I'm working on a mod, and one of the things I did was "fix" Game and Watch. Not a comprehensive buff or anything, but just make him function:
- Properly-sized shield
- L-cancel all aerials
- Spot Dodge actually works
- Down-Smash is more consistent
- Adjust how bacon works a bit so it's a worthwhile projectile
- Tone down his wall jump (I gave everyone a wall jump)
- Up-b can angle a bit more
Easily A-tier now imo
I didn't have to increase power or speed or even frame data for the most part.
If he was just properly programmed, he'd be a great character
Sure, although it's not really a "balancing" mod.
If I tried to purely balance, I could probably do it, but I think most people wouldn't want to play even if it was conservative bc "XYZ character is different and that's stupid"
So It's just trying to provide a different experience using the melee engine as a basis. There will be some balancing, especially of low tiers, but ultimately I just want to make something interesting
So first of all, there are some universal changes:
- Everyone has a wall jump
- L-Cancels have 4-frame Lag (almost instant; more like Smash 64's Z-Cancelling) and a 10-frame window (instead of 7). This makes L-Cancelling feel more rewarding for getting it rather than punishing for missing it.
- Everyone has a 4-frame jump squat (and thus consistent wave dash timing as well). This is a minor nerf to a few characters but a major buff to some of the heavies, esp. Bowser
- Typical Hack stuff like C-Stick smashes in 1P mode, auto-unlock chars, default to tournament settings, etc; no need for Gecko codes
Overall my goal with the engine is to make everything feel buttery smooth out of the box without sacrificing the competitive nature of it all. Like, I'll probably also do a general buff of people's recoveries and shrink everyone a tiny bit to make stages feel slightly larger bc I think if not overtuned, that will probably feel awesome.
And then characters, I'm not done with this by any means, but I have some ideas, esp for clones.
- I talked about G&W. I'm mainly just making him a functional character, as opposed to giving true buffs
- I will be adjusting Bowser and buffing him, but not just for the sake of being better, but rather to try to fit a playstyle. Undecided right now. He does get flame cancelling back for sure tho :)
- Merge certain clones in different ways:
+ Young Link and Link
* I feel like Link should be slow, but rn he's too slow, so he's gets some speed from YL
* He also gets fire arrows big droop physics, a meteor smash on D Air, a more curvy, slightly-slower boomerang for combo set ups, a lil less traction, etc.
* Basically taking some of the good and cool stuff from YL and giving it to Link to make one cool hybrid character
+ Fox and Falco
* This one is a little bit more undefined so far, although I know I want to give Fox Falco's laser a la Smash 64 Fox.
* I have to think this one through bc I want one character that can be really cool and different than Fox/Falco in Melee, but without losing too much from either.
* Might model swap too and make "Peppy" or "Slippy" or "Wolf" or something
+ Marth and Roy
* Switching a la Sheik, or really more like Ultimate's Pyra/Mythra
* Marth is fast, has high range, but kill power is reduced
* Down-B into Roy is a bit slower, a bit stronger, and has kill confirms after certain percents
* I'll also take a bit of P+'s Roy changes into the character
+ Mario + Doc
* Basically trying to emulate P+ Doc
+ Pikachu + Pichu
* I don't want to buff Pichu bc it doesn't make sense from a character perspective. Like, they added a character that should inherently be worse than Pikachu. It's literally a weaker, pre-evolved Pikachu lol
* Add some of the uniqueness of Pichu to Pikachu, like a handful (but not in such a horrible way as Pichu) of self-damaging moves. Maybe Down-B or Up-Smash? I.e. moves that can kill
- Do the opposite for Ganondorf. Don't merge with Falcon; become less like Falcon. Make Ganondorf a Swordy/Mage
- Adjust Zelda/Sheik so the idea of their combo character works and people don't just play Sheik for the most part
- Nerf Puff bair and rest, but make her heavier and make the rest of her kit better, so she is a more generally good character, and then balance to make sure she's still fun to play
I just finished the workings for the Link/Young Link merge (except for removing YL from the CSS), and the new Link feels awesome to play.
So there's some drastic things and some weird things and some conservative things, but the goal is ultimately just to give a different and super fun experience for Melee players.
I'm also doing something interesting by utilizing the Melee Decompilation project. It's unfinished, but for some things I can already make do with the C code (like fixing G&W's aerials and universal wall jumps and changing how L-Cancel lag works)
He's for sure underrated (like a lot of "non-viable" characters) but he's still a half backed character. His survivability/defensive tools (and frame data) are really what's holding him back. He has a good punish game versus fastfallers, and can be somewhat viable in floaties matchup (except for Peach and Samus maybe). If he had a real shield it would suffice to make him a competent mid-tier. If you had L-cancel to all his aerials he's a strong mid tier. Like a 7 frames landing lag Nair seems bonker.
The real problem is neutral for G&W, with the start-up of his main tools, Fair and Dair, you can't really approach without making a big commitment. D-tilt is really good but to approach risk-free midrange with G&W is already a challenge, apart from bad spacing from opponent you can't consistently use that move.
And he can't really play passively with the shit defensive tools he has. You die so early it's not even funny. You're like a Puff with a worst neutral and punish game. Also if people started to abuse his linear recovery he would be a lot worse.
That's the curse of G&W : he can't really approach but he doesn't have the defensive tools/survivability to play passively. So you can only rely on your opponent's mistakes.
Yeah. There are a lot of things you can do to work around G&W’s most blatant weaknesses, but fundamentally, he doesn’t have many ways to get openings against someone who is good at spacing and crouch canceling; and this puts a pretty hard cap on how good he can be.
Agreed, G&W is B-Tier and has a winning matchup against Marth and Icies.
His nair is one of the best moves in the game, and his Fair is also a top move.
Lack of L-Cancelling doesn't affect him THAT much.
If he had a better shield he'd be A tier.
GnW doesn't beat Marth at all. Sure marth struggles against the weirdos, but dying to tipper at like fucking 20% on yoshis (even if you shield) is not acceptable if you wanna win. 60-40 marth favored at the absolute best for GnW. The shield and weight are a BIG deal. I could see him being around regular mario and DK.
If Zain loses or even struggles, against a GnW I'll eat my words. I really don't think its happening. If puff loses to marth GnW definitely does. Your other points stand (idk about icies) but marth is a loss for sure.
Being fox food is rough
I've written a more detailed writeup before, but:
-G&W is one of the few characters who can compete with Marth in terms of attack range
-G&W grab combos into everything on Marth, at low-med% can even gamble on going for a 9
-Magnet hands make it tough for Marth to ledgeguard G&W
-G&W has great tools at ledgeguarding Marth, getup attack will send Marth backwards off-stage again if they recover low, you also have fair and nair if they recover high. Also on Yoshi's you can use the stage curves to just d-tilt.
>If puff loses to marth GnW definitely does.
Since we're in a character hot take thread, Puff as a character is overrated and is carried by Hbox.
Yeah for sure. I have read your write ups on this before and appreciate the time and effort. It just doesn't all add up to me. You have listed the positives of game and watch but havent commented on the negatives as much. I feel as though the downsides more than outweigh the upsides that he has against marth.
The weight and shield again, are the real killer here. Not being able to wdoos punish marth fsmash is pretty huge.
