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Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

Divinokage

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Kage the current list has Ganon as significantly better than Mario, Pikachu, and Luigi. I find this completely ridiculous. Oh and I think DK probably belongs in that group now that I reflect on him as a character a bit more. Giant Punch gets **** done and it discourages full screen camps. Trading or beating a platform camping Fox's aerial (or another character) with his up air into DJ punch is a reasonable way to make up ground so he doesn't fall as prey to the platforms = low tier no win because no aerials or mobility = ggnore that cripples a lot of the lower end characters.

Link seems weaker than DK if only because I honestly don't see anything really exploitable about him except <launcher> into as much uair as possible but he doesn't have a good setup for it and he's slow, which limits its utility, and he also lacks a grab that works on airborne foes reliably. This is actually a bigger deal than it sounds because it's how most characters pick up dropped juggles and not having it places more emphasis on hitting projectiles, hobbling the foe, or linking an aerial into grab (bair grab, etc). And I mean a lot of it works but this plus other weaknesses just make it hard for him to keep pace.
I can understand Mario and Luigi but Pika is debatable. Ganon beats all 3 of those matchups or against Pika it's even or barely, Ganon owns mid tiers and below very well. Not to mention the success rate of winning back to back vs spacies is about the same with Mario and Luigi. You dont really see a better success rate using these characters. They also get owned by Falcon. I'd bet on myself before any Luigi or Mario. (Since I cant really bet on anyone else using Ganon lol) Also no one has been using optimal strategies vs spacies, that CG is kinda hard to master but not impossible i've been getting it a lot better which means one grab can = death now. I suppose I can see now why Falco vs Ganon isnt that bad, you just have to force him to move with PS for example. I've been also getting my defensive DI much better, standard Falco combos don't work nearly as good. It usually ends max 30% if done correctly. Kinda sucks i have to talk about myself unless someone else can talk about Ganon. lol.

I understand the wait and swing limbs thing but you know no one will just stand there and do nothing, youll definitely catch someone throwing something out before you do a lot of the times, all you really need to do is make them fear your presence in the middle, from there the options they have is pretty limited and easy to guess. It also takes only one hit to control the middle lol.
 

Fortress | Sveet

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I think ganon is semi-viable.

(no order)
Viable: fox falco shiek puff marth falcon peach IC
Semi-Viable: ganon samus pika luigi doc mario
Semi- Semi-Viable: yoshi DK zelda link ylink
Unviable everyone else
 

Max?

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As of right now, the Marios and Pika are better than Ganon. Come back to the scene and show us the light Kage. I'm also pretty sure the Mario's beat or go even with Ganon
 

Juushichi

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Upon further reflection, I don't think Ganon is as bad as I normally infer he is but he's admittedly got no real base game plan aside from "jump and swing limbs" and basic stuff that runs off his subpar hitboxes or speed. To be fair, Ganon isn't missing much; Ganon would be solid if he had a handful of enormous exploitable, relatively safe ground moves that set up his aerials so he could play like a ghetto Sheik but with no hangups against crouch and that can kill at any moment. He could even maintain stage presence the same way Sheik does (through the quality of his ranged ground pokes) but then the bonus is his WL and air mobility are better so he has some perks over her too. I honestly think all he needs (PM people please read) is something like Yoshi's f-tilt / G&W's d-tilt and Marth's dash attack (with its huge priority in front and uncanny ability to catch people initiating their dash away - make him swing his arm or something).
For the record, I think Ganon pretty much has that in PM with his DA and dtilt respectively.

His Ftilt doesn't do that, though.
 

Divinokage

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As of right now, the Marios and Pika are better than Ganon. Come back to the scene and show us the light Kage. I'm also pretty sure the Mario's beat or go even with Ganon
I can agree Doc having a slight advantage but Mario needs to work a lot harder to kill Ganon. Mario's FB game is also a joke vs Ganon, you can dodge that or stuff it pretty easily.. killing Mario is also pretty easy as he can't cover his recovery quite as well as Doc. I think also Mario has to read with his weak moves a lot more than Doc does since Doc's moves allows him to setup the edgeguard far more effectively. Pika.. well... I think its definitely even. But ya I'll come back soon and show some light on these things, hopefully having to face these characters again though unlikely since no one plays these except Axe. =/ I wonder about Mango's Mario.. I may or may not have played it when we were drunk so I don't remember. =( Id also like another shot at Shroomed, I played so bad.
 

