Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Mario766]

It's because of their massive dash distance. Little Mac has the same problem.

 

[bc1910]

They could still have good frame data on dashes of that length, though. Greninja's initial dash is really long but he can shield soon after (f10, I've just learned) which gives him an amazing dash to shield.

 

[shrooby]

Funnily, Bowser is the only character I confidently say Dedede beats based on experience.

Ehehe~

 

[Zylach]

Zylach wanna say anything about Zelda to these people?
Her pros and cons, how she may do against some high tiers and such?

Well, I haven't been keeping up with this thread but I assume this is for national/international viability and Zelda doesn't really stack up at that level unless your name is Nairo (I dunno if he still thinks she's mid tier but he's said that in the past). Thing is, she can hold her own against a lot of the cast but gets whooped when the high tiers come out.

Pros:

Her primary thing is killing early with the elevator, Lkicks, and gimps. The problem with this is that her early kill options are also horribly unsafe and risky. Plus, only one move is a guaranteed kill setup on all characters and that's nair which is also unsafe because of the amount of landing lag making it terrible against shield. Get her up to high rage, though, and she'll start killing as early as 30% near the ledge if the opponent is charging a smash attack. 60% near the ledge under more reasonable circumstances.

Her combo game exists by the by. She's got safe combo starters like jab, dtilt, AC dair, and AC nair. She's also got plenty of stuff out of dthrow including dthrow>uair which can kill certain characters guaranteed around 80% (Fox is the first character that comes to mind because of his heavy gravity and low weight). She can true combo into her Lkicks as well like dtilt>Lkick which does a lot of damage in only 2 hits.

Her offstage presence is a big deal as well as her edgeguarding. Since she can go so deep for kills and has 3 good tools for securing that kill so far offstage, she can challenge most characters' recoveries. Her dair is one of the best meteor smashes in the game if it's sweetspotted and can still kill if it's sourspotted on a lot of characters. Her nair is a long-lasting multihit for catching airdodges, and Nayru's Love can create a wall against characters with vertical recoveries kinda like Luigi's down-B since it'll also semispike if the opponent is only hit by a single hitbox on the bottom. With the recent fix to phantom, it's a great edgeguarding tool which can actually cover every single ledge getup option if timed and spaced properly. Simply hanging on to the ledge isn't always going to save the opponent either since a properly spaced phantom will hit them while they're hanging. It's tricky spacing though.

Her recovery is very difficult to take advantage of since it's a teleport. The only way to take advantage of it is to hit her as she's snapping to the ledge since she'll almost always be going for the ledge as the lag on FW is terrible. You'll have to send her to the top or side blast zones in order to kill her.

Cons:

She's light meaning she can die early but also falls out of combos earlier than other characters. That doesn't mean she's immune to kill combos though such as ROB's beep boop and DK's cargo uthrow>uair. If she airdodges at the wrong time (which she has to do more than a lot of characters because she doesn't have aerial challenges or landing options), she can be eating a charged smash attack and die at 60%.

She's tall so she's a bigger target. I feel like this speaks for itself.

She has a lot of trouble landing as she has no aerials that can challenge anti-airs or that have reasonable landing lag. The recent change to shield stun, however, means her Lkicks are only -3 on shield meaning they're safe against slower characters. FW also has too much lag to be a good option for landing.

Her frame data is terrible. Her fastest move is dtilt that starts at frame 5 and isn't safe on shield against faster characters. Her jab is frame 10 as is her grab. Get up in her face and she has no options against you.

She has basically no aerial presence. Three of her aerials require precise sweetspotting to do anything, her uair is slow and very predictable, and her nair has next to no disjoint so it'll trade all day with long-lasting hitboxes unless it's spaced perfectly. Her nair and dair do AC though so that's something. This also means that she gets combo'd very easily since she has nothing to break out of them other than Nayru's Love with intangibility frames starting on frame 5 but baiting that out can lead to a very early kill for her opponent.

In Conclusion:

Zelda has the kit of a pseudo-heavyweight but is a lightweight herself. Her poor frame data means she's built for hyper-defensive play, keeping people out of her space, and generally waiting to punish her opponent rather than pressuring. She needs to have a solid defensive gameplan and relies on patience above everything. This kind of playstyle works at the highly competitive level (Dabuz) but is done a lot better by other characters (Rosalina or Villager) and is generally not seen at a professional level because pro players prefer a good mix of aggression and defense rather than basically all defense and risky offense. If Zelda doesn't get early kills, then a lot of battles will feel uphill for her though not impossible, especially because she benefits so much from rage, though getting to high rage and staying in high rage is difficult because of her weight. Again, she can hold her own against a lot of the cast but the higher tiers aren't threatened by her since they can put up so much aggression that she can't really handle it or are so safe that she can't punish them (Or both). That's my 2 cents.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Funnily, Bowser is the only character I confidently say Dedede beats based on experience.

Ehehe~

For the record, I'd argue that Dedede has an above-average DK matchup

 

[UberMadman]

I also find that Dedede has a decent matchup against Bowser Jr., which is funny because Bowser Jr. usually bodies the other heavies, including DK. Dedede's disjointed F-tilt shuts down most of Bowser Jr's kart approach options, which makes up the majority of his gameplan.

And since we've just been going over all of the massive weaknesses of Bowser, I'm going to repeat a question earlier that went completely ignored:

So there's something that's been bothering me for a while about most tier lists, Japanese AND American, and I have to ask... why is rated higher than ? They are similar characters in a lot of ways, but Zard has a better oos game, a better kill throw, a combo throw (at low percents,) a better jab, better grab range, better grounded mobility, better tilts, disjoints on his wings, a move with 5 frame armor that can do up to 30% damage at low percents and kill at high percents, and a better recovery. I know Bowser often gets PLAYED more, but is there something I'm missing as to why he's consistently considered a better character than Charizard?