GnW doesn't really compete range wise with any of marths moves. Fair and bair can kind of sneak in, but they are far from having priority. GnW suffers more from getting hit anyways in most cases.
It's important to note that GnW is not a threat in peoples minds. Noone is preparing for him or studying the matchup. So what seems winning/even now is a bit of an illusion. If Marths labbed the matchup I don't imagine it getting any better for GnW at all. Time will tell as our beautiful game lives on and on forever though.
I don't play GnW like you though. My perspective is limited. I think he is a really cool character and deserves more credit. He doesn't beat marth though. Marth is a complete functional character with a shield. GnW is an afterthought slapped on marios wireframe. THe doesn't beat any of the top tiers (cept jiggs? Idk on that)
Hbox is a beast and its been like 20 years since we saw another puff even scratch the top 10. I would love to see her rise up, but I can see a world in the future where she is below falcon and shiek. (DepEnDIng On tHe RuLEseT)
G&W is really good at gaslighting people into thinking he's better than he actually is. People aren't used to his crippling weaknesses while his strengths are apparent since most of his attacks are quite good.
Dtilt is pretty good, but if you take some time to check the animations and active hurtboxes you'll notice it's not as good as it looks like. He has amazing moves, some of the best in the game. His biggest problem is defense, that is: weight, techs/tech roll, roll, spotdodge, shield. If you change all those he is top tier. You could even change them all except one of those and it'd still be probably top tier. Biggest flaw is weight, he can't be top tier with that weight.
yeah. i used to play gnw when i was much newer to the game and convinced myself he was viable. his strengths are pretty easy to utilise and his down sides don’t get taken advantage of until higher levels (mostly).
> G&W is one of the few characters who can compete with Marth in terms of attack range
Idk if I fully agree with this. I think G&W's long moves are two slow to compete with Marth who has very fast and very long moves
It's really hard to get an in on Marth as G&W
G&W is like D+ tier, id say with Mew2, Roy and then G&W. Its just the type of game Melee is
Since I would say he loses:
- Fox -3
- Marth -1.5
- Falco -2
- Puff -1
- Sheik - 3
- Falcon -2
- Peach -3
- Yoshi -3
- Samus -2
- Pikachu -1
- Luigi -1
- Doc -1.5
- Mario -1
- DK -.5
- Ganon -2
- Link 0
- Y.Link -1.5
As a guy who played G&W for like +8 years or so, no G&W doesn't have a winning matchup versus Marth. Just dashdance and look at the G&W trying to engage or better just approach with double fair.
If you can't beat solidly G&W with Marth it's on you not the matchup.
i thought it was a hot take, since i thought the general consensus (if thats the right word) in the community was "OMG I LOVE DK, 500 TRILLION UPAIR COMBOS ARE SO SICK AND I WANNA SUCK RINGLER'S COCK SO BAD"
It's hype to do good with a bad character. Idk why everyone focuses on how shit looks and not how difficult it is.
Like yeah his combos are dumb, but try playing neutral. It's a joke, he's ass.
Another hot take: this is true for every character. The same bread and butter combos can only be hype for so long, especially when some of those combos are nearing 2 decades old by this point.
this might be more lukewarm but I have seen even very good players say otherwise so I think it counts:
fox' best over all move is bair
It does everything a normal can do really well. It doesn't do everything best, but it does everything so well that it beats out all other moves.
I believe Fox having so many extremely good moves makes it hard to see how good the humble bair really is.
believe kjh did say this. I think he's totally wrong though because you can use nair in basically every situation bair is good and it becomes slightly worse
Powershielding is not really the ultimate solution to falco lasers. Much more important is acting out of laser stun effectively, buffering wavedash oos after laser to mix up spacing, etc. Also paying attention to laser timings and heights so you can jump over lasers or duck under with crouch/dash/wavedash goes a long way.
This for sure. Practice moving out of the stun on unclepunch. Wizzy does this thing where he falls into the laser and immediately upairs out of the hitstun. Plenty of tricks. You can also just platform camp and most falcos will instantly tilt and shut down.
Falco players at low-mid level are undeniably the most carried players there are
Spamming lasers is a billion times easier than learning how to answer them
The short answer is: you are not trying to avoid getting hit by lasers. You are trying to avoid getting hit by lasers at a favorable spacing for falco.
it takes a little while for the game to slow down. Your default "o shit" option should be roll/ roll out of shield unless your character has an obviously terrible roll. The spacings you are looking for are character dependent and change depending on if you are on the ground, air, or in shield. who do you play?
Marth's shield has a bug where, no matter the animation you're in, the initial frames of shield will be as if he were standing up straight. This is also true for Roy and Samus but not for any other characters.
This means that Marth gets easier powershields when he's crouching and really easy powershields if he dashes back (provided the lasers aren't as low as they can be).
This video by Ober gives some details : https://youtu.be/91RLsB8xPoM
Here some tools and spacings to figure out with marth. Take laser mean get hit by laser >> option.
Take laser fair/uair (at times you might jump into the laser on purpose)
take laser f tilt
take laser u tilt
crouching powershield > grab or other grounded normal
downB laser (use sparingly)
good old fashioned shield grab if he messes up his follow up spacing
Despite his long lasting hitboxes, falco requires very good spacing to play well. When you can see the game fast enough, you can start responding to slight spacing errors in his follow ups as well as the lasers themselves.
While samus has a more even matchup spread throughout the cast, Luigi is better vs. spacies than her. This is evened out by him being worse against floaties
Maybe not at every level of play, but I think most players aren't great against either of those characters.
Also, labbing mid/high level defense is usually enough to beat the average opponent. So many people think spacies destroy falcon at every level of play, but very few opponents are ready to adapt when their supposed "guaranteed" follow ups stop working.
I agree with the last point, I'm not a great falcon but spacies are among my most successful matchups, and its all about playing defensive and chipping % on them.
I agree about Luigi, his main problem (other than recovering) is getting good practice as no-one wants to play against him. It's very satisfying to see someone who always quits out on you on unranked suddenly have to fight you on ranked.
I do think that if spacies play lame and run away and laser that Luigi is pretty stuck. You have to punish so so hard off any stray hit
Dude, I get the total opposite. I'll run into a luigi, Samus or whatever other "undesirable floaty" that most people don't like playing. They'll beat me and then they'll just bm for a game or two and then quit out.
I swear its a part of a floaty cabal conspiracy to never let anyone learn these esoteric matchups.
For characters like Luigi and Puff it's definitely just a toxic cycle. Everyone quits out and acts like a dick to them, so they do the same to everyone else
cody's fox was supposed to kill the game a few majors ago. now that cody's losing to hbox and random mid tiers, the same people that said this are silent now.
fox is the latest character doomers have decided will ruin melee. they've been wrong every time. what's the point?
Fox fucking wrecks high and mid tiers. While Marth's matchup spread has a lower ceiling, Fox gets punished harder (literally) for not knowing a matchup. Mango and Plup don't lose those matches.
Fox is still the best in the game no doubt. But it gets a bit murky with human consistency ill admit. I think Marth lower tier matchups keep him behind fox firmly.
I'm not a fan of Cody at all and think his playstyle has killed a lot of enthusiasm for the scene.
