Character Competitive Impressions

[Locke 06]

Fox has a large risk.v.reward tilt built in. You gotta just 'go for crazy crap' a lot as fox, if you want to get anything done. Same as with Captain Falcon. Being speed-based means you can play differently than more methodical fundamentals-based characters, and baiting becomes a much more prominent strength.

So as Fox, you need to have breathing room %-wise. If you try to do your 'Fox stuff' when you're at 100% yourself, when your opponent breaks a string of yours with a nair or uair, that will likely KILL you. But if you're at 50%, it won't and you can try to reset to neutral.

Nothing's ever really too safe as Fox, you're almost always taking a risk and making a gamble. It's your ability to lose a bet but still stay in the game that defines 'safety' to Fox. When you're behind in a match, it becomes harder to stay in the game after each gamble's loss.

What I meant mostly was, "Why can't you do this at high %'s all the time to avoid getting KO'd?"

Bait & punish playstyle loses to a proper defensive game when you don't press buttons. If Fox loses to shield at high %'s because his grab reward is bad and his safety is poor, what difference does % have?

Now the reason why that doesn't work in practice is because Fox's speed allows him to do is allow him to exert KO pressure at mid-range making you shield. He doesn't have to hit your shield, and he has the mobility to position himself so that when you act out of your shield, you're getting punished. Oh, and he can grab too. A safe Fox is one who's doing nothing, even when you're shielding, and that's scary.

Calling this one out. How does Megaman counter Robin?

How does he not? Poor dash attack, sub-par grab reward, and bad mobility. All thunder variants clash with pellets except thoron. Elfire is activated by pellets. Mega Man does not need to be in jab/tilt range ever. Robin's "blind spot" is often cited as his weakness. That blind spot happens to be much bigger with Mega Man's mid-range tools.

Wondering about Falco myself. Down B counters pellets and negates Megaman's tools in that range, which is megaman's favourite range.

1. Mega Man has initiative.
2. Down B is a commitment with very little reward on hit or reflection.

In other words, if Falco wants to play the mid-range game with Mega Man, Falco is reliant on Mega Man to damage himself or his reflector and poses no real threat because of his poor mobility. Meanwhile, Mega Man can pellet all day to rack up damage, throw metal blades/crash bomb to initiate offense, or bait a reflector to get in.

 

[A2ZOMG]

What I meant mostly was, "Why can't you do this at high %'s all the time to avoid getting KO'd?"

Bait & punish playstyle loses to a proper defensive game when you don't press buttons. If Fox loses to shield at high %'s because his grab reward is bad and his safety is poor, what difference does % have?

Now the reason why that doesn't work in practice is because Fox's speed allows him to do is allow him to exert KO pressure at mid-range making you shield. He doesn't have to hit your shield, and he has the mobility to position himself so that when you act out of your shield, you're getting punished. Oh, and he can grab too. A safe Fox is one who's doing nothing, even when you're shielding, and that's scary.


How does he not? Poor dash attack, sub-par grab reward, and bad mobility. All thunder variants clash with pellets except thoron. Elfire is activated by pellets. Mega Man does not need to be in jab/tilt range ever. Robin's "blind spot" is often cited as his weakness. That blind spot happens to be much bigger with Mega Man's mid-range tools.


1. Mega Man has initiative.
2. Down B is a commitment with very little reward on hit or reflection.

In other words, if Falco wants to play the mid-range game with Mega Man, Falco is reliant on Mega Man to damage himself or his reflector and poses no real threat because of his poor mobility. Meanwhile, Mega Man can pellet all day to rack up damage, throw metal blades/crash bomb to initiate offense, or bait a reflector to get in.

I mean just in general, shield is really good against Fox's KO options, but you don't want him to laser camp you for free either. Having a stock lead is crucial for forcing Fox to approach.

 

[Minordeth]

Falco's ability to land KOs is very matchup dependent, from my experience. U-throw U-air is amazing either on Halberd or certain light characters especially if they don't have excessive horizontal air mobility. Also Falco's B-throw is a legitimate KO option, which can save him a lot if you outplay someone who is pressuring you at the ledge.

Falco has some better edgeguards in F-air, B-air, and D-air as well, but I would say Falco does also have notable trouble easily getting KOs, and sometimes you're forced to fish for D-tilt if they don't die to U-air or your edgeguards.

I agree with this, with the caveat that Falco's SH RA Bair, even mid-stage, is a fantastic tool for putting the fear of god into opponents at kill percent. Falco is also superior to Fox at edgeguarding, due to his aforementioned jump height combined (especially in conjunction with the ridiculous Fair hitboxes).

 

[Locke 06]

I mean just in general, shield is really good against Fox's KO options, but you don't want him to laser camp you for free either. Having a stock lead is crucial for forcing Fox to approach.

Even if Fox is approaching and you shield to avoid the KO options (because he can usmash you faster than you can dash attack), he just dances behind you and waits.

Now the fox is ready to pounce on his prey.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Even if Fox is approaching and you shield to avoid the KO options (because he can usmash you faster than you can dash attack), he just dances behind you and waits.

Now the fox is ready to pounce on his prey.

It's still on Fox to magically make a correct guess on the 6+ and counting (consider shield, rolling either direction, spotdoding, jumping and airdodging, running backwards, and of course spacing low commitment pokes) defensive options you have to blow him up for attacking you when you have no incentive to approach him (due to stock lead which means you don't care about lasers at this point).

 

[Conda]

1. Mega Man has initiative.
2. Down B is a commitment with very little reward on hit or reflection.

In other words, if Falco wants to play the mid-range game with Mega Man, Falco is reliant on Mega Man to damage himself or his reflector and poses no real threat because of his poor mobility. Meanwhile, Mega Man can pellet all day to rack up damage, throw metal blades/crash bomb to initiate offense, or bait a reflector to get in.

Void reflector has reward on hit, deflection don't mean a thang. Falco also has one of the best Jab 1 and 2 in the game, meanwhile megaman has none. This usually isn't a big deal, but Falco is going to make megaman want to go in for grabs more than usual, and Falco will be able to punish these quite well. Falco can also watch Megaman recovering very easily with a fair.

