Smash 4, Character Discussion Revised (#35 Pikachu)

[Jiac]

Jigglypuff has a couple interesting exploitable flaws.

Notably, she can get caught by certain moves out of grab release such as Shulk's Up-Special while he's in Jump Mode, which is a kill confirm in the Shulk-Jigglypuff MU. Jigglypuff can of course DI out of it, but she doesn't go far enough to not get caught by it. This automatically makes this MU really bad for her, on top of being zoned out by his range.

[spoiler=This tourney set of Shulk, utilizes this interesting kill confirm on Jiggs.]

Jiggs can be footstooled to death since she lacks an Up-Special that makes her go up. For every footstool, she needs 2 jumps to get back to that height, which makes it hard for her to get back up if she's below the stage.

Finally, Nintendo didn't completely remove the Roy Up-Special shenanigans on Jiggs. It's still fully possible, however, it requires near max rage on Roy and/or some percentage on Jiggs.

[spoiler=That Up-Special fully tested, with DI, airdodging etc. if interested]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more "jigglypuff only" stuff that works on her. It's really sad there have been no changes done to Jigglypuff :c.

Edited June 28, 2016 by ~Summer~

[General Horace]

puff sucks

in a game where shields are strong, she has limited options against them, and isn't a ground based character to make use of hers in the first place. Another issue is whenever she trades (ie: very often) it's never in her favour since she's so light.

[Jedi]

I hope this amount of posts can become more commonplace! We pretty much hit every nail on the head for poor Puff. I think thats a good signal for moving onward, we touched on most of the major points, thanks everyone.

That exploit I didn't know about @Jiac. Quite sad haha. Our next character has quite a number of fans, so give it up for the King of Perfection.

Frame Data and Other Perfection

King Dedede is literally perfect, as in he dominates tournaments, why? He's perfect, he has a frame 1 jab, a frame 2 bair, a 4 frame grab, one of the best dash grabs in the game, he beats Sheik in the neutral, he makes Sonic look Slow, and he has all the combo power Metaknight dreamed he had in Revenge of Metaknight.

-Record Scratch-

Powering through with his mighty hammer, Dedede makes his way to Smash 4, a bit hampered in comparison to his first appearance in Brawl, in this game he lacks his chain grab that made him dominate a good chunk of the cast, and some of his moves have been changed, such as his old waddle dee occasional Gordo toss now being a Gordo Hammer hit.

Dedede is big, he's slow, he is combo food, however underneath all that Penguin fat are some interesting moves, while a good number of his moves are quite laggy he has several which are really fast, notably nair and a few others, he has some select throw options, Gordo is an ok projectile when its not coming back to wreck your face. Dedede also has a few multihit attacks which can actually help him a little vs the likes of Bayo's Witch Time and Ryu's Focus Attack.

His recovery is pretty solid overall, his multiple jumps and up b combine pretty well, not to mention Up B is kinda awkward to hit, even if it looks really easy to, it can still get the drop on you, his hammer has decent range, competent Dedede players such as BigD can pull off quite a number of cool things with this character, but I don't use him much so I need other people to take the reigns this time, I just know I dislike fighting him because it seems like I get hit by the silliest things every time.

[Crazycolorz5]

Rosa: Don't get hit by dumb stuff, 2x uair's are free whenever he commits to a multi jump, you can GP gordos to force him to approach. 7-3 matchup, at worst, for rosa.

[General Horace]

jedi you didn't post the real image

I played DDD a lot in the 3ds days, and he's been nerfed quite a bit since then because gordo was a new move and people didn't realize you could hit them back or something, so in addition to his gordo being nerfed to shit, other moves like fair (minor nerf) and dthrow (huge nerf) got hit as well as the gordo, and in a recent patch (I forget if it was 1.1.4 or 1.1.5) his already worst-in-the-game airspeed got nerfed even more. I think he's the only character in the game that has recieved only nerfs and no buffs, and he was very mediocre at best to begin with, and i've totally dropped him now since he's just frustrating to play against a large majority of the cast.

