# Smash Thread



## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 28, 2018)

Smash Ultimate is launching in a week and there are people _on this board_, _*right now*_, who AREN'T excited as hell to play Ridley.

I figure Smash is a huge game and probably one of the best games to kick back and play with the squad, so there's got to be a few of us into it around here; may as well have a thread and spread some friend codes, know'msayin?

So my dudes- who do you main? Who do you expect to main? Who do you want to dabble with? What are you excited about? 

I'm a Zelda main tried and true since Brawl. Stoked to see the new changes to her, but I'm pretty sure I'm probably going to end up maining Ridley. Haven't been this stoked for a video game in about a literal decade.


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## wankerness (Nov 28, 2018)

I haven't seen any videos, so maybe Ridley is lightning quick and small, but I historically haven't liked the clunkiness of "big" characters. Although Ganon was really fun in the Wii-U version.

I just bought a Switch because I'm terrible with money, so I'll get this sooner or later.

I never played any of the versions to the point of being "good" at them, but I always played Peach and started playing Zelda after they separated Sheik.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 28, 2018)

fox. always fox, ever since smash 64. i've dabbled in other characters enough to the point to get good with them, but he's always been my favorite. he's so versatile. link was always pretty good too, but i never got his edge trapping down with the hookshot.

i hope this version is as fast feeling as melee, since the smash on wii was a loooot slower feeling comparatively.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 28, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I haven't seen any videos, so maybe Ridley is lightning quick and small, but I historically haven't liked the clunkiness of "big"
> characters. Although Ganon was really fun in the Wii-U version.



Hooooo, absolutely not- he a big boi. He looks fun though, fast for a "big" character, and his moveset looks really interesting.
And he's just cool as hell as a character which is really the part that matters. 
Had a blast with Ganon in WiiU too. Although it became a thing in our group where if someone picked Ganon the other 3 did too, but....still fun. The suicide grab will never stop being amusing. 



KnightBrolaire said:


> fox. always fox, ever since smash 64. i've dabbled in other characters enough to the point to get good with them, but he's always been my favorite. he's so versatile. link was always pretty good too, but i never got his edge trapping down with the hookshot.
> 
> i hope this version is as fast feeling as melee, since the smash on wii was a loooot slower feeling comparatively.



Fox is one of the few characters I never actually got good with  I couldn't ever chain the combos together that made him such a killer pick.
Had a lot of fun with Falco in Melee though. Never played 64, adored Melee, hated Brawl, and was satisfied with Smash Wii U- so I'm hoping for somewhere in between Melee/Smash Wii U in terms of gameplay, which sounds like what we're getting so I'm pretty hyped.


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## StevenC (Nov 28, 2018)

I play a lot of Smash Bros, and when I say a lot I mean that our internet is terrible and cuts out a lot so my brother needs someone to practice on. I'm ok at Smash Bros, but my brother is really good. He was 9th at Smash Con for Wii U, and a few months ago Nintendo invited him over to London to play the new game and play in a tournament. I should amend that, I don't play a lot of Smash Bros, I lose a lot of Smash Bros.

That said, Roy's Our Boy!


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## Mathemagician (Nov 28, 2018)

Ike was who I played all the time. Started using Diddy Kong, and look forward to trying to get good with a faster character.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

StevenC said:


> I play a lot of Smash Bros, and when I say a lot I mean that our internet is terrible and cuts out a lot so my brother needs someone to practice on. I'm ok at Smash Bros, but my brother is really good. He was 9th at Smash Con for Wii U, and a few months ago Nintendo invited him over to London to play the new game and play in a tournament. I should amend that, I don't play a lot of Smash Bros, I lose a lot of Smash Bros.
> 
> That said, Roy's Our Boy!



Haha I'm that brother, nowhere near as good as yours, but I feel bad for my little brother sometimes. Me and my friends play this game a *lot*. Coincidentally, he also plays Roy 
Who's actually supposed to be one of the best characters in Ultimate, from what I've heard. Could be exciting, I like Roy. Hope they improved his recovery a bit.


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## wankerness (Nov 29, 2018)

I never got into all those fire emblem characters. Guys with swords suck. Link included! My friend had Cloud, though, who was kind of amusing.

Yeah, I didn’t like what little of the Wii version that I played.

I played the n64 one a lot when it was new. Essentially, the characters had the same moves, but they were wildly imbalanced. Like, Samus’s screw attack did about 3-4x more damage than it has in subsequent versions, as did Donkey Kong’s ground pound, and the maps were much smaller, so we usually ended up spamming moves and yelling at each other. It was great.


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## Ralyks (Nov 29, 2018)

Ganondorf.

Although I didn't play the Wii U/3DS games. Got Ultimate on pre-order though.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Nov 29, 2018)

I don't usually play Smash unless it's at my sister's house. She is planning to get a Switch just for this so looks like I'll be dusting off my bad Shulk playing. I do need to try Ryu and Ken since their moves are geared towards Street Fighter styles. That and I'm excited with 2 of the Belmonts jumping in.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> I don't usually play Smash unless it's at my sister's house. She is planning to get a Switch just for this so looks like I'll be dusting off my bad Shulk playing. I do need to try Ryu and Ken since their moves are geared towards Street Fighter styles. That and I'm excited with 2 of the Belmonts jumping in.



Yeah I bought my switch specifically for Ultimate too.
Ryu and Ken should be cool if you've played street fighter before- from my understanding, you can also use their moves by inputting the old street fighter button combos, and they're stronger if you do.


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## Mathemagician (Nov 29, 2018)

Yep. Simple example, if forward+B does a fireball, the down>forward>B does it better.