KirbyKaze

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Kage I don't ever refer to Mario being better than Ganon because I think Mario beats Ganon. I'm not sure about how that one plays (it looks even in my head) but I barely see its relevance. I almost always base character rankings off how they do against the top 8 in relation to how other characters do against the top 8. I feel Mario comes out on top in this regard, although Ganon's probably admittedly better vs Falco.



edit: I'm ******** and misread your post. The above is still somewhat relevant but your gripe was with Pika being rated above Ganon, not the Marios. Hmm, didn't expect that. But okay I'll answer it.



I think Pikachu is better than Ganon and Mario basically because he seems better vs the fast fallers and about as bad vs everyone else except ICs. I feel his advantages vs the fast fallers (namely speed, less exploitable recovery, strong tech chase tools, better chain grab, his better grab lead ins, air priority in the form of uair, ability to go deep offstage with dair to mitigate the weakness of not having a kill aerial, and bigger dash dance zone) are worth being disadvantaged vs a really obscure character instead of evenish like Mario and Ganon.

I think Mario is probably the best of the three vs Peach. But I don't feel it's enough to make him better than having the best CG vs Fox on FD, an aerial that can beat Falco's entire air moveset when angled and creates knockdowns / pops opponents up for combos, or the numerous recovery options that Pikachu has available (edgecancel up-B and smash side-B's extra distance recovering from far to conserve the DJ are really useful things and create useful options if the opponent isn't prepared for it or something).

I remember when mid to low tier characters were considered niche threats against specific playstyles and players at best.
Whoa you played this game in 2004 too?
 

Divinokage

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Kage I don't ever refer to Mario being better than Ganon because I think Mario beats Ganon. I'm not sure about how that one plays (it looks even in my head) but I barely see its relevance. I almost always base character rankings off how they do against the top 8 in relation to how other characters do against the top 8. I feel Mario comes out on top in this regard, although Ganon's probably admittedly better vs Falco.
I try to view this in my head too all matchups of course not just the head to head ones. I guess I have to see it to believe it.
 

Bones0

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I honestly think all he needs (PM people please read) is something like Yoshi's f-tilt / G&W's d-tilt and Marth's dash attack (with its huge priority in front and uncanny ability to catch people initiating their dash away - make him swing his arm or something).
Do dash attack and side-B not fit that role?
 

Blistering Speed

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Decided recently that Sheik has the tools to have no losing match-ups. Spacies, Climbers and Puff are at least even, I think I really underestimated how flexible her playstyle can be to fit her needs against any character.
 

KirbyKaze

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Sheik is amazingly good in every way except she can't really approach. Her turtle style is flexible enough to be molded to suit any position on the stage, though, and she hits absurdly hard if you can do 30% in regrabs to the space animals reliably before you convert into dash attacks and f-tilts / other knockdowns and combo starters so this doesn't matter.
 
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Marth MUs in future where marth players are more technically proficient.
Fox 50-50 Marth
Falco 45-55 Marth
Sheik 50-50 Marth
Peach 40-60 Marth
Jiggs 40-60 Marth
Falcon 40-60 Marth
So, I suppose Marth would fit around 2nd or 3rd on a tier list scale.

In present day MUs spread.
Fox 50-50 Marth
Falco 55-45 Marth
Sheik 60-40 Marth
Peach 50-50 Marth
Jiggs 45-55 Marth
Falcon 45-55 Marth
So, Marth is about where he is currently.
 

Xyzz

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which sounds fairly accurate to me :D

(I think the worst thing to have nowadays are one or more really sucky matchups against a top tier character, about "Peach vs Jiggs, CF vs Sheik, ICs vs Peach" level of bad. If you don't have those (spacies, jiggs, sheik, marth) you're completely fine. And not really that far behind either, if you play one of the other 3 characters).
 
