SBR Weekly Character Discussion: Wario

This project has been left untouched for 4 months now, and I feel that we might as well just finish off the last few characters. I'll be moving this thread to the Wario board boards likely in 1.5 weeks-ish, if we finish discussing him by that time.

So, let's talk about probably the last character that most people care about. The Brawl version of Melee Jigglypuff, Wario is a ridiculously good character, and has been placing quite high recently. Many people have acknowledged that he's likely one of the best characters in the game, despite the relatively few number of people that play him. I'm sure the SBR will have a ton to talk about regarding him, so I hope we get some good contributions this time.

EDIT: The hint this time is reaaaally easy, because I don't have the time/will to make a more challenging one. The hint is the time 1:09, along with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aBjl3pCV_c

If my memory isn't failing me right now, that is Reflex waving at the camera right there.

Wario is... seriously very good.

He's one of the hardest characters to kill with good weight and great recovery. Not to mention it's almost impossible to hit him with many conventional kill moves.

Wario also has one of the best offensive game in Brawl. Good air control, very safe air moves and an air grab that lasts forever (seriously, Bite is broken) means he has no trouble approaching and piling on the damage. Then, he can get super easy kills with forward smash (super armor goodness), up air ("the clap") and Wario Waft. They all kill very early, especially the Wario Waft. A half-charged waft can kill many characters in the seventies, depending on where there are in the stage.

All these things make Wario a super threat to everyone who doesn't know his big weakness. By this, I am of course referring to the grab release.

Grab release is a big problem for Wario. It makes those kill moves so much easier to land and turns every grab into any aerial you wish, or ground move, permitting the grabber is tall enough. Now, this doesn't ruin his game of anything, but it's a nuisance. Yoshi's infinite on Wario isn't too big of a deal - platforms can protect Wario from it so unless they're on final the Wario player can probably play smart enough to avoid the infinite.

A few things about the grab release to note:

-Even though Kirby (and other shorties) isn't tall enough if I grab Wario on a slant then he air breaks, giving me a free air hammer or forward air. Also works on edges, of course.

-Tall characters on a flat stage can grab release and regrab to the edge for a spike

Still, I think Wario has the tools to get a around this.

Another problem I think Wario has is that he has trouble with characters that have good aerial hitboxes a bit.

If it weren't for those two little things, I think Wario would be top 4 in the game. As it stands now, I think he's juuuust under top tier.

wario is unlike melee jigglypuff in that he doesn't have an aerial that cleanly sticks out as jiggly's bair does. That means, to a lesser extent, characters with aerial range can attack his maximum aerial range and hit him without any consequence should he run into it. that said, I don't see why wario would ever be dumb enough to jump into the **** like that, just noting the difference that jigglypuff can.

because of his aerial movement, among other things, I would say that wario has the most mindgame potential in the game. This is pretty high tier, but wario does not have any win for free abusable mechanic, a trait that keeps him out of top tier. in a game where abusing a broken mechanic over and over again comes to a victory, wario still has to actually play to win.

In my opinion, Wario is one of the best characters in the game. I'd say MK, Snake/D3, then possibly Wario. He is really underplayed but is ridiculously good. His only horrible matchups are Marth/D3, and D3 is possible as long as he doesn't get grabbed. By using airdodges well, you can easily get inside of people to land a fart or Fsmash, so killing isn't that bad. And his aerial control is superb, so he lives for a really long time.

He can be played aggressively or defensively, and he is able to make the match move at the pace the player sets. I've been noticing more people picking him up here and there, but there are way too few high-level Wario players out there for how amazingly good the character is.

Yeah, after learning the matchup a bit, any good wario can outplay a worse D3. It's still a bad matchup, but at a glance I'd say 60-40 DDD, which isn't bad.

I think DK is a bad matchup for Wario as well.

I think Wario is one of the 2 best teams kill chars in the game, along with snake. GAW is too light, MK relies on bad DI, DK/DDD get destroyed by tornado spam, ike gets gimped, etc. in the end IMO snake and wario end up being the chars best for getting kills with the least amount of flaws.

I completely and utterly disagree with any sentiments alluding to Snake being a good character in teams; He's absolutely not. And conversely MK/GW are the two best teams characters, who make one of the best teams overall.

But I completely agree that Wario ***** in teams, and can get a ridiculous amount of kills. Playing against a Wario who is good with the fart can lead to almost 1 kill every 1 minute, which is amazing in teams.

Oh yeah! Wario is fantastic in teams, that's right.

I agree with Snake not being the best in teams. Sure, he's got an utilt, but he gets tossed around a lot. MK/GAW/Wario are the best, though Snake is no slouch.

Rawr, more people need to discuss Wario.

What are the biggest weaknesses of Wario in your guys' opinion? I was watching M2K's MK vs DSF's Wario in Whobo, and I noticed that M2K would constantly do multiple aerials in rapid succession to break Wario's airdodge, which most Warios use profusely. I remember recently landing a Snake Fsmash on a good Wario in our area in tournament because he had a habit of airdodging to the ground to hit Fsmash.

