BBR Weekly Character Discussion #6: Kirby

For those who missed the first four, consider:
-Strengths/weaknesses
-Matchups
-Tournament performance
-Current tier list placement and potential for the future

Kirby is a very interesting character. Many think he's overrated, others think he's underrated.

One thing is for sure, he's one of the better characters in the game, has little disadvantageous matchups, and those that are, are usually not going into any extreme.

His good recovery, solid offstage game and his copy ability all are speaking a lot for his strengths, not to mention his ungodly Smashes and that terrifying hammer (should it ever hit). He performs very well both on the ground and in the air, and a good grab game, though he has not a too stellar ledge game, as far as I know.

His biggest weakness is most likely that he is rather easily predicted, since he relies on a rather small pool of moves in most occasions, as most others are rather situational or plain bad.

I don't know much about his defensive options, though I haven't seen many players using Kirby more defensively.

I'm not sure on these, to be honest. I haven't seen a match between a good G&W and Kirby, and I don't know G&W that well; and ICs are one of those disadvantageous matchups I've named, though I don't think Kirby does too terribly against the ICs.

What Joel said.

Personally, I think Kirby is a little bit under-rated. He's a very solid character who unfortunately suffers a bit from lack of approach options and predictability, but so do most characters in Brawl.

He has the tools to be very good in the right hands, and has few bad matchups (only IC's really come to mind). He's definitely not a top tier, but I feel that he is under-appreciated, currently being ranked below Pit and ZSS. It's a tough call though, because some of those characters are really close.

Honestly, I think that we should separate mid-tier out a bit and move some of the higher mid-tier characters into a "high" tier of their own, but that's another conversation.

If he moves up, it shouldn't be by too much, but I think he might deserve a spot or two.

Yes I do agree, think Kirby is one of those characters who is solid, and is just barely out of reach of hitting high tier.
he's better than others below him but not as good as those in high tier.
I do think that he is under appreciated, I think that might stem from his poor tier placing in the last game (hence why everyone is quicker to say bad than good)

I do think he has problems with characters such as G&W and IC's and Marth.
nothing such as a hard counter but can be problematic to him though still winnable for him.

Also, I forgot to mention - Kirby is one of those characters able to time out a game very easily against quite a few characters if the Kirby player tries to play keep-away and spaces correctly.

Chu Dat... I will post soon about Kirby.

Kirby, I think, is either right where he should be or 1-2 spots lower.

He has a few problems. He has spacing issues on the ground, low mobility, weakness to projectiles, and has a very limited moveset.

Spacing: He has mediocre spacing at best. His d-tilt and f-tilt have ok range, but they aren't great. His bair is a good spacing tool, but it is easy to run under it when it is Full Hopped and punish whatever is going to happen. It isn't like Pikachu where he has speed to combat his poor spacing, he just kinda gets wrecked for it.

Low Mobility: Kirby doesn't move fast in the air or on the ground. His movements have to be very deliberate and there isn't much room for mindgames compared to other characters. He also doesn't have many combos in actuality (F-throw uair is the only legit part of his combo at 0%, it can be SDIed out of by every character) so he is a character that relies mainly on one or two hits at a time and possibly a gimp.

Projectile weakness: Because of Kirby's low mobility he seems to get destroyed by a lot of projectiles. I know Pikachu can easily time out a Kirby because Kirby simply doesn't have an answer for it aside from shield. It is hard for Kirby to get in and he doesn't have any long range attacks to really counter-act it. It is sad indeed.

Limited Moveset: Kirby only has a few viable moves: F-smash, D-smash, Dair, Bair, U-tilt, and F-tilt. His other moves just don't cut it. However, all these moves are pretty good so it balances out in how it works. However, with the limited options Kirby has, it is very easy to predict what he is going to do, much more-so than other characters. It is also bad because it is fairly easy to punish.

Kirby does also have quite a few pros on his side, including offstage prowess, kill potential, and recovery.

Kirby has 4 or 5 mid-air jumps, along with hammer to give him an extra little horizontal boost. He will rarely get gimped and he only does when he uses his jumps carelessly and gets hit out of his up-b, sending him too far to land on the stage with an up-b. Few dare to go after a Kirby offstage because of his amazing offstage game. His dair-footstool is guaranteed on a bunch of characters and his inhale-footstool works on a bunch of people as well. Bair is also a strong move to switch the position that he was just in.