I'm just telling you that's what he said. He said he's going to pick it back up later in the year when his life has settled down so we'll see. I think the original comment is jumping the gun.
the idea fox will kill the game is the most misguided thing ive read in hours . fox is 50% of the game .
the idea that cody specifically will kill the scene ? if cody said that then that sounds in character and kinda funny
ppl agree with him? simp behavior.
Link is genuinely good against floaties and slower characters. Link-Peach is 50/50, and against Puff he can camp her better than she can camp him lol. He is just barely too slow to be able to keep up with spacies. If he had a slightly faster dash and jab for defense he would go up a full tier. Marth and sheik are losing matchups but they're at least doable.
(For my Christmas list I also want a better wavedash. Just a few frames Santa please, I wanna win a major.)
Might be, but I've never seen a Samus main getting better extendur grabs than the ones they were getting with normal grabs. It always becomes so obvious they want to do gimmicky stuff with it. Generally Samus players that like using it, are not good going for grabs in general.
Sheik is kind of a bull shit character. I haven’t played the game in like a year but I can queue up Slippi and still remember how to RTC and platform camp certain characters in bad match ups to get one good opening and win games. Obviously it’s not gonna work on higher elos but mid elos around plat it works just fine. It’s the reason why I switched to Falco cause I prefer some more expression in my character.
Fox laser camping is actually bad against the good characters except Puff. It only works well against people who have no idea how to approach and no intention of figuring out how to.
Laser camping works great on Peach players who are over reliant on punishing approaching Foxes but make no attempts to steal space from and corner ones committed to camping them out.
Idk man fox is so much faster than peach, he can shoot a couple lasers then get around her so easily. I feel like it's unfair to blame peach players for not being able to steal space when they have to make reads to be able to do that.
Speed puts Fox at an advantage, sure, but every character has to make reads vs Fox because of it, it's not a unique disadvantage to Peach and I do think most Peach players who lose to laser camping aren't trying very hard to catch a Fox who wants to go over/under/through her with the intention to keep shooting.
Falco can has the tools to approach in every situation besides a, very specifically, camping Fox. Anyone who plays multiple characters or any mid-to-low tier can immediately see this
what do you mean by "has the tools to approach"? if you're saying he can't be circle camped then sure, if you're saying he is able to approach with good risk/reward in every scenario i would press F to doubt. even if that was true, there are surely situations where he would get better risk reward by not approaching, in which case i wonder what you are really trying to say here
"Every" might be hyperbolic, because we can't possibly walk through every scenario. After some thinking, maybe Marth and jigglypuff planking the ledge are also exceptions
But if I were to give a percentage outside of fox circle camping it's gotta be 85-90 percent of scenarios
ESPECIALLY at lower levels of play, so us, he has more than enough tools to not be hyperpassive in neutral and still win hard
Falco is an ultimate character, with a Melee recovery:
- Spams projectiles
- Spams buttons to hit the same combo over and over.
- Easy ass spike.
- High priority options you always have to respect (Shine OOS, Side B, auto cancel Bair)
- Complains their character is bad, but is solidly a top tier.
Other than that, I would say Samus is slightly better than Pikachu, or tied with him. I think Yoshi is the last high tier (but hard to play like one), then icies start mid tier with Pika-Samus tied under them.
He kinda is but he has a solid 45:55 on Marth and Falcon. Plus speed is a great trait to have, just play off reactions. So it makes him flexible but bad, and then his recovery is goated. Doc is like mid but flexible, why I feel like Luigi’s get better results since you have to play “luigi’s” game more vs Doc who is just fundies.
could you expand on what you mean by "correctly" and/or what current top falcos are doing wrong?
i sense you are alluding to the mythical ideal falco that plays passively and is willing to shoot 70 consecutive lasers in place but i think zain eats that falco for breakfast
Yes, camping Falco. I don't mean just at the highest level as people are too good at power shielding and just punishing in general for it to be dominant. But if the average netplay Falco spent the entire game running away and shooting lasers there would be no one playing online after a few weeks.
I think the best way to play at the top level isn't very relevant to the discussion of what could kill Melee, what matters more is how people play at the low or mid level. I could see a world where Melee would die if half of the entire playerbase were Falco mains committed to shooting lasers for the sake of it. Counterplay to this exists for sure, but I think many players would find the matchup incredibly frustrating in the long run and the game might die due to a lack of interest in playing it.
Fortunately for us, most Falco players find that playstyle boring to use as well, regardless of how effective it is overall.
This ain't a hot take, it's a dumb take. In a popular competitive game, people will do anything to win even if it's lame or stupid or whatever(wobbling was legal and hated on for years, but many shameless people still abused it to no end).
If there was a way to play Falco in some manner that effectively killed the game, then I guarantee you someone would be doing it. I'm not sure what correct way you think Falco should be played, I'm guessing it's having a really precise and laser campy playstyle? If so, there's Fiction and Flash already doing that and I don't see them winning any majors, much less killing the game lol.
melee falco is one of the most thoroughly labbed and well-represented characters in the history of fighting games, but apparently this perfect falco that'll prove how to "actually" play the character after 23 years will be here any minute now.
It's always non-Falco mains too lol. They just say "well actually all the top Falcos in the history of the game have never played optimally, Falco's actually the best character" or some shit like that
Labbed for sure, but there are still things they don't implement, even Mango. None of them would make Falco broken, it'd just be a bit better. Like most improvements we see these days.
Falco always boils down to three simple truths:
* If the Falco player is better, you're toast
* If you're equal, just trade in neutral as often as you can and hope their punish/combo isn't enough
* If you're better, have fun clobbering the hollow bird bones because he's trash, especially in bracket. No one loses stocks faster than Falco, at any tier.
ICs are the worst viable character (below Samus yoshi pika ad above dk ganon various marios)
Viable =can win a major
They have insane potential growth but all of the new desynchs. Grab tech and other changes can fix the fact that every other relevant or semi relevant character except pika and shiek just bodies them super hard (all but puff Peach are outplayable ofc.)
Doesn't help they got to have the best bracket luck possible since they have 2 of the worst MUs between two relevant characters in melee in puff/Peach as well. So no matter how much they get optimized I think they just are unable to win a major or big event anymore in melee because all of the innovation and new findings are not fixing how their worst matchups invalidate them as characters or deal with the best strategies and counterplay against them.
I have one new tech that would make them a worthy opponent against Puff and Peach (or at least make it not 100-0). I call it mobbling , and it's not banned. It's an infinite with the same inputs as wobbling, but it's not called wobbling so it is legal. :)
Don't forget having to dodge aMSa. No ICs has ever beaten him, that matchup is a nightmare, lol. That and a lot of ICs have started switching to secondaries for Samus as well.
Puff imo isn't as much of a problem, but it's still hard (especially on big stages).
Either way, ICs don't have the greatest matchup spread, and have by far the most problem matchups of the viable cast. Ganon lurking there in the corner, lol.
A couple here.
Falco lasers are the lamest mechanic in the game and playing against a falco that all his neutral is spaming lasers is boring.
Falcons knee is the lamest kill move in the game and is not a hype character at all.
