you seriously stating that Yoshi is worse than Zelda, Samus, and Palutena?

Am I missing someone? I know it's late over here in Canada but I must be missing someone here. I'm not saying Yoshi's top tier or anything [Lower high] but worst eh? Umm...no. I'm not a Yoshi main but...no.

Hyperbole is the best tool on Earth. Take "Worst character in the game" as "not viable at top level". He went onto mention some nuances in an analytical and mostly agreeable succinct fashion (even though they aren't necessarily "flaws" that cripple). I'm sure Sinister Slush would like this guy.

Skim reading to ensure no profanities is actually an infuriating ability that keeps me up at night.

@ Y YoshiYoshi while I don't think it's the worst grab (Villager in my mind) the reward gives him very little at this stage and it hurts him a lot in the current metagame.
There is some gap in what allows Yoshi to succeed, but I wouldn't be certain there's no answer to be had yet. Egg throw's full potential couldn't have been mastered yet IMO.

---

On the point of perfect play, then my recent look at trying to get front facing b-reverse wavebounces, but my goodness it is difficult. However, if I were to think about it's use at a consistent level it's pretty crazy.
Yoshi is one of those characters... front facing nair or a "wave dash backwards" egg lay; sounds scary enough.
ZSS could do the exact same move combination; while facing backwards and zoning with bair with the wavebounce option of paralyzer is amazing, I think being able to do it from the front would give her better traps in a less telegraphed manner.
Essentially every character with a front facing aerial they may pressure better with than their back airs can use a fantastic burst movement option on top of it with generally good rewards on many characters and likely a degree of not being punishable by several.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Yoshi is the worst character in the game.

1. His shield radius is poor.

2. Frame 16 Fair, Frame 11 Bair.

3. Bad grab, bad grab game.

4. He's really hard to play against, but the matchup is still in the opponent's favor.

5. Overall, bad frame data.

I'm ready to get the warning.

This post.....by golly, jumping jehoshaphat. I can't even. What the......my goodness. Plz lord, have pity on his soul for he hath not know what he is saying.

 

[RayNoire]

If anything, Yoshi's underrated.

Sure he doesn't like shields, but neither does Fox and Fox doesn't have a command grab and a top-tier disadvantage state.

 

[HFlash]

I've been thinking about this too much lately and I feel like I can't coexist with the Yoshi boards with my feelings, but Yoshi is the worst character in the game.

I don't say this without excessive study of gameplay and data. I've learned a lot about this game and I can say that Yoshi is fundamentally flawed and doesn't have the tools to compete against the top characters at the highest level.

1. His shield radius is poor. I've learned a lot about shield radius playing all these months. Every character besides Yoshi has a shield that is quite a bit larger than Yoshi's while full. This allows them to block attacks/projectiles inches sooner than Yoshi. Large characters like Bowser and DK benefit from their excessive shield radius...Yoshi has an introverted shield. He's taller than his shield, so his head is especially vulnerable.

2. Frame 16 Fair, Frame 11 Bair. Besides Dedede and Shulk, Yoshi has the slowest combination of side-airs in the game. Every character besides Yoshi has either a faster Fair, faster Bair, or faster Fair and Bair than Yoshi's Bair, which is his fastest side-air. Every character has at least one better air attack to spam than Yoshi. Yoshi depends on Nair to get quick hits, but Nair requires that Yoshi put himself into vulnerable situations (overlapping hurtboxes).

3. Bad grab, bad grab game. Not much more to be said than that. At least ZZS can lock you into a grab and 0-death you. Yoshi's grab game depends entirely on the opponent screwing up their landings or air-dodging at the wrong time. It's a slow grab with poor tether range and a weak throw - truly the worst grab in the game.

4. He's really hard to play against, but the matchup is still in the opponent's favor. There are many things Yoshi can do to you, but for the most part they can all be played around. Yoshi, as a character is more or less a barometer for whether or not you are good at the game or not. If you play fundamentally well and can react to his unusual movement, Yoshi is very easy to predict and punish.

5. Overall, bad frame data. Besides Jab, F-tilt, N-air, and U-air, Yoshi has mediocre to bottom ten frame data. Frame data compares poorly to just about every match-up in key areas, especially side-airs. Yoshi has more endlag than most characters (except he doesn't have a jab combo, which is where most characters suffer from lag, and where most scrubs perceive Yoshi as 'laggless'). I'm not going to ramble on about the bad comparisons, but you have to look at the numbers, analyse them to understand them.