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## RiksRiks (Nov 29, 2018)

Got it on preorder!
My mains:
N64: no one, really, I was too young to care
Melee: Falco
Brawl: Falco? But I didn't play it as much
3DS: Samus/Ryu but I'm not good at all competitively so I can't use Ryus original combos.
I'm really looking forward to use Ridley! 
Also, I fear a lot characters with swords like Roy, Ike, Metaknight and Cloud.

We should definitely exchange friend codes, although my wifi sucks hard and I've never played smash online.


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## mongey (Nov 30, 2018)

I have actually never played a smash or
Melee game in my life. Gonna grab it to try for sure. I’ll probably start with Ryu and ken just cause as a sf player I will at least know something. After that , see what happens.


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## wankerness (Nov 30, 2018)

mongey said:


> I have actually never played a smash or
> Melee game in my life. Gonna grab it to try for sure. I’ll probably start with Ryu and ken just cause as a sf player I will at least know something. After that , see what happens.



If you haven't even seen a video and thus truly have no idea what to expect, I'm looking VERY forward to your first impressions. The idea that any SF skills will be transferable is hilarious. (well, apart from doing downforward for fireballs of course!)


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 30, 2018)

wankerness said:


> If you haven't even seen a video and thus truly have no idea what to expect, I'm looking VERY forward to your first impressions. The idea that any SF skills will be transferable is hilarious. (well, apart from doing downforward for fireballs of course!)



I dunno, I think a lot of the mentality is the same. Spacing will be drastically different though.
I never really got into traditional fighting games aside from my brief stint with Soul Calibur though, so what do I know 

For sure though @mongey it's actually a surprisingly easy game to pick up. Link and Mario are both great characters to learn the basics with.


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## mongey (Dec 1, 2018)

wankerness said:


> If you haven't even seen a video and thus truly have no idea what to expect, I'm looking VERY forward to your first impressions. The idea that any SF skills will be transferable is hilarious. (well, apart from doing downforward for fireballs of course!)


I have seen a few high level games from tournaments and stuff over the years. But never tried it 

Sure I’ll be lost but the very basicsof fighting games transfer imho. Same as playing guitar means you can pick up an instrument you’ve never played before and still have some idea how to approach playing it.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 1, 2018)

mongey said:


> I have seen a few high level games from tournaments and stuff over the years. But never tried it
> 
> Sure I’ll be lost but the very basicsof fighting games transfer imho. Same as playing guitar means you can pick up an instrument you’ve never played before and still have some idea how to approach playing it.


smash is a pretty easy game to pick up, especially if you're used to fighting games. the only hard part from previous games was mastering the i frames/dodges and getting good at edge guarding.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 4, 2018)

So I've had the absolute pleasure of playing this game early (don't worry, I bought it), and it is fan-fuckin'-tastic. Movement is much better, it feels a lot more 'melee-like'. Characters respond to inputs much better, so tech is much easier. For anyone else out there that loves my girl, Zelda is looking great; this is definitely the most competitive she's ever been. I wouldn't quite say high-tier, but it's definitely nice to no longer be one of the worst characters in the game.

Roy and Young Link feel like S-tier characters, they're phenomenally good. If you played Young Link in melee he is literally the exact same, but better. Cloud took the nerf bat like a champ, but he's still a good character. Same with Bayonetta. Ridley is a LOAD of fun, I want to say he's a high-tier character but that may just be my own bias. Ryu got sped up a lot, I feel like his knockback got improved as well. Ken as an echo feels like he has better air game, but his attacks feel like they don't have the knockback. 

Overall it feels like they did a much better job with balance in this iteration of the game; everyone feels competitive on some level so far. The only outliers are Roy and Young Link, and currently only Young Link feels 'broken,' I wouldn't be surprised to see him get re-balanced. If you've got any burning questions about the game, feel free to ask; me and my friends have been doing pretty much nothing else with our free time since Saturday.


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## StevenC (Dec 5, 2018)

A few years ago Game in the UK broke the street date on Pokémon X and Y, so I'm really hoping they do the same thing again tomorrow.


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## Ralyks (Dec 5, 2018)

I totally forgot this comes out in less than 2 days...


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## wankerness (Dec 5, 2018)

I preordered it after I discovered that switch games never go down in price, ever! Amazon apparently gives you piranha plant if you preorder it too.

This will be my second switch game after a stick figure cowboy rpg. Hell yeah


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 5, 2018)

I also have it preordered. I guess I might actually utilize my nintendo online subscription now that smash has an online mode


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## StevenC (Dec 6, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I preordered it after I discovered that switch games never go down in price, ever! Amazon apparently gives you piranha plant if you preorder it too.
> 
> This will be my second switch game after a stick figure cowboy rpg. Hell yeah


You get Pirahna Plant for registering the game with Nintendo Online before the middle of January. No release date for Pirahna Plant yet.


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## wankerness (Dec 6, 2018)

Ah, so ANYONE that ordered it right away gets it? Damn you, Amazon. I knew it wasn't coming for a while. Oh well. I didn't pay extra.


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## StevenC (Dec 6, 2018)

I'm enjoying this game a lot so far, would recommend


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## Mathemagician (Dec 6, 2018)

Going to get it digital. I’ve grown to the first world level of hating changing cartridges/disks whenever possible.


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## StevenC (Dec 6, 2018)

First DLC character is crazy!


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## Bloody_Inferno (Dec 6, 2018)

Ok I actually really like the first DLC character being added in.  

It's only a matter of time for Goro Majima or Margaret Thacher to join in.