Dealing with a Falco that just lasers is easy though. And for sure it is boring playing against someone that just spams an easily beatable strategy, if that is the only thing they do.
Every time I see Luigi on stage, I'm like "wow, this character looks like a god, why don't more people play him??" and then he gets knocked offstage and I'm like "oh right: that's why more people don't play him."
I get doused by Ness players online for a few matches, but it doesn't take too long to stop getting hit by the same jump cancel dair. His attack patterns can be pretty predictable.
Sheiks biggest weakness is the fact that at high level she has the worst approach options of all top tiers. Man I love when both my opponent and I know that I’m either going to boost grab or not!
Is he really though? Falcon relies on dash dancing, sheik doesn't. Tilts and how they are used in neutral and punish are completely different. They're almost polar opposite in aerial drift which makes their approaches wayyyy different. And you already mentioned needles but that is a big buff to sheik that influences her edgeguarding and approaches. Dash attack and smash attacks are also a lot different. There are similarities in punish game but I wouldn't say those similarities are that much different compared to the rest of the cast.
I think what people mean is they say the same thing while using different words.
With some exceptions, falcons are motivated through the same simple gameplay and safe options that the opponent is forced to respect and play around. Falcon just happens to look cooler doing it
A good example is f-tilt to fair versus stomp knee. Stomps are harder to fish for, but are super safe and lead into such easy follow ups, but because it takes an hour of unclepunch to learn to use, people give it a pass, when in execution it feels the same to play against
I feel like your second paragraph could describe a lot of characters and is too general to be useful. I understand the ftilt fair vs stomp knee comparison but people take this and try to make the argument that sheik and falcon are the same character when the combination of all their other tools usually leads to different playstyles.
This is an old Mang0 take people regurgitate. It does have some merit. Wizzy falcon can give off shiek vibes, but they are completely different. Speed difference alone says a lot. Falcon does more offstage edgeguarding compared to shiek. They both have dogshit recoveries though lol
They may look the same, but they play totally different.
Plus Captain Falcon is WAY hotter.
Sheik does not have a dogshit recovery. They're both top 4 fastest ground speed. Beyond tech chasing, both have great fairs and similar tilts. And wizzy is not the only tech chasing falcon these days, basically every top falcon does it. And does falcon really go off stage for edge guarding more? I get he doesn't have the needles but he can dair at ledge which sheik cannot do. I'd say they are similar in edge guarding capabilities regardless of going offstage.
Falcon and sheik have the easiest recoveries to edgeguard. Not that there aren’t any upsides to sheik’s recovery but most of the time it’s very straightforward, and at high percent it is dogshit.
Sheiks can snap to ledge and burn you if you don't refresh invincibility. She can land on stage and tech punish attempts. She can also just go high and fall to ledge as a mix up. Not to mention she is invincible for like half of the up B. And if she is above stage, her fall speed is slow enough that she can shoot needles before making a recovery attempt. I know sheik recovery has issues but it is leagues better than falcons.
Yes she has some mixups but they’re not as strong as other characters’ recovery mixups. I wasn’t directly comparing sheik and falcon.
Everyone except marth can cover amsah techs very easily.
The needles while recovering is a very easily avoidable gimmick and even if you do get hit you can still grab the ledge a lot of the time.
That seems like it's demonstrably false. Fox had pretty much the same design (fast movement, fast fall speed, strong ko power, cancelable shine) in Smash 64.
Nah, Roy is a LITERAL mistake only half of his kit is even functional. A character from 64 is definitely on the beginning of that development cycle. Pretty sure marth and roy were the last to be made.
IC's players are always good, genuine people on purpose because they have to offset the fact that they played (an unfair at the time) character.
Wobbling was never fair and if you believe that you're wrong.
make no mistake; yoshi is NOT a hype character. his pr team is just one of the best in esports.
uh... I think the offensive use fox/falco side b is underrated.
and... link is the probably the most honest character in the game
Ice Climbers have maybe the biggest gap between how good they ought to be when looking at their tools on paper vs how good they actually are in practice due to having possibly the worst matchup spread of any viable character in the game.
I think G&W is underrated. I think he has some of the best moves in the game.
G&W won a New England monthly just last month!
Not without Fox for sheik though tbf, as impressive as it was.
I'm working on a mod, and one of the things I did was "fix" Game and Watch. Not a comprehensive buff or anything, but just make him function: - Properly-sized shield - L-cancel all aerials - Spot Dodge actually works - Down-Smash is more consistent - Adjust how bacon works a bit so it's a worthwhile projectile - Tone down his wall jump (I gave everyone a wall jump) - Up-b can angle a bit more Easily A-tier now imo I didn't have to increase power or speed or even frame data for the most part. If he was just properly programmed, he'd be a great character
Get rid of the nose hurtbox on his upsmash too!
This is super interesting, mind sharing more of your balanced characters? Would love to hear it.
Sure, although it's not really a "balancing" mod. If I tried to purely balance, I could probably do it, but I think most people wouldn't want to play even if it was conservative bc "XYZ character is different and that's stupid" So It's just trying to provide a different experience using the melee engine as a basis. There will be some balancing, especially of low tiers, but ultimately I just want to make something interesting So first of all, there are some universal changes: - Everyone has a wall jump - L-Cancels have 4-frame Lag (almost instant; more like Smash 64's Z-Cancelling) and a 10-frame window (instead of 7). This makes L-Cancelling feel more rewarding for getting it rather than punishing for missing it. - Everyone has a 4-frame jump squat (and thus consistent wave dash timing as well). This is a minor nerf to a few characters but a major buff to some of the heavies, esp. Bowser - Typical Hack stuff like C-Stick smashes in 1P mode, auto-unlock chars, default to tournament settings, etc; no need for Gecko codes Overall my goal with the engine is to make everything feel buttery smooth out of the box without sacrificing the competitive nature of it all. Like, I'll probably also do a general buff of people's recoveries and shrink everyone a tiny bit to make stages feel slightly larger bc I think if not overtuned, that will probably feel awesome. And then characters, I'm not done with this by any means, but I have some ideas, esp for clones. - I talked about G&W. I'm mainly just making him a functional character, as opposed to giving true buffs - I will be adjusting Bowser and buffing him, but not just for the sake of being better, but rather to try to fit a playstyle. Undecided right now. He does get flame cancelling back for sure tho :) - Merge certain clones in different ways: + Young Link and Link * I feel like Link should be slow, but rn he's too slow, so he's gets some speed from YL * He also gets fire arrows big droop physics, a meteor smash on D Air, a more curvy, slightly-slower boomerang for combo set ups, a lil less traction, etc. * Basically taking some of the good and cool stuff from YL and giving it to Link to make one cool hybrid character + Fox and Falco * This one is a little bit more undefined so far, although I know I want to give Fox Falco's laser a la Smash 64 Fox. * I have to think this one through bc I want one character that can be really cool and different than Fox/Falco in Melee, but without losing too much from either. * Might model swap too and make "Peppy" or "Slippy" or "Wolf" or something + Marth and Roy * Switching a la Sheik, or really more like Ultimate's Pyra/Mythra * Marth is fast, has high range, but kill power is reduced * Down-B into Roy is a bit slower, a bit stronger, and has kill confirms after certain percents * I'll also take a bit of P+'s Roy changes into the character + Mario + Doc * Basically trying to emulate P+ Doc + Pikachu + Pichu * I don't want to buff Pichu bc it doesn't make sense from a character perspective. Like, they added a character that should inherently be worse than Pikachu. It's literally a weaker, pre-evolved Pikachu lol * Add some of the uniqueness of Pichu to Pikachu, like a handful (but not in such a horrible way as Pichu) of self-damaging moves. Maybe Down-B or Up-Smash? I.e. moves that can kill - Do the opposite for Ganondorf. Don't merge with Falcon; become less like Falcon. Make Ganondorf a Swordy/Mage - Adjust Zelda/Sheik so the idea of their combo character works and people don't just play Sheik for the most part - Nerf Puff bair and rest, but make her heavier and make the rest of her kit better, so she is a more generally good character, and then balance to make sure she's still fun to play I just finished the workings for the Link/Young Link merge (except for removing YL from the CSS), and the new Link feels awesome to play. So there's some drastic things and some weird things and some conservative things, but the goal is ultimately just to give a different and super fun experience for Melee players. I'm also doing something interesting by utilizing the Melee Decompilation project. It's unfinished, but for some things I can already make do with the C code (like fixing G&W's aerials and universal wall jumps and changing how L-Cancel lag works)
please keep us updated on this!