Yoshi has a lot of unique positives in his favor, but he also has unique flaws and some of his positive qualities work against him (his high double jump makes it impossible to 'feint' away and retaliate).

I love Yoshi, Yoshi stands tall in this game, but he isn't viable. He's overrated by the community, often hated by the community, but he's just a fictional dinosaur frog horse who isn't viable in this game against good players.

Anyways, I figured I'd say this here because no one reads the Yoshi threads because people don't like Yoshi anyways I'll retire from posting now for sure so Yoshi thread can go back to normal (and toil away trying to improve a character who is destined for bottom tier five years from now unless the community never improves).

Can we get a mod to ban this guy before he causes more stage IV carcinoma on the smash boards? There is so much disgustingly wrong with this post. I am here to read educated, insightful opinions from people who know what they are talking about. This is just abhorrent.

I love hypotheticals.

I'd say as people master more of the... well... Smash Corner stuff, I'd say these characters will crawl up into a more consistent contender status more than others: Little Mac and Ryu.

Little Mac is actually a disgusting character mercifully blessed with awful recovery and limited options once he gets off the ground. I realize the popular meme is "Just grab and gimp lol" in regards to playing him, but have you played a really good Mac? Or seen one? Look at Sol from MVG. Imagine that dude with spot on perfect pivots, perfect shielding, and utilizing Mac's absurd frame data and super armor in conjunction with all that plus whatever footstool techs and jab locks this man can do (keep in mind Sol actually implements a lot of this already, and it's what makes his Mac so formidable). Grab the guy who pivots and perfect pivots his absurd Ftilt or messes with your dash grab with his frame 1 jab. He has abusive moves everywhere.

Fortunately, his skill floor to reach tourney play is extremely high.

Ryu should be more or less self-explanatory. He is basically Traps: The Character. Couple that with constant perfect shielding and fast forward the development of his movement options and you have a beast.

I'd also add Marth to that discussion. Imagine, always doing the perfect amount of fox trotting and dash cancelling to always get the perfect tipper? Against that kind of Marth, no one will ever live past 80%.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I've been thinking about this too much lately and I feel like I can't coexist with the Yoshi boards with my feelings, but Yoshi is the worst character in the game.

Have you not read my posts?
My threads that have honestly been made cause I lost a tournament set from characters like diddy (at the time) who easily got kill confirms and damage off dthrow for free cause why the heck not Let's put some cons for most of Yoshi's slow rusty kit.

Or even this.

Though even I the pessimist will admit, there's one or two things right and that's about it. The rest of it is not true though for what I see as right.
He's not the worst but he certainly isn't top 15 is all I'll add on.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

This is a lot easier than I thought it would be, even if it is limited to vertical walls. Apparently the angle caused by spikes allows you to tech at any point on the way down:

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

After playing Ike for a while recently (using him in tournament a little too), while making no claims that I've mastered him or fully grasped his potential, don't think he's necessarily high tier.
He's definitely strong though. Like very strong, and maybe the fact that he has amazing read punishes (I tend to focus on reaction) combined with an overall solid kit correlates to a high viability character.

He combos you to around 70% practically (especially on fast fallers) for free every stock and this combined with being one of the heaviest characters allows him to almost always bring a game back. However for confirming kills and actually having a solid neutral game? I'm worried. I don't think up throw confirms at a wide range of percent with good DI, unless I'm really really bad. He suffers against non-close range shielding a lot from the faster well rounded oos characters and although he can be safe from well placed aerials, they by no means function as a shield trap like ... again, the fast characters. Shield in general seems to be a strong answer to him and he fortunately has the mobility specs to feint out into grab against those you've conditioned or do little else, but I feel he does so in a really telegraphed manner. Ike jumping towards you or dashing towards you doesn't cause much fear; especially if you're shorter than pivot back air.

His edgeguarding game may be the business/truth though, fair is good enough and he has means for his other aerials too but whatever shenanigans that can be guaranteed-stocks will help I'm sure.

If I were to guess the upper limit of Ike, it would be around the same level as Brawl Tink/Peach/Fox/Wolf, as he currently stands in my mind. His deficiencies aren't enough to limit him from anyone "below" (I feel confident asserting this), as high damage long range arcing disjoints with auto cancels can be pretty overbearing. But I still feel he's lacking the glue to be a consistent threat with his out of shield options being overall too slow.