Megaman is a balanced character with drawbacks, and I feel falco punishes those drawbacks pretty well. Falco has some matchup-related strengths, and I think they line up with megaman's drawbacks in valuable ways.

 

[Ffamran]

Does Falco have an easier time landing K.O.s than Fox? Or rather, does Falco share the same weaknesses Fox has?

I find recovering extremely more safe/easy as Falco, due to his slower fallspeed and MUCH better double jump. Falco can save his doublejump and juggle without needing to use it, meanwhile Fox will have to use his doublejump VERY often to try and avoid being landing trapped and in order to gain enough vertical height when needed.

Falco is in a similar boat as Ganondorf where his moves both rack up damage and kill. They're also in the same boat of mobility issues that are sort of made up by Falco having fast frame data while Ganondorf has range and being much more powerful.

So, Falco would end up having more kill options and edgeguarding tools in return for lower mobility and having similar issues as Fox of being a fast faller and being lightweight which his fast fall speed sort of makes up for.

Falco also gets more out of his throws, but Fox's grab game is better because of his speed. In terms of forcing approaches, Fox has it better. Disadvantage would go to Fox because of his slightly better air speed, his ground speed, and having a sex kick to save him along with Dair being all right. Neutral depends since Fox might have it easier with forcing approaches, but getting close to Falco means he can abuse his fast moves and power. Shaya said Falco outboxes Little Mac while people have said Fox has issues with Little Mac. I don't really know how true these are, but I'm assuming Falco's knockback and damage makes it easier for him to deal with Little Mac. At advantage, it might be even where Fox keeps pressuring while Falco keeps a strong momentum. At stock deficits, Falco might not care since he can close out stocks quickly if you mess up. Falco's probably a better punisher because of his power.

1. Mega Man has initiative.
2. Down B is a commitment with very little reward on hit or reflection.

In other words, if Falco wants to play the mid-range game with Mega Man, Falco is reliant on Mega Man to damage himself or his reflector and poses no real threat because of his poor mobility. Meanwhile, Mega Man can pellet all day to rack up damage, throw metal blades/crash bomb to initiate offense, or bait a reflector to get in.

The thing is that SSB4 Falco plays more close range than in previous games, especially Brawl. If Falco had a functioning Blaster or Fox's Impact Blaster, he'd have a much better time against characters like Robin, Mega Man, Link, Toon Link, etc.

The only times Falco should use Reflector is he's spacing or if he knows for a fact a strong projectile is coming. Otherwise, it'd be better to weave through them or even take the hit. Reflector Void changes this to if he wants to kill with it near the ceiling.

Falco relies on mistakes and being close to deal damage. A Falco fighting long or mid-range is asking to die.

 

[Locke 06]

It's still on Fox to magically make a correct guess on the 6+ and counting (consider shield, rolling either direction, spotdoding, jumping and airdodging, running backwards, and of course spacing low commitment pokes) defensive options you have to blow him up for attacking you when you have no incentive to approach him (due to stock lead which means you don't care about lasers at this point).

I guess what I see is that Fox at mid-range poses as much of a threat as Little Mac at mid-range because of his speed and ability to KO you for doing something stupid with Usmash.

Consider the situation where Fox is standing just inside of PK Fire range of Ness. Both are standing still. At this moment, Fox is winning. Ness has to either approach, shield/throw out low commitment moves, or try to reposition using movement, because Fox has too many options here while Ness has too little.

That's why I see Fox as a good character despite his lack of safety on block. He exerts KO pressure by doing nothing better than anyone in the game.

Void reflector has reward on hit, deflection don't mean a thang. Falco also has one of the best Jab 1 and 2 in the game, meanwhile megaman has none. This usually isn't a big deal, but Falco is going to make megaman want to go in for grabs more than usual, and Falco will be able to punish these quite well. Falco can also watch Megaman recovering very easily with a fair.

Megaman is a balanced character with drawbacks, and I feel falco punishes those drawbacks pretty well. Falco has some matchup-related strengths, and I think they line up with megaman's drawbacks in valuable ways.

1. Vanilla metagame. Void reflector definitely changes things.
2. Why does Falco force Mega Man to want a grab more than others?
3. Off stage I'd consider to be a wash if not in Mega's favor. Both can do mean things to each other and Falco's FAir can be challenged with Mega's FAir.

 

[Ffamran]

1. Vanilla metagame. Void reflector definitely changes things.
2. Why does Falco force Mega Man to want a grab more than others?
3. Off stage I'd consider to be a wash if not in Mega's favor. Both can do mean things to each other and Falco's FAir can be challenged with Mega's FAir.

Falco is a juggling pin because of his air speed and fast fall speed. Rosalina juggles Falco so easily and Falco has little he can do whether or not Luma is out. Palutena's Up Smash is a, "Well, ****", for us since Falco can be hit during Falco Phantasm.

Off stage, Falco's anything can gimp or kill you. Blaster can and will gimp you not to mention if he lands a Fair or Dair, you're screwed. The difference is that all of Mega Man's aerials are disjointed whild Falco's isn't. Nair can ledge spike and gimp amusingly enough while Uair's body hitbox might be able to gimp, but I'm not sure. And let's not mention what he can do with a Bair.

 

[Shaya]

Falco's FAir can be challenged with Mega's FAir.

That's a trade that can kill you off stage tbqh.

 

[Locke 06]

That's a trade that can kill you off stage tbqh.

Yeah, but Mega's vertical recovery is usually good enough to survive it assuming you do it close to level with the stage. Also, saving double jumps. Just saying that Mega's not free offstage, that's all. Mega does not recover super easily in the MU, but neither does Falco, which is why I call it a wash.

 

[Ffamran]

That's a trade that can kill you off stage tbqh.

Falco's Fair is so weird at times. It can clank with Pac-Man's Hydrant and keep going like the Hydrant was made of paper. Once, I traded with Mario's Super Jump Punch and I ended up gimping him and I don't know why.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I guess what I see is that Fox at mid-range poses as much of a threat as Little Mac at mid-range because of his speed and ability to KO you for doing something stupid with Usmash.