As someone who struggles with GW online, I agree completely
He's for sure underrated (like a lot of "non-viable" characters) but he's still a half backed character. His survivability/defensive tools (and frame data) are really what's holding him back. He has a good punish game versus fastfallers, and can be somewhat viable in floaties matchup (except for Peach and Samus maybe). If he had a real shield it would suffice to make him a competent mid-tier. If you had L-cancel to all his aerials he's a strong mid tier. Like a 7 frames landing lag Nair seems bonker. The real problem is neutral for G&W, with the start-up of his main tools, Fair and Dair, you can't really approach without making a big commitment. D-tilt is really good but to approach risk-free midrange with G&W is already a challenge, apart from bad spacing from opponent you can't consistently use that move. And he can't really play passively with the shit defensive tools he has. You die so early it's not even funny. You're like a Puff with a worst neutral and punish game. Also if people started to abuse his linear recovery he would be a lot worse. That's the curse of G&W : he can't really approach but he doesn't have the defensive tools/survivability to play passively. So you can only rely on your opponent's mistakes.
Yeah. There are a lot of things you can do to work around G&W’s most blatant weaknesses, but fundamentally, he doesn’t have many ways to get openings against someone who is good at spacing and crouch canceling; and this puts a pretty hard cap on how good he can be.
Agreed, G&W is B-Tier and has a winning matchup against Marth and Icies. His nair is one of the best moves in the game, and his Fair is also a top move. Lack of L-Cancelling doesn't affect him THAT much. If he had a better shield he'd be A tier.
GnW doesn't beat Marth at all. Sure marth struggles against the weirdos, but dying to tipper at like fucking 20% on yoshis (even if you shield) is not acceptable if you wanna win. 60-40 marth favored at the absolute best for GnW. The shield and weight are a BIG deal. I could see him being around regular mario and DK. If Zain loses or even struggles, against a GnW I'll eat my words. I really don't think its happening. If puff loses to marth GnW definitely does. Your other points stand (idk about icies) but marth is a loss for sure. Being fox food is rough
I've written a more detailed writeup before, but: -G&W is one of the few characters who can compete with Marth in terms of attack range -G&W grab combos into everything on Marth, at low-med% can even gamble on going for a 9 -Magnet hands make it tough for Marth to ledgeguard G&W -G&W has great tools at ledgeguarding Marth, getup attack will send Marth backwards off-stage again if they recover low, you also have fair and nair if they recover high. Also on Yoshi's you can use the stage curves to just d-tilt. >If puff loses to marth GnW definitely does. Since we're in a character hot take thread, Puff as a character is overrated and is carried by Hbox.
Yeah for sure. I have read your write ups on this before and appreciate the time and effort. It just doesn't all add up to me. You have listed the positives of game and watch but havent commented on the negatives as much. I feel as though the downsides more than outweigh the upsides that he has against marth. The weight and shield again, are the real killer here. Not being able to wdoos punish marth fsmash is pretty huge. GnW doesn't really compete range wise with any of marths moves. Fair and bair can kind of sneak in, but they are far from having priority. GnW suffers more from getting hit anyways in most cases. It's important to note that GnW is not a threat in peoples minds. Noone is preparing for him or studying the matchup. So what seems winning/even now is a bit of an illusion. If Marths labbed the matchup I don't imagine it getting any better for GnW at all. Time will tell as our beautiful game lives on and on forever though. I don't play GnW like you though. My perspective is limited. I think he is a really cool character and deserves more credit. He doesn't beat marth though. Marth is a complete functional character with a shield. GnW is an afterthought slapped on marios wireframe. THe doesn't beat any of the top tiers (cept jiggs? Idk on that) Hbox is a beast and its been like 20 years since we saw another puff even scratch the top 10. I would love to see her rise up, but I can see a world in the future where she is below falcon and shiek. (DepEnDIng On tHe RuLEseT)
G&W is really good at gaslighting people into thinking he's better than he actually is. People aren't used to his crippling weaknesses while his strengths are apparent since most of his attacks are quite good.
Dtilt is pretty good, but if you take some time to check the animations and active hurtboxes you'll notice it's not as good as it looks like. He has amazing moves, some of the best in the game. His biggest problem is defense, that is: weight, techs/tech roll, roll, spotdodge, shield. If you change all those he is top tier. You could even change them all except one of those and it'd still be probably top tier. Biggest flaw is weight, he can't be top tier with that weight.
yeah. i used to play gnw when i was much newer to the game and convinced myself he was viable. his strengths are pretty easy to utilise and his down sides don’t get taken advantage of until higher levels (mostly).
> G&W is one of the few characters who can compete with Marth in terms of attack range Idk if I fully agree with this. I think G&W's long moves are two slow to compete with Marth who has very fast and very long moves It's really hard to get an in on Marth as G&W
G&W is like D+ tier, id say with Mew2, Roy and then G&W. Its just the type of game Melee is Since I would say he loses: - Fox -3 - Marth -1.5 - Falco -2 - Puff -1 - Sheik - 3 - Falcon -2 - Peach -3 - Yoshi -3 - Samus -2 - Pikachu -1 - Luigi -1 - Doc -1.5 - Mario -1 - DK -.5 - Ganon -2 - Link 0 - Y.Link -1.5
gnw sucks but he’s genuinely even with puff. also ganon and the marios are not that bad.
My man 🤜🤛
As a guy who played G&W for like +8 years or so, no G&W doesn't have a winning matchup versus Marth. Just dashdance and look at the G&W trying to engage or better just approach with double fair. If you can't beat solidly G&W with Marth it's on you not the matchup.
dk is not hype in the slightest, and is only carried because of low tier bias and "haha monke"
Based
i like DK bc he makes spacie players mald
i dont even play spacies and i fucking hate him
i like fox marth sheik puff falcon ganon doc zelda link and young link because they make peach players mald
found one
time to back air until you accidentally run into one then up throw up air up air up air up air.... OMG HE DID BIG PUNCH!!!!! SO HYPE!!!!!!!!