Look forward to seeing more Ike though, no reason not to believe he can pull in results.

His edgeguarding ranges from good to amazing imo depending on the MU. His Eruption easily catches and kills telegraphed recoveries and if they are on the ledge, you can cover every single getup option aside from letting go of the ledge.
Eruption is no doubt the best on-stage edgeguarding tool in the game. His fAir is amazing too.
That said, I think one of the best ways to get a kill with ike is definitely edgeguarding, as strange as it may sound with such a buff character. Oh and also uTilt, rising SH bAir and uAir.

 

[Ikes]

Nope, one especially strong combo does not define a matchup, especially such a knockback specific one. It is something that's dangerous for sure, but I would definitely not say it's a hard counter.

Mew2King's trademark elbow strike attack is a hard counter to every character though.

it doesnt seem incredibly dependent, looks like it could work up til 20 or so which is not bad at all considering he only needs to get a grab off, and with his big grab range that isnt horrible. One more and he's secured a stock.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I see a lot of misconeptions being tossed around in here again.

One of them is "<insert character>" being "bad against shield".
What you actually meant to say though is that "shield is really freaking good in this game".
And what that actually means is: "This game doesn't offer a whole lot of effective counterplay against shield to begin with".

Standing grabs are garbage in this game. Pivot grab isn't very good either and typically the weakest option out of a pivot. Dash grab is kinda dumb for some characters but not universally strong an option. Fluidly stringing safe moves into each other also isn't really a thing in this game because aerials are often punishable and/or lose to grounded moves head-on. So no real shield pressure like you used to be able to apply in Melee or Brawl with Marhish stuff like fair -> dencing blade mix-ups. Hardly ever see shield breaks and have virtually never seen a good ol' shieldstab/shieldpoke because most moves don't seem to do a lot of damage to shields. I mean, for most characters get up attack is the move that does the highest amount of damage to shields - doesn't that say just about everything?

So who is really left that is not "bad" against shield?

Sheik 'cause fair, needles, bouncing fish and having a very good dash grab [note that this would technically be good character design if other defensive options like spotdodge were actually working against her].
Wario I guess because mixing up dair and bike approaches with bite can work ... it'll likely stop working once Wario counterplay starts to envolve though.
Marcina because shield breaker is seriously a really good move.
Falcon I guess?

... but really, Sheik is the only character that can purposefully and harshly punish you for pressing the shiled button in the wrong situation.

Everybody else is mainly "good" against shields because they get lots of reward from a grab [Luigi, Pikachu, ...] but overall there's like 5 characters that are not bad against shields by most people's standards. So Yoshi and Fox supposedly being "bad" against shields is not as much a flaw of the character as a flaw of the game itself.

 

[Hippieslayer]

wut abot ganon

 

[Mario766]

Ike doesn't get many guaranteed kill confirms off grab, against fast fallers up throw f-air can be a kill confirm at the ledge which is pretty easy to convert, but besides that you're stuck with 50/50s and well placed tilts/edgeguards. Ike doesn't really NEED kill confirms when he has releatively fast tilts that DO kill. Up tilt is frame 11 and kills at 110 on any non-heavy and even earlier with rage. Down tilt is interesting, as if used on someone slightly below the ground gives Ike a strong kill confirm with a true combo f-air. There's also his frame 7 back air which is disgusting at how strong it is. Ike's real strength is gonna be at hard it's gonna be for some characters to get back on the stage with Eruption covering EVERY option and can blow through pretty much every recovery, even Sheik's. As Ike players get better he'll get more results, as the only way he can go is up. The transition to Dream Land also gives Ike another really good low ceiling stage, perfect for Ike's new up air which kills almost as early as Rosalina's. I honestly think Ike doesn't NEED a really good OoS option. Jab is frame 4, or frame 11 OoS and has a rather strong range for a non-disjointed attack. His tilts can be used OoS depending on the attack used against his shield and for whiffs dash attack can be used now due to the buffed frame data and kill as early was 80 at the ledge.

Also, what Ike doesn't get with kill confirms he gets with 50/50s and having one of the best aerials for beating air dodges, with his absurdly lingering up air which almost covers an entire air dodge invincibility frames.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

wut abot ganon

All his anti-shield options can be reacted to without much trouble. As long as you don't overcommit and leave yourself unable to smuggle in a mere jab you can reliably beat his side B - in most cases that move is better at catching landing opponents.