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## wankerness (Dec 7, 2018)

With all Sega's dealings with Nintendo, you'd think they could port 0 or Kiwami 1 or something!

I'm all about downloading on the PS4, but the Switch's miniscule harddrive has me leary. I did get a 128 gig expansion, but I'm still paranoid! I guess this isn't the PS4 where most games are like 35 gigs.

Not to mention, unlike PS4, if you sell a switch game you'll probably make back most of what you paid for it! PS4 games go from 60 to 10 in like 2 months it seems.


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## wankerness (Dec 7, 2018)

Wait, what the hell? I thought you were referring to piranha plant. The one announced yesterday is incredible. I'm not a huge fan of the Joker character (Futaba and Makoto and maybe even Ann were way better, or we could have had Morgana with his main move telling the opponent they have to go to sleep and aren't allowed to do anything today), but the idea that this likely means we'll see Persona ports is mouthwatering.

Maybe we'll see a FFX/X-2/XIV character since those are all impending on Switch?? I feel like Joker is way more niche than FF, but then again Persona 5 seemed to be pretty big over in Japan when I was in Akihabara and these DLC characters aren't just for the US.


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## wankerness (Dec 7, 2018)

I played this for 30 minutes over lunch. It plays the same as the last few, based on superficial impressions. The assist trophies seemed to work differently, but I always had items off when I played the last ones so I can't say that for sure. It spawned characters that followed me around like autonomous bots, and I got two at once. Guile was one of them!!

I wasn't expecting to only have 8 characters out of the box. But, in that 30 minutes, I unlocked a few (Ness, Zelda) and failed to unlock a third (Bowser blasted me right off a tiny stage in about 10 seconds) so it will probably go relatively quick. 60 more is a lot to unlock, though, if it happens only in single player and you can fail the unlock, which means you have to wait for a re-match instead of immediately getting another chance. All I want is Peach so I can hit people with golf clubs and frying pans again.

The switch controller in portable mode was hell on earth for this game. My right thumb cramped up badly just in that small amount of time.


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## Ralyks (Dec 7, 2018)

Joker is going to be a DLC character?! Fuck yes!!!

Also, just grabbed my preorder. Will play it after son goes to bed. Or while he’s amusing himself with some other activity. Whichever.


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## StevenC (Dec 7, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I played this for 30 minutes over lunch. It plays the same as the last few, based on superficial impressions. The assist trophies seemed to work differently, but I always had items off when I played the last ones so I can't say that for sure. It spawned characters that followed me around like autonomous bots, and I got two at once. Guile was one of them!!
> 
> I wasn't expecting to only have 8 characters out of the box. But, in that 30 minutes, I unlocked a few (Ness, Zelda) and failed to unlock a third (Bowser blasted me right off a tiny stage in about 10 seconds) so it will probably go relatively quick. 60 more is a lot to unlock, though, if it happens only in single player and you can fail the unlock, which means you have to wait for a re-match instead of immediately getting another chance. All I want is Peach so I can hit people with golf clubs and frying pans again.
> 
> The switch controller in portable mode was hell on earth for this game. My right thumb cramped up badly just in that small amount of time.


You get the chance to unlock a character after every match you win in regular Smash mode. Then there's a 10 minute timer between each challenger approaching match, and a small distance you have to travel. You can rematch them in the extras menu.

The quickest way to unlock characters is to turn the game off and on to reset the timer. You have to close the software, not just escape to the home menu. Changing the language is apparently the quickest way to do this.


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## wankerness (Dec 7, 2018)

Played for another hour, right hand cramped again! I unlocked another handful of dudes, though. Inkling is interesting. I mostly manage to kill myself by rolling back and forth until I go off the edge, but I can do a lot of damage really fast.

I just read that my wii-u GameCube adapter works with the switch dock, so thank Christ. Guess I’ll be playing this one on the TV.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 7, 2018)

suddenly I regret buying a physical copy since I'm wasting time waiting for it to show up that I could spend playing


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 8, 2018)

wankerness said:


> Played for another hour, right hand cramped again! I unlocked another handful of dudes, though. Inkling is interesting. I mostly manage to kill myself by rolling back and forth until I go off the edge, but I can do a lot of damage really fast.
> 
> I just read that my wii-u GameCube adapter works with the switch dock, so thank Christ. Guess I’ll be playing this one on the TV.



Yeah I can't play with anything other than an actual controller. I'm surprised at how well the pro controller works for Smash, though- especially after being a GameCube purist all these years. 
I can't get the hang of Inklings either yet, but I want to. They seem like a fun character. 

I really enjoyed the unlocking process. Me and a couple buddies stayed up all night unlocking everyone in classic mode.


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## Ralyks (Dec 8, 2018)

It's Smash Bros x1000. It's fan service up the wazoo. And, well, it's awesome.

Got a few guys unlocked. Not sure how I feel about World of Light yet thought. Seems... needlessly complicated.


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## wankerness (Dec 9, 2018)

I played it for about ten minutes, it did seem pretty dumb. The party seemed to be nothing other than buffs. But, I only played it for ten minutes!

I’m really, really rusty. The K Rool challenge fight kicked my ass.  I only have about 12 guys unlocked, I’ve been busy with other stuff.

The GameCube controller, while still the most comfortable option and built like granite, has a terrible R button. The janky spring in it makes blocking far less responsive than on the newfangled modern controllers that are otherwise inferior.