Consider the situation where Fox is standing just inside of PK Fire range of Ness. Both are standing still. At this moment, Fox is winning. Ness has to either approach, shield/throw out low commitment moves, or try to reposition using movement, because Fox has too many options here while Ness has too little.

That's why I see Ganondorf as a good character despite his lack of safety on block. He exerts KO pressure by doing nothing better than anyone in the game.

In the vs Ness situation, Fox does not want to challenge Ness's superior grab game. Ness's Dash Attack also has to be respected due to its disjoint. If anything, Fox does much better outside Ness's PK Fire range where a powershield or waiting for a whiff outside of range results in a free punish, or where he can pressure Ness with lasers.

Also, fixed. Fox's pressure really isn't the threat of his KOs. It's mostly lasers, super fast fall speed, frame 4 Dash attack, and grab. His threat is all about his free damage scenarios, not really the situations where he can get KOs. If anyone in this game exerts a lot of KO pressure by just waiting, it's characters like Ganon, Doc, and Ness.

 

[Radical Larry]

Falco's Fair is so weird at times. It can clank with Pac-Man's Hydrant and keep going like the Hydrant was made of paper. Once, I traded with Mario's Super Jump Punch and I ended up gimping him and I don't know why.

Probably because of very poor reaction time from Mario, the hitstun and the fact that SJP is a very poor recovery, all combined.

 

[irokex13]

How does he not? Poor dash attack, sub-par grab reward, and bad mobility. All thunder variants clash with pellets except thoron. Elfire is activated by pellets. Mega Man does not need to be in jab/tilt range ever. Robin's "blind spot" is often cited as his weakness. That blind spot happens to be much bigger with Mega Man's mid-range tools.

Don't all of MM's attacks get stopped by arcfire, forcing you to fight Robin up close? And what answer does MM have to being juggled by the Levin Sword, especially against Robin's Up air? And I feel that a lot of people forget the strength of Robin's b throw, which kills at respectable percents. Also, Thoron is still a very real issue for MM, as it kills and can punish a ton of Mm's zoning tools. It seems as if there are a lot of tools that Robin has that you have not accounted for.

MU numbers should not be construed until the strengths and weaknesses of both characters have been accounted for, including their performance on each legal stage.

 

[Nabbitnator]

I thought it was megaman's projectiles that stopped arcfire and that robin has to approach.

 

[Locke 06]

Also, fixed. Fox's pressure really isn't the threat of his KOs. It's mostly lasers, super fast fall speed, frame 4 Dash attack, and grab. His threat is all about his free damage scenarios, not really the situations where he can get KOs. If anyone in this game exerts a lot of KO pressure by just waiting, it's characters like Ganon, Doc, and Ness.

Doc and Ness exert KO pressure through their defensive game (OoS options), which is pressure on the opponents' offense to be perfect (Mega Man does this too with utilt). Fox exerts KO pressure by standing/jumping/not committing in midrange and punishing with a KO move if you do something wrong with your defense.

Fox's usmash is f8. We could give him a generous 5 frames to foxtrot, jump cancel, and input usmash and that's f13. If you're within 1/4 FD from Fox, you have to be ready for this, and that's a unique thing that other characters don't have. The only other characters, I think, who have that much effective range and speed with their KO move/setup is Mac, Metaknight, Speed Shulk, and maybe Diddy and ZSS (dash grabs with ++ speed). As Donkey Kong, if these characters are just outside of my tilt range, I'm losing and need to reset or go in.

If you're in range for a standing Ganon dash attack to hit, then there are a lot more I'd put on that list, but I think of mid-range as outside of that and inside laser range. Probably because I play Mega Man. I guess most mid-range is "outside of jab" range, so I apologize if that's where some confusion may have arose.

I'm no Fox expert or anything. This is just my idea of something Fox does exceptionally well on top of those "free damage scenarios."

Don't all of MM's attacks get stopped by arcfire, forcing you to fight Robin up close? And what answer does MM have to being juggled by the Levin Sword, especially against Robin's Up air? And I feel that a lot of people forget the strength of Robin's b throw, which kills at respectable percents. Also, Thoron is still a very real issue for MM, as it kills and can punish a ton of Mm's zoning tools. It seems as if there are a lot of tools that Robin has that you have not accounted for.

MU numbers should not be construed until the strengths and weaknesses of both characters have been accounted for, including their performance on each legal stage.

Metal blade goes through the arcfire flames, I think, and the move is limited in use. At worst, it's a stalemate in which case Robin gets to charge a little bit of Thoron. Mega Man doesn't need to fight up close. He loves stalemates. Thoron is an issue, but it's a similar issue to Samus' charge shot; you have to work a lot to get it, and once you do, you need to make sure you don't get interrupted when you use it. Even then, Thoron does 10% and cannot be relied upon to rack up damage.

Back throw kills at respectable percents close to the edge, but how are you landing that grab in that position? If anything, Robin should be trying to force Mega Man to the edge so that he cannot space as well, making bthrow much less powerful.

Levin Sword aerials are strong and were the reason why I had a little pause before saying Robin loses so hard, but getting Mega Man above Robin to be juggled is step 1. Mega Man's retaliation to getting juggled is to drift to the ledge/reset with good airspeed and weaving ability or fast fall air dodge with his quick fast fall speed. It's not a great place to be, just as it's not a great place to be for every character.

As for stages, platforms generally help Mega Man similar to how they help Robin. Uair sharking is strong for both characters, but it helps Mega Man recover more.

I didn't do a full writeup, because I was curious to why you thought it was closer. What I have not taken into account is Robin's tomes/item play, as I don't know enough about it and how it interacts with MM's kit. However, Robin doesn't have a consistent answer to mid-range pressure and that's what defines the MU in my opinion.

Sidenote: Mac's dash dance creates a dust cloud that obscures his small character model. I want to see this utilized.

Edit: of course I'm not "declaring" official MU #'s, whatever that means, but those are my opinions on those matchups based on my experience and analysis. I agree that a more in depth analysis of the MU is needed as it's a relatively unexplored MU on both sides as far as I know.

 

[Pazx]

Fox is MK with a gun and a good jab contributing to a better neutral and a worse advantage.