 

[Trifroze]

In Smash 4 20XX Sheik is definitely the one I'd see staying at the top. You just can't beat her frame data, range and safety combined with her decent reward in optimal play. Sheik's only problem would be characters who, even though they have worse neutral, get so much more reward off of landing a hit that she simply dies first despite winning neutral more often.

As such ZSS might go up but it's a sort of win-lose scenario. As people play the neutral optimally it gets tougher for her to not have her grab spotdodged and falling shorthop aerials powershielded and punished all the time, but at the same time landing a single bair into grab, grab or nair at low/mid percents and landing dsmash or zair into grab at virtually any percents except extremely low would almost always mean your opponent losing a stock especially on her counterpicks, and her flip kick can consistently be used for hitting the ledge vulnerability out of reaction on many recoveries. Optimized punish game with ZSS is beautiful to look at.

Ryu has his combos and true SRK is ridiculous out of reaction, but SDI gets out of his utilt stuff and his neutral is too bad for him to be very good since his reward for landing a hit isn't that great.

Falcon is another one that sort of goes both ways, in optimized play he should never be able to recover back onto the stage if he gets thrown off, but at the same time he will dash grab you out of almost anything and rack 20-30% from each one. His footstool stuff that I've covered before is also pretty ridiculous, but the difficulty of confirming into those consistently may be too difficult even for 20XX. There's also the problem of never landing a raptor boost again aside from landing traps, which granted, it's decent for.

Little Mac is an interesting one in the same sense, he should never make it back onto the stage if both players play optimally (although that's kinda already the case) but he can literally powerarmor through your attacks 3 times and take your stock off if you play a lightweight. People say it takes 3 mistakes to lose to Ganondorf, mostly as hyperbole, but with Little Mac it actually is that way for real. With KO punch it's often 1 mistake unless you're sitting at 0%, although even then he can just dtilt you twice and kill you if he has rage.

3. Bad grab, bad grab game. Not much more to be said than that. At least ZZS can lock you into a grab and 0-death you. Yoshi's grab game depends entirely on the opponent screwing up their landings or air-dodging at the wrong time. It's a slow grab with poor tether range and a weak throw - truly the worst grab in the game.

ZSS can't actually 0 to death anybody out of a grab since all her aerials put her into frame disadvantage at that low of a percentage. It only works from around 30-50% depending on the character and only on stages like Halberd, Delfino, Dreamland platforms and sometimes Town & City. Yoshi has a much worse grab game yes, but Yoshi's dash grab is very fast compared to anything ZSS has. Just laggy at the end. Villager probably has the worst grab in the game, while Yoshi has the worst throws tied with some other characters. Also tether range isn't automatically a good thing, for instance ZSS' grab is 16 frames from immediate range but from its max range it's 24 frames. Reacting to a 16 frame grab with spotdodge is arguable, but reacting to a 24 frame one is easy for anyone not aged >50.

 

[Nobie]

How is it that people still can't agree as to which characters have good and bad neutral games? Is there just something fundamentally different about the way people perceive neutral?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

How is it that people still can't agree as to which characters have good and bad neutral games? Is there just something fundamentally different about the way people perceive neutral?

It seems to be that way though "neutral", "disadvantage" and "advantage" are not as clear-cut in smash as in other games so there might be some confusing instances.

 

[Trifroze]

How is it that people still can't agree as to which characters have good and bad neutral games? Is there just something fundamentally different about the way people perceive neutral?

Because most people don't realize all of Ryu's aerials have like 3924843758 frames of hitlag on shield and aren't safe despite doing ~20% damage and having very low landing lag. Combined with the fact that his projectile is pretty bad and his mobility and grab game isn't amazing he has essentially nothing for shields.

 

[san.]

Ike has kill confirms from dtilt (may miss if fully spaced and DI away), both sides of nair, and uthrow. It's just that from dtilt and uthrow, it's very frame tight, sometimes close to frame perfect for it to true combo. IMO his kit is mostly centered around defense and counter-attacking, so there's no need to overextend since he can get punished that way.

Here's some for nair (training mode combos *might not work against air dodge at the very last few frames). You can probably only get a fair off if you fully space it and they DI away.

Even with DI, fair covers a lot of distance. Dtilt->fair works. Uthrow->uair works if they DI away only if you buffer a dash for a few frames.


