Smash Bros Brawl Extravaganza Part 4 - Now With 40% More Metagame
 

Well, this thread ain't gonna create itself...
Previous thread is here.
Links to all listed NPF Brawl/Friend codes are listed here.
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So yeah, the advanced techniques and tier usefulness is starting to crawl out of the woodwork. First on the list is the "New Wavedash", which isn't really a Wavedash at all and more like a Dash-cancelled up-smash.

This technique was previously known as Mortarsliding as they only knew how to do it with Snake. Recently however it has been discovered that almost (if not completely) all characters can do it. CORRECTION: Only Snake, Wario, and Sheik (and possibly a few others) can do it.

Simplified, you do it as:

1. Dash
2. C-Stick Down (needs to hit someone)
3. C-Stick Up

Alternately, you can hit Up+Z during the dash attack, allowing you to do it without actually hitting someone... but it needs to be really quick. I'm still having trouble getting the hang of it, but there you go.
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In lighter news, some of you may have known that characters like Kirby, Dedede, and Wario can suck up/consume items, removing them from play and, depending on the item, giving its effect to the person swallowing it. Further, swallowing some type of Bomb (includes Link/TL's bombs, not sure on Samus') makes the person take damage.

Well, as I've accidentally discovered, doing this not only hurts you, but ALSO does some damage and really impressive knockback to anyone close enough. I saved a replay of it, and I was wondering if there was someone here who I could send it to for uploading? I lack the equipment.

Shit.

Goddammit! Stupid Wii with its STUPID hardware limits. If the bloody thing had a harddrive it would solve some important Smash Bros problems... most prominently the lack of patches and DLC. Maybe they'd let us keep Maps of the Day every so often, too.

Because, yeah, I think they'd probably patch to fix Mortarsliding. And maybe Gigalypuff. I'm so sick of Smash Bros exploitables.

You don't actually need to hit anyone to do that dash cancelled upsmash just FYI.

The important ones are gone - ones that basically make or break a competitive player. SHFFLing was huge.

Mortarsliding is a small advantage compared to Melee. I also lack the equipment, but I'm tempted to just take my camera and record it - digital cameras rule.

But yeah I noticed that too. Kirby got a ton of buffs this time around and sucking up items (While making sense as well) gives him some nice counters for projectiles, one of his weaknesses.

Didn't know about the whole damaging others thing... but I do know that inhaling bombs only does 5% damage...

Oooh, this'll be fun.

Oh yeah, and POS's problem with bots in the last thread, I've never had that happen to me.

I mean, I know it happens to him on a regular basis, I'm just saying, you know, I tried playing with bots yesterday and they never went after me exclusively I don't think.

Also this game is more fun when played on slow, it makes the controls feel less clunky to me.

Yeah, I think it's just mostly my fault for that one time I called Sakurai's mother a whore.

I didn't realize he'd be so shocked! I mean, it's not like everyone else didn't know already. Not my fault he doesn't pay attention.

Didn't you loathe Smash?!!

I had to play it to see if I liked it, didn't I?

Regarding patching, I could honestly not give a damn about HOW many exploits and techniques they come up with. I'd be more concerned about the balance of the game in a character vs. character setting...

...and better online options.

YES VERY MUCH THIS.

Snake's tilts are too good!

http://i28.tinypic.com/691esg.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/5khsup.jpg

Yeah, the whole "Kirby can inhale bombs and make people go boom" is a lie. :(

Wario can, though. :/

This just in: Cheating Device is being considered for use in forcing a competitive edge into Brawl.

Oh wow the Smash community seems hellbent on becoming more of a laughing stock in the fighting games arena.

honestly, part of me loves advanced techniques since they give an edge to experienced players that button mashers random luck cant overcome. Though thats not what SSB is about. If it was then they would have balanced the characters in melee better. Brawl seems better, but still has some characters that are stronger then they should be Ike

You know, if they actually have to rely on a goddamn Game Shark for their tournament play...

Maybe they should just go back to Melee, and leave the sane people alone. :/

Advanced techniques are kind of hit-and-miss sometimes. Guilty Gear XX, once I found out about FRCs and RCs and jump cancelling and buffering, I was in love. Once my friends found out about it they were like, "Wait, that's not fair, it means that you probably won't have a chance once you fight someone who practices on a regular basis."

To which I replied, well, yeah.

Hm.