-Ground Moves:

Jab: Probably the worst jab in the game. Not only is it the slowest (someone can correct me if i'm wrong here, but i'm pretty sure his is the slowest) at frame 10, the first two hits don't connect properly, it can be either shielded or jumped out of.

Utilt: A decent poke if someone's on a platform above you, or landing on top of you, as it has some intangability. Otherwise, pretty useless.

Dtilt: An okay move. If it didn't have a deadspot right next to Dedede it'd be pretty decent. Comes out pretty fast and has alright range. The deadspot really kills it for me though, you can get punished by most smashes in the game if it whiffs right next to someone.

Ftilt: Another okay move. Has pretty great range, but it's moderately slow and not all the hits connect very well, so it doesn't even rack up damage very well. It doesn't kill either, which is a bummer.

Dash Attack: I actually think it's pretty underrated. It's very very slow, but if you can condition your opponent to stay out of shield (which isn't too hard with gordos and Dedede's grab game) it's so slow that it beats roll and spotdodge, and can kill very early. If you whiff, it's really bad though.

all in all Dedede's ground moves are pretty atrocious.

- Aerials

Uair: A pretty decent move, and one of Dedede's only somewhat reliable kill moves. Can combo out of fast fall nair at kill%, which is very good. Otherwise, it's a followup out of Dthrow at mid%. If Dedede could kill out of Dthrow -> Uair like he used to be able to, he'd be a LOT better, but sadly that option is gone now. It's also pretty good for pressuring shields since it's a multihit move.

Bair: Dedede's best move. Very strong with good range and kill power. The problem is that it's also one of his only options to use in neutral, so it'll likely be stale making it kill later than it could, be oh well. It's also not quite safe on shield, which is a bummer. Can combo out of dthrow at low%'s for a lot of damage, and fast fall nair combos into bair at kill % too. The only problem is it's very slow and telegraphed.

Fair: Honestly kind of shit. Has okay range, and does okay damage, but it's surprisingly weak and has a lot of endlag. The worst part is you can actually get punished after hitting this move when the opponent is below 50% if you land after using it, it's really dumb. Any instance that you use fair you might as well be using bair. It's a little faster I guess.

Dair: Very slow and very awful. You can make use of Dedede's great fastfallspeed and try to surprise someone with a fastfall dair spike offstage, but other than that it's a totally useless move.

Nair: Another decent aerial. Comes out pretty fast, and the weak hit combos into a TON of stuff, most notably itself (the strong hit), bair, and uair all at kill%. The strong hit can kill around 130%, which is nice. If it came out 2-3 frames faster, it would make Dedede a much better character, as he'd have a combo breaker, akin to Luigi's nair.

Overall Dedede's airgame is decent. His airspeed hurts him a lot here though.

- Smash Attacks

FSmash: Comically slow, but very strong if you sweetspot it. Gordo + Fsmash is a shieldbreak, which always results in a kill. It really is slow though, it borders on Falcon Punch data (although it is much stronger!) It has a lot of annoying sourspots though, that are pretty weak. Overall a pretty terrible move, but it has it's uses.

Usmash: Comically terrible. Has several sourspots (and deadspots) and it's sweetspot isn't particularly strong. Don't use this move.

Dsmash: Can catch a roll read, I guess. It's pretty slow, like all his smashes, but it's his fastest one. It's pretty strong at least, and sends people at a pretty bad angle a la Ganondorf Ftilt.

Overall pretty awful. Usmash is absolutely unusable, and Fsmash and Dsmash aren't far off.

- Grabs and Throws:

His grab itself is pretty good, it's probably about middle of the pack as far as startup is concerned and has above average range.

UThrow: 100% useless.

BThrow: Gets people offstage I guess. Does 13%, which also is nice. It uh, kills at like 200%. What a great killthrow.

FThrow: Gets people offstage I guess. Does less than 13%, which sucks. It kills at later than 200%. It could set up tech chases if Dedede wasn't so slow. Pretty useless.

DThrow: Dedede's one useful throw is thankfully very good. Dthrow -> Bair is an easy 25%, and it also leads into all his other Aerials (except Dair). Good for racking damage, and it should be the only throw you use unless you're tossing someone offstage.