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## wankerness (Dec 10, 2018)

I unlocked a bunch more dudes. Ridley is, IMO, unusable on any level with a lot of skinny platforms, as his main attack basically shoots you forwards quite a ways and then downwards, making it ripe for going off edges and dying instantly cause you're still locked in the attack animation. Kinda like the down+b attack for Zero Suit Samus. On the right stages, he's pretty awesome, but I was mostly just killing myself on the "wrong" stages. Unfortunately, I keep getting the basic pallette swaps like Lucina and Daisy. I want Rosalina and Snake! I haven't really looked at the character lists, so I look forward to being surprised by some of them. 

King K Rool is quite good, and is also possibly the best I've encountered so far for cheesing against computers, which is occasionally useful - some of the "challenger approaching" guys will melt your face (ex, King Dee Dee beat the snot out of me more than once with air juggles from 1-70% and then again from 70%-dead!), while others are basically punching bags, it's such a crapshoot. He's got extremely powerful projectile weapons, can vacuum up the other player if the cannonball misses and then shoot them way back out of melee range again, has a save that goes REALLY high, and actually moves/punches pretty quickly. Plus, you can smash the other guy into the floor! He's now in my rotation of characters I feel comfortable playing as along with Samus/Peach. I unlocked a bunch more guys, too, I think I'm up to 36 or so. This is a slow project if you don't do the reset/1 second game spam trick. 

I got one of the Castlevania guys, who I haven't played with more than once or twice. I like that they gave him the exact same projectile weapons as the NES game, but unfortunately they also totally suck in this game IMO. I successfully hit people with axes and holy water about 0 times, haha. The basic attacks with the whip are great, though.

I still loathe some of the levels. You end up basically fighting the level on some of these, like especially the side-scrollers. Unlocking Ridley on Brinstar, which I always avoided on previous games and thus didn't know all the new gimmicks for (ex, huge lava wall approaching from either side, or the "safe tube" before a lava wave) and thus caused me to lose a couple times on the unlock fights. Blurgh. I heard there were settings to turn off different "threats" on levels, which I might have to experiment with.


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## StevenC (Dec 10, 2018)

In the rules, you can turn off stage hazards, set stages to Battlefield or Final Destination mode, and even remove stages entirely from being randomly selected. See you later Wrecking Crew!


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## wankerness (Dec 11, 2018)

Yeah, I have to do that to a couple levels. Pac World is one!!

I’m getting down there on the list of unlocks. Since the computers seem to be turning into bigger and bigger assholes as the process goes along, I’ve had to come up with a handful of different cheese tactics depending on opponents/level. Ganondorf is one of the best, you can get beat on horribly for 100% damage and not get a hit in, but connect with one single B attack anywhere close to the side of the level and they die instantly! I had to do that to Pacman! Roy, K Rool, Samus and Peach fill out the cheap against computers roster. 

Man, Rosalina is kind of crap, huh? It seems to be impossible to cause much damage at any speed. Bayonetta seems pretty bad, too.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 11, 2018)

world of light is really weird.


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## wankerness (Dec 11, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> world of light is really weird.



I decided I hate it. It's wonky and annoying and less fun than just playing regular matches against computers.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 11, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I decided I hate it. It's wonky and annoying and less fun than just playing regular matches against computers.


I played it for about 2 hrs last night and had 2 moments where I damn near threw my controller (fighting robin in lava floor variant, and fighting sonic when he has buffed attacks in a stamina battle WITH other ai helping). The skill tree/ rock paper scissors aspect of choosing spirits feels very alien in a smash game to me. The challenge board is weird too, especially how it costs you points to take another shot at freeing the spirit (which doubles everytime iirc), and the whole weirdness with leaving some spirits in a cave for 6 hrs in hopes of getting loot. I don't really like how they're taking aspects of free to play games.


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## wankerness (Dec 11, 2018)

I just looked at "tier lists" for SSB4, and discovered that the characters that seem the crappiest to me are ranked the highest (ex, Bayonetta is #1, Rosalina and Zero Suit Samus are 5 and 6!!!). Maybe they got changed up in a big way from 4 to this one, but more likely I just suck and it takes real experience to figure out how to use them. Zero Suit Samus I sorta get, I'm just still horrible at ever hitting anyone with the down-b attack. I still haven't used Diddy Kong, who's #3.

I like that Mewtwo went from near last in Melee to #10 in SSB4. I still haven't unlocked him in the new one.

https://www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list

One thing I've discovered I never do right is pull off the saves with characters that have directional ones (ex, Castlevania guys, Ganondorf). I ALWAYS do them in the wrong direction. I'm not sure what the trick is, I guess you have to first turn and THEN execute the move instead of like, hitting up-right+B while facing left. It's infuriating.


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 11, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I just looked at "tier lists" for SSB4, and discovered that the characters that seem the crappiest to me are ranked the highest (ex, Bayonetta is #1, Rosalina and Zero Suit Samus are 5 and 6!!!). Maybe they got changed up in a big way from 4 to this one, but more likely I just suck and it takes real experience to figure out how to use them. Zero Suit Samus I sorta get, I'm just still horrible at ever hitting anyone with the down-b attack. I still haven't used Diddy Kong, who's #3.
> 
> I like that Mewtwo went from near last in Melee to #10 in SSB4. I still haven't unlocked him in the new one.
> 
> ...


tier listing means nothing at this point. Once people start playing more and more competively the wheat will be separated from the chaff, and we'll have a better idea of which characters are super viable .


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## wankerness (Dec 11, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> tier listing means nothing at this point. Once people start playing more and more competively the wheat will be separated from the chaff, and we'll have a better idea of which characters are super viable .



There isn't one for this game at all, I know. I just have the 4th one and those characters play the same way and I disregarded them there, too. I was amused to see that they're so highly rated when I experienced the opposite. I know this game has tons of stuff tweaked including some characters' entire mechanics, and that those particular ones very well may end up being at the very bottom.