I play a lot more Charizard than I do Bowser admittedly, but from what I've played, Charizard seems like a slightly safer Bowser with more options, yet he consistently gets rated worse. I mean, I'm willing to admit that I may be waaaay off, but first I need somebody to correct my error to know that I am in error at all, right?

 

[adom4]

Funnily, Bowser is the only character I confidently say Dedede beats based on experience.

Ehehe~

I think he MIGHT beat Ganon, not 100% sure though, i think it's either even or slight DDD advantage.

 

[shrooby]

For the record, I'd argue that Dedede has an above-average DK matchup

DK gets too much out of being in advantage for DDD to deal with.
Put them in neutral and DDD will probably win there more often because ftilt/jab, but DK can reset it back fairly simply, and then he only needs to win that situation once to get the equivalent of DDD winning neutral a few times.
Plus DK has reliable ways of killing and DDD doesn't.
So DK can do a lot more wrong than DDD can afford to do and still win, basically.
Stage dependent, but it's +1 DK in my opinion. Or even at best.

I think he MIGHT beat Ganon, not 100% sure though, i think it's either even or slight DDD advantage.

When I fight Ganons I just switch to Robin, so I don't know enough about the MU to say much.
It's probably DDD's favor but I don't say that "based on experience," which was what I said about Bowser~

 

[Antonykun]

I was too lazy to check the link.



Mii Gunner is 8.
Mii Swordfighter is likely 16 (LOL)
Mii Brawler I haven't tested, maybe 10?.

I swear Swordfailure is only allowed to be a Fire Emblem character when it means that he gets their worst attributes

 

[Ffamran]

Hadoken is decent for controlling space but too slow to actually hit anything and too risky to keep throwing out.

Isn't that the point of Hadouken? Control space and harassment? Emblem Lord's the expert on Street Fighter, so I leave him to confirm or deny.

The only issue is how Smash works compared to Street Fighter. Ryu can fire Hadouken as much as wants (at a reasonable range) in SF since you can't run like in Smash. Even in KoF, running's not as powerful in a sense you can almost do whatever. Running's more for chasing and no character in KoF, SF, or other more traditional fighting games have extreme mobility like the likes of Sonic, Captain Falcon, Little Mac, or Fox. Hell, even Marth or maybe even Mario and Smash 4 Ryu.

In SF, it's not as risky for Ryu to use Hadouken kind of close- to mid-range, but in Smash where characters have high mobility or where jumping isn't a major commitment like in traditional fighting games, Ryu can be punished. At long-range, it's fine and it's one thing that lets Ryu not get ultimately screwed over by average mobility and average range - actually, his range would be good for a melee fighter, right?

Also, with the way damage, hit stun, knockback, and projectiles work in Smash, Ryu's combos into Hadouken aren't exactly as potent as in SF. It's not common for characters in Smash to do something like say, Samus jabs to Charge Shot, Lucario Dtilts into Aura Sphere, or even things like Sheik jab to Needles. It's kind of not worth it for Ryu to do a cr. LK into Hadouken which gets like 8.6% and doesn't kill, but a cr. LK to Shoryuken is not only much more rewarding, but it's also safer. Still, it would have been wicked if Ryu could true combo Hadouken just cause and it would be very scary if say, Samus and Lucario could confirm their projectiles like that. The most we get in Smash are stupid stuff like a Fox D-throw to pointblank Blaster for intimidation. We still have, however, projectile confirms like aerial Needles to Bouncing Fish, Aura Sphere to Up Smash, Fireball to whatever, and I think Vegetable to Fair. They're not always true, but they work and they're more rewarding than a hit confirm to projectile.

Spoiler: More Falco rants! Now involving Ryu.

This talk of Ryu's poor out of dash options because of average mobility, average-speed dash attack that doesn't really kill, lack of kill throws, and Ryu's projectile all reminds me of Falco... It makes me think that it's possible to call Falco an "inferior Ryu" and "Ryu before Ryu was in Smash". Similar cases: Falco's mobility is below-average except for his walk and "vertical mobility", his dash attack is average-speed, Falco's kill throws are unreliable, and his projectile, well, sucks compared to Ryu. You can thank the developers for allowing Fox to keep an abusive frame 4 dash attack and doubling Falco's dash attack speed on a character whose running speed is not high like Fox, but low... Captain Falcon, Little Mac, and Meta Knight can work their average-speed dash attacks because of their fast running speed and they're safe like Captain Falcon's disjointed dash attack or Little Mac's step-in dash attack or the fact they're rewarding like Meta Knight's. On slower characters like Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Ike, and Peach, their dash attacks are very rewarding as they all kill and/or they have "special traits" that help them such as Ganondorf gaining a massive speed boost or Jigglypuff and Ike not entering a recoil animation when clanking like Little Mac's Ftilt not to mention how long they linger and that Ike's is a disjoint.

You could give Fox a frame 6 or 8 dash attack and he wouldn't mind. For Fox, it would be a slight inconvenience at worst and at best, almost noticeable. Go ask Captain Falcon, Little Mac, ZSS, Greninja, and Pikachu about their average-speed dash attacks. They (and everyone in general) would love it if theirs were faster like Fox, Sheik, and Sonic's, but it's not a major problem. Falco? Falco is utterly screwed when his out of shield and out of dash option just got butchered. At least Ryu's out of shield options are good and that his dash attack does 12% clean and 8% late. Falco's doing 9% clean or 6% late with a move that's more of a combo extender or a weak punish. It's probably safer for Falco to do a pivot Ftilt, but since he's slow, he's not going to have an easy time like Fox with his pivot Ftilt.