Going for the 50/50 or just hitting with bair is far easier. It's good to go for the kill setup if they happen to get hit by one of those moves. By 50/50, I mean that you can only air dodge to avoid some of these, but then uair destroys your air dodge. It's good to mix up the true combo and highly rewarding strings.


I think Ike is weak against shield (comparatively) only if the opponent has a really quick fair OoS, otherwise, he has the ability to stuff direct aggression on reaction by throwing out an aerial or fastfalling into powerful ground options.

 

[meleebrawler]

Because most people don't realize all of Ryu's aerials have like 3924843758 frames of hitlag on shield and aren't safe despite doing ~20% damage and having very low landing lag. Combined with the fact that his projectile is pretty bad and his mobility and grab game isn't amazing he has essentially nothing for shields.

This is what Shakunetsu Hadouken was made for. Chips away at your shield even if you powershield it, can vary the speed to make it harder to do so, and trying to punch it out lets Ryu get closer.

He also has his fair sourspot doing great shield damage and crossing up.

But yes a Ryu that has to approach is definitely not at his best.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

How is it that people still can't agree as to which characters have good and bad neutral games? Is there just something fundamentally different about the way people perceive neutral?

I don't think people have played a competent ryu so they just say things. Then it gets repeated and becomes meme like. I don't think there's anything wrong with ryu's approach.

 

[san.]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...wju2Vq5a4irDPLvwfxuOKVGxk/edit#gid=1716482302

This source seems to be relatively accurate with block advantage after testing a few numbers.

Ryu's good aerials are -7 to -10 on shield drop. That's respectable enough.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

is anyone gonna mention how DK can kill Ike guaranteed out of two hits and two grabs?

1 DA
1 Bair
1 Up B
2 cargo uthrows
2 uairs
3 pummels
1 dtilt

everything outside DA and dtilt were part of the combos
and IIRC both combos are guaranteed

Could this make DK a hard counter to Ike?

Absoluely not. Never jump to this conclusion. Ever.

 

[TriTails]

A question: Is Fox's MHS F-air + footstool guaranteed? I had this match against Rosalina and because lulz I picked Fox out of the blue (And regretted it). Got rekt for my entire first stock and I was basically just like 'Well, bleep this match'. Then I got her off-stage, went 'HAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA! Footstool! I'm done!' and took her stock at like 20%. Still got rekt in the second stock, but that's another story.

I also have seen this gimp on a Sheik thanks to the video Yikarur provided me with. So... is this actually legit? Because Fox's falling speed makes MHSes look as easy as tapping A. The problem is the footstool, but is there any way we can get it? I wonder?

 

[Trifroze]

This is what Shakunetsu Hadouken was made for. Chips away at your shield even if you powershield it, can vary the speed to make it harder to do so, and trying to punch it out lets Ryu get closer.

He also has his fair sourspot doing great shield damage and crossing up.

But yes a Ryu that has to approach is definitely not at his best.

Shakunetsu hadoken is definitely more useful for neutral than normal hadoken, but you can just jump over it or forward roll through it on reaction and punish Ryu from a fairly decent distance (in some cases almost half an omega stage across). A lot of characters can also just crouch and/or crawl under it. I was interested in using Ryu when he came out and labbed him pretty hard but eventually got pretty disappointed at things like this, although he's still probably a good character.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

If I can recovery extra fast (if I'm not too far away) I'll usually try to hit Ike with the top of DS while getting the ledge sweetspot. If I am too far away for that hitbox I either do a Dancing Blade stall and hope it throws them off or when feeling brave I hold down so I skip the ledge a bit and that will hit Ike (and hopefully there won't be any trades )

The longer your stall, the greater the chance Ike will have super armour when he releases Eruption. At that point it really doesn't matter if DS hits Ike or not. Going quicker than expected is the best bet for getting around Eruption for the reason San mentioned.

To touch on an earlier post, Robin is one of the easiest characters to hit with Eruption. As long as you jump before charging there isn't much Robin can do. Too slow of movement speed, can't stall, Elwind doesn't move fast enough to really throw Ike off, there isn't really a risk of a hitbox hitting us before we expect it and knocking us out of charge, and he can't even change his launch position very much. You kinda know once he gets within X range of the stage edge he has to use his Up B, but can't really do so before hand.

@ Shaya The other Ikes covered most of the things pretty well already, but I will chime in and say that ya, Ike's kill confirms are pretty tight timing wise. Like to get the most out of Uthrow to Uair sometimes you have to follow their DI, quickly move to either side a little bit, and THEN jump and Uair. Still a true combo, and if you miss by the right margin they've most likely air dodged and Uair's frames will catch them in the cooldown, but its a lot of work. Very rewarding, but takes a long time to get down.