I'm not sure this is the case for everyone, sadly. Literally everything that was strong about except his Nair was nerfed in that patch, even minor things like Uair. That doesn't really speak for conservative balance, nor do I think hitting literally everything that's even slightly strong is an effective way to balance. Come to think of it, almost everything that was strong about was nerfed as well including stuff like Down Smash, but it didn't affect her as much since her basic design (puppeteer with a respawning puppet) is so strong. I guess Luma's moves weren't really nerfed either, which is where most of her strength comes from. Despite the lesser effect on Rosalina, the nerfs applied to her don't really show signs of conservative balance.

On the other end of the spectrum you had getting buffs to half his moves and much better KO potential all around, and getting damage buffs to almost every move with general buffs to Monado Arts as well. I don't think either of those characters were buffed conservatively, in fact I think we're quite lucky that Shulk doesn't have better frame data since buffs of that magnitude could be devastating on a character with faster moves.

I hope they ARE a little more conservative at nerfing the powerful characters this time around.

I didn't think MK was buffed in the last patch, his biggest "buffs" were changes to DI/Vectoring and his animations being reduced to match his hitboxes, but I could be wrong.

 

[Lavani]

I didn't think MK was buffed in the last patch, his biggest "buffs" were changes to DI/Vectoring and his animations being reduced to match his hitboxes, but I could be wrong.

Nair got a noticeable damage buff (7.5%>10%, became one of the earliest killing nairs because of the boost too), bair got a ton of added kill power, uair/dair got slight range increases via relocated hitboxes, and fthrow was bugfixed so it always did its full 9% instead of doing 3% to certain characters.

 

[Smog Frog]

but at the cost of all these buffs? fair spike ohkoes were removed.

 

[Djent]

On the Xanadu stream, Unknown (yes, the Marvel player) apparently beat Kenny and is now up 1 game in winners quarters vs. Logic.

He is using

EDIT: 2-1 victory...is his destiny.

 

[Smog Frog]

just imagine for one second if unknown hadn't been cheesed so hard against seagull

just think

but ay thats why the patch is coming

 

[thehard]

Average Joe took a game off Boss and kept it close for the last two, being up a stock at several points. If you think customs "carried" him last Xanadu... you delusional. He's just good.

 

[Blobface]

Rosalina vs Ganon really isn't that bad with customs on. Ganon's almost ungimpable and Rage + Dark Fists can kill Rosa below 30%. 45:55 at worst, maybe even 50:50. Same goes for Sheik.

Customs off? 3:7 for sure.

 

[thehard]

Also, the Avg. Joe vs Logic set had my heart racing. Those are the matches that rekindle your confidence in the heavyweights. Comeback machines - give them an inch and they take a mile.

Reading Diddy's Side-B is going to be pivotal to countering him. I've seen players get a lot better at it the last week or so.

 

[TheZyzyva]

Xanadu was pretty entertaining tonight, average joe did some work with DK. Great to see. I did see him whiff a point blank usmash though on delfino that, IIRC, would have likely won him a matcha against Boss, which is a real shame. I really hope Sakurai fixes those things one day.

Unknown did pretty well, but to be honest what I got most from his matches is a strong desire for a gif to be made of seagulls 0-death on him, that was ridiculous.

I think what really surprised me was how well tantalous played ROB, for a long time I've thought he was overrated but now I see why he's a high-mid. I am thoroughly impressed, saw a lot of stuff I haven't seen (although I an really not familiar with the character). I do think though that eventually people are going to get out of that dthrow > uair, that worked nearly every time.

On another note, I watched some of those shi-gaming vids of the G&W, songun I believe, and I don't know if the people he played just kept messing up or what but they just could not kill him at all! And he just nails the uair like nothing I've seen before. He must have got half his kills from it alone. Really hope it wasn't a fluke because I love G&W and really want to be wrong on thinking he's near the bottom.

Anyone else's thoughts on the night?

 

[Jams.]

ROB's dthrow uair is a true combo at low percents. The opponent can choose between DIing out or in for a slight mix-up starting around 20%, but ROB should be able to react to the DI. Characters can usually airdodge out starting at around 40-50%. DK just falls on the higher end of that percentage range due to his size and physics. However, ROB's dthrow -> uair is still a 50/50 between airdodge and jumping out until around 70-80%, after which opponents should be able to jump out before the uair every time. There are some percentages where dthrow -> uair is a 50/50 kill set-up.

In the games I saw between Tantalus and Average Joe, Joe seemed simply to choose not to airdodge out of the combo. Perhaps he was afraid Tantalus would punish the airdodge, and simply lost the 50/50.

All the percents are assuming ROB has no rage. Opponents can get out much earlier if ROB has a lot of rage, and some characters make it a 50/50 at 0% if ROB is around 150%. I believe ROB's customs upb, high velocity burner, increases the percentage range where dthrow->uair is a 50/50 kill set-up.

 

[Meru.]

I'm not sure this is the case for everyone, sadly. Literally everything that was strong about except his Nair was nerfed in that patch, even minor things like Uair. That doesn't really speak for conservative balance, nor do I think hitting literally everything that's even slightly strong is an effective way to balance. Come to think of it, almost everything that was strong about was nerfed as well including stuff like Down Smash, but it didn't affect her as much since her basic design (puppeteer with a respawning puppet) is so strong. I guess Luma's moves weren't really nerfed either, which is where most of her strength comes from. Despite the lesser effect on Rosalina, the nerfs applied to her don't really show signs of conservative balance.

On the other end of the spectrum you had getting buffs to half his moves and much better KO potential all around, and getting damage buffs to almost every move with general buffs to Monado Arts as well. I don't think either of those characters were buffed conservatively, in fact I think we're quite lucky that Shulk doesn't have better frame data since buffs of that magnitude could be devastating on a character with faster moves.

I hope they ARE a little more conservative at nerfing the powerful characters this time around.