That being said, the main thing about Ryu's dash attack is that it does damage. Still, Ryu would kill for Falco's walk speed - imagine that monstrosity -, (unreliable) kill throws, and the ability to angle his light Ftilt and Falco would kill for a stronger dash attack or a faster one - they could have made it frame 6 like Brawl ZSS's instead of 8 -, Ryu's air speed, Ryu's run speed, Ryu's grab data, Ryu's Dair startup, and a more threatening/useful projectile like Ryu's Hadouken. Oh, and Falco would love a functioning jab - I just experienced a Shoryuken jab interrupt yesterday and it was not fun - or a ground hit/kill confirm. Ryu, hell, anyone would kill for Falco's Bair power and speed. Ganondorf with Falco Bair startup, anyone? It would be the most broken move in the game; a frame 4-6, 16% to 17% Bair with 22 recovery frames, so it'll be 29 total frames, on Ganondorf would be freaking hilarious. Hell, let's give it Falco's landing lag of 15 too.

Grapplers don't work unless they have a great mobility option (Cerebella of Skullgirls) or the tools to nullify their inherent weaknesses(Potemkin of Guilty Gear).

I know El Fuerte is quick in SFIV, but what about Zangief, Abel, and Hakan? Hakan I know kind of works like Chin and Hwa Jai with the oil mechanic, but I'm not that familiar enough with other fighting games or what makes grapplers work in fighting games. Oh, and would Soul Calibur's Astaroth count as a grappler? I just remember that he has a lot of grab moves. There's also King, Armor King, and Marduk, but maybe 3D fighting games are "easier" on grapplers since they have much more freedom to move around.

OBSCURE KNOWLEDGE DROP TIME!

The likely reason they made the Flame Choke techable was to eliminate item infinites that he had in Brawl. They are all impossible now in Sm4sh. That's right, items. Items have changed your precious game balance. MWAHAHAH! ITEM STANDARD PLAY IS THE FUTURE!

Heh, I remember when Kofu posted that.

Bowser still has crappy movement frame data. Like unnecessary lag just gets tacked on everytime he jumps, lands, tried to shield while running, tries to change direction, or even walk. All his attacks don't come out like how you would want them, so that puts a limit on the reaction time you can have with him, and every attack he does besides jab is a commitment, since they're all unsafe on shield.

This is one reason why I think standard jump (and grab) frames should be a thing. All characters have a soft landing of 2 frames. Cool, standard and nobody gets screwed for jumping and landing normally. Hard landing, landing while fast falling, isn't standard. For instance, Greninja, Ike, and Samus have 4 frame hard landings. Okay, so it doesn't seem that bad since Greninja is highly mobile, Ike is a heavy, and Samus is well, Samus. Here's the thing, Charizard, DK, Mewtwo, the Pits, Roy, Lucas, Mii Swordfighter, Link, and Ganondorf all have frame 5 hard landings. 1 frame doesn't seem so bad, right? 1 frame adds up. If it wasn't hard enough for say, Ganondorf to land, he now has to deal with the fact he has a frame 5 hard landing; he will always be at 1 frame disadvantage to any character that chooses to hard land. Oh, but wait! There are characters with frame 6 landings and they're Bowser and Triple D meaning these 2 will be at a 2 frame disadvantage when hard landing. So, not only does Bowser have the only frame 8 jump, he has a frame 6 hard land too. Welp, looks like Bowser should try to never fast fall onto the stage. Also, that's 12 characters out of 55 who have longer hard landings. This isn't like the wacky jump frames; it's worse. About 22% of the cast is disadvantaged for landing from a fast fall or auto-canceling their aerials - auto-cancel aerials uses hard landing, right? It's a minority, yes, but the 78% who don't have to deal with this? Really? 78% of the cast having an advantage - even if it's slight - is crazy.

I just noticed that no character "accelerates" when turning around from run, right? Most characters when turning around to run slide a bit and continue running slightly slower before reaching top speed. It's really noticeable with Captain Falcon where a straight sprint is fast, but if you turn around, he runs slightly slower at first. Hmm, it would have been cool if say, Bowser could. So, say his initial dash is 1.3, his running speed is 1.792, and when he turns around, well, he'll turn around, but he'll dig his claws to the ground to propel himself with say, a 1.6 turnaround dash. Eh, it wouldn't even be far-fetched for Palutena to use plant her staff and use it spin herself to turnaround instead of having to "land" and continue hovering.

 

[Vipermoon]

Hmm, it would have been cool if say, Bowser could. So, say his initial dash is 1.3, his running speed is 1.792, and when he turns around, well, he'll turn around, but he'll dig his claws to the ground to propel himself with say, a 1.6 turnaround dash. Eh, it wouldn't even be far-fetched for Palutena to use plant her staff and use it spin herself to turnaround instead of having to "land" and continue hovering.

Oooooooooo. That would be cool.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Isn't that the point of Hadouken? Control space and harassment? Emblem Lord's the expert on Street Fighter, so I leave him to confirm or deny.

The only issue is how Smash works compared to Street Fighter. Ryu can fire Hadouken as much as wants (at a reasonable range) in SF since you can't run like in Smash. Even in KoF, running's not as powerful in a sense you can almost do whatever. Running's more for chasing and no character in KoF, SF, or other more traditional fighting games have extreme mobility like the likes of Sonic, Captain Falcon, Little Mac, or Fox. Hell, even Marth or maybe even Mario and Smash 4 Ryu.

In SF, it's not as risky for Ryu to use Hadouken kind of close- to mid-range, but in Smash where characters have high mobility or where jumping isn't a major commitment like in traditional fighting games, Ryu can be punished. At long-range, it's fine and it's one thing that lets Ryu not get ultimately screwed over by average mobility and average range - actually, his range would be good for a melee fighter, right?