You know, while I mock them for intentionally changing the game to make it what they want...Instead of adapting the game as best they can...One thing about that is very very sexy to me.

<3.

Goddamn fucking tripping. I know they only put it in to avoid Foxtrotting (Which, hey, got specifically named and recreated in Brawl anyway) being used like crazy but god, I hate tripping.

If other fighting game players can just stick with a previous game then why can't the Smash scene? People hated the fuck out of games like Third Strike and DOA 4 but I don't see anyone wanting to hack those games to remove parrying or change the counter system. Maybe it's because they're playing almost a different genre with only 3 games in it, all of them Smash Bros.

Basically why can't Brawl be competitive in its own way? Why does it have to be like Melee?

Being totally fair, it's mostly because Smash Bros - according to Sakurai himself - was never meant to be competitive.

This is probably because "Competetive" seems to connect with "Tournament" to some people, and "Tournament" is all too close to "Congregation of fat nerds that do absolutely nothing but this, scream HAX whenever they're beaten, and scream at their own mothers when they are expected to do homework instead of pleasuring themselves to images of Zero Suit Samus".

Not ALL tournament players are like this, just the ones that win.

No offense, but I'm reasonably sure you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

No offense, but I'm reasonably sure you're fortunate enough not to know the people that I know.

what causes tripping by the way?

there are a few others, like jump super/ultimate stars. Love that game

Nobody really knows. It probably is caused by a really small random variable cause by just moving the stick. It's still idiotic.

Where can I buy it? I'm really interested in kicking arse using Kenshin Himura.

Well I got Jump Ultimate Stars while I was in Japan. It conviently came out at that time. I did however get the original game off of amazon.com so I'd assume the sequel is there too.

just be sure to give me your friend code when you get it so I can beat the crap out of you (ultimate is wi-fi)

I hate when you and another player are both getting beaten by the third... and the second player decides to keep attacking YOU. What part of "you cannot possibly win first place if you attack me and not him" don't you get, Mr. Second Player?


It's like watching Spectator matches. I was hooked on them at first, winning tons of coins from my logical choices... but eventually the players online started getting dumber, and I always ended up picking some complete morons who managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

At least I got two super-common stickers as a consolation prize.

Get it from Play-Asia, that's where I got my copy. Just so you know it isn't at all meant to be played seriously or competitively so don't take it too seriously.

No, no no no. I'm pretty sure Loyal is right about this one. I don't know what joke you were trying to make but tournament Smashing is more about finding the right character that fits your playing style and working with their technique to overcome opponents. Saying that tournament players are somehow more immature than the average Smasher is, well, wrong.

And as a quasi-tournament player myself (or rather an aspiring one who lives in the middle of nowhere) I'd prefer if we didn't sling mud. We've gone through it in the past and it does little except bring down Smash Bros threads by Meister.

Having said thus.

Tripping is caused by a random number variable that is completely irrelevant to anything other than the character you're playing. I know that Marth trips more often than Captain Falcon, for example. Usually quicker characters trip more often (ZSamus, Marth, Cap, Sheik, and the like) while heavier characters almost never trip (Bowser, DK, Ganondorf, etc).

I know it's somehow supposed to be a balance point but Christ it's annoying and dumb.

I've heard plenty of horror stories about pro smashers being dicks in some way to casual players, even at charity events, but hey, ancedotal evidence. My own brother is somewhat of a pro smasher and if I play him he can be a huge dick to me about it sometimes.

But enough shit flinging.

Naw it's not that they can't be dicks - I mean it really bases down to the stereotypes of the Psychopathic All-Items Fun Stages Player vs the Chainthrowing Statistical Breakdown of Attacks Sneering Tournament Entry.

It's just that accusing tournaments of being, well,
...like that is unfair.

I know!

Peach is where the fappin's at. Everyone knows that.

Ok, maybe that was a bit harsh, but the majority of tournaments I've been in have been full of those in the later rounds. If you guys have managed to find places to play tourneys that are free of that, then all the better.

EVO's Melee last year was, as far as I know, one of the most well-organised and respectful tournaments in the fighting fanbase (as opposed to, say, Guilty Gear, which was such a mess of late arrivals and trash-talking that it caused the hosts of the event to ban the game from this year's iteration). On the whole, Melee's professional players have a reputation of being very well-behaved.

Check it out SRK discovered that there's a probably unintentional system of controller priority in this game. The only thing it really effects right now though is Bowsercides.