Kirby also has amazing kill potential, but this clashes with his predictability. Once at 90+% as a lightweight, it is easy to tell when Kirby is going to throw out a kill move (Mostly F-smash). When you are landing and the Kirby is walking back and forth, he is going to try to F-smash your landing. I think the kill potential and predictability balance out to a still slightly positive ending, but don't think that Kirby will always be scoring easy kills, it is definitely not the case.

ESAM said:

His dair-footstool is guaranteed on a bunch of characters

Click to expand...

You mention SDIing the gonzo combo but refuse to SDI his dair?!?!!?

Wtf esam!!!

I agree a lot though, Kirby seems to get shut down for lacking an approach. When you camp him, it sort of ***** his entire moveset, but at the same time I haven't played Chu so I feel I'm missing out on something

rofl

Anyway, I also feel that characters that out space/out zone kirby can easily just keep him out, because he simply doesn't have any awesome movement capabilities to get him in, either horizontally or vertically. This means Kirby has to rely on a subpar camping game (though Bair/Utilt are pretty legit) and just can't compete with the top. His amazing hitboxes do allow him to handle characters around and below him well.

He's also heavily susceptible to footstools offstage, and being edge-guarded. I gimp Kirby all the time.

Pierce said everything I wanted to say.


I beat Kirby just by camping and waiting for him to approach, then meeting him in the middle with superior, disjointed range. He just can't compete unless his enemy comes to him.

Fair enough Dekar.

Chu really isn't that special. I was auto-piloting and still beat him first match in our MM before an MLG match was called.

Does that mean that Chu isn't special or that Kirby isn't special? I'm leaning towards the latter.

I've always felt that Kirby was a better G&W.
Very linear gameplay, able to capitalize on reads with crazy strong kill moves, but readable and without enough options at times.

I counterpick shieldgrab on kirby.

Shush, you're ruining it. But honestly, he has to approach me, or I'm going to just spam him to death, so shield grab has been working pretty good so far. Generally Bair loses to my Fsmash, and he never lands out of range of at least one of my moves even when he spaces it, so he has to run or be punished which is fine with me, since I get to spam some more.

Overall, I think Kirby is fine where he's at. His tier need to be reorganized a little, but he's not bad, just not amazing either.

Chu is just a smart player, but it is extremely limited based on the character.

lol ninjad by two people while editing

Oh I don't think he's crappy or anything. I know the matchup. Just overall, I don't have a lot to say about him. The matchup between our characters is extremely one dimensional and so I don't ever get much practice in it with anyone else because ROB works just fine. From what I know from Kirby players I've spoken to or played with, he seems pretty much in the same department as the rest of his tier, in that one or two characters are really keeping him down, but he does decent against most of the rest of the cast. He has options, but he's pretty much relegated to his current position until the metagame shifts more in his favor.

Praxis said:

I've always felt that Kirby was a better G&W.
Very linear gameplay, able to capitalize on reads with crazy strong kill moves, but readable and without enough options at times.

Click to expand...

Kirby and G&W really aren't similar at all other than both being "easy" to play on a superficial level and the fact that Kirby has a single move (fsmash) on the kill power level of all of G&W's smashes. I think of pretty much everything good about Mr. Game & Watch (high mobility, extreme disjoints, charge release gimmicks on smashes, the million ways Fire is a good move), and I don't think Kirby has anything like them. I think of the good stuff Kirby has, and I'm seeing stuff that is fitting in G&W's weaknesses. For instance, Kirby has a fairly strong grab game while G&W's is pretty lousy. Kirby has moves that kinda lead into each other which is the biggest thing G&W just doesn't have. The biggest thing is that among the cast G&W is definitely a playstyle outlier which is not a way I'd describe Kirby at all.

I really think Kirby is mostly a good, well-rounded character that focuses a lot on basics, much more of a "Mario" than Mario himself. The listed weaknesses, losing to disjoints and camping, are kinda common among a huge chunk of the cast if not everyone. This is more about just how Brawl works in general; having big disjointed hitboxes and strong camping potential are really good, and while Kirby can win against it, it's going to be hard and not really in a way that I feel is unique to Kirby. Even the best of characters can have trouble getting around disjoints or getting camped out when the other guy is playing right, and Kirby is definitely way better at dealing with these things than most random low tiers.