Good to hear people trying him out though. How did using him in tournament go?

 

[Mr. Johan]

All Robins should be conserving their double jump, and if Ike jumps before charging Eruption, I would think Robin can light his landing spot with an Arcfire column and still have time to get back to the ledge.

Though in that case Ike can just coast down and slap him in the face with Fair, but eh

Not to mention the recent patch increased Robin's horizontal control on his Elwind gusts to such a degree that he can actually move backward with it. He doesn't have to recover so rigidly, and thus predictably, anymore.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

All Robins should be conserving their double jump, and if Ike jumps before charging Eruption, I would think Robin can light his landing spot with an Arcfire column and still have time to get back to the ledge.

Though in that case Ike can just coast down and slap him in the face with Fair, but eh

Not to mention the recent patch increased Robin's horizontal control on his Elwind gusts to such a degree that he can actually move backward with it. He doesn't have to recover so rigidly, and thus predictably, anymore.

That certainly helps, but as far as I'm aware the thing doesn't have a hitbox above his feet/waist correct? That's still going to end with him going head first into a fireball. Horizontal control helps, but given Eruption's blast radius, if Robin's far out enough to avoid it I don't think he's grabbing the ledge afterwards. Would mostly mean a larger radius that Robin can start Elwind from during recovery, but he still ultimately has to go to the ledge.

When Ike jumps for Eruption edgeguarding, its really just when the other character is about to reach the same plane as the stage edge because most projectiles are horizontal. Arcfire would have to be cast before that point, at which point Ike is no longer going for Eruption, but probably shielding and then fair. The only projectiles I can really think of where the character can be below the stage edge and hit Ike are the Links' boomerangs, ROB's Laser, and Metal Blade.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Because most people don't realize all of Ryu's aerials have like 3924843758 frames of hitlag on shield and aren't safe despite doing ~20% damage and having very low landing lag. Combined with the fact that his projectile is pretty bad and his mobility and grab game isn't amazing he has essentially nothing for shields.

This post hurts me. It literally hurts me.

Ryu hits you 5 times and then puts you in a legit 50/50 where you could die.

Thinking not getting grabbed by Ryu is just how you get killed. Getting grabbed is a big deal when it only takes 5 or so and you are in death percent.

I just took out Max ketchm at a local the other day. Same dude that took Fatality's CF in a 100 dollar money match. Wanna know where alot of my damage came from?

Granted we both think Ryu stomps CF, but I'm trying to make a point here.

Also...why is Ryu hitting shields with his buttons besides Collarbone Breaker and d-smash in certain match-ups? Thats not what he does.

Collarbone Breaker is just not able to be reacted too consistently. Its frame 13 and you may avoid the second hit but even then the most you will do is get away. You wont punish it unless you have an invincible/super armor up b. It is basically free shield pressure. It only takes one utilt to collarbone breaker to break shield vs the majority of the cast. And yes I broke Max's shield. I break shields pretty consistently in tourney. Certainly more then I ever did with Marth.

Plz keep blocking.

Ryus neutral comes down to one concept. Risk vs Reward. Ryu is ALWAYS favored in ANY neutral scenario. He hits too hard and too fast. And mistakes vs him cost his opponents the match plain and simple. He doesnt need to beat shield.

Shield actually beats itself anyway. When someone shields the best thing to do is actually nothing.

 

[C0rvus]

All Robins should be conserving their double jump, and if Ike jumps before charging Eruption, I would think Robin can light his landing spot with an Arcfire column and still have time to get back to the ledge.

Though in that case Ike can just coast down and slap him in the face with Fair, but eh

Not to mention the recent patch increased Robin's horizontal control on his Elwind gusts to such a degree that he can actually move backward with it. He doesn't have to recover so rigidly, and thus predictably, anymore.

is that Elwind change confirmed? This is the first I've heard of it. Hadn't even noticed it myself.

I finally decide to drop the character and all I do know is hear how much better he is. Such is life.

How viable is Elwind as an edgeguarding tool? I recall trying to hit with the spike hitbox right off the ledge. It rarely worked, but it could've been practiced. Or maybe run off the ledge and reverse Elwind so that it stage spikes? Low risk edgeguards are a powerful tool at this point in time.