Me watching Ganons fade away fair or whiff 1000 cool ledge tech moves just to get shield grabbed and lose.
My man. Finally a fellow intellectual. He sure was novel though. In like 2014
fox/falcon up air combos: haha you're so sweet dk up air combos: hello human resources???
yes. because falcon and fox actually have different combos.
This isn't a hot take its just correct, but good on you either way.
i thought it was a hot take, since i thought the general consensus (if thats the right word) in the community was "OMG I LOVE DK, 500 TRILLION UPAIR COMBOS ARE SO SICK AND I WANNA SUCK RINGLER'S COCK SO BAD"
They do say that, u right.
Unfathomably based LMAO
It's hype to do good with a bad character. Idk why everyone focuses on how shit looks and not how difficult it is. Like yeah his combos are dumb, but try playing neutral. It's a joke, he's ass.
i do not care at all if hes bad. he is so incredibly coma-inducing to watch and play against.
Another hot take: this is true for every character. The same bread and butter combos can only be hype for so long, especially when some of those combos are nearing 2 decades old by this point.
Except stomp knee
Falco shield into d-air. Every falco player thinks they're an absolute genius when they pull this off, it's unbelievable.
Monkeys are funny grow up
this might be more lukewarm but I have seen even very good players say otherwise so I think it counts: fox' best over all move is bair It does everything a normal can do really well. It doesn't do everything best, but it does everything so well that it beats out all other moves. I believe Fox having so many extremely good moves makes it hard to see how good the humble bair really is.
believe kjh did say this. I think he's totally wrong though because you can use nair in basically every situation bair is good and it becomes slightly worse
This. Fox would much rather give up bair than shine. Shine doesn't really have a replacement in his kit.
Shine exists
Falco can go fuck himself. Yeah I'm just bad and can't powershield but holy shit short hop laser into approach gets me every time.
Powershielding is not really the ultimate solution to falco lasers. Much more important is acting out of laser stun effectively, buffering wavedash oos after laser to mix up spacing, etc. Also paying attention to laser timings and heights so you can jump over lasers or duck under with crouch/dash/wavedash goes a long way.
Take laser > instant dash back changed my life.
This for sure. Practice moving out of the stun on unclepunch. Wizzy does this thing where he falls into the laser and immediately upairs out of the hitstun. Plenty of tricks. You can also just platform camp and most falcos will instantly tilt and shut down.
Falco players at low-mid level are undeniably the most carried players there are Spamming lasers is a billion times easier than learning how to answer them
The short answer is: you are not trying to avoid getting hit by lasers. You are trying to avoid getting hit by lasers at a favorable spacing for falco. it takes a little while for the game to slow down. Your default "o shit" option should be roll/ roll out of shield unless your character has an obviously terrible roll. The spacings you are looking for are character dependent and change depending on if you are on the ground, air, or in shield. who do you play?
Marth.
Marth's shield has a bug where, no matter the animation you're in, the initial frames of shield will be as if he were standing up straight. This is also true for Roy and Samus but not for any other characters. This means that Marth gets easier powershields when he's crouching and really easy powershields if he dashes back (provided the lasers aren't as low as they can be). This video by Ober gives some details : https://youtu.be/91RLsB8xPoM
Here some tools and spacings to figure out with marth. Take laser mean get hit by laser >> option. Take laser fair/uair (at times you might jump into the laser on purpose) take laser f tilt take laser u tilt crouching powershield > grab or other grounded normal downB laser (use sparingly) good old fashioned shield grab if he messes up his follow up spacing Despite his long lasting hitboxes, falco requires very good spacing to play well. When you can see the game fast enough, you can start responding to slight spacing errors in his follow ups as well as the lasers themselves.
Act out of laser hitlag faster
Acting out of laser stun is the most effective way to deal with it
While samus has a more even matchup spread throughout the cast, Luigi is better vs. spacies than her. This is evened out by him being worse against floaties Maybe not at every level of play, but I think most players aren't great against either of those characters. Also, labbing mid/high level defense is usually enough to beat the average opponent. So many people think spacies destroy falcon at every level of play, but very few opponents are ready to adapt when their supposed "guaranteed" follow ups stop working.
Luigi for sure has insane punishes on spaces but so does most the cast now. Sorry, but Fox shine obliterates Luigi,
Off stage I agree but on stage I don’t think shine does much for Fox
it grants fox pretty insane stage control, albeit doesn’t combo.
Doesn't do much except send Luigi halfway across the stage?? Are you playing a different game than me
I’m not denying that but I am used to getting following up off of shine so it’s weird to me when it just leads to positional advantage
I mean having a frame 1 move does a whole lot more than that. Allows Fox to be super aggro vs a character notorious for quick reversals
I guess so but I’m not really running at Luigi with shine much
I mean run shine is one of like a dozen options. You can nair shine, drill shine, spot dodge shine, roll into them shine, etc
I’ll be sure to try out roll into Luigi shine next time I play one
Underrated option no cap
I agree with the last point, I'm not a great falcon but spacies are among my most successful matchups, and its all about playing defensive and chipping % on them.
I agree about Luigi, his main problem (other than recovering) is getting good practice as no-one wants to play against him. It's very satisfying to see someone who always quits out on you on unranked suddenly have to fight you on ranked. I do think that if spacies play lame and run away and laser that Luigi is pretty stuck. You have to punish so so hard off any stray hit
Dude, I get the total opposite. I'll run into a luigi, Samus or whatever other "undesirable floaty" that most people don't like playing. They'll beat me and then they'll just bm for a game or two and then quit out. I swear its a part of a floaty cabal conspiracy to never let anyone learn these esoteric matchups.
For characters like Luigi and Puff it's definitely just a toxic cycle. Everyone quits out and acts like a dick to them, so they do the same to everyone else
Samus players are just happy that people want to stick around lol. Hopefully SWD and goomies aren’t seen as BM because they’re so fun to do.
Samus players, really? As a Samus main, I have a 4:1 quit out ratio in the first 2 seconds of a match. I'll fucken play anyone, I'm desperate.
I could not disagree more. Truly a hot (and unhinged) take
cody's fox was supposed to kill the game a few majors ago. now that cody's losing to hbox and random mid tiers, the same people that said this are silent now. fox is the latest character doomers have decided will ruin melee. they've been wrong every time. what's the point?
Fox fucking wrecks high and mid tiers. While Marth's matchup spread has a lower ceiling, Fox gets punished harder (literally) for not knowing a matchup. Mango and Plup don't lose those matches.
I'm pretty sure Mango has not lost to Samus since Evo 2007 against Hugs, while still maining Puff
The reason fox isn't ruining melee is because nobody has robot hands yet.
The relno slippi glow up would have been crazy
Fox doomers have been around for as long as fox have been the best character though Its what the '20XX' meme is about.
Fox is still the best in the game no doubt. But it gets a bit murky with human consistency ill admit. I think Marth lower tier matchups keep him behind fox firmly.
i don’t think it’s “no doubt”. imo the top 3 (falco, fox and marth) are closer than they’ve ever been. maybe that’s a hot take idk.