Peach's fsmash completely annihilates Kirby's bair. It's absolutely fantastic. And EC Peaches don't know how to stutter step Fsmash, which is why they lose to Marth and Kirby >_>

I'm not even kidding about that statement.

if Kirby is in the air with his back facing Peach, if he's high, stand still and prepare to ftilt, if he's less than a head height above her head, stutter step back and fsmash. He can't bair through it if you're spacing it, and he can't jump through the ground and rush a shieldgrab fast enough (very little landing lag) if he baits it.

It's not the end-all-be-all of the matchup, but most Kirbies seem to think bair shuts her down, and if she spaces fsmash she can cut through it like butter.

Praxis said:

if Kirby is in the air with his back facing Peach, if he's high, stand still and prepare to ftilt, if he's less than a head height above her head, stutter step back and fsmash. He can't bair through it if you're spacing it, and he can't jump through the ground and rush a shieldgrab fast enough (very little landing lag) if he baits it.

It's not the end-all-be-all of the matchup, but most Kirbies seem to think bair shuts her down, and if she spaces fsmash she can cut through it like butter.

Click to expand...

Isn't this like trying to fsmash a tornado. It only works as long as they are predictable with it?

Chu kicked my *** last weekend! Someone teach me how to beat him!

Chu thinks Kirby does just fine against MK. He also has a pretty solid win record against a large amount of MK's. Kirby does well against Snake, Falco, and Wario as well. Not sure about Diddy.

I do know he gets pretty wrecked by IC's and Olimar. Meep and PS was one of the reasons why Chu was about to quit the game.

Omni said:

Chu kicked my *** last weekend! Someone teach me how to beat him!

Chu thinks Kirby does just fine against MK. He also has a pretty solid win record against a large amount of MK's. Kirby does well against Snake, Falco, and Wario as well. Not sure about Diddy.

I do know he gets pretty wrecked by IC's and Olimar. Meep and PS was one of the reasons why Chu was about to quit the game.

Click to expand...

I want to play Chu :-/

I play t1mmy on a regular basis, but when I'm spacing and waiting for him to approach, idk how Kirby is supposed to deal with the MK match up. Mix ups and mind games only go so far with the number of options he has.

I don't know about Chu, but at least when I played t1mmy he wasn't close to Y.b.M.'s level.

Y.b.M. and I both agree that Diddy beats kirby but it is close. Kirby has an extremely difficult time approaching, but kirby can gimp diddy better than most characters. Probably slight advantage Diddy (55-45)

edit: I feel like MK shuts down kirby once mk gets the matchup down..there was a point where Y.b.M. was beating OS and Kel (probably not consistently, but some) but now I'd say Kel/OS nearly always win. This could be because one or the other got better, but I know OS doesn't practice much. He could probably elaborate on this.

Omni, to beat Chu, camp Fsmash, retreating Fair, retreating pivot grab, and instead of Dtilting when he dashes at you, Dash Grab instead, because he's GOING to shield. Juggle him a bit, be active in your edgeguard, and don't worry about Fairing his shield instead of airdodging to the ground, because his kill moves are too slow to punish this option, whereas an airdodge can be read and punished.

That's basically it . . .

but sometimes he mixes dash shield with dash sidestep. i call that the shadow cuz that's like the staple of his mk play

then i whiff and he uptilts me to **** to b-air and im like

edit: I feel like MK shuts down kirby once mk gets the matchup down..there was a point where Y.b.M. was beating OS and Kel (probably not consistently, but some) but now I'd say Kel/OS nearly always win. This could be because one or the other got better, but I know OS doesn't practice much. He could probably elaborate on this.

Click to expand...

Y.b.M. beat me in a set in the Grand Finals at Nope's.

I sat down and thought about it.

I came back to Grand Finals and just camped. Whenever he approached, I'd retreating dair. Whenever he approached vertically, I'd retreating dair unless he would over-commit, then I'd just fall into him and dair him.

When he made an opening, I hit him with a nair.

Whenever he jumped towards me, I'd grounded up+b.

Whenever I was having trouble / was trapped, tornado above and through him (so he can't f-smash me out of it). Whenever I had to get hit with something, set it up to get hit with u-air.

I won the grand finals.

Pretty easy matchup to mentally prepare for.

Kirby MK is a stupid match up for Kirby, it's like Kirby is fighting himself, except he's better in every way and he has a sword!!!

I think Kirby is fine where he is on the tier list. I think he may drop one or two spots on the tier list, but not much more.

I don't see Kirby players steal powers in certain match ups. It would help a lot, especially if he steals a projectile.