Smash 4, Character Discussion Thread. #21 Metaknight

[Refa]

At least Ike is fairly heavy so he probably won't be dying at 70%.

[General Horace]

donggggg

he's probably my favourite nintendo character since i grew up on donkey kong country and other games like mario kart and mario party where he was playable, so naturally i use him in smash.

the cargo throw has followups up till ~70-100 on everyone which is cool, and he can get grabs off nair and dtilt if it trips, and even the late hit of dash attack. Utilt is also really fast and awesome at all %'s and even can kill at around 90-120 depending on rage and enemy weight, and giant punch can secure some really early kills if it's not fully charged since it has much higher knockback as a tradeoff for no superarmour. Headbutt is always there as a threat on a damaged shield, and higher %'s you can get kills with headbutt > utilt > uair if you bury someone, i'm glad it's not another useless move. His bair can combo into itself and is really fast with lots of range and obviously his cargo kill throw rules

unfortunately he's owned by projectiles and is juggled easily and doesn't have the best recovery, but that's more of a heavyweight problem then a DK problem. I don't see why DK can't have a kill throw setup at 60-100% when ZSS has far more tools then he does and can kill out of a throw at like 30%, I really hope it doesn't get nerfed, because without it he kinda struggles to kill.

Oh yeah, and the best part, he has a top tier taunt which makes him top tier in my book

Edited November 19, 2015 by General Horace

[Refa]

Yeah, there's nothing about Donkey Kong that needs to be nerfed. If anything, he could use some expanding buffs so he gets less wrecked by projectiles (although I don't know exactly how they would go about doing this without radical changes, so maybe this is just more wishful thinking).

[General Horace]

Clearly smash 4 needs more reflectors and his up b now reflects projectiles.

I don't think he really needs many more buffs, he's already pretty solid. Maybe make F-Smashes hitbox actually hit on the inside of his body.

Edited November 19, 2015 by General Horace

[Refa]

I think his Up B reflecting projectiles would be hilarious. He doesn't really need many more buffs, just a few honestly.

[Jedi]

He totally needs Zangiefs projectile slap.

[euklyd]

ZSS grab combos are stupid as well. stupider, even ;/

I think I just wish that DK's throw combos weren't SO MUCH better than most of his kit; all the DKs I've fought in tournament have been rly passive and rely on cargo throw cheese a looooot

like having a good throw is great and all but I don't think it should be that good

I'd fully support seeing the cargo uthrow -> uair combo taking a smallish hit in exchange for other buffs

[Jedi]

What could you even buff to compensate for that drastic a nerf?

Nerfing Cargo Throw is like my constant bad ideas for Sheik nerfs which would lower her from being the dominating force she is to like mid tier, and DK isn't even high tier! I mean he does well but still.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Jedi

[Refa]

It's pretty awful balancing when you can just nerf one combo and suddenly a character sucks.

[Elieson]

It's also pretty bad for balancing when DK isn't even top 6 and he's being shit on for having one redeeming quality

[Jedi]

It's also pretty bad for balancing when DK isn't even top 6 and he's being shit on for having one redeeming quality

He has really good tilts, speed for his weight, etc. His Cargo combo isn't his only thing, but it is his bread and butter KO combo, and in this game having reliable KO or KO confirm off a grab is really good to have.

Luigi has fallen somewhat from grace because he lost his ko confirm off a grab, despite that he's still a combo machine but he can't reliably KO nearly as well.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Jedi

[Ice Sage]

The Leader of the bunch!

For a heavyweight he is pretty fast so that's cool. Cargo throw has a lot of follow ups which is also nice. Bair, Uair, Fair at high %. depending on DI bair to upB does a lot of damage. Neutral B is also pretty good with cargo throw or by itself too. winding it up 9 or 10 times instead of fully charging it makes it have higher knockback. cargo throw to uair is pretty reliable and kills early. Dk has some nice tilts as well. dtilt is great for getting grabs. jab to grab works as well. utilt is really fast. I don't use headbutt a lot, but its nice to have a threat to shields. unfortunately dk is very easy to juggle and has problems facing projectiles. Still, its nice to see him be a good character =)

Also wow 4 spikes. Lol.

[Jedi]

Did not know that about Giant Punch, will note.

[General Horace]

He only gets superarmour if he fully charges it though. I think even a 7 wind punch has more knockback than a fully charged one.

[euklyd]

What could you even buff to compensate for that drastic a nerf?

Nerfing Cargo Throw is like my constant bad ideas for Sheik nerfs which would lower her from being the dominating force she is to like mid tier, and DK isn't even high tier! I mean he does well but still.

Lag reductions on aerials (either/both ends), better OoS options, better combo setups that don't involve throws, etc.

Being able to end a stock with two grabs is stupid.

I'm not saying DK shouldn't have grab/throw combos. I'm saying they shouldn't be this high-reward and this braindead. The same throw both builds up massive damage, and kills really early. Ryo was at 79% when he was grabbed. As Ike. And was killed off the top.