I completely disagree with this, but that's probably because I'm comparing Smash to other fighting games. Compared to other games, Smash is certainly very conservative. Take for example Blazblue. No character stays the same after the patch: all characters' combo's and playstyles change completely and with it the tier list does too. Top tiers become bottom, low tiers become top, mid tiers become low or high etc etc etc. Soul Calibur is not as drastic as Blazblue, but it was to due to a patch that monster Viola was created and other characters got big nerfs (Leixia, Natsu). I don't play SF4 or MK9, but I have heard balance patches have completely changed tier lists there too.

Smash is a game with 50 characters, more than any aforementioned games. Despite that, only one character has significantly changed its tier list position because of character buffs and that's Greninja who went from around high tier to mid tier... which is not even that drastic. Characters like Shulk and Ike got buffed, but you don't see them even close to high tier (some people even think Ike is still low...). Meta Knight didn't get buffs to half of his moves, they only fixed the visuals and hitbox positions of his movesbecause they were off, and gave slight nerfs to Nair and Bair.

Now some characters did get much better because of system changes. Luigi, Mario and Diddy got much stronger becuase vectoring got removed which strengthened their grab games, and Lucario got weaker because he couldn't survive as long as before. If we count these characters too out of 50 characters at best 5 characters got remarkably better or worse relative to the cast, and only one of them is because of specific character changes (Greninja) while the four others got buffed or nerfed mostly because of a system change (Diddy, Luigi, Mario, Lucario) and all powerful characters stayed powerful (Lucario is debetable because his UpB got a lot of lag). If that's not conservative, especially when comparted to other fighting games where chars get thrown from top to low or vice-versa, then I don't know what is.

almost everything that was strong about was nerfed as well including stuff like Down Smash, but it didn't affect her as much since her basic design (puppeteer with a respawning puppet)

Excuse me if I overreact but I kind of hate it when people say "this char will always stay strong because of their design". It is incredibly ambiguous and simply not true. You could easily destroy Rosalina while retaining her design. Less range to Usmash and Dash Attack so she isn't so good a punishing landings anymore, also nerf the knockback while you're at it, nerf Uair so it does kill at 40% anymore, nerf Dair so she can't gimp people as easy anymore, maybe nerf Fsmash too, and viola! I have now broken Rosalina's legs while maintaining her design as a puppeteer. If you don't want to destroy her but just make her mid, then just be a bit more moderate with the nerfs. My point is, no character's "design" will save them from become worse, and there's no characters who is good just by their "design".

Okay, so Super Sumabato just happened this weekend, and the results were pretty interesting:

1) Edge (undefeated)
2) Saiya (lost to Shogun and Edge)
3) Choco (lost to Edge and Saiya)
4) Songun (lost to Edge and Saiya)
5) Shogun (lost to Choco and Songun)
5) Kie (lost to Choco and Saiya)
7) Ranai (lost to Kie and Shogun)
7) Earth (lost to Edge and Saiya)

This tourney had over 200 entrants and some of Japan's best competition was present, so I think it's reasonable to say that G&W is viable and certainly not bottom tier. Though most people agree that Peach and Falcon are good, both are lacking results of this caliber (except Zero's Falcon because Zero). Saiya and Kie have been to several previous Sumabato events where they didn't perform as well, but now they are finally showing what their characters are capable of.

A lot of the matches are now up on Shi-Gaming's channel. I'm still watching the matches, but I'll probably want to discuss particular matchups later.

I am very happy for Kie that he won with Peach, but I must say I'm not very surprised. Kie is an incredibly good Peach player, probably the best in the world. It just took him longer because Peach longer to figure out. That's what it means to be a character with a steep learning curve after all. Nonetheless, it's really nice Peach got some more representation!! GO KIE!!!

and wow GW, he even beat a Diddy!! The Usmash is strong in this one.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

ROB's dthrow uair is a true combo at low percents. The opponent can choose between DIing out or in for a slight mix-up starting around 20%, but ROB should be able to react to the DI. Characters can usually airdodge out starting at around 40-50%. DK just falls on the higher end of that percentage range due to his size and physics. However, ROB's dthrow -> uair is still a 50/50 between airdodge and jumping out until around 70-80%, after which opponents should be able to jump out before the uair every time. There are some percentages where dthrow -> uair is a 50/50 kill set-up.

In the games I saw between Tantalus and Average Joe, Joe seemed simply to choose not to airdodge out of the combo. Perhaps he was afraid Tantalus would punish the airdodge, and simply lost the 50/50.

All the percents are assuming ROB has no rage. Opponents can get out much earlier if ROB has a lot of rage, and some characters make it a 50/50 at 0% if ROB is around 150%. I believe ROB's customs upb, high velocity burner, increases the percentage range where dthrow->uair is a 50/50 kill set-up.

ROB is really legit and he may become even better after the 1.06 patch.

 

[PUK]

ROB is really legit and he may become even better after the 1.06 patch.

If sheik is nerfed he will be better y. But inherent buff are unlikely. Custom is really good on him anyway, he's clearly in the top 15 with.

Also thoron does 15-18% and not only 10. And robin projectiles include levin sword (14%) and tomes (17%?) and both beat every MM projectile custom off.

 

[bc1910]

I completely disagree with this, but that's probably because I'm comparing Smash to other fighting games. Compared to other games, Smash is certainly very conservative. Take for example Blazblue. No character stays the same after the patch: all characters' combo's and playstyles change completely and with it the tier list does too. Top tiers become bottom, low tiers become top, mid tiers become low or high etc etc etc. Soul Calibur is not as drastic as Blazblue, but it was to due to a patch that monster Viola was created and other characters got big nerfs (Leixia, Natsu). I don't play SF4 or MK9, but I have heard balance patches have completely changed tier lists there too.

Smash is a game with 50 characters, more than any aforementioned games. Despite that, only one character has significantly changed its tier list position because of character buffs and that's Greninja who went from around high tier to mid tier... which is not even that drastic. Characters like Shulk and Ike got buffed, but you don't see them even close to high tier (some people even think Ike is still low...). Meta Knight didn't get buffs to half of his moves, they only fixed the visuals and hitbox positions of his movesbecause they were off, and gave slight nerfs to Nair and Bair.