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You wanna post some reasoning or evidence for that matchup chart?
For punishment, Fox/Marth destroy each other pretty soundly. Marth's main method for dealing with Fox on the ground is having enough stage to DD. Although, with Fox having a faster running speed than Marth or simply cornering him against the ledge can take away Marth's options and get some hits in on Marth.

As of now, I just see Falco winning the match-up slightly due to lasers are still a hurdle that marth hasn't been able to deal with consistently yet. If Marth's could, Falco gets fewer openings on Marth and punishing would be skewed more for Marth as Falco is much easier to slay than Fox.

Sheik gets easier low risk punishes on Marth than he does on her. A trade is typically in her favor, but there should be little reason for Sheik to get in on Marth with him being able to space around her. If marth players can punish harder on Sheik then its closer to even.

Peach and Jiggs are cases of they shouldn't be able to get a punish on Marth since he should be keeping them out constantly. Yet, mistakes happen and he gets hit and combo'd into losing stocks. On the other hand, he has to continually keep hitting them away without the guarantee of combos to make punishes easier.

Falcon and Marth both destroy each other as well once they get a good launcher in on the other. The problem is that what is Falcon going to be doing to get that hit in the first place? He too shouldn't be getting the chance for a launcher on Marth at all.

Pretty much, I think Marth's match-ups are worse now simply because his punishment game is not being executed as well as it could be. Other characters get much nicer set-ups on him and easier punishes out of it.
 

Ripple

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because S is cooler than A.

you think I'm joking but I'm not
 

KayB

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For punishment, Fox/Marth destroy each other pretty soundly. Marth's main method for dealing with Fox on the ground is having enough stage to DD. Although, with Fox having a faster running speed than Marth or simply cornering him against the ledge can take away Marth's options and get some hits in on Marth.
I'd still say the MU is in Fox's favor. Fox's punish game is much better than Marth's and is generally more reliable (+ easier to execute). Plus, Fox has a much better recovery than Marth does. The MU is closer to 55-45 or even 60-40 in Fox's favor imo.
 

Ziodyne

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I'd still say the MU is in Fox's favor. Fox's punish game is much better than Marth's and is generally more reliable (+ easier to execute). Plus, Fox has a much better recovery than Marth does. The MU is closer to 55-45 or even 60-40 in Fox's favor imo.

How so? Fox has uthrow -> uair but that can be SDI'd. Stray hits from Fox are a bit more dangerous than stray hits from Marth. But Marth has his famous uthrow CG's, utilt/uair juggles, and probably the most expansive toolset for edgeguarding Fox out of all the top/high tiers (correct if I'm wrong btw). Fox has more options when recovering, but Marth seems to have a reliable way to cover most recovery options at all times, and a Marth that saves his jump and sweetspots well seems to give Fox a troublesome time edgeguading (especially since Marth can sometimes turn an edgeguarding situation right on its heels).

Just curious, anyhoo
 

Xyzz

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I've always thought like "yeaaah, if there's wobbling legal, people would just tighten it up and really make sure to never get grabbed", because I don't consistently see those 30 -> deaths from CGs / stuff all the time and so most people wouldn't view it as a legitimate threat (sure, you don't want to get grabbed by ICs, just like you don't want to get grabbed by Marth as a spacie... but if it happens, it happens and you might get away / or live to attempt to return vs an edgeguard) ... but apparently I was wrong about that, and will have to re-examine my opinion on ICs with wobbling.

Also: I can't really imagine wobbles defeating Hbox without those clutch wobbles, so yeah... :D
 

Grim Tuesday

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I've always thought like "yeaaah, if there's wobbling legal, people would just tighten it up and really make sure to never get grabbed", because I don't consistently see those 30 -> deaths from CGs / stuff all the time and so most people wouldn't view it as a legitimate threat (sure, you don't want to get grabbed by ICs, just like you don't want to get grabbed by Marth as a spacie... but if it happens, it happens and you might get away / or live to attempt to return vs an edgeguard) ... but apparently I was wrong about that, and will have to re-examine my opinion on ICs with wobbling.