Also, with the way damage, hit stun, knockback, and projectiles work in Smash, Ryu's combos into Hadouken aren't exactly as potent as in SF. It's not common for characters in Smash to do something like say, Samus jabs to Charge Shot, Lucario Dtilts into Aura Sphere, or even things like Sheik jab to Needles. It's kind of not worth it for Ryu to do a cr. LK into Hadouken which gets like 8.6% and doesn't kill, but a cr. LK to Shoryuken is not only much more rewarding, but it's also safer. Still, it would have been wicked if Ryu could true combo Hadouken just cause and it would be very scary if say, Samus and Lucario could confirm their projectiles like that. The most we get in Smash are stupid stuff like a Fox D-throw to pointblank Blaster for intimidation. We still have, however, projectile confirms like aerial Needles to Bouncing Fish, Aura Sphere to Up Smash, Fireball to whatever, and I think Vegetable to Fair. They're not always true, but they work and they're more rewarding than a hit confirm to projectile.

Spoiler: More Falco rants! Now involving Ryu.

This talk of Ryu's poor out of dash options because of average mobility, average-speed dash attack that doesn't really kill, lack of kill throws, and Ryu's projectile all reminds me of Falco... It makes me think that it's possible to call Falco an "inferior Ryu" and "Ryu before Ryu was in Smash". Similar cases: Falco's mobility is below-average except for his walk and "vertical mobility", his dash attack is average-speed, Falco's kill throws are unreliable, and his projectile, well, sucks compared to Ryu. You can thank the developers for allowing Fox to keep an abusive frame 4 dash attack and doubling Falco's dash attack speed on a character whose running speed is not high like Fox, but low... Captain Falcon, Little Mac, and Meta Knight can work their average-speed dash attacks because of their fast running speed and they're safe like Captain Falcon's disjointed dash attack or Little Mac's step-in dash attack or the fact they're rewarding like Meta Knight's. On slower characters like Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Ike, and Peach, their dash attacks are very rewarding as they all kill and/or they have "special traits" that help them such as Ganondorf gaining a massive speed boost or Jigglypuff and Ike not entering a recoil animation when clanking like Little Mac's Ftilt not to mention how long they linger and that Ike's is a disjoint.

You could give Fox a frame 6 or 8 dash attack and he wouldn't mind. For Fox, it would be a slight inconvenience at worst and at best, almost noticeable. Go ask Captain Falcon, Little Mac, ZSS, Greninja, and Pikachu about their average-speed dash attacks. They (and everyone in general) would love it if theirs were faster like Fox, Sheik, and Sonic's, but it's not a major problem. Falco? Falco is utterly screwed when his out of shield and out of dash option just got butchered. At least Ryu's out of shield options are good and that his dash attack does 12% clean and 8% late. Falco's doing 9% clean or 6% late with a move that's more of a combo extender or a weak punish. It's probably safer for Falco to do a pivot Ftilt, but since he's slow, he's not going to have an easy time like Fox with his pivot Ftilt.

That being said, the main thing about Ryu's dash attack is that it does damage. Still, Ryu would kill for Falco's walk speed - imagine that monstrosity -, (unreliable) kill throws, and the ability to angle his light Ftilt and Falco would kill for a stronger dash attack or a faster one - they could have made it frame 6 like Brawl ZSS's instead of 8 -, Ryu's air speed, Ryu's run speed, Ryu's grab data, Ryu's Dair startup, and a more threatening/useful projectile like Ryu's Hadouken. Oh, and Falco would love a functioning jab - I just experienced a Shoryuken jab interrupt yesterday and it was not fun - or a ground hit/kill confirm. Ryu, hell, anyone would kill for Falco's Bair power and speed. Ganondorf with Falco Bair startup, anyone? It would be the most broken move in the game; a frame 4-6, 16% to 17% Bair with 22 recovery frames, so it'll be 29 total frames, on Ganondorf would be freaking hilarious. Hell, let's give it Falco's landing lag of 15 too.

I know El Fuerte is quick in SFIV, but what about Zangief, Abel, and Hakan? Hakan I know kind of works like Chin and Hwa Jai with the oil mechanic, but I'm not that familiar enough with other fighting games or what makes grapplers work in fighting games. Oh, and would Soul Calibur's Astaroth count as a grappler? I just remember that he has a lot of grab moves. There's also King, Armor King, and Marduk, but maybe 3D fighting games are "easier" on grapplers since they have much more freedom to move around.


Heh, I remember when Kofu posted that.


This is one reason why I think standard jump (and grab) frames should be a thing. All characters have a soft landing of 2 frames. Cool, standard and nobody gets screwed for jumping and landing normally. Hard landing, landing while fast falling, isn't standard. For instance, Greninja, Ike, and Samus have 4 frame hard landings. Okay, so it doesn't seem that bad since Greninja is highly mobile, Ike is a heavy, and Samus is well, Samus. Here's the thing, Charizard, DK, Mewtwo, the Pits, Roy, Lucas, Mii Swordfighter, Link, and Ganondorf all have frame 5 hard landings. 1 frame doesn't seem so bad, right? 1 frame adds up. If it wasn't hard enough for say, Ganondorf to land, he now has to deal with the fact he has a frame 5 hard landing; he will always be at 1 frame disadvantage to any character that chooses to hard land. Oh, but wait! There are characters with frame 6 landings and they're Bowser and Triple D meaning these 2 will be at a 2 frame disadvantage when hard landing. So, not only does Bowser have the only frame 8 jump, he has a frame 6 hard land too. Welp, looks like Bowser should try to never fast fall onto the stage. Also, that's 12 characters out of 55 who have longer hard landings. This isn't like the wacky jump frames; it's worse. About 22% of the cast is disadvantaged for landing from a fast fall or auto-canceling their aerials - auto-cancel aerials uses hard landing, right? It's a minority, yes, but the 78% who don't have to deal with this? Really? 78% of the cast having an advantage - even if it's slight - is crazy.