Now some characters did get much better because of system changes. Luigi, Mario and Diddy got much stronger becuase vectoring got removed which strengthened their grab games, and Lucario got weaker because he couldn't survive as long as before. If we count these characters too out of 50 characters at best 5 characters got remarkably better or worse relative to the cast, and only one of them is because of specific character changes (Greninja) while the four others got buffed or nerfed mostly because of a system change (Diddy, Luigi, Mario, Lucario) and all powerful characters stayed powerful (Lucario is debetable because his UpB got a lot of lag). If that's not conservative, especially when comparted to other fighting games where chars get thrown from top to low or vice-versa, then I don't know what is.

I wasn't suggesting that the last balance patch showed dynamic balance on the scale of Blazblue, even Street Fighter IV Ultra. But what I was saying is that there is some evidence of kneejerk reactions causing balance changes. Perhaps these weren't on a large scale, but kneejerk reactions like "Greninja's too strong!" despite the game being less than 2 months old lead to those Greninja nerfs. Allowing those sorts of reactions to dictate balance is anything but conservative and I'm afraid we'll see more of them in the future.

Greninja didn't just fall from high to mid, he went from being in a lot of people's Top 5 lists to... well, some are saying low tier. I mean, he's allowed in low tier tournaments in Japan. That's about as drastic a change as you can get. Shulk was also chalked up as one of the worst characters at release by many people, and now sees himself in the high tier on a lot of tier lists, right next to the Pits. MK was also thought to be pretty bad at the start of release (though this may just have been people overreacting to his Brawl nerfs) and is now argued to be high tier by many players. Nair and Bair were not given slight nerfs, they were both buffed. Nair does more damage and Bair has significantly better KO potential. I'm not going to bother talking about vectoring. The fact is, the removal of vectoring DID significantly buff some characters and significantly nerf others, but it also hardly changed some characters, and it was a castwide mechanical change rather than a balance change.

Now I'm not suggesting for a second that we're seeing cast-wide tier rises and drops on the scale of Blazblue; you're right about that. I wouldn't expect that from the first balance patch for any game, especially one that the devs tried to sneak under our noses because they thought the changes were barely noticeable. But as I said, there is definitely evidence of quick fix-its being implemented which, at that early stage of release, is not conservative.

This game is also very new. Those other games have set a fairly long-standing precedence for the type of balance changes the devs like to employ. I think it's worth both of us keeping this in mind since it's hard to predict where Sm4sh will go with balance based on one patch.

Excuse me if I overreact but I kind of hate it when people say "this char will always stay strong because of their design". It is incredibly ambiguous and simply not true. You could easily destroy Rosalina while retaining her design. Less range to Usmash and Dash Attack so she isn't so good a punishing landings anymore, also nerf the knockback while you're at it, nerf Uair so it does kill at 40% anymore, nerf Dair so she can't gimp people as easy anymore, maybe nerf Fsmash too, and viola! I have now broken Rosalina's legs while maintaining her design as a puppeteer. If you don't want to destroy her but just make her mid, then just be a bit more moderate with the nerfs. My point is, no character's "design" will save them from become worse, and there's no characters who is good just by their "design".

I thoroughly disagree. Some designs are absolutely stronger than others and you would have to completely destroy a character like Rosalina for her to be bad. A prime example would be Brawl Falcon. As a character with an amazing power-speed ratio, Falcon is strong in every other Smash entry, but in Brawl his moveset was butchered and the game's physics totally worked against him.

On the other hand, let's take Kratos in PSASBR. Kratos was designed as an aggressive melee character with insane range. He was nerfed three, maybe four times in the game's lifetime, mostly with his moves getting a lot more recovery. Yet by the end of the final patch he was still considered #2 in the game. Maybe it wasn't his design that saved him here, maybe the nerfs simply weren't hard enough, but that's the thing; his design was just so whacked out that only some really extreme nerfs could have hurt him significantly. I don't mean to be patronising with this explanation by the way, sorry if it comes across like that, I just went into detail because I'm aware you probably didn't play PSASBR since not that many people did, haha.

I don't think the changes you suggested would destroy Rosalina at all. Her kill potential would be much worse I concede, but she still has fast tilts, amazing spacing ability, and a space pillow who eats damage for her. Plus her dodges and normals are still good enough for her to wait out the 12.5 seconds of respawn time without Luma. Rosalina's design is most definitely very, very strong and it would be hard to make her significantly worse with even remotely sensible patching. No character's "design" will save them from some idiot tacking 30 frames of startup and ending lag to every move, but in the realm of sensibility there are plenty of characters who will be strong no matter what nerfs are applied. Diddy, I think, is one of them. You would probably have to hit his damage output, throw combos, projectile game, frame data AND autocancel windows all at once for him to become unviable.

I don't think you overreacted, no worries.

 

[Nobie]

I think a lot of changes, especially the Greninja ones, were less about "oh man this character is too powerful, we gotta do something about it" and more about "We didn't design the character to be this way." It's debatable of course as to whether that's the right decision, but they probably felt that being able to throw out up smashes all day was not quite how Greninja was supposed to play.

This isn't to say that character balance isn't a factor at all (I will be honestly shocked if Diddy comes out of the next patch unscathed), but character "feel" is something that I believe game designers look at as well. If Bowser had a bug that could make him teleport yet still only made him among the top 10 in the game instead of overwhelmingly the best, they'd still probably get rid of it.

(Though if Ganondorf had a teleport glitch and they got rid of it, I'd be legitimately upset because teleporting is Ganondorf's thing in the Zelda games, and they should totally embrace it).

 

[meleebrawler]

I think a lot of changes, especially the Greninja ones, were less about "oh man this character is too powerful, we gotta do something about it" and more about "We didn't design the character to be this way." It's debatable of course as to whether that's the right decision, but they probably felt that being able to throw out up smashes all day was not quite how Greninja was supposed to play.

This isn't to say that character balance isn't a factor at all (I will be honestly shocked if Diddy comes out of the next patch unscathed), but character "feel" is something that I believe game designers look at as well. If Bowser had a bug that could make him teleport yet still only made him among the top 10 in the game instead of overwhelmingly the best, they'd still probably get rid of it.

(Though if Ganondorf had a teleport glitch and they got rid of it, I'd be legitimately upset because teleporting is Ganondorf's thing in the Zelda games, and they should totally embrace it).

