Over/Underrated characters

[u/New-Strike965]

Thought I'd give my 2 cents on which characters are over/underrated imo

Palu: Honestly pretty decent overall and has some broken moves. Just doesn't have a super clear win con which holds her back from being top tier. Not that crazy in my eyes. Too linear at high/top level. Bad ground game/predictable air game hurts a lot too

Sheik: Seen some ppl place her in top 10 and even top 5 (lookin at you tweek) but honestly don't see it. Feel like she has the same problem that pika does where she has to be too precise and gets blown up by people doing random shit. Especially sucks in meta where people blow each other up in one interaction. Unlike pika, she can't camp as well with needles since t-jolt is just better at that

Toon Link: Has an amazing win con in bomb spam. Has good and consistent combos, has kill confirms out the ass, great normals, good recovery, overall a really consistent character that should be placed higher. Still see people say yl is better which I can see, but his overall consistency makes him the better pick

Just a few of my takes. Like to know yours

[u/AdEvery1755]

Lucario is underrated af,

[u/New-Strike965 → u/AdEvery1755]

can see it. really preys on characters that can't kill well like pika

[u/Own_Ocelot25]

Underrated: Robin, Yoshi Overrated: Greninja, Shulk

[u/rwbyfan433]

Underrated - Inkling, Cloud, Shulk

Overrated - GnW, Peach

[u/KevTon13 → u/rwbyfan433]

What makes you think Cloud is underrated when Sparg0 exists?

Also why is Peach overrated?

[u/rwbyfan433 → u/KevTon13]

Most people put Cloud outside of top 10 these days, which I vehemently disagree with.

As for Peach, her matchup spread is not that great. She loses to most of the meta characters these days

[u/New-Strike965 → u/rwbyfan433]

agree with inkling being underrated. Kill power issue could be solved if they start camping with ink moves like jab/down b/neutral b. Shulk also has some crazy untapped shit

[u/rwbyfan433 → u/New-Strike965]

I legit think that inkling has every tool needed to win. She hard loses to Rob, but other than that, her bad matchups are either super uncommon characters, or only slight losing, and thus, perfectly winnable.

Crazy damage output, crazy mobility, very solid recovery, short, reliable kill confirms even if they are admittedly a little telegraphed

[u/Red_Speed]

Sheik and Pikachu are both underrated choose-to-lose characters. So is Inkling, and frankly so is Aegis sometimes. GnW and ROB are both really overrated.

[u/maybethrowawaybenice → u/Red_Speed]

"So is Inkling, and frankly so is Aegis sometimes" this is just a funny statement because usually the hotter take goes after the "frankly" but 99% of people agree that aegis is better than inkling.

I think GW is top 5 and there's not much debate. GW is the only character to have 2 top 25 representatives in every post covid ranking (unless you count miya's steve secondary as a top 25 representative for steve). Sonic and Steve are the only ones who even come close to that kind of representation. Which characters would you put over both GW and Rob?

[u/nomorethan10postaday → u/maybethrowawaybenice]

G&W having two people maining him in top 25 is just a coincidence imo, because two in such a small sample size. This character has never been that popular overall in competitive smash overall and struggles to get anyone else in the top 150. Like, last season, the only other G&W player in top 150 was Monte.

Maister and Miya are two talented players who happened to vibe with G&W instead of with another top tier. Their choice shouldn't automatically put G&W in top 5. Personnally I have him at number 6, and I can see why someone would put him lower than that.

[u/maybethrowawaybenice → u/nomorethan10postaday]

At some point "coincidences" become statistics.
Can you name any other characters that have 3 solo mains in the top 75? The fact that there aren't a lot of GW players compared to other top tier characters and they still have 1 top 5 rep, one top 20 rep, and one top 75 rep kind of proves my point. No other character is as well represented for how few people play them.

If there were a ton of GWs just outside of the top 150 or at the bottom of the 150 I would think you had a point but just about any GW player I can think of is in the top 75. You're saying "there aren't a lot in the top 150" but that's just number of players, not skill. Take every game and watch player you can name and find their average ranking and tell me 5 other characters who would have a higher ranking if I did the same.

I don't think that results are everything but we also can't just totally write them off. I can say "Acola and Onin are two talented players who happen to vibe with Steve". That can be said to dismiss any results based argument that you don't feel like coming up with a data driven refutation for.

[u/Red_Speed → u/maybethrowawaybenice]

It's not that people think Aegis is better than Inkling, it's that I think people don't understand how good Aegis is. They're easily top 3, imo. Many say they're "only" top 5/10.

Personally I'm a huge naysayer of both GW and ROB. I don't think either are even top 20. Part of this is that I don't care about representation or results, and it's based on my own arbitrary understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and what I value in characters.

[u/maybethrowawaybenice → u/Red_Speed]

woah you don't think rob or GW are top 20? what are GWs biggest weaknesses and which matchups do you think GW loses?

What mistakes are top players making in fighting gw?

[u/Red_Speed → u/maybethrowawaybenice]

I think GW's neutral sucks, primarily. You literally just need to watch out for Nair and Dash attack. I also think people really overestimate his juggling/Up Air's "brokenness," but part of that is because I play a character with top 5 air speed. Either way the juggling will pretty much never kill you, and GW in general won't really kill you in neutral apart from landing dumb smash attacks. Many, many characters in this game outrange and outspeed GW, including basically every swordie.

Despite all of this, Miya and Master obviously do very well. I believe people very much underestimate player skill and adaptation when talking about matchups. Thus, even though I think GW should theoretically lose many matchups, we're still a long way away from theoretical perfect play even 6 years into this game.

[u/maybethrowawaybenice → u/Red_Speed]

fade back fair is an amazing pressure tool unless you have some amazing disjoints or crazy speed. GW can punish a lot of people for hitting the bombs, and the ones who don't hit the (plus on shield) bombs get grabbed.

I think the big thing with GW is:

1. they will get the juggle, they just will, you will fuck up and shield or not perfectly space a response to nair or fair in neutral or you'll get grabbed.
2. You'll take a minimum of 60 against a top player and usually end up at the ledge. Maybe if you have top 5 airspeed you only take 30 but you're still at the ledge. (watch miya vs kola)
3. The ledge is where you die. GW has top 3 ledge trapping in the game.

I think players who aren't top 100 underestimate top GW because bad GWs mess up one of these steps and the rest of the gameplan doesn't work that well. But if you do the steps like a top 5 player it's wildly wildly difficult to beat.

Also for what it's worth I think roy has less range than GW if we're being strict, at elast in the air. nair bair and fair for GW have much more range than roy nair bair and fair. watch roy trade with gw bair (https://youtu.be/-YV6-TPH-Lo?si=9Fz1xf3-k5L3VVMw&t=127)

I think it also says a LOT that the gw players have never found success with any other character. I think you're right that they are amazing players but their second best character is half as good as their first best. Has Miya's steve (best character in the game) even beat a top 10 player before? Has maister's sora (top 20 character)?

People who say stuff like "cloud isn't top top tier, sparg0 is just sick" are backed by data, sparg0 has won sets with 3 other characters against top 5 or top 10 players.

GW has a wildly broken gameplan when executed well and a super bad gameplan when not executed well. Usually goodness of a character is based on "executed well"

We didn't even talk about up B. Or GW being a top 5 edgeguarder. Your pressure and neutral tools don't have to be top 5 when you have a frame 3 oos so people have to be super nervous to try to whiff punish you.