Against Wario, I'd assume there are 2 things that you'd want to do: Move around so he can't space you with aerials and/or dair you, and bait his airdodges. Most Warios airdodge a ton, and because he has no aerials with a good horizontal hitbox, he gets outprioritized from that angle easily, so you can pretty much force the Wario to airdodge by throwing something like that out there.

Yeah, I think moving around a lot is essential for most characters vs wario. I used to think it would be easier to just counterpick DDD against them and shieldgrab a lot but it turns good warios will **** you of you're standing still.

Also, I thought we'd be getting more discussion for Wario especially. Many pros, most notably M2K, think he's underrated, which is saying a lot considering his tier placement.

i just recently picked up wario not too long ago as my secondary

he's quite an amazing character. i especially like making crazy comebacks with him, the fart kills at such low percent you can instantly turn around any situation with it. i checked out the kill %s they have listed on the wario boards for it and its insane. hes probably the easiest character to get a kill move off in the whole game. not to mention if you get nervous and you need that fart, its so easy to camp with him and avoid combat for a minute (or likely less since your already partially to the good fart) with his supreme aerial movement. super armor everywhere, bite through shields, awesome recovery.

i would call him top tier. top 5 is close, not top 3 though. as it was mentioned he doesnt have a single technique that can be mindlessly used over and over without his opponent catching on unlike MK or maybe Diddy and bananas. Wario does have his obvious bad matchups from grab release, though he has stages to counteract that with. also characters with good aerials can hurt him like ROB

Lol alright time for me to come in and share my knowledge with you guys.

Wario has very few bad matchups. Marth I would say is either his hardest or 2nd hardest matchup, although at this point I don't think it is tougher than 60:40 even on a stage like FD. Dedede is NOT a bad matchup for Wario but Wario has to play very patient and basically run out the clock on Dedede (running laps around him while still throwing out attacks safely). DK is not a bad matchup for Wario either, that's one of Wario's safest matchups for him since he can Dthrow CG DK to a ridiculous % guaranteed.

Wario is very good at running around a lot lol. Got a matchup you don't like very much when you have to approach? Get the lead and make them catch you. Different path to get the same results. Even his worst matchups can be taken care of with enough room and a small amount of time left on the timer.

As for his tier placing, I think he is a viable character for 3rd. Dedede to me has too many matchups that he can lose if the opponent plays super campy.

DDD vs Wario is even. Dispite DDD having Bair which beats out lots of wario's moves, Wario needs to poke him then air camp. DDD has lots of trouble getting in on this, and on a stage like BF, DDD is going to need to pray he gets a hit on Wario.

Oh so is that Wario dthrow actually a CG? I thought it could be escaped. It feels that way at least.

If you buffer the dash it is a chain grab. This works on Snake and DDD I think. It can be very risky to come this close to DDD though.

I don't know Wario that well, but I do find him dangerous to play against. He can really rack the damage up while staying completely safe because of his extreme aerial movement. It does seem like he can have trouble killing at times, he seems to rely a lot on his (admittedly ridiculous) forward smash and up air. This is coming from a Snake player though, to me most characters are lacking in killing potential. =p

Wario is AMAZING haha. Insane combo ability, the ability to edgeguard every character in the game (using the bike and fart), great killing ability, and survives inhumanely long.

MK
Snake
Falco
Wario

are my pick for top 4. Order interchangable btw.

Wario is the best character in doubles. I think that's all that was left out in here, lol.

imo, grab release isn't that big of a deal, unless its an infinte, but its really not too hard to avoid fd entirely, through bans and such. People overrate the grab release and how 'detrimental' it is to his game. I've gone entire tourney sets now not even getting grabbed once, if someone knows how to use his air momentum to their advantage and land outside of grab range everytime (which, btw is possible with every aerial except maybe up air in some cases), and to make more use of the bite, they could avoid getting grabbed entirely.

I recently started using wario a lot more in tournament to cover gw's bad matchups, and all i have to say after watching other wario players is, needs more bite... lol. If people starting using this move more they would understand that wario is top 5 on the tier list, it makes wario almost impossible to play defensively against...

also, yeah he has stupid combos. just today i did a double up air, nair to land them on the platform (both hits) to an fsmash. Something like 60 damage... Also why don't more people wait when they have a full fart for their opponent to have a fresh stock? Im pretty sure that a falling up air on to a grounded opponent (low percent) into a jumping fart is a guaranteed two hit combo that does 57%... BROKEN

Because killing with fart at 60% is better XD

i only mean the full charged waft, which is really awkward to hit that vertical hitbox with. the full charged one doesn't really kill people till like 80 or 90, which is why i'd rather use it to drop 60 percent on someone on a fresh stock, that really kills morale lol

When I think of wario it makes me happy that i use Peach

When I fight Peach it makes me happy to remember that I can run away for 8 minutes lol.