I just noticed that no character "accelerates" when turning around from run, right? Most characters when turning around to run slide a bit and continue running slightly slower before reaching top speed. It's really noticeable with Captain Falcon where a straight sprint is fast, but if you turn around, he runs slightly slower at first. Hmm, it would have been cool if say, Bowser could. So, say his initial dash is 1.3, his running speed is 1.792, and when he turns around, well, he'll turn around, but he'll dig his claws to the ground to propel himself with say, a 1.6 turnaround dash. Eh, it wouldn't even be far-fetched for Palutena to use plant her staff and use it spin herself to turnaround instead of having to "land" and continue hovering.

And when he digs his claws in the ground, sparks come up and you here the scraping metal sound and he grunts then he throws his arms back to propel himself.

Gosh. Nintendo should hire us man

 

[wedl!!]

I think Parasol is obnoxiously strong so Peach can have an OOS kill option (her ground defense tools are OP as hell, unless you're against Diddy, where his are better) and so she's actually threatening when someone's attempting to edgeguard.

Honestly I don't know.

 

[LancerStaff]

For those questioning the speed on Pit's fully charged arrows, they only take about four frames longer to cross FD from the time the projectiles come out as compared to Link's.

So I don't think you can say they're easy to avoid offstage.

 

[the king of murder]

Man, I just want the fatties to be viable for once. The normal heavies(Falcon, Ike, Yoshi) can be good characters so why not the fatties. The only traditional fatty to be viable was Brawl Dedede and he wasn't even that good, just invalidating half the cast with his chaingrab(he had other good attributes but CG was the deciding factor). Even DK is considered mid tier at best.

Their reward is obvisouly not a problem especially for DK and Ganon and even though it would help them tremendously, buffing mobilty is out of the question since they are designed to be moving mountains.

At this point, I would say give every move of the fatties added shield damage to their attacks, about 10-20%. It would allow them to pressure shields much more reliably and nerf one defensive option against them. It wouldn't even be broken because everyone else still have their superior mobilty to evade them not to mention the huge weaknesses they still have. Even with the shield nerf, fatties still stuggle with shields because they are so slow moving. DK pre-patch could pressure them and Ganon too in specific scenarios but that really isn't enough. If you fight against those juggernauts it's supposed to be "avoid or die" yet because of shields, this isn't the case. Why can Ryu pressure shields harder when he is not supposed to be a moving mountain? Jeez.

Considering everyone can combo the fatties to death, loading their moveset with shieldbreakers would only be fair.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

That would probably be unbalanced online at a casual level though. And the devs consider all levels of play.

 

[the king of murder]

Really? I thought casuals rarely shield, prefering to roll or attack more.

 

[adom4]

Man, I just want the fatties to be viable for once. The normal heavies(Falcon, Ike, Yoshi) can be good characters so why not the fatties. The only traditional fatty to be viable was Brawl Dedede and he wasn't even that good, just invalidating half the cast with his chaingrab(he had other good attributes but CG was the deciding factor). Even DK is considered mid tier at best.

Their reward is obvisouly not a problem especially for DK and Ganon and even though it would help them tremendously, buffing mobilty is out of the question since they are designed to be moving mountains.

At this point, I would say give every move of the fatties added shield damage to their attacks, about 10-20%. It would allow them to pressure shields much more reliably and nerf one defensive option against them. It wouldn't even be broken because everyone else still have their superior mobilty to evade them not to mention the huge weaknesses they still have. Even with the shield nerf, fatties still stuggle with shields because they are so slow moving. DK pre-patch could pressure them and Ganon too in specific scenarios but that really isn't enough. If you fight against those juggernauts it's supposed to be "avoid or die" yet because of shields, this isn't the case. Why can Ryu pressure shields harder when he is not supposed to be a moving mountain? Jeez.

Considering everyone can combo the fatties to death, loading their moveset with shieldbreakers would only be fair.

I think added shield damage for Dorf might be too much, hell he's already a great shield breaker & buffing shield damage for him will be dumb.

 

[Trifroze]

Isn't that the point of Hadouken? Control space and harassment?

I criticized Ryu's threatening midrange options and simply explained why hadoken isn't one.

 

[Locke 06]

For those questioning the speed on Pit's fully charged arrows, they only take about four frames longer to cross FD from the time the projectiles come out as compared to Link's.

So I don't think you can say they're easy to avoid offstage.

And for people who want a better frame of reference, it takes ~20 frames to travel the distance of FD and has a shooting animation that is recognizable that takes about 7 frames.

Whereas Link shoots his arrow instantly and takes ~16 frames to travel that distance.

Also, you can't hold the charge indefinitely... Not without angling up and down and stuff, which takes frames.

Edit: nope, I'm wrong. Angling takes like 1 or 2 frame.

 

[Mario766]

Pit's arrows are slower to come out and have longer endlag than Link's.

That's silly lol

 

[TurboLink]

Man, I just want the fatties to be viable for once. The normal heavies(Falcon, Ike, Yoshi) can be good characters so why not the fatties. The only traditional fatty to be viable was Brawl Dedede and he wasn't even that good, just invalidating half the cast with his chaingrab(he had other good attributes but CG was the deciding factor). Even DK is considered mid tier at best.

Their reward is obvisouly not a problem especially for DK and Ganon and even though it would help them tremendously, buffing mobilty is out of the question since they are designed to be moving mountains.