Also nobody liked Luigi's grab game either.

edit: also you constant agitating for sheik nerfs was less "nerf this one really good combo/move" and more "nerf her until she's bottom tier" with unspecified specifics

edit2: it's also completely different because I am perfectly fine with DK being good, I just think he should be less 1-dimensional

Edited November 20, 2015 by Euklyd

[General Horace]

dk has way more kill options than cargo up throw, it's just his best option at a very specific % (and almost every character has braindead throw combos, not exclusive to DK). He's very good off stage with bair strings, giant punch is a solid kill option that can kill even earlier than cargo throw with a trip off a dtilt or nair, and other stuff like cargo stage spikes and utilt kill reasonably early. If he lands a headbutt at ~85% or higher he has guaranteed kill options. Buffing his aerial frame data will do very little, his bair and fair are already incredibly fast, and even nair is reasonably fast, and bettering the frame data of fair will do literally nothing. What he really needs is a safe landing option, and to not be obliterated by characters with awesome uairs like ZSS and Mario who can just juggle him easily for 50% or so.

again im going to bring up ZSS being able to kill off the top much earlier at a wayyyyyy higher % range. Are Meta knights uair strings into shuttle loop equally as stupid? DK should absolutely get a good reward for getting in on somebody if exponentially faster and safer characters can just as easily or easier and are able to kill just as early (or earlier)

Edited November 20, 2015 by General Horace

[euklyd]

Most characters don't have guaranteed braindead throw kill combos. There's DK and ZSS, since Luigi's doesn't work anymore. Meta Knight's is really good but isn't nearly as braindead.

I said lower lag on either end, that includes landing lag. His aerials all have ridiculous landing lag. Buff that. There are still things that could be buffed, that was my point.

And I already said ZSS's upb was stupid. MK's is kind of ridic as well but is both a lot harder to pull off (you need to follow DI, as well as needing more precision) and works on fewer characters.

e: wait wtf are you talking about "his bair and fair are already incredibly fast" fair is literally frame 18. did you mean uair?

Edited November 20, 2015 by Euklyd

[General Horace]

all his aerials except fair (which would be pointless to change) autocancel, and bair and nair have lingering hitboxes that are very useful (the late hitbox on nair combos into literally any one of his moves) and bair's lingering hitboxes combo into themselves. Unless you're doing some stupid shit like landing with Dair or something I don't think that would help at all. DK doesn't need any buffs on his aerials, bair, nair and fair are already his best moves.

DK's kill throw works at a ~10-13% range on every character, and it's likely even less because of rage. If you manage to get that, cool, but you don't have the option to just get someone to x % and fish for a grab until you get it and it's an auto kill. If you take even 10-20% damage more than what you had initially your chance is gone and you have to go for another kill option. It's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be.

Edited November 20, 2015 by General Horace

[euklyd]

"they don't autocancel well enough to use as a landing option" I was gonna say but then I noticed that nair has a late hitbox up until the frame it ends

that's still really hard to hit in any way that's safe enough to either poke shields or land with

also the DK boards testing says that kill windows are as wide as 41% (captain falcon), with 20-35% being the norm

http://smashboards.com/threads/dk-community-guide-now-with-cargo-ko-combos.411978/

Edited November 20, 2015 by Euklyd

[General Horace]

dair is a really safe shield poke, it's range is fantastic, and if you do land a nair (I will admit it isn't nearly as safe) you're getting 30% or so if they're below 60% or so (or a kill if you have a dong punch ready)

thats in training mode, lol. With something like 70% on DK (he's more likely to be at higher %'s faster since he's juggled easily) the %'s both get lower (which can be good) and slimmer since the cargo u throw will put your opponent too high to hit anymore. Obviously its easier on a heavy fast faller like falcon (DK has a pretty good matchup there) but on others it can get a lot tougher.

The point i'm trying to make is, maybe if someone like say, Sonic had a kill setup like DK's it'd be totally ridiculous, but one someone like DK who has no means to deal with projectiles, no projectile himself, no landing options, and is really easy to juggle, it's definately warrented. I'm ok with it killing 15% later or something if that was a change (it can kill ridiculously early) but I can't see any change that would compensate for the loss of his cargo throw combos that would even things out without totally revamping the character and giving him his coconut gut that can fire in spurts

[euklyd]

dair isn't autocanceling out of a shorthop ever (unless you were to initiate it the moment you leave the ground, and hitlag on shield was 10+ frames), and it has 24 frames of landing lag

I don't see how it could be a safe shield poke, even with DK's decent airspeed

e: even out of fullhop it only autocancels by 8 frames, so you'd still need to dair pretty early

p sure training mode lacking rage doesn't tighten windows by 20%

also if you're staling uthrow then that's gonna counteract rage

killing like even 15-20% later would be a pretty huge improvement...and if that's happening then you'd need to nerf uair, not cargo throw

Edited November 20, 2015 by Euklyd

[General Horace]

Maybe a Uair knockback nerf that allows it to combo into itself at lower %'s might be a happy medium.

Regardless DK definately doesn't need any nerfs so this is all hypothetical.

[Jedi]

Yeah I don't think he's in the need of any nerfs.

[euklyd]

Talking about possible nerfs, needed or not, is always hypothetical. But I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement that he shouldn't be nerfed.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Euklyd

[Jedi]

Did we cover all the bases needed? Or shall we discuss him further?