If they cared enough about Ganon's image that a glitch ended up fitting him, they'd probably make it a legitimate
maneuver instead. Fun fact: the Spy in TF2 arose because of a team-color glitch.

 

[bc1910]

I think a lot of changes, especially the Greninja ones, were less about "oh man this character is too powerful, we gotta do something about it" and more about "We didn't design the character to be this way." It's debatable of course as to whether that's the right decision, but they probably felt that being able to throw out up smashes all day was not quite how Greninja was supposed to play.

This isn't to say that character balance isn't a factor at all (I will be honestly shocked if Diddy comes out of the next patch unscathed), but character "feel" is something that I believe game designers look at as well. If Bowser had a bug that could make him teleport yet still only made him among the top 10 in the game instead of overwhelmingly the best, they'd still probably get rid of it.

(Though if Ganondorf had a teleport glitch and they got rid of it, I'd be legitimately upset because teleporting is Ganondorf's thing in the Zelda games, and they should totally embrace it).

You're probably right. In fact I'm 99% sure you're right. Sorry to once again bring up a game no-one played, but in PSASBR one of the characters, Sir Dan, apparently had really strong kill confirms off of a jab in development. This made him really strong, but they took the confirms out because it didn't match his intended combat persona of a goofy brawler with large range.

Greninja was probably intended to play like a sneaky ninja and I guess throwing out safe smashes doesn't really fit that combat persona. However the true nail in the coffin of his viability, the Shuriken nerf, doesn't make sense to me from this perspective. A ninja should be fast and disruptive, not forced to sit through a long startup AND ending lag animation every time they throw something. They probably nerfed it because they thought it was too spammable, which is why I'd love them to keep the current ending lag but make it dash cancellable a la Zero Suit Samus' Neutral B in PM. This way you could still use Shurikens offensively and wouldn't be able to just sit back and throw them.

Well, bugs making characters good is one thing. If Bowser was only good because of a teleporting bug it makes sense they'd remove it. Greninja was just naturally good because of his moveset. The only remotely buggy thing was Hydro Pump which still has the same effect, it's just not as strong, so even that probably wasn't a bug.

Anyway, to make sure this stays on topic, I'd like to add that I also think ROB is really strong and could easily get better after this patch if Diddy and Sheik get nerfed. With Greninja already nerfed, most of the characters ROB struggles with will then have been nerfed somehow. That said, I don't know how much they're going to take online win ratios into account, but ROB's win ratio is probably really high; not that many people use him, and those that do seem to win pretty frequently. I think this is largely down to Gyros being so much better online. But yeah, if they think ROB's win ratio is problematic then I wouldn't be too surprised to see him toned down somehow. That said, they nerfed Little Mac despite his terrible win ratio, so who knows.

 

[meleebrawler]

You're probably right. In fact I'm 99% sure you're right. Sorry to once again bring up a game no-one played, but in PSASBR one of the characters, Sir Dan, apparently had really strong kill confirms off of a jab in development. This made him really strong, but they took the confirms out because it didn't match his intended combat persona of a goofy brawler with large range.

Greninja was probably intended to play like a sneaky ninja and I guess throwing out safe smashes doesn't really fit that combat persona. However the true nail in the coffin of his viability, the Shuriken nerf, doesn't make sense to me from this perspective. A ninja should be fast and disruptive, not forced to sit through a long startup AND ending lag animation every time they throw something. They probably nerfed it because they thought it was too spammable, which is why I'd love them to keep the current ending lag but make it dash cancellable a la Zero Suit Samus' Neutral B in PM. This way you could still use Shurikens offensively and wouldn't be able to just sit back and throw them.

Well, bugs making characters good is one thing. If Bowser was only good because of a teleporting bug it makes sense they'd remove it. Greninja was just naturally good because of his moveset. The only remotely buggy thing was Hydro Pump which still has the same effect, it's just not as strong, so even that probably wasn't a bug.

Anyway, to make sure this stays on topic, I'd like to add that I also think ROB is really strong and could easily get better after this patch if Diddy and Sheik get nerfed. With Greninja already nerfed, most of the characters ROB struggles with will then have been nerfed somehow. That said, I don't know how much they're going to take online win ratios into account, but ROB's win ratio is probably really high; not that many people use him, and those that do seem to win pretty frequently. I think this is largely down to Gyros being so much better online. But yeah, if they think ROB's win ratio is problematic then I wouldn't be too surprised to see him toned down somehow. That said, they nerfed Little Mac despite his terrible win ratio, so who knows.

Jolt Haymaker nerf probably came because they felt his recovery wasn't "terrible" enough for their tastes.
Probably also felt that it made him too mobile in the air. Jab nerf just because having a frame 1 move that does
almost as much damage as his smashes was kind of ridiculous.

 

[FullMoon]

Greninja definitely was changed because he was meant to be a bait-and-punish character, instead of being more of a rushdown character like he was before. Greninja being placed low on tier lists is a result of both people overreacting to nerfs like they did with MK and the character being tricky to play so that unless you fight against a good Greninja player, you probably aren't going to be able to tell Greninja's potential right away. You seldom see people playing or even talking about Greninja and when they do it's likely going to be just about his nerfs.

It's worth noting that ZeRo himself said in one of his videos that he still thinks Greninja is one of the best characters in the game in spite of his nerfs, so the frog isn't being completely overlooked and people still do see potential in him.

Also

Anyway, to make sure this stays on topic, I'd like to add that I also think ROB is really strong and could easily get better after this patch if Diddy and Sheik get nerfed. With Greninja already nerfed, most of the characters ROB struggles with will then have been nerfed somehow. That said, I don't know how much they're going to take online win ratios into account, but ROB's win ratio is probably really high; not that many people use him, and those that do seem to win pretty frequently. I think this is largely down to Gyros being so much better online. But yeah, if they think ROB's win ratio is problematic then I wouldn't be too surprised to see him toned down somehow. That said, they nerfed Little Mac despite his terrible win ratio, so who knows.