I saw the very first pro tournie had fox winning it. Ugh. But, it's way too early to say anything definitive.


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## wankerness (Dec 14, 2018)

They nerfed the challenger fights. Good for everyone that hasn't unlocked everyone already.

Cloud and Mewtwo were pure pain. They were two of the last ones (the order is the same for all players if you unlock them through Smash instead of World of Light). I lost to both about 5 times. I eventually got Cloud with Little Mac since you need to basically beat the piss out of him as fast as possible and not let him get away or he destroys you. Mewtwo was just a dick, I got lucky and he randomly killed himself by jumping off the right side of the stage and failing to save himself!! If I'd known they were going to nerf these, I'd probably have waited since I still haven't played this multiplayer yet.


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## Ralyks (Dec 14, 2018)

I'm already cooling a bit on the game. I mean, it's fun, but it'd be more fun if I actually had people to play with. And online has been, well, crap.


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## wankerness (Dec 14, 2018)

Ralyks said:


> I'm already cooling a bit on the game. I mean, it's fun, but it'd be more fun if I actually had people to play with. And online has been, well, crap.



Oh, of course. I haven't played any of these games since Gamecube in single player beyond unlocking fighters. It's for local multiplayer only IMO. And it's about the best game for that apart from Wario Ware!

I have zero interest in online multiplayer, especially considering the issues and the fact I'd have to pay for Nintendo's service. The fact they're holding cloud saves hostage behind that service ticks me off, though. (yeah, I think Sony does that too, but at least there are other benefits to their service)


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## StevenC (Dec 14, 2018)

With regards tier lists, things seem very different in this game. All the Mewtwo players have dropped him, for example, and gone largely to Palutena.

In other news, I'm starting to consistently take a stock off my brother and learning how to play the game properly. Or at least play Roy properly. Also, this game is definitely fast enough to go back to 3 stocks.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 18, 2018)

wankerness said:


> There isn't one for this game at all, I know. I just have the 4th one and those characters play the same way and I disregarded them there, too. I was amused to see that they're so highly rated when I experienced the opposite. I know this game has tons of stuff tweaked including some characters' entire mechanics, and that those particular ones very well may end up being at the very bottom.
> 
> I saw the very first pro tournie had fox winning it. Ugh. But, it's way too early to say anything definitive.



The tier list is strange; in order for it to be applicable to you, you have to play the way that competitive players play- which is an entirely different playstyle from the way the majority of the playerbase operates.

For example, Bayonetta and Zero Suit are such incredible characters because they can put on an almost inescapable amount of pressure on the enemy player, and both possess the ability to combo an enemy off the top of the screen with little to no reliance on outside variables or opponent behavior. Bayonetta's was especially bothersome (to the point where it's just known as 'the combo' amongst tourney types) because she could ladder you up off the top of the stage and unless you DI it perfectly it's inescapable- as soon as the first hit landed you knew you were going to lose a stock.

Rosalina is insane because of the amount of zone control she can extol with Luma; but it takes a very skilled player to micromanage two characters like that. To the average smash player, Rosalina is just really annoying because you're going to get randomly hit by this dumb star.

Characters that are both high tier competitively *and* easy for casual players to understand tend to get stigmatized, and the worst case for that was Cloud. Cloud was pretty much unanimously agreed as the second best character in Sm4sh after Bayonetta, and that's because just about anything you could do, Cloud could do better. His aerials were really disjointed and hard to defend against, they took up a lot of space, the hitboxes were active for long periods of time, and they were very quick to come out. He had crazy kill potential due to the limit mechanic and how quickly limit cross slash could come out; he had very high tier mobility, he was somewhat easy to survive with (he wouldn't get launched into the blast zone at 80% like lighter characters), great frame data (I.E. he could act quickly out of attacks) he has multiple 'skillshot' moves that can drastically change the pace of the battle, and his only remote drawback was that his recovery was kind of garbage. As a result, there were a ton of memes about Cloud being babby's first smash main. Sucks for guys that just really loved FFVII.
--
As far as Ultimate goes, so far balance seems really good. There's no disgusting Bayonetta type nonsense going on from what we can see so far. Top tier characters seem to be along the lines of *Young Link* (who has flat out insane frame data), *Roy *(improved frame data/speed and solid kill potential), *K. Rool* (very well rounded, versatile and excellent recovery for a heavy), *Peach *(top tier recovery, up smash is still bae), and *DK *(improved from Sm4sh in every way); if you're the type to follow pro opinions, that list can also include characters like *Inkling *(excellent speed, savage spike), *Mewtwo *(improved chain potential, slightly better frame data), and *Pikachu *(for reasons I cannot explain but he's just *good* now). Versatility is king. Apart from general vibes on "who's good and who's not," though, time will tell. Anyone who claims to be able to give you a well structured, complete tier list is speculating.

Wish my boy Ridley had a bit of a better toolkit, but as it is now it looks like he's trapped in low tier. Zelda I think could be really high on the list if they gave her aerials just a little bit less endlag to where you can get off two in a single jump like in previous iterations, but c'est la vie. Still gunna main both of them. Game still feels great; haven't been posting much because work has been slammed due to year end, got sick, and all my spare time has been playing this game with my friends. We just got the 900 battles milestone last night. I'm sticking with my opinion that this is the best smash game to date.


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## mongey (Dec 31, 2018)

Fiannly have had a little post Xmas time to play a bit. Getting my head around it now. Was playing link as he seemed a good , pretty straight forward place to start

Just unlocked Ryu so gonna have a tinker with him now I know how the game works.