Also: I can't really imagine wobbles defeating Hbox without those clutch wobbles, so yeah... :D

ICs players suck at the other CGs for some reason *shrug*

With the ability to dthrow > dair, dthrow > utilt, uthrow > dash attack, hand-off, the charged fsmash/dthrow 'pick your poison' situation and dealing damage in-between re-grabs with small wobbles... I really don't know why
 

The Business

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ICs players suck at the other CGs for some reason *shrug*

With the ability to dthrow > dair, dthrow > utilt, uthrow > dash attack, hand-off, the charged fsmash/dthrow 'pick your poison' situation and dealing damage in-between re-grabs with small wobbles... I really don't know why
people can smash-di out, and it's not easy even if they don't.
 

Grim Tuesday

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They can SDI out of dthrow > dair, which lets you mix-up with reverse dthrow > dair on Falcon; and it still forces a response even on spacies that you can predict, that's assuming they even manage to SDI it (which, if you do it fast enough, they often don't do - yes, even at top level) AND if you know they're going to SDI out you can instead do dthrow > dash grab or even fsmash.

Dthrow > utilt can't be SDI'd in v1.0 iirc, and I'm pretty sure you could deal with SDI out by fsmashing or possibly even regrabbing, I dunno, it's not an option I've explored.
Uthrow > dash attack is a guaranteed re-grab as sopo at low %s

The point is, you have a ridiculous amount of options even though a lot of it isn't guaranteed.

The best part though? As soon as you get near a ledge, you can hand-off which isn't escapable, this usually only takes 2 escapable CGs (sometimes only 1) on small stages like BF/FoD/Yoshi's, especially if you set up the hand-off with a long-range fthrow > re-grab (which a lot of ICs don't do), and on larger stages you can do tech-chasey shenanigans like Marth does with his dthrow where they can either tech-roll in and get re-grabbed or do anything else and get fsmash'd/dtilt'd/JC grabbed/etc... ICs have incredible option coverage out of a back throw due to SH pivot ice shot, long/fast wavedash and a disjointed bair.

My country is stupid and bans Wobbling, so I'm pretty well versed in all this **** lol
 

Comatose

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ICs grabs are deadly with or without wobbling haha. Get used to it ;) cuz after wobbles performance at Evo, we can probably expect IC player #s to rise in the next year or so (with 140k people watching, some of them are bound to pick up melee, and coming from other fighters w/ infinites (such as wobbling), and with wobbles being a crowd favorite, ICs seem to be an appealing character for anyone who has decided to pick up the game)
 

KayB

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How so? Fox has uthrow -> uair but that can be SDI'd. Stray hits from Fox are a bit more dangerous than stray hits from Marth. But Marth has his famous uthrow CG's, utilt/uair juggles, and probably the most expansive toolset for edgeguarding Fox out of all the top/high tiers (correct if I'm wrong btw). Fox has more options when recovering, but Marth seems to have a reliable way to cover most recovery options at all times, and a Marth that saves his jump and sweetspots well seems to give Fox a troublesome time edgeguading (especially since Marth can sometimes turn an edgeguarding situation right on its heels).

Just curious, anyhoo
SD'ing up-throw -> u-air isn't something that can be executed 100% of the time. If it were that easy, then it wouldn't even be a viable option for Fox as a kill move. At lower percents especially its harder to SDI and you still get juggled to living hell to an easy 0 to 40%.
Despite having the most expansive toolset for edgeguarding Fox, a lot of it really depends on the stage. If its FD, then yeah, Fox is free. But if its any stage that has platforms (with maybe the exception of Yoshi's Story and perhaps FoD), Fox immediately has tons of options that Marth can't cover. For example, Fox can recover via the top or side platforms forcing Marth to cover those specific options. But Fox can also shoot for the ledge as well. Marth can't possibly cover all those options at once, even with his expansive toolset. All Fox has to do is... shine. No matter what the stage. With Marth's terrible recovery with the lightshield cover.
Plus, his chaingrabs aren't nearly as reliable as Fox's Up-smash (which I believe is faster than Marth's grab).

All-in-all, Fox generally has a better punish and recovery game than Marth, but it could definitely go either way. I don't think its even by any means though.
 