DThrow is good enough to salvage all of the rest of Dedede's throws. I wish he had a killthrow. Dedede sucks at killing for a heavy, which is sad. Dthrow also didn't need to get nerfed. Why, Sakurai.

- Specials:

Inhale: actually pretty useful. Most of the time you'll want to space bairs, so a b-reversed inhale can catch people off guard. He doesn't steal people's powers like Kirby because he's already perfect.

Jet Hammer: Useless. Used for disrespect only. A fully charged Jet Hammer breaks shields though, thats, uh something. The real knock is the charge gets interrupted by anything that isn't a Bayonetta bullet or Fox laser, so it's nigh impossible to use. I guess it can hit people who have lost their ledge invincibility, and most people don't realize that, so it can take a surprise stock that way.

SUPER DEDEDE JUMP: Actually a pretty good recovery, as it has a lot of superarmour. If Dedede is knocked offstage, he'll usually make it back. if you're facing away from the ledge, you can recover low and pass the ledge and hit people on the way down almost instantly, and it does pretty good damage and can catch people off guard. If they have a weak shield it might break it too. If you hit someone below you it will kill them regardless of % if you somehow hit this offstage.

Gordos: Gordos are very good, but sadly are almost unusable in some matchups. If they're hit back at you, you can return them pretty easily with utilt/dtilt to catch people off guard. Tossing one has some awful endlag, so if you toss one at the same time as an incoming projectile (or even one shot after you toss the gordo) you'll likely be hit by the refelcted Gordo. Can combo into a surprising amount of stuff, but odds are it's not happening anyway. Gordo -> Dair at the edge is super swag if you pull it off though. Good at covering ledge getups too.

- Taunts:

The only taunt the one true king needs is his crouch, but we are grace with another great taunt in his down taunt. I don't even remember his other taunts because I never use them, but the crouch and Down Taunt are S tier.

- Matchups

I think Dedede might lose or go even with in the game except Jigglypuff, Little Mac and Ganondorf, which he wins imo. He actually does ok against Sheik (relative to other top tier matchups he has, anyway) because she can't kill him until like 200% and he can land a random bair with a bunch of rage and kill her at 60. Other than that though, he's pretty RIP, I think his matchups vs Sonic, Pikachu, Fox, ZSS, and Mario and close to unwinnable (at a competitive level)

- Stages

To be honest I don't really know what's good for Dedede. Town and City sounds ok since he can kill off the top with Uair and he himself is the hardest character in the game to kill off the top thanks to his fall speed and weight. Nothing too big though, he's very easy to camp. Battlefield and Dreamland are also probably decent for him. Avoid Duck Hunt and FD.

- Closing

In my opinion, the worst character in the game (excluding Mii's I don't know anything about them. He might beat puff in a matchup against her, but I think she has a better matchup spread overall. He gets juggled forever, is slow if he's in the air or on the ground, and his moves are all slow. In addition to that, he has a very tough time killing as his moves are all slow and predictable. With some fixes to hitboxes and a proper jab, he'd be a little better, but I can't see it happening.

[Shin]

Behold his perfection.

He's kinda stinky, most of his moves are really laggy in both start and end lag. He's really fun to use though, kinda in the same way as Jiggs. I think the main part of his game is to make people paranoid with Gordos whilst trying to get people with Uair and Bair.

[Elieson]

Horace summed it up perfectly, but there are a few things he missed.

SideTaunt is also S tier.

Dedede can jump once at full Dedede jump height while his Jethammer is charging/charged. A lot of people dont know that...I think that Ike from two tourneys ago still remembers it tho.

At super low percents, Dtilt combos into itself, and it lasts longer on fastfallers lik Fox. DTILT DTILT FTILT is a SUB-20% staple for a surprising amount of characters. It'll never kill but it's a nice early combo.

Gordo can be pinned go walls, and ledges. If you get talented at this, you can pin it right on a ledge, which prevents a lot of recoveries from working and helps set up some offstage fear.

He is my go-to pick in the impending Royalty Tourney

Edited June 28, 2016 by Elieson

[Comet]

yeah except puff is fun

D3 is terrible and should go back to the shadow realm.

[shadowofchaos]

Fsmash has pretty low after move lag, right? That's the only good thing I can say after everyone already said stuff.