Really not a fan of the unlocking mechanic. Maybe a few bosses or something to unlock is fine. But 85% of the cast is crappy.


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## wankerness (Jan 1, 2019)

mongey said:


> But 85% of the cast is crappy.



Completely wrong. Try playing as them a bit. I'd say 85% are GOOD. The only characters I write off are some of the basic ones that I hate playing as (non-young link, for one; I've always hated Ness; never really played as Mario cause the idea is boring) and then like, Mr Game and Watch or Palutena. And then some that are pretty much just palette swaps (ex Falco, Wolf, some of the Fire Emblem guys, Daisy). There are so many that are a lot of fun beyond the starting few. Zero Suit Samus, Bayonetta, Zelda, Sheik, Peach, Snake (even though I'm horrible as him for anything other than being an asshole and hitting guys that are attempting to save with the steerable missiles), Captain Falcon, Koopa Kid, Inkling, the Castlevania guys, Little Mac, Wii Fit Trainer, Cloud, Shulk, Roy, Marth, King K Rool, Ridley, Mewtwo, Lucario, Diddy Kong, etcetcetc. Most of the ones I don't like I've either never played as or tried once and didn't figure out at all. Olimar, Megaman, Pac-Man, Ice Climbers, Rosalina, Duck Hunt etc.

Ganondorf is terrible but I love playing as him just for those rare moments you get to punch someone with the standard B attack and they fly off the screen and explode with only 50% damage.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 1, 2019)

wankerness said:


> Completely wrong. Try playing as them a bit. I'd say 85% are GOOD. The only characters I write off are some of the starter ones that I hate playing as (non-young link, for one) and then like, Palutena. And then some that are pretty much just palette swaps (ex Falco, Wolf, some of the Fire Emblem guys, Daisy).


calling them palette swaps is a bit misleading since some of them have different feels/attacks compared to the original (ie falco). He has differing attack values iirc (all of his moves are slightly stronger than fox) and his deflector shield can be thrown.
The only characters I truly hate so far are Rosalina/Luma and Richter/Simon. They both feel unwieldy in their movesets, especially the castlevania characters, with their bizarre slide kick/roll and lack of good close range attacks/combos. Shulk is also weird, but seems to be very useable though.


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## mongey (Jan 1, 2019)

wankerness said:


> Completely wrong. Try playing as them a bit. I'd say 85% are GOOD. The only characters I write off are some of the basic ones that I hate playing as (non-young link, for one; I've always hated Ness; never really played as Mario cause the idea is boring) and then like, Mr Game and Watch or Palutena. And then some that are pretty much just palette swaps (ex Falco, Wolf, some of the Fire Emblem guys, Daisy). There are so many that are a lot of fun beyond the starting few. Zero Suit Samus, Bayonetta, Zelda, Sheik, Peach, Snake (even though I'm horrible as him for anything other than being an asshole and hitting guys that are attempting to save with the steerable missiles), Captain Falcon, Koopa Kid, Inkling, the Castlevania guys, Little Mac, Wii Fit Trainer, Cloud, Shulk, Roy, Marth, King K Rool, Ridley, Mewtwo, Lucario, Diddy Kong, etcetcetc. Most of the ones I don't like I've either never played as or tried once and didn't figure out at all. Olimar, Megaman, Pac-Man, Ice Climbers, Rosalina, Duck Hunt etc.
> 
> Ganondorf is terrible but I love playing as him just for those rare moments you get to punch someone with the standard B attack and they fly off the screen and explode with only 50% damage.


I meant keeping 85% of cast being locked away when you buy the game is crappy. Not that the characters are crappy. 

I don’t have enough of a clue yet to know which characters are good or crap.


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## wankerness (Jan 1, 2019)

Oh, yeah, OK. I agree with you there. At least they nerfed the unlocking difficulty a lot. I lost to Cloud like 10 times before beating him, and you have to play for something like 10 minutes of match time between every attempt if you lose! Every loss was infuriating. It didn't help that for the first attempt for each guy, you were stuck with whatever character you were using when they showed up, and sometimes that was a less than optimal character to be fighting them with.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 1, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> calling them palette swaps is a bit misleading since some of them have different feels/attacks compared to the original (ie falco). He has differing attack values iirc (all of his moves are slightly stronger than fox) and his deflector shield can be thrown.
> The only characters I truly hate so far are Rosalina/Luma and Richter/Simon. They both feel unwieldy in their movesets, especially the castlevania characters, with their bizarre slide kick/roll and lack of good close range attacks/combos. Shulk is also weird, but seems to be very useable though.



The Belmont’s are your prototypical zoning characters. They are booty when someone gets right in your face. But between down B, forward b, neutral b, and their whip smash attack range they can pretty easily punish sloppy play and chip away a ton of health. And the forward tilt attack is a tornado that hits decently enough but more importantly hits up close where the whip fails. And that chainable divekick is just fun to annoy friends off the platform with.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 1, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> The Belmont’s are your prototypical zoning characters. They are booty when someone gets right in your face. But between down B, forward b, neutral b, and their whip smash attack range they can pretty easily punish sloppy play and chip away a ton of health. And the forward tilt attack is a tornado that hits decently enough but more importantly hits up close where the whip fails. And that chainable divekick is just fun to annoy friends off the platform with.


their b attacks are their only real saving grace. I love actually connecting with the axes, they do so much damage. All of their A attacks are pretty shit tbh. The belmonts are just way more situational than other relatively well rounded characters like young link/pit/fox
Lately I've been playing a lot of incineroar (who's a ton of fun but has an unbelievably bad recovery move). His clothesline chains and down spikes are the tits though.