Ripple

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what % you are at has no affect on SDI. FYI, KayB
 

ShroudedOne

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I would think wobbling helps ICs keep pace with Nana (or Popo) randomly getting rested a lot better than...whatever it is that they do to her without wobbling (what do ICs have on Puff otherwise? I'm curious).

I think the other issue is that none of their other stuff (besides the handoff, which is more situational), is as guaranteed to get a kill from the first grab as wobbling is.
 

knightpraetor

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They can SDI out of dthrow > dair, which lets you mix-up with reverse dthrow > dair on Falcon; and it still forces a response even on spacies that you can predict, that's assuming they even manage to SDI it (which, if you do it fast enough, they often don't do - yes, even at top level) AND if you know they're going to SDI out you can instead do dthrow > dash grab or even fsmash.

Dthrow > utilt can't be SDI'd in v1.0 iirc, and I'm pretty sure you could deal with SDI out by fsmashing or possibly even regrabbing, I dunno, it's not an option I've explored.
Uthrow > dash attack is a guaranteed re-grab as sopo at low %s

The point is, you have a ridiculous amount of options even though a lot of it isn't guaranteed.

The best part though? As soon as you get near a ledge, you can hand-off which isn't escapable, this usually only takes 2 escapable CGs (sometimes only 1) on small stages like BF/FoD/Yoshi's, especially if you set up the hand-off with a long-range fthrow > re-grab (which a lot of ICs don't do), and on larger stages you can do tech-chasey shenanigans like Marth does with his dthrow where they can either tech-roll in and get re-grabbed or do anything else and get fsmash'd/dtilt'd/JC grabbed/etc... ICs have incredible option coverage out of a back throw due to SH pivot ice shot, long/fast wavedash and a disjointed bair.

My country is stupid and bans Wobbling, so I'm pretty well versed in all this **** lol
Even if it's true that ICs have good mixups without wobbling, even if they are only dropping 20% of the mixups it will make a difference in the # of grabs needed to take down the opponent. Assuming you can smash DI out 50% of the time then it's not unreasonable to think that given the time to queue roll or throw out a jab/shine that they would be living 25% more of the time. Same thing applies to DI mixups, and considering the difficulty ICs have in landing grabs that is really quite huge. Marth gets screwed when a techchase situation lets them get out that much of the time, and he can reacquire grabs 10 times easier than ICs, so I think it's intellectually dishonest to act like wobbling doesn't make a difference.

I'm one of those that thinks ICs already beat jiggs without wobbling, but with wobbling legal, it becomes far more of a win for ICs. Marth and jiggs get pretty messed up by it, and it helps a bit even vs the spacies.

However, now that I'm a peach main I don't care whether it's legal of course. Wobbling is no more broken vs peach than falco's laser is vs most of the cast
 

Grim Tuesday

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I'm of the belief that puff shouldn't get grabbed by ICs at top level (obviously it will happen, but not with any regularity).

I think wobbling improves the Marth MU noticeably, and every other MU slightly, but I could never see ICs dropping more than one spot on the tier list with it banned.

Against Puff the optimal combo is hand-off as many times as nana will let you (random lol), then finish with a smash. She dies mad early so it's not crippling to lose wobbling at all.
I also think you could do throws into fair spike and then tech-chase, but I've never really needed to experiment with this so I dunno.
 

KirbyKaze

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Results would say that you're wrong.

They 30% to death Fox, Falco, Falcon and Sheik regardless, the wobble isn't necessary to beat Jigglypuff, and it doesn't give them an edge over Peach.
Results from 2007 mean little to me.