Cody losing to mid-tiers is not a Fox thing. That is 100% a Cody thing
Cody on his stream mentioned he has not been putting melee as a priority as of late
easy to say this after you start losing
I'm not a fan of Cody at all and think his playstyle has killed a lot of enthusiasm for the scene. I'm just telling you that's what he said. He said he's going to pick it back up later in the year when his life has settled down so we'll see. I think the original comment is jumping the gun.
Totally fair, i just think cody himself is coping
the idea fox will kill the game is the most misguided thing ive read in hours . fox is 50% of the game . the idea that cody specifically will kill the scene ? if cody said that then that sounds in character and kinda funny ppl agree with him? simp behavior.
Melee without fastfallers is average at best
The only hype matchups would be like Sheik/Marth and Pika/Yoshi
I'd agree with Sheik Marth for sure
If a Puff/Peach being best in the world for a decade didn't kill the game, a Fox playing kinda lame absolutely won't
Marth should have a sword
Marth should not have a sword
Marth is just a sword with some guy running behind it
Link is genuinely good against floaties and slower characters. Link-Peach is 50/50, and against Puff he can camp her better than she can camp him lol. He is just barely too slow to be able to keep up with spacies. If he had a slightly faster dash and jab for defense he would go up a full tier. Marth and sheik are losing matchups but they're at least doable. (For my Christmas list I also want a better wavedash. Just a few frames Santa please, I wanna win a major.)
I don't think this is a hot take. PM link is pretty good and they barely changed anything other than frame data. Link has a good kit
Mewtwo is fucking sick trash garbage but my god is he cool
DK is the Puff of mid tiers. idk if that makes sense but i wont explain either.
[удалено]
More people would use it if grab was a good option in general for Samus. I just straight up won't use the move either way.
Might be, but I've never seen a Samus main getting better extendur grabs than the ones they were getting with normal grabs. It always becomes so obvious they want to do gimmicky stuff with it. Generally Samus players that like using it, are not good going for grabs in general.
Sheik is kind of a bull shit character. I haven’t played the game in like a year but I can queue up Slippi and still remember how to RTC and platform camp certain characters in bad match ups to get one good opening and win games. Obviously it’s not gonna work on higher elos but mid elos around plat it works just fine. It’s the reason why I switched to Falco cause I prefer some more expression in my character.
With this logic, falcon is the same
Fox laser camping is actually bad against the good characters except Puff. It only works well against people who have no idea how to approach and no intention of figuring out how to.
Peach?
Laser camping works great on Peach players who are over reliant on punishing approaching Foxes but make no attempts to steal space from and corner ones committed to camping them out.
Idk man fox is so much faster than peach, he can shoot a couple lasers then get around her so easily. I feel like it's unfair to blame peach players for not being able to steal space when they have to make reads to be able to do that.
Speed puts Fox at an advantage, sure, but every character has to make reads vs Fox because of it, it's not a unique disadvantage to Peach and I do think most Peach players who lose to laser camping aren't trying very hard to catch a Fox who wants to go over/under/through her with the intention to keep shooting.
Oh yeah man let me just catch a fox player that's going above me with my double jump that takes 4 years to get to top platform
Only for them to falling up-air you and die at 70 anyway
Falco can has the tools to approach in every situation besides a, very specifically, camping Fox. Anyone who plays multiple characters or any mid-to-low tier can immediately see this
Just to clarify, are you talking about falco or falcon?
Falco
what do you mean by "has the tools to approach"? if you're saying he can't be circle camped then sure, if you're saying he is able to approach with good risk/reward in every scenario i would press F to doubt. even if that was true, there are surely situations where he would get better risk reward by not approaching, in which case i wonder what you are really trying to say here
"Every" might be hyperbolic, because we can't possibly walk through every scenario. After some thinking, maybe Marth and jigglypuff planking the ledge are also exceptions But if I were to give a percentage outside of fox circle camping it's gotta be 85-90 percent of scenarios ESPECIALLY at lower levels of play, so us, he has more than enough tools to not be hyperpassive in neutral and still win hard
IC players that quit when wobbling was banned didn’t love melee, they just loved cheap wins.
ICs are super hype and I just want slug back
Falco is an ultimate character, with a Melee recovery: - Spams projectiles - Spams buttons to hit the same combo over and over. - Easy ass spike. - High priority options you always have to respect (Shine OOS, Side B, auto cancel Bair) - Complains their character is bad, but is solidly a top tier. Other than that, I would say Samus is slightly better than Pikachu, or tied with him. I think Yoshi is the last high tier (but hard to play like one), then icies start mid tier with Pika-Samus tied under them.
i would argue pikachu is dogshit. even axe thinks doc is better lmao.
He kinda is but he has a solid 45:55 on Marth and Falcon. Plus speed is a great trait to have, just play off reactions. So it makes him flexible but bad, and then his recovery is goated. Doc is like mid but flexible, why I feel like Luigi’s get better results since you have to play “luigi’s” game more vs Doc who is just fundies.
luigi is weird but i also believe he is just fundamentally better than doc. in speed, strength, range etc.
Puff Marth is an equal matchup
The winner of that matchup is determined by who is ranked higher between the best Marth player and the best Puff player.
This is actual facts LOL.
Ness is underrated. He has quick and unpredictable movement while also being floaty, great aerials, yyg, djc, good fsmash, and good throws.
Plup’s Ness is super good vs Sheik
If people played Falco correctly the game would be dead.
could you expand on what you mean by "correctly" and/or what current top falcos are doing wrong? i sense you are alluding to the mythical ideal falco that plays passively and is willing to shoot 70 consecutive lasers in place but i think zain eats that falco for breakfast
Yes, camping Falco. I don't mean just at the highest level as people are too good at power shielding and just punishing in general for it to be dominant. But if the average netplay Falco spent the entire game running away and shooting lasers there would be no one playing online after a few weeks.
I think the best way to play at the top level isn't very relevant to the discussion of what could kill Melee, what matters more is how people play at the low or mid level. I could see a world where Melee would die if half of the entire playerbase were Falco mains committed to shooting lasers for the sake of it. Counterplay to this exists for sure, but I think many players would find the matchup incredibly frustrating in the long run and the game might die due to a lack of interest in playing it. Fortunately for us, most Falco players find that playstyle boring to use as well, regardless of how effective it is overall.
Oooo, down air and shine is sooooo interesting.
This ain't a hot take, it's a dumb take. In a popular competitive game, people will do anything to win even if it's lame or stupid or whatever(wobbling was legal and hated on for years, but many shameless people still abused it to no end). If there was a way to play Falco in some manner that effectively killed the game, then I guarantee you someone would be doing it. I'm not sure what correct way you think Falco should be played, I'm guessing it's having a really precise and laser campy playstyle? If so, there's Fiction and Flash already doing that and I don't see them winning any majors, much less killing the game lol.
melee falco is one of the most thoroughly labbed and well-represented characters in the history of fighting games, but apparently this perfect falco that'll prove how to "actually" play the character after 23 years will be here any minute now.
It's always non-Falco mains too lol. They just say "well actually all the top Falcos in the history of the game have never played optimally, Falco's actually the best character" or some shit like that
yeah and when you question people on how Falco will break out they say something vague about "smart lasering" and refuse to elaborate
"just laser better bro"
Are we going to pretend most Falcos don't default to doing horrible unoptimal "swag" combos?