At this point, I would say give every move of the fatties added shield damage to their attacks, about 10-20%. It would allow them to pressure shields much more reliably and nerf one defensive option against them. It wouldn't even be broken because everyone else still have their superior mobilty to evade them not to mention the huge weaknesses they still have. Even with the shield nerf, fatties still stuggle with shields because they are so slow moving. DK pre-patch could pressure them and Ganon too in specific scenarios but that really isn't enough. If you fight against those juggernauts it's supposed to be "avoid or die" yet because of shields, this isn't the case. Why can Ryu pressure shields harder when he is not supposed to be a moving mountain? Jeez.

Considering everyone can combo the fatties to death, loading their moveset with shieldbreakers would only be fair.

The problem is that there is no reward for being slow. Being slow gives you no advantage whatsoever.

 

[the king of murder]

I think added shield damage for Dorf might be too much, hell he's already a great shield breaker & buffing shield damage for him will be dumb.

Exploding Balls(U-tilt), Wizards Truck(down-b) and boot to the skull(Usmash) are his primary shield breakers, right? (I think he has more but they are rather impractical)

I guess you are right, at least causally speaking. Competitively speaking, you could still avoid him with superior mobilty. And it's not like you can never use shield, you just have to use it sparingly.

But since casual play will be a factor, I guess my point is moot. Balancing those fatties around 1vs1 for casuals and competitive is a real challenge that which I hope we can overcome. Maybe some day.

The problem is that there is no reward for being slow. Being slow gives you no advantage whatsoever.

What? I never said being slow gives advantages.

Edit: Nvm, you misquoted me didn't you?

 

[Tri Knight]

But for Link to reach that kind of speed with Arrows it needs to be charged

 

[meleebrawler]

Man, I just want the fatties to be viable for once. The normal heavies(Falcon, Ike, Yoshi) can be good characters so why not the fatties. The only traditional fatty to be viable was Brawl Dedede and he wasn't even that good, just invalidating half the cast with his chaingrab(he had other good attributes but CG was the deciding factor). Even DK is considered mid tier at best.

Their reward is obvisouly not a problem especially for DK and Ganon and even though it would help them tremendously, buffing mobilty is out of the question since they are designed to be moving mountains.

At this point, I would say give every move of the fatties added shield damage to their attacks, about 10-20%. It would allow them to pressure shields much more reliably and nerf one defensive option against them. It wouldn't even be broken because everyone else still have their superior mobilty to evade them not to mention the huge weaknesses they still have. Even with the shield nerf, fatties still stuggle with shields because they are so slow moving. DK pre-patch could pressure them and Ganon too in specific scenarios but that really isn't enough. If you fight against those juggernauts it's supposed to be "avoid or die" yet because of shields, this isn't the case. Why can Ryu pressure shields harder when he is not supposed to be a moving mountain? Jeez.

Considering everyone can combo the fatties to death, loading their moveset with shieldbreakers would only be fair.

Fatties just by their very design are kind of doomed to fail in the mobility-powered world of Smash. Dr. Mario is pretty much the ultimate example of this; he basically has much of the same moves as Mario, a high-tiered character blessed with added power, but is fatally crippled by his severely lowered mobility. And this is what developers wanted him to be in Melee. He dodged a bullet in that game by virtue of it being rushed.

Mewtwo is basically what you get by addressing most issues they suffer with in exchange for weight.

 

[Blobface]

Extra shield damage would be a pretty harmless way of helping heavies deal with shielding honestly, though 10-20% would be a bit much (remember shields actually have about 41 hp). 5 bonus damage on tilts and aerials with 8-10 on smash attacks would probably be fine. Maybe a little less.

Other than that, there's not really any "universal" heavy buff you could give. They all suffer from different problems.

 

[Ffamran]

Oooooooooo. That would be cool.

And when he digs his claws in the ground, sparks come up and you here the scraping metal sound and he grunts then he throws his arms back to propel himself.

Gosh. Nintendo should hire us man

The idea comes from, well, common sense. When you run and stop, you stop and if you choose to turn around and run, you don't have this slow run thing that happens in Smash 4. People are capable of running, stopping, and reaching a decent speed without having to slow run for long period. Unless your soles are so worn out or you're running on ice - why are you doing that? -, there shouldn't be a slow start. If anything, the easiest way would be to make it so the initial dash happens again like a way to say your character recovered from a slow start and is propelling themselves to reach their regular run speed if you run and choose to turnaround and run. Technically, you can do that, but you have to wait until your skid animation ends which isn't really efficient.

The other part comes from something like in the first mission of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance where Raiden who's a cyborg, digs his claws to help him keep a higher top speed while turning to run. Yes, it's true you have to slow down to turn either by just slowing down, stopping and then starting again, or basically, drifting. The other thing is that whenever animals or monsters show up in games or can be controlled, when they stop and turn back to move like from after a pounce, they sometimes "move' faster to make up for the stop or skid. Pretty sure this happens with Wolf Link in Twilight Princess.

In games like Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Assassin's Creed, inFAMOUS - the series placed a high attention to detail with how the characters move -, and even Jak & Daxter if my childhood memories are correct, the characters will stop and immediately run "normally" if they choose to turn back or if I remember correctly, in Cole's case in inFAMOUS, he'll do a "jig" to slow himself down and then turn back to run. That's the evolution of subtle details people don't really care for. Way back, we had games where if you turn in any way unless in vehicle, almost all the time, your character will actually turn in place with no animation at all. Even today, in some games for convenience sake like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and maybe in Mirror's Edge, you will turn in place with not even an animation of your character's feet showing they're turning. It's kind of funny seeing a character just turn like that when they're prone. For some games, it doesn't really matter like in Diablo, Torchlight, etc. Most of the time in those games, characters don't really run that fast, but in some games like Uncharted, Devil May Cry, The Witcher, Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, and even Final Fantasy, seeing those animations makes thing more believable even if they're "annoying" - I think turning to aim is slower in MGSV than in previous MGS games because of the turning animations while prone not to mention Snake will flip on his back if he needs to aim behind him. Anyway, I digress.