[Comet]

his bair is really good. everything else...i don't want to talk about D3.

[Zera]

As a Dedede main, here are some of my personal thoughts.

Jet Hammer is the best move in the game. After charging, it is a 38% attack that comes out frame 9. On the ground, you can turn around and swing at the same time to punish rolls. Should the opponent hold their shield for half a second, you can just break it and get a free KO. With a hard bait or read and good timing, you can punish ledge options and moves like Sonic's Spin Dash, Fox's Fox Illusion, Ganondorf's Wizard Foot, and so on.

One thing Dedede excels at is putting massive pressure on the ledge. With an up-tossed gordo bouncing on the ledge and a charging smash attack or Jet Hammer, Dedede can cover almost all options and kill immediately on a read. Jet Hammer, when fully charged, can hit anyone on the ledge. Off stage, Dedede can pressure opponents with his fair and bair.

Dedede's other advantage is that he is durable as f***. Unless the opponent lands a side smash, chances are they'll have to bring you to 160%, 180%, or even 220% to KO you. Super Dedede Jump enables Dedede to recover from near the bottom blastline with super armor, so anything other than the deepest, most aggressive edgeguard is simply not going to work. If you spend enough time offstage, you might annoy your opponent enough that they'll jump after you and get Inhaled.

Dedede hates three things most in a MU -

1. Projectiles that shut down Gordo, and Jet Hammer, and force Dedede to approach (something he's not good at). That's a 3-in-1 disadvantage.

2. Tether grabs on projectile users that make Dedede's terrible approach game even worse.

3. Good frame data, because that's what high tiers are made of. Dedede doesn't have any.

Dedede's worst matchups are probably Link, Toon Link, and Samus, but any character with speed or projectiles is going to have some advantage.

Unfortunately, nearly every character in the game has one of these things, so Dedede has very few good MUs. Winning is satisfying though, especially with crouch taunt.

Here is ZeRo's analysis of Dedede - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xav-oWMbrV0

Also, Girthquake's channel is a good place to learn "swaggy unique combos for DDD"

BTW, can Dedede still do this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sithdTac4Bg

Edited June 29, 2016 by Zera

[Elieson]

BTW, can Dedede still do this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sithdTac4Bg

The timing is tougher because fastfallers can shield inbetween hits more easily since like 1.1.4 or something

[General Horace]

BTW, can Dedede still do this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sithdTac4Bg

Dedede could never do that. The video is misleading, it's easy to DI out of Dedede's jab.

Also I forgot to post this earlier to illustrate my earlier points:

THere's a part 1 but I find part 2 says everything that part 1 does anyway.

Edited June 28, 2016 by General Horace

[Ken Masters]

If there's a jab lock in Smash 4, you can be sure Sakurai will quickly kill it. Unless you're Ryu, i guess

[Jedi]

If there's a jab lock in Smash 4, you can be sure Sakurai will quickly kill it. Unless you're Ryu, i guess

Link and Fox have already felt that one haha.

[Elieson]

Next up?

[Jedi]

Next up is his mortal rival

Milkyway Frame Data

Kirby, The Superstar himself, sporting some decent combo power, excellent off stage, good recovery, you'd think Kirby would have it made as a high tier, welllll he doesn't quite reach that high, gotta keep reaching for the stars.

Kirby is fairly simple to use, his moves are not too laggy, he has some good ko power, his smashes are surprisingly potent at times, his B moves are hit & miss, but the main things holding him back are his general speed and approach options, Kirby has one of the lower air speeds in the game, and well this hampers him, adding onto that is his very limited reach, making spacing him out not such a challenge, but if Kirby gets into your zone, well you got a bit of a problem on your hands, most of Kirby's moves chain into each other, his very solid dtilt can also force trips, making him able to basically get a free follow up, his grab game is pretty good too, sporting some combo throws and depending on the stage, an inconsistent kill throw.

The key to being Kirby is finding that opening, or baiting your opponent, and then taking the advantage. Also absorbing powers is really nice against certain characters as if characters neutral b's got nerfed over the course of the game, Kirby technically has a better variant of it, such as Sheik's needles, his needles are still the launch needles. Shulk players hate the Kirby mu despite outranging him significantly, why? Kirby with Monado Arts is hilarious.