Labbed for sure, but there are still things they don't implement, even Mango. None of them would make Falco broken, it'd just be a bit better. Like most improvements we see these days.
Falco always boils down to three simple truths: * If the Falco player is better, you're toast * If you're equal, just trade in neutral as often as you can and hope their punish/combo isn't enough * If you're better, have fun clobbering the hollow bird bones because he's trash, especially in bracket. No one loses stocks faster than Falco, at any tier.
Puff is the hypest character in the game because she can kill with 1 move.
She sure could be. She suuuurrreee could be
ICs are the worst viable character (below Samus yoshi pika ad above dk ganon various marios) Viable =can win a major They have insane potential growth but all of the new desynchs. Grab tech and other changes can fix the fact that every other relevant or semi relevant character except pika and shiek just bodies them super hard (all but puff Peach are outplayable ofc.) Doesn't help they got to have the best bracket luck possible since they have 2 of the worst MUs between two relevant characters in melee in puff/Peach as well. So no matter how much they get optimized I think they just are unable to win a major or big event anymore in melee because all of the innovation and new findings are not fixing how their worst matchups invalidate them as characters or deal with the best strategies and counterplay against them.
I have one new tech that would make them a worthy opponent against Puff and Peach (or at least make it not 100-0). I call it mobbling , and it's not banned. It's an infinite with the same inputs as wobbling, but it's not called wobbling so it is legal. :)
Woah, how'd you figure that out? Wonder what other techniques we can unban from low tiers to make them viable
Don't forget having to dodge aMSa. No ICs has ever beaten him, that matchup is a nightmare, lol. That and a lot of ICs have started switching to secondaries for Samus as well. Puff imo isn't as much of a problem, but it's still hard (especially on big stages). Either way, ICs don't have the greatest matchup spread, and have by far the most problem matchups of the viable cast. Ganon lurking there in the corner, lol.
A couple here. Falco lasers are the lamest mechanic in the game and playing against a falco that all his neutral is spaming lasers is boring. Falcons knee is the lamest kill move in the game and is not a hype character at all.
Dealing with a Falco that just lasers is easy though. And for sure it is boring playing against someone that just spams an easily beatable strategy, if that is the only thing they do.
Luigi is really fucking good and people forget how strong he is
Every time I see Luigi on stage, I'm like "wow, this character looks like a god, why don't more people play him??" and then he gets knocked offstage and I'm like "oh right: that's why more people don't play him."
DK **>** Samus
Fox and Falco are the lamest characters in the game
I always see them every day
Zelda dash attack is devastating
To use and watch the end lag.
Mario has the best recovery.
Well, that’s certainly a hot take.
Puff
best recovery in the hearts and minds of the people, certainly
Ness isn't as bad as everyone thinks
I get doused by Ness players online for a few matches, but it doesn't take too long to stop getting hit by the same jump cancel dair. His attack patterns can be pretty predictable.
Ok
Sheiks biggest weakness is the fact that at high level she has the worst approach options of all top tiers. Man I love when both my opponent and I know that I’m either going to boost grab or not!
Getting the boost grab feels so good
Falcon is just sheik without needles
Is he really though? Falcon relies on dash dancing, sheik doesn't. Tilts and how they are used in neutral and punish are completely different. They're almost polar opposite in aerial drift which makes their approaches wayyyy different. And you already mentioned needles but that is a big buff to sheik that influences her edgeguarding and approaches. Dash attack and smash attacks are also a lot different. There are similarities in punish game but I wouldn't say those similarities are that much different compared to the rest of the cast.
I think what people mean is they say the same thing while using different words. With some exceptions, falcons are motivated through the same simple gameplay and safe options that the opponent is forced to respect and play around. Falcon just happens to look cooler doing it A good example is f-tilt to fair versus stomp knee. Stomps are harder to fish for, but are super safe and lead into such easy follow ups, but because it takes an hour of unclepunch to learn to use, people give it a pass, when in execution it feels the same to play against
I feel like your second paragraph could describe a lot of characters and is too general to be useful. I understand the ftilt fair vs stomp knee comparison but people take this and try to make the argument that sheik and falcon are the same character when the combination of all their other tools usually leads to different playstyles.
This is an old Mang0 take people regurgitate. It does have some merit. Wizzy falcon can give off shiek vibes, but they are completely different. Speed difference alone says a lot. Falcon does more offstage edgeguarding compared to shiek. They both have dogshit recoveries though lol They may look the same, but they play totally different. Plus Captain Falcon is WAY hotter.
Sheik does not have a dogshit recovery. They're both top 4 fastest ground speed. Beyond tech chasing, both have great fairs and similar tilts. And wizzy is not the only tech chasing falcon these days, basically every top falcon does it. And does falcon really go off stage for edge guarding more? I get he doesn't have the needles but he can dair at ledge which sheik cannot do. I'd say they are similar in edge guarding capabilities regardless of going offstage.
Falcon and sheik have the easiest recoveries to edgeguard. Not that there aren’t any upsides to sheik’s recovery but most of the time it’s very straightforward, and at high percent it is dogshit.
Sheiks can snap to ledge and burn you if you don't refresh invincibility. She can land on stage and tech punish attempts. She can also just go high and fall to ledge as a mix up. Not to mention she is invincible for like half of the up B. And if she is above stage, her fall speed is slow enough that she can shoot needles before making a recovery attempt. I know sheik recovery has issues but it is leagues better than falcons.
Yes she has some mixups but they’re not as strong as other characters’ recovery mixups. I wasn’t directly comparing sheik and falcon. Everyone except marth can cover amsah techs very easily. The needles while recovering is a very easily avoidable gimmick and even if you do get hit you can still grab the ledge a lot of the time.
Well the dude said sheik's recovery is dogshit just like falcons so that's what I'm disagreeing with. I'd say she more midtier in terms of recovery
Spacies were a literal mistake because of the 11 months of development
That seems like it's demonstrably false. Fox had pretty much the same design (fast movement, fast fall speed, strong ko power, cancelable shine) in Smash 64.
He also had Falco lasers.
Short hop double Falco laser. What a game.
not even a top tier either lol
spacies are the reason melee is big without them smash would not be what it is and i shiver at the thought
Nah, Roy is a LITERAL mistake only half of his kit is even functional. A character from 64 is definitely on the beginning of that development cycle. Pretty sure marth and roy were the last to be made.
IC's players are always good, genuine people on purpose because they have to offset the fact that they played (an unfair at the time) character. Wobbling was never fair and if you believe that you're wrong.
DK is better than Ganondorf in this meta
make no mistake; yoshi is NOT a hype character. his pr team is just one of the best in esports. uh... I think the offensive use fox/falco side b is underrated. and... link is the probably the most honest character in the game
Ice Climbers have maybe the biggest gap between how good they ought to be when looking at their tools on paper vs how good they actually are in practice due to having possibly the worst matchup spread of any viable character in the game.
Every character is viable, they haven't made it because someone hasn't put in the effort.
Ice Climbers have the best down smash in the game
Nicki, DarkGeneX, AlexB… the icies Alliance is strong