There's also the other issue where some characters who don't run fast like Falco, Ike?, Robin, Jigglypuff, and Ganondorf have noticeable skids. It makes sense for Sonic, Captain Falcon, Little Mac, and Fox to slide like that since they're running so fast and are trying to stop themselves. Robin and Ganondorf? They're pretty much freaking jogging. There's no reason they have to skid to turn back and run. The slide does help Falco and Ike keep momentum for their Bair, but even then, they shouldn't really have to recover that long from a slow run and then run even slower before reaching top speed, especially Falco who isn't carrying anything heavy like Ike to justify that he would have to take time to recover from all that weight. Still, Ike's a big boy, so he's used to that weight. Most characters, especially the slower runners, should be like Ryu or Palutena where it's stop, turn back, and immediately run not slide for a bit, recover, and then run or even run slowly from a turnaround.

At this point, I'm just nitpicking details about the game.

 

[adom4]

Exploding Balls(U-tilt), Wizards Truck(down-b) and boot to the skull(Usmash) are his primary shield breakers, right? (I think he has more but they are rather impractical)

I guess you are right, at least causally speaking. Competitively speaking, you could still avoid him with superior mobilty. And it's not like you can never use shield, you just have to use it sparingly.

But since casual play will be a factor, I guess my point is moot. Balancing those fatties around 1vs1 for casuals and competitive is a real challenge that which I hope we can overcome. Maybe some day.



What? I never said being slow gives advantages.

Edit: Nvm, you misquoted me didn't you?

F-smash is the best one imo, fully charged F-smash does like 90% shield damage & with some prior damage even half charged F-smash breaks shields easily.

 

[LancerStaff]

And for people who want a better frame of reference, it takes ~20 frames to travel the distance of FD and has a shooting animation that is recognizable that takes about 7 frames.

Whereas Link shoots his arrow instantly and takes ~16 frames to travel that distance.

Also, you can't hold the charge indefinitely... Not without angling up and down and stuff, which takes frames.

Edit: nope, I'm wrong. Angling takes like 1 or 2 frame.

That's why you spin when charging... Disguises the firing animation.

Pit's arrows are slower to come out and have longer endlag than Link's.

That's silly lol

You can't just jump over Pit's unless you're Bunny Hood Puff or something.

Think they have like the same startup, but Link's is before the charge and Pit's is after. And Pit's do a heck of a lot more then camping.

 

[Wintropy]

Pit's arrows are slower to come out and have longer endlag than Link's.

That's silly lol

Mitigates / is mitigated by the fact that the trajectory can be aimed.

I'd rather Pit's arrows any day of the week; a wee bit of a frame disadvantage is worth the versatility.

Everything in moderation including moderation.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Fatties just by their very design are kind of doomed to fail in the mobility-powered world of Smash. Dr. Mario is pretty much the ultimate example of this; he basically has much of the same moves as Mario, a high-tiered character blessed with added power, but is fatally crippled by his severely lowered mobility. And this is what developers wanted him to be in Melee. He dodged a bullet in that game by virtue of it being rushed.

Mewtwo is basically what you get by addressing most issues they suffer with in exchange for weight.

My theory on Doc is quite different, kind of a tangent but....

At one point Sakurai had stated that he wanted Wario in Melee as a clone of Mario but thought Wario deserved better. I think the Wario to Mario clone thing ultimately is the template for Doc (increase in power, weird but strong attack angles, high damage) but they ultimately canned the idea midway through and thus they made him more in line with Mario and slapped a lab coat on.

On the topic of Mewtwo, I'm inclined to agree. He's a "fixed issue heavy" but he's actually ridiculously light which unfortunately is not the best trade off either. I think this was discussed right as he came out, he was called "Ganondorf with less weight but a better neutral." We had no idea how light he ACTUALLY was, though.

 

[Nu~]

Everything in moderation including moderation.

Explains why you main pit. This is him in a nutshell lol

 

[TurboLink]

Exploding Balls(U-tilt), Wizards Truck(down-b) and boot to the skull(Usmash) are his primary shield breakers, right? (I think he has more but they are rather impractical)

I guess you are right, at least causally speaking. Competitively speaking, you could still avoid him with superior mobilty. And it's not like you can never use shield, you just have to use it sparingly.

But since casual play will be a factor, I guess my point is moot. Balancing those fatties around 1vs1 for casuals and competitive is a real challenge that which I hope we can overcome. Maybe some day.



What? I never said being slow gives advantages.

Edit: Nvm, you misquoted me didn't you?

That wasn't my point.

Everyone please list advantages Sonic gains from being a fast character and list advantages Robin gains from being a slow character.

 

[Metalex]

At one point Sakurai had stated that he wanted Wario in Melee as a clone of Mario but thought Wario deserved better.

I find it kind of funny that Sakurai would say that, but then decide that Ganondorf of all characters deserved to be a clone of Captain Falcon...

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I find it kind of funny that Sakurai would say that, but then decide that Ganondorf of all characters deserved to be a clone of Captain Falcon...

It was that or Ganondorf didn't get in period. Its because of a tech demo of a Zelda game, where Ganondorf physically had pretty much the same build as Falcon. Might not have been using a sword in that tech demo either, I can't remember.

Really, its not that strange for Ganondorf to be fighting like that overall. He does use a lot of dark magic and can be pretty brutal in his fighting style.