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## mongey (Jan 1, 2019)

Do you remap the tilt attacks is to the R stick ? I tried it after reading about it online and it seems to work better. 

So I’m doing that if I hold a and push left stick I get a smash attack yeah ?


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## Mathemagician (Jan 1, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> their b attacks are their only real saving grace. I love actually connecting with the axes, they do so much damage. All of their A attacks are pretty shit tbh. The belmonts are just way more situational than other relatively well rounded characters like young link/pit/fox
> Lately I've been playing a lot of incineroar (who's a ton of fun but has an unbelievably bad recovery move). His clothesline chains and down spikes are the tits though.



Those are both characters I’ve been using for that reason. They are maybe “mid tier” but have unique moves that can be abused. And YES. That axe is a mobile smash attack. 

Also I didn’t play the last one to know how good Bayonetta was in the past. But I feel like the AI is way better with her and other fast characters than I’ll eeeeeeever be.


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## wankerness (Jan 2, 2019)

mongey said:


> Do you remap the tilt attacks is to the R stick ? I tried it after reading about it online and it seems to work better.
> 
> So I’m doing that if I hold a and push left stick I get a smash attack yeah ?



Kind of. You have to hit them simultaneously, but you can keep holding a to charge it up for more damage.

I did that tilt attack mapping to stick thing, too, just cause I didn’t really even know they existed until this game. I don’t always successfully do a smash attack when I want to with the manual method though so I dunno.


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## StevenC (Jan 2, 2019)

mongey said:


> Do you remap the tilt attacks is to the R stick ? I tried it after reading about it online and it seems to work better.
> 
> So I’m doing that if I hold a and push left stick I get a smash attack yeah ?


Yeah, tilts on the c stick is the way to go. It's way harder to do a tilt normally than to do a directional smash attack normally, so I prefer it. Also, there are no air tilts so when you're in the air the c stick just does directional air attacks.

Other things to consider is that you can do smash attacks and tilts straight out of a dash without lag, and you can press x/y and a at the the same time to go straight into an air attack. The game buffers more inputs than older versions.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 2, 2019)

mongey said:


> I meant keeping 85% of cast being locked away when you buy the game is crappy. Not that the characters are crappy.



I actually really enjoyed this 
Something about unlocking characters is painful but really fun to me. Nostalgia I guess. Instantly went back to playing Melee in the early 2000s waiting for Mewtwo to show up 



KnightBrolaire said:


> their b attacks are their only real saving grace. I love actually connecting with the axes, they do so much damage. All of their A attacks are pretty shit tbh. The belmonts are just way more situational than other relatively well rounded characters like young link/pit/fox
> Lately I've been playing a lot of incineroar (who's a ton of fun but has an unbelievably bad recovery move). His clothesline chains and down spikes are the tits though.



Yeah me and a buddy are really digging the belmonts too. He plays the spacing game and I try to force them into a more cqc type role. The down tilt slide->kick is DEADLY on walk off maps if you can get someone anywhere close to the side of the map- I got a KO the other day at 20% with it. Neutral air is great and the up b / down air moves play really nicely with each other and can lead to some pretty devastating early KOs if you set them up right.


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## wankerness (Jan 2, 2019)

I love the belmonts except for their crappy save and the holy water that seems impossible to use where you want it.


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## StevenC (Jan 2, 2019)

Oh, also there's a setting for a+b to do smash attacks.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 2, 2019)

wankerness said:


> I love the belmonts except for their crappy save and the holy water that seems impossible to use where you want it.



Yeah their recovery is pretty trash. I find that I end up trapped facing away from the stage more often with them too- and their recovery isn't one that plays nicely with that _at all_


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## Mathemagician (Jan 2, 2019)

My mapping tips:

-Turn off up to jump.
-Remap tilt attack to right stick as you can now immediately do them straight out of a dash
-use A+B for smash attacks it’s instant and can be held to charge without missing
-turn off vibrations useless source of feedback/aggravation
-Also jump+A is a super short hop attack that can be combo’d from


Practice your dashing & fast falling.

Note: I stole all of these from smash players on the YouTube.


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## wankerness (Jan 3, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Yeah their recovery is pretty trash. I find that I end up trapped facing away from the stage more often with them too- and their recovery isn't one that plays nicely with that _at all_



Yeah. There are a few characters with directional saves. I'm never consistently facing the right way. I think you have to actually turn and THEN do the save, it seems like hitting like up-left + B still has you facing right for the save if you were facing right before you hit it. Infuriating! The belmonts are less frustrating in this regard cause I usually would have died anyway as their save has such a puny height on it


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 3, 2019)

wankerness said:


> Yeah. There are a few characters with directional saves. I'm never consistently facing the right way. I think you have to actually turn and THEN do the save, it seems like hitting like up-left + B still has you facing right for the save if you were facing right before you hit it. Infuriating! The belmonts are less frustrating in this regard cause I usually would have died anyway as their save has such a puny height on it



Yeah it seems like this was a change that was actually a reversion back to the older games, I remember 4 wasn't like this, but Melee definitely was. I didn't miss it lol. Makes the ledge game a bit more interesting though, I guess- if you can pressure it correctly.


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## wankerness (Jan 3, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Yeah it seems like this was a change that was actually a reversion back to the older games, I remember 4 wasn't like this, but Melee definitely was. I didn't miss it lol. Makes the ledge game a bit more interesting though, I guess- if you can pressure it correctly.



Ah. I didn't remember it EVER being this way, but maybe I just was never playing characters with directional saves.