But yeah, I love Wario. Dair to Dair already puts them above 30% if you hit them with every hit. Dair to Grab or Dair to Fsmash are similar too damage wise. His Fthrow does 13% fresh, which absolutely wrecks the light characters in the long run. What's silly about Wario is that he can literally kill his opponents in 3 hits. Say you have a full waft and your opponent is under 20%. You can Dair them into a full Waft and then wait another minute and a half or so and kill them with a strong Waft. Not many other characters can do such a feat. He can usually recover fine even against the best edgeguarders out there, he is also pretty good at edgeguarding himself. You would be surprised how easy it is to gimp people with just a measly Fair or Nair.

Wario really isn't affected too bad by grab releases. Even characters that can infinite him usually are still at a disadvantage (Yoshi, ZSS, Ike and others like Ganon) IMO if Wario really plays his best.

Wario has poor range, and no projectile, but the way I see it if he had either one of those, people would easily complain about Wario over MK any day. Wario having Marth's range would be devastating, combined with his speed and mobility. Wario having Falco's Lasers would be a nightmare for any character out there.

I think part of the reason people haven't flocked to Wario in huge numbers is because of his high learning curve/fairly abstract gameplay. You need to be good at reading, predicting, and occasionally having the will to camp certain characters for the advantage (certainly not the most popular thing among players but hey a win is a win).

Wario is a character of extremes: he has the best overall maneuverability, he has some of the shortest range out there, he is one of the heaviest characters, has a very good weight-to-body mass ratio, one of the best recoveries in the game, etc. He's not a character who is average in many areas, he's either one of the best or one of the worst in any particular area. The trick to winning with Wario is to use his strengths heavily to nullify his weaknesses the best you can. For example, use his air speed and airdodge to get closer to opponents/compensate for his lack of range. Move around in the air a lot and stay away from opponents to nullify his grab release woes.

Tier wise, I think he has a good shot at #3. He's definitely in the top 5 IMO, I know Fiction feels the same way too (I disagree with Falco being that high on his list but eh we agree to disagree).

dr.mario guy said:

Wario having Falco's Lasers would be a nightmare for any character out there.

Click to expand...

...

If his neutral air sprayed grenades everywhere that turned into bananas when they explode he'd be pretty broken, but you don't see that happening any time soon either now do you?

dr.mario guy said:

When I fight Peach it makes me happy to remember that I can run away for 8 minutes lol.

Click to expand...

not really

I don't really know why more people don't use Wario, I think it's the stigma of the grab release even though its not as bad as its made out to be.

dr.mario guy said:

When I fight Peach it makes me happy to remember that I can run away for 8 minutes lol.

Click to expand...

see that's just the thing. when I see people run away from me for the first 2, I just punch them in the face as hard as I can and quit. To me, it's worth my entry fee, and to the other player, a punch in the face is better than stalling for the whole match. Everyone wins!

Wario can CG Bowser, which is really unfair.

That's really about all I can contribute. BAN TEH CG!>!!?

I'll be moving the thread this Monday, so hopefully we can get a little more contribution from the new members before then.

Hes fourth best in the game...lots of combos, damage building, kills...hes good lol.

I hate Wario. He's one of the ***giest characters in the game. He's like, 500 pounds but he can move better than anyone, wtf? He farts to kill you...His Fsmash goes through other attacks...Wow. I seriously dislike this character.

He's also very good.

Wario's good.

But the following characters > Wario.

MK.
Snake.
Diddy
Marth.

Imho.

Eh IDK about Snake, he's good but he just seems so easy to gay with so many character/stage combinations.

Marth probably would be higher if Snake, MK, and Dedede weren't so common in tourney.

Diddy's good but I think I would have him barely under Wario by a spot or two currently.

I know online doesn't count like AT ALL, but I've been playing all Wario online the last week or so, and his Dair just ***** shields online. He's just ******** good online, since people will just jump into Fsmashes if they can't predict well.

Also, nair is a really good edgeguarding aerial, and i got a lot of gimp off the bottom of the stage kills by walking off the ledge and bairing them into the stage.

I started getting text messages from the guys I'm playing with saying "please don't pick up Wario. He's annoying to fight." haha.

I'm with DMG on this one. I definitely see Wario as one of the better characters in the game. From that list, I'd say that definitely MK/D3 and potentially Marth/Snake (not Diddy, though) would be higher than Wario. Not sure who else would be better, though.

D3 would be higher than wario?
I couldn't disagree more.
The base Mechanics of D3 < The base Mechanics of Wario.

=/

But I guess since I lack the extensive knowledge when it comes to both parties...

This means nothing. xD

No you are right IMO Sky, I happen to agree that Dedede < Wario on the tier list.

I base that mostly off of how I think both characters individually fare against the extremities in Brawl. I think Wario handles planking better than Dedede, I think he can handle his hardest matchups easier than Dedede can also. Wario has fewer bad matchups too than Dedede, and although he doesn't have the ability to CG a large majority of the cast, I value his air mobility/overall safeness over Dedede's CG.

Atomsk and I went all Wario in doubles today. We destroyed Pierce7d/BlackWaltz 3-0 in games that weren't close. We also wrecked ADHD/dmbrandon pretty badly, 3-1 where we won two games by a lot. I've only been using Wario for about two weeks. He's so easy and stupidly good.

Wario is the best doubles character.

marth isn't that good. wario is definitely better than marth.