 

[Wintropy]

It's true that there's no benefit to being slow, but then it isn't intended to be beneficial. It's a deliberate weakness that balances the character's abilities. There's no real, tangible benefit to not having a disjoint over having a disjoint either, but some characters don't need a disjoint because it'd be too much of an overbearing strength in the context of that character's abilities; it's fundamentally preferable to be fast instead of slow, but some characters need to be slow so they stay relatively even with the rest of the roster. Other characters, i.e. Robin, don't really need speed; it'd be objectively more beneficial to be faster, yeah, but it serves no purpose in terms of how the character operates and is just jazzing up the character's moveset options for the sake of jazzing it up.

I know that isn't the point you were trying to make, but I wanted to get that tiny nitpick off my chest.

Even so, I think the real "perfect virtue" to have in Smash is safety. The reason Sheik is the best is because she doesn't have to commit to anything to get tangible benefit, there's no inherent risk in just about anything she does. Contrast that with, say, Ganondorf, a character who has decent frame data for a fatty and insane reward off of everything, but who gets punished for whiffing because his mobility isn't strong enough to keep him out of danger if he doesn't connect. In this case, mobility is intertwined with safety, but I don't think you necessarily need to be mobile to be safe - just take a peep at Ryu!

That said, if speed considers speed of moves, i.e. frame data, plus basic mobility and movement options, then yes, speed is definitely important and ties into the idea that safety is the best distinction to have.

It's 1 AM over here so I don't know if any of this makes sense, but there's your early morning philosophy, courtesy of Miss Wintropy~

 

[shrooby]

Man, I just want the fatties to be viable for once. The normal heavies(Falcon, Ike, Yoshi) can be good characters so why not the fatties. The only traditional fatty to be viable was Brawl Dedede and he wasn't even that good, just invalidating half the cast with his chaingrab(he had other good attributes but CG was the deciding factor). Even DK is considered mid tier at best.

Their reward is obvisouly not a problem especially for DK and Ganon and even though it would help them tremendously, buffing mobilty is out of the question since they are designed to be moving mountains.

At this point, I would say give every move of the fatties added shield damage to their attacks, about 10-20%. It would allow them to pressure shields much more reliably and nerf one defensive option against them. It wouldn't even be broken because everyone else still have their superior mobilty to evade them not to mention the huge weaknesses they still have. Even with the shield nerf, fatties still stuggle with shields because they are so slow moving. DK pre-patch could pressure them and Ganon too in specific scenarios but that really isn't enough. If you fight against those juggernauts it's supposed to be "avoid or die" yet because of shields, this isn't the case. Why can Ryu pressure shields harder when he is not supposed to be a moving mountain? Jeez.

Considering everyone can combo the fatties to death, loading their moveset with shieldbreakers would only be fair.

Shields aren't that huge a problem so long as heavies have ways of punishing shielding in any form. It doesn't need to be braking shields.
DK is a good character, for quite a few reasons but I'll highlight the relevant one, because not only is he able to force you into shield, but he gets a ton of reward and can kill you off of you shielding when you shouldn't. (Grabs are always a good option for DK.)
Charizard, to some extent, is similar. At low and high percents Charizard has good punishes for shielding. Combo throws and kill throws.

One of the things holding DDD and Bowser (I don't know much about Ganon) back is that their shield punishes are inconsistent.
Bowser gets very little off of punishing shields at low percents. He can grab or command grab you, but until those things can kill you there's not much reason to fear them.
DDD gets reward off of grabs at low percents, and has a (albeit bad) command grab. But once you're at high percents, DDD gets nothing off of punishing shielding. No setups, no kills, there's little reason to be afraid of DDD when you're at high percent and sitting in shield.

Point being there's other, simpler ways to dissuade shielding against heavies than just making shield breaks easier.

Give Bowser combos/more 50-50s.
Give DDD KO setups off of grab. At any percent like below 150.
Just make punishing shield semi-consistently rewarding. You don't need to be able to break shields to do that.
They'd still have flaws but if they had consistent, reliable options, they could actually be decent characters.

 

[Ffamran]

Hmm... What would happen if only the juggernauts, Bowser, Charizard, DK, Ganondorf, and Triple D (and maybe other heavyweight characters like Ike, Link, and maybe Wario) had added shield push? To show their strength and to fit their archetype, they happen to be able to push shields better than say Pit, Fox, or Mega Man. So, a Ftilt from Ganondorf would push someone shielding a quarter across the stage, but a Ftilt from Zelda only pushes them say, an eighth. Ganondorf's Ftilt staggers Link if he's blocking in Twilight Princess and in general, strong attacks stagger your guard like in Soul Calibur, Demon/Dark Souls, and whatever game with block systems like those. Can't really stagger someone's guard in Smash, but what if juggernauts and some characters or some moves like Falcon Punch or Zelda's Fair and Bair had much more shield push?

 

[Vipermoon]

Hmm... What would happen if only the juggernauts, Bowser, Charizard, DK, Ganondorf, and Triple D (and maybe other heavyweight characters like Ike, Link, and maybe Wario) had added shield push? To show their strength and to fit their archetype, they happen to be able to push shields better than say Pit, Fox, or Mega Man. So, a Ftilt from Ganondorf would push someone shielding a quarter across the stage, but a Ftilt from Zelda only pushes them say, an eighth. Ganondorf's Ftilt staggers Link if he's blocking in Twilight Princess and in general, strong attacks stagger your guard like in Soul Calibur, Demon/Dark Souls, and whatever game with block systems like those. Can't really stagger someone's guard in Smash, but what if juggernauts and some characters or some moves like Falcon Punch or Zelda's Fair and Bair had much more shield push?

How about this one: What would happen if a broken shield stays broken for the duration of the match (or stock?)? Cuz you know, it's broken. Sheilding after a broken shield would still show the character block animations and have the same duration and drop frames. Except you can't block, only something like crouch cancel depending on knockback.

 

[Djent]

Hey,

I made a temporary CCI thread for MLG-related stuff.