Greninja would also get significantly better if the top tiers were nerfed because his bad MUs are precisely against the high tiers (Diddy, Sheik, Fox, Sonic) so any potential nerf to those characters are already going to make the frog better because it's exactly the bad MUs against top tier characters that hold Greninja back in the meta (hell, with the way people are talking about Fox, Greninja is pretty much bad against the top 3 characters of the game, top 4 depending of how good you think Sonic is, which is... Bad, to say the least).

That's part of why I hope Greninja doesn't get tweaked because if they end up nerfing all the characters that he normally loses to (and they all have some potential to be nerfed considering they're all very high in the tier list) as well as buffing him, Greninja could easily become a character without any bad MUs at all. Granted, he probably would still not be the best character in the game since outside of Luigi and potentially Pikachu, Greninja just goes even with other top tiers.

What is holding Greninja back in this meta is that while he has few bad MUs, those few just happen to be potentially the top 4 best characters in the game which obviously would make winning a big tournament going with solo Greninja require a lot of effort since you're likely to face a lot of those characters in the process.

 

[deepseadiva]

I agree with @ M Meru. that "design" is a very ambiguous term and isn't something a character can 100% depend on in games with patches. I'm starting to describe characters more and more in terms of "packages", as objects with traits like weight and airspeed, and as collections of moves. The "inherent design of a character" can seem forever powerful at surface value, such as Rosalina and her Luma, but how much power is there really if rewards of that design were slightly tweeked?

Would we be even half as scared of the Ice Climbers if Nana couldn't grab? Or Luma with half KO power? Or a floating Peach with ass aerials?

Point is character design can seem infallible, but it's always a total package that makes a character as effective as they are. Reward on hit seems to be consistently the defining factor in character effectiveness. Paired with cost of being hit, we begin to see the form of a "character design". But simply altering the amount of reward/cost of those is very easy, can be very discrete, and can cause massive shifts in a character's performance.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Excuse me if I overreact but I kind of hate it when people say "this char will always stay strong because of their design". It is incredibly ambiguous and simply not true.

It's true. and showed that it is possible to make traditionally strong characters weak by taking away the aspects of their design that made them good. , , and showed that it's possible to make traditionally mediocre characters strong. They still haven't quite figured out how to make heavies, particularly projectileless ones, into strong contenders, but here's hoping the balance patch will change that. I could see the more mobile ones like Bowser, DK, and Zard jumping quite a bit as their issues are easier to fix, but it's hard to balance D3 and Dorf without them winding up as polarized messes who wreck everyone who can't camp them out but still lose to those who can, at least without mobility buffs or reworking stuff like Gordo mechanics.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I think calling the patch changes from 1.0.4 kneejerk balance changes is not quite reasonable since there's no particular reason to believe those changes were actually made with respect to anything that happened outside of internal development at all. When the 3ds version was released, the Wii U version wasn't done yet. They were still working on and tweaking the Wii U version, and I'd point out that that patch didn't really change the gameplay on Wii U (the Wii U version of the patch just enabled online) which is a guarantee that those changes were decided from the moment the printing of physical copies of the Wii U version started (and likely at least a week before that).

1.0.4 also honestly didn't change as much as people might like to suggest. Three characters got heavily nerfed: Sheik, Rosalina, and Greninja. Three characters got heavily buffed: Olimar, Ike, and Shulk. The other 45 characters got only minor tweaking. After those changes, Sheik and Rosalina remained top tier and none of the buffed characters entered top tier merely all moved out of the bottom tiers into probably the mid tiers (in Olimar's case, it might be fair to say he was "fixed" rather than buffed). Greninja mostly just got screwed (I'm not overreacting to nerfs by the way; I think he was incredibly overrated even pre-patch), but oh well, out of 51 characters it's an unreasonable expectation to think Nintendo can get every last one right during final tweaking in internal development.

It's mostly a useless exercise to speculate what will be in this upcoming patch since it's probably the first patch to actually be informed by what has happened outside of their internal testing facilities. I personally expect them to be conservative since Nintendo is usually pretty conservative with all things they do, but honestly it's just guessing.

As per power of design, it's a thing for sure; we saw this when working on Balanced Brawl. In Brawl, you might say Link and Samus are similar in value, but it's MUCH easier to buff Link to be good than Samus. Why? Link has a stronger core design than Samus; it's easy to address what holds him back and make him into a decent character. With Samus you can throw buff after buff at her and she still is just such a bad character; it took us a huge amount of work and a ridiculous litany of buffs just to make Brawl Samus decent! What, to me, mostly defines core character strength is diversity of options. Fundamentally good characters like Sheik can do tons of different things; when balancing a character like Sheik, it's a constant battle for the designer not to make her really overpowered since she just allows her players to do so much. Then you have a more limited character like Bowser; he has very distinct weaknesses and in-built gameplay style limits that restrict his players. Balancing him requires very careful work to compensate, and it's nearly inevitable that if you commit balance errors he'll end up very low on the tier list.

It's possible through parameterization to make any character top tier or bottom tier even avoiding the old demons of homogenization (making all of the characters the same) and polarization (making extremely lopsided match-ups). Strength of design exists and will mostly inform how likely a character is to end up good or bad when handled by a typical designer. I think it's fair to say Rosalina has an inherently strong design; she is more likely to be a good character than a bad character with whatever tweaking comes her way. Could she be made really weak if nerfed hard enough? Absolutely. Any character can be made good or bad, but some are easier to make good while some are easier to make bad. From our end that has no control over it, it's all basically random, but we just have to see that the odds aren't equal for everyone.

It also bears mention that strength of design and average tier position in past smash games aren't the same thing. Link has a fundamentally fairly strong design (not unusually strong but not worse than average), but in literally every smash game before this one, he was balanced "low" (that is, he was given parameters designed to weaken his design). Someone like Ness likewise has a pretty great, strong design that was held back by him being exploitable by factors outside of his base design in every smash game before this one (like Sheik chainthrows in Melee or grab release in Brawl... though he was balanced ridiculously low in Melee anyway). I'm not sure, if you haven't actually taken something like the Brawl hacking tools and done balance testing by tweaking characters, if it's even possible to know how inherently strong and weak designs are.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Soooo... John Numbers