30% to death on Falco, Fox, and Douglas is possible for sure but barring a perfect handoff the ICs player needs a whole bunch of reads on DI and combo escape options to make it happen. This is further compounded by a variety of other factors that can affect the combo's kill rate such as the YS fly guys modifying throw trajectory, Wispy blowing the lot of you closer to the edge, a platform rising beneath you courtesy of FOD, PS transforming during Nana's SH dair (resulting in a bizarre desynch), etc. Some of those stage factors are admittedly rare but there are tons of ways the environment can affect these long, moving grab sequences and they add up. Wobbling removes these complications. Aside from handoffs or the opponent's obvious unfamiliarity with a certain escape option, I seldom see an ICs go 0-death vs any of those listed characters in high profile matches aside from maybe Sheik. And that has everything to do with ICs having a legit 0-50%+ chain grab on her that she cannot do anything about if the ICs has a solid reaction because the window for regrab, dash grab, and dash JC regrab is lenient (I find it comparable to the Sheik ditto CG when I mess with it).

Wobbling just irons out all the inconsistencies in their other throw follow ups designed to maintain and keep the foe in a throw chain. It's not gamebreaking in the sense that it doesn't make them a top tier character (IMO) but to say that the character doesn't improve by having a strictly better punishment game than what they otherwise have to use seems a bit short-sighted (and it's an enormous improvement IMO, especially when you deal with lower tiered characters for both technical and practical reasons).

For what it's worth, I consider ICs in a wobbling-banned tier list the same numerical spot they occupy in a wobbling-legal one (I think I have them at 8th). But I consider the former the top of mid tier whereas I consider the latter the bottom of high tier.

------

On a totally unrelated note, I think Puff benefits from being played more aggressively in a lot of matchups than how she's currently played (which is mostly focused on [1] defending long enough to draw the foe out of position or to get them into pattern; [2] once either aforementioned misstep occurs, she tries to slip into a spot where she can threaten with one of her big plays; [3] she tries to make it happen proactively from there or tries to counter the opponent's countermeasure when they realize they're in horrible danger). I feel like her air mobility gives her a pass against a lot of defenses and functions very similarly to Peach's float except she can't land into enormous frame advantage off a godlike fair swing that covers her feet and knocks everyone down at 0 so there's more of an emphasis on maintaining mobility. I always felt Juan was 80x harder than the next best Puff largely because of how fast he felt and how openings therefore felt narrower and I feel this kind of optimized timing and action fluidity could benefit an offensive Puff style.

I find Puff hardest when I've lost positioning or she's acquired a specific type of position in relation to my own (as Sheik, when Puff is crouching in front of me when I am also on the ground I feel really limited and my first instinct is to change this position in whatever manner possible [to give an idea on how subtle these differences can be, if I'm descending from SH as she's crouching in front of me then I'm ecstatic - Puff is very detail-oriented because of her design]). Anyway, in a very general sense I feel offense does a better job than defense of acquiring those kind of relative combat positions or protecting onself from getting stuck in a bad one. Puff as a character is radically different depending on what her real estate situation is. More than any other character despite the stereotype of being functional everywhere onstage (because of her good recovery) I feel she's actually the opposite in that more than most good characters she stresses location, location, location. She gains a lot from certain positions and her options (and their relative escapability) fluctuate a lot (I feel this is why people struggle to combo with her effectively in some respects). On a related note, Puffs seriously need to learn how to combo off uair and abuse the trajectory of pound. I swear... I see so many opportunities for uair to be hit and I feel people don't know how to follow it to make the aerial chain as hard to escape as possible. There are so many rest opportunities hidden in pound's trajectory traps. And overall the combo tree is hilariously similar to Fox's. Similar principles, anyway. Weak hit attacks and limited launchers with the goal of leading into a huge hit or horizontal aerial chain. Hmm...
 

Blistering Speed

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Puff's metagame has ironically stagnated somewhat since the insurgence of Hungrybox, because he's become the only one at high level, and therefore a beacon for new players of the character to emulate. While this would be fine with PeePee's Falco or Armada's Peach, both of which are grounded in strong, accessible fundamentals, Hungrybox's Puff is entirely tailored to fit his naturally apt characteristics as a player i.e. his composure, his patience and his extremely refined (albeit, somewhat one dimensional) spacing game. By observing and imitating the above, you not only condense the character to a specific and most definitely not always optimal stance (seriously, think about the aggressive capabilities of that aerial mobility), you restrict yourself as a player, because unless you have that specific form of natural aptitude that Juan has, you'll only ever be a dime a dozen copy.
 
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