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## mongey (Jan 3, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> My mapping tips:
> 
> -Turn off up to jump.
> -Remap tilt attack to right stick as you can now immediately do them straight out of a dash
> ...


Tried all this and it works well. 

Weird you can’t allcate x or y just to smash attack. You can do pretty much everything else.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 3, 2019)

OH ALSO ALSO:

Map your directional pad to all be “shield”. 

So when you’re lashing out of an attack that must be mashed you can just run your thumb in a circle and it counts as a separate input each time.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 4, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> OH ALSO ALSO:
> 
> Map your directional pad to all be “shield”.
> 
> So when you’re lashing out of an attack that must be mashed you can just run your thumb in a circle and it counts as a separate input each time.



But how can I style on kids after I land the perfect spike? Gotta have those taunts broh.
Style > Utility


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 4, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> But how can I style on kids after I land the perfect spike? Gotta have those taunts broh.
> Style > Utility


legit the only reason I've been playing king dedede is because he has such a dickish taunt


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 4, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> legit the only reason I've been playing king dedede is because he has such a dickish taunt



Are you talking about the crouch? Cause that's the best taunt he's got and it's not even an actual taunt 
I was salty they removed Zelda's wave taunt at first but the new wave is so much more infuriating that I could not be more pleased.


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## StevenC (Jan 4, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> But how can I style on kids after I land the perfect spike? Gotta have those taunts broh.
> Style > Utility


My brother plays Inceneroar a lot, mostly because there are no taunts online and Inceneroar has taunts built into all of his attacks.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 4, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Are you talking about the crouch? Cause that's the best taunt he's got and it's not even an actual taunt
> I was salty they removed Zelda's wave taunt at first but the new wave is so much more infuriating that I could not be more pleased.


yeah, my bad, I meant his crouch, although his dance taunt is pretty good too.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 4, 2019)

StevenC said:


> My brother plays Inceneroar a lot, mostly because there are no taunts online and Inceneroar has taunts built into all of his attacks.



Incineroar’s bounce off the rope is the most amazing attack ever. It’s like the world’s longest command grab. And that belly flop.


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## StevenC (Jan 4, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> Incineroar’s bounce off the rope is the most amazing attack ever. It’s like the world’s longest command grab. And that belly flop.


I despise that move


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 4, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> Incineroar’s bounce off the rope is the most amazing attack ever. It’s like the world’s longest command grab. And that belly flop.


the chains you can set off of that clothesline attack are soooo goood. Even as a launcher it's great.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 4, 2019)

I’m way too bad at smash to do work off that attack. But just spamming it is enough to ignite my cousins (early 20’s) as I add fuel with “Old man is beating the young scrubs from the top rope” comments.


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## wankerness (Jan 7, 2019)

Yeah. This game is, for me, the party game I play with other people who don't necessarily know anything and we just laugh at what we're doing to each other. None of us can play at a high level with how much chaos is on the screen in 4 player. I think you'd have to be Neo from the Matrix to be able to react to what's going on in a 4 player battle with any form of precision.

So, we often just sort of beat on each other, occasionally one person will chase another to a far corner of the map and things get more complex for a bit until some guy just keeps spamming PK FIRE!!!! or Snake's missiles or whatever from the other side of the map over and over and interrupting it, and then it goes back into chaos of just mashing attacks and smashes. It rules. It would be cool to play at a higher level, but my brain can't work that fast in a 4 player game. Haha. 2 player I can take a bit of this sort of thing into account, but I never, ever play 2 player except against computers, and that's rare.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 7, 2019)

I’ve def taken to playing two player on flat stages with no items for practice mostly of movement. But yeah this game is all about dat 4 way gang bang smash off the top rope. #fellowkids


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## wankerness (Jan 7, 2019)

Mathemagician said:


> I’ve def taken to playing two player on flat stages with no items for practice mostly of movement. But yeah this game is all about dat 4 way gang bang smash off the top rope. #fellowkids



Yeah, I almost always have items turned off. It's hard enough to tell wtf is going on in a 4 player game without that on top of it. Sometimes we just leave on the ultimate-smash object cause that can be fun to chase around. The way assist trophies work REALLY adds to the confusion when there's another player-sized character that's labelled your character name running around for a while. I'm so bad that sometimes I'll start watching that and try to control it and end up jumping my actual character off a cliff.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 7, 2019)

I have done all those things. And nothing is funnier the first time then aggravating every time after than winning just because you opened the most items that did the work. Then losing contstantly to that same tactic. Lol.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 8, 2019)

<3 incineroar


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## RiksRiks (Jan 31, 2019)

So what do you it's think of Piranha Plant?? I personally find it very entertaining to use, that b down attack is pretty useful


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 31, 2019)

Plantgang represent.
Blue plant is the best plant.
Down air is love. Forward tilt is life.

That spike ball is incredible too. One of the best projectiles in the game imo; plant's edgeguard potential is unreal. I'm really loving it so far.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 31, 2019)

I watched a YouTube clip today and went “fuck the nerds are gonna love this”. Looks to cover a lot of space. And that smoke cloud completely hides you.


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## wankerness (Jan 31, 2019)

They supposedly only really nerfed K Rool; did anyone play as him enough to notice a difference?


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## Ordacleaphobia (Feb 1, 2019)

wankerness said:


> They supposedly only really nerfed K Rool; did anyone play as him enough to notice a difference?



First thing I did was check his down throw lol. It was busted.
The amount of time people stay buried is much more manageable now, it's not as much of a nasty true combo as it was pre-patch.

Same with the Inkling roller. It doesn't bury you long enough at lower percentages anymore for people to get those disgusting kill confirms.


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