Peoples opinions on the pink puffball or their MU advice with their character vs him?

[Elieson]

Throw combos and killing UpThrow are hilarious. Fthrow-Dair spam is ironically neat to watch, even if it is cheesy as fuck.

Specials get read like yesterday's crossword puzzles.

I think Kirby has one of the best overall Tilts in the game, despite the range being pathetic. Utilt combos into itself super hard, Dtilt sets up for Grab wombos and Ftilt is a decent spacing tool that while isn't great, it's not bad.

If his Dash Attack was less exploitable, his grabs had slightly more gripping range and his DownB not having suck awful awful endlag, I'd probably pick him back up.

Edited June 29, 2016 by Elieson

[General Horace]

Kirby's recovery really isn't very good. He has lots of jumps sure, but he's surprisingly easy to edgeguard.

I don't actually play him enough to know anything about hit though, other than how annoying dtilt is.

[Comet]

kirby's tilts are extremely good. the defensive and offensive stats should be reversed. kirby can zone well with bair, fair, and tilts, but he doesn't have good approach options. he has to reky on dash grab, fair, or rolls, and those are limited.

i also hate how he beats falcon. he crouches under everything and if he lands an up tilt, he can chain it into a 70% combo.

[Refa]

He has lots of jumps sure, but he's surprisingly easy to edgeguard.

That's when you FINAL CUTTER SPIKE THEM WORTH IT GO BIG OR GO HOME LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD VIVA LA KIRBY!!!!

[Clarinets]

That's when you FINAL CUTTER SPIKE THEM WORTH IT GO BIG OR GO HOME LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD VIVA LA KIRBY!!!!

Why suicide spike with Final Cutter when you could spike them then grab the ledge? It's more hilarious.

[Jedi]

Kirby's recovery really isn't very good. He has lots of jumps sure, but he's surprisingly easy to edgeguard.

I don't actually play him enough to know anything about hit though, other than how annoying dtilt is.

Right his slow air speed does kind of hamper that, I'd still say its a fairly decent one, at least he has some options in the air unlike a number of other characters.

[Jiac]

Kirby's crouch is extremely good. I don't think this has been mentioned yet. We should've mentioned how effective it is for Jiggs, but that's something I forgot to touch on.

To add on, Kirby's crouch is a tad bit smaller than Jiggs, so there might be some projectiles that'll miss him for some reason but not Jiggs.

Anyways, Kirby's hurtbox is so small when he crouches he can duck under moves such as KO Punch, (though he can't punish it because lol windbox) Luigi's best neutral tool in fireballs, all of Robin's thunders + F-Smash, a majority of Wii Fit Trainer's moves, ZSS' grab, jab and dash attack, and probably many more.

Also, Kirby can probably abuse the crouch-slide tech really well, though I don't know how good Kirby's crouch slide is. Characters like Marth and Roy seem to have pretty okay crouch slides (likely due to their walking speed).

[spoiler=Crouch Sliding]

Kirby's ability to crouch under a plethora of moves, also nets him an instant set-up to one of his favorite moves, D-Tilt! Kirby's D-Tilt being able to trip opponents and set-up for combos makes Kirby's crouch incredibly dangerous, especially since it's frame 4, so even some moves that seem essentially lagless probably will still be overextended when Kirby D-Tilts.

Edited June 30, 2016 by ~Summer~

[Aura Wolf]

Kirby is pretty fun to play as, from my experience. Used to main him for a while.

Kirby racks up damage pretty easily once he's made a successful approach, with utilts and uairs being his bread and butter. Opponents can get juggled pretty hard by these two moves. He can also do dair into utilt (his dair is probably my favorite dair in the game). His throws aren't too bad overall; fthrow serves as a combo throw, while uthrow and bthrow can kill not too absurdly late.

Getting hard punishes with his sideb and downb are pretty satisfying, though missing can make you get hit instead. Inhale is usually good to land, as it generally gives Kirby another move he can zone with. If that move can also kill, even better.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Aura Wolf