Also, transformations. If four players (all using Sheik or Pokémon Trainer) start the transformation at the same time it will load from number one to four, giving a disadvantage to the players in the latter ports.

Dang Nintendo and their non-patching half finished game. Too much of this feels like Nintendo just decided to completely skip Beta testing. Not that thats going to make me stop playing, though.

If they had skipped Beta testing, we would have had L-cancelling.

E for All and that one other Brawl event WAS the beta test.

Exactly.


Actually Brawl related, tournament people are currently being idiots. Eventually it will calm down and they will just play the game though.

I don't think it has anything to do with not testing the game (because we know there were many instances in which the game was tested), but rather with dual layering the disc. There's only so much information the Wii, a machine developed with only single layered DVDs in mind, can process.

Brawl is really pushing the hardware enough as it is. And if the trade-off for all the amount of content we got is a delayed transformation, then I'll gladly take what I have got.

Edit: For the record, I wouldn't be against patching the game for some of the minor nuisances, but only if Nintendo announces an HDD this E3. I don't want my Wii memory to be filled with only Brawl stuff.

You know what would be great? If Nintendo released an HDD as an add-on, and THEN improved their online system.

Honestly. Because then you could have the basic Wi-Fi bullcrap that you don't need any space for, and then you could have all the additional online features for a flat rate - that being the price of the HDD. It would allow patching, demos and DLC immediately once the Wii firmware is updated.

Granted I know jack sh** about how this stuff works. Maybe Nintendo just doesn't have the facilities available to run a full-on XBL-type-system. Maybe they're too paranoid (more likely) to do anything that doesn't involve 20-digit codes to interact. But... with an HDD you could patch Smash Bros and add on an online lobby that requires the HDD add-on.

Pretty much paranoia.

Remember how bad censorship was in the early days of Nintendo?

That's been turned over to online, now. Nintendo wants people happy, no matter how stupidly they try and pull it off.

Mario Kart Online is actually the awesome. Pokémon online too.

It's just that Nintendo is too fucking inconsistent in its releases for online, damn it.

Seriously, man, stop saying stuff like this. The game's not half finished - it's got at least 10 soundtracks for the 30 or so stages, 60 challenges, 40 characters (One of which that's three characters and the other two are transforming characters), tons of items, thousands of stickers, hundreds of trophies, and every single consideration and complaint from Melee to SSB64. Not to mention Coin Launcher, Replays, Camera mode, Challenges, Events, Home Run, Boss Battles, Subspace Emissary, Allstar, Classic, Multiman Melee, and I don't know what else.

"Half-finished" my ass.

Well the online is not finished, if you ask me. But that would be the only thing that I could say detracts from the game. Everything else is the awesome, and some of the bugs (Gigglypuff) are hilarious.


Seriously people go read Awkward Zombie for the funny Smash comics.

Speaking of which, I just picked up the Trophy Stand Trophy!

So I've come to a conclusion: Ganondorf is better than Captain Falcon.

I mean, honestly, Ganon's Fair Fist sweetspot is a million times easier to hit with than Cap's Knee Smash, Falcon Punch and Warlock Punch are all but useless anyway, and Ganon's tilts are better. Flame Choke is wonderful. Dark Dive is so much better than Falcon Leap. Both are pretty lousy but come on, Ganon's finishing power is so much better.

Plus, Ganondorf can do this:
http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/upl...04/madness.jpg

Went to a friend's house, played SSBB. I was playing pretty well with Gannondorf. It's very fun to randomly do a Warlock Punch in a 4-man Brawl. You just randomly jump near everyone and hit them all.

I've noticed that if you do one in the air you can turn it around just as your are about to land.

Could you do that in melee?

Nope. You can also do it on the ground, actually. It does more damage, too.

Edit: Also, anyone has that comic of the little girl that serves ( and drinks ) in her little tea party thing?

Actually, you turn it around directly after using the Warlock/Falcon Punch.

You pretty much press B, then instantly flick the other direction. You can do it and it delays it a second and causes more damage and KO.

Also, I'm sure the comic can be found on Nuklearpedia in The Thread discussion.

Well, yeah, you input the command instantly after doing it, but the character will only turn when about to touch the ground or, in a ground version, the character simply turns around and starts charging it.

I have found the greatest thing in the world!

It appears to have been made by combining the two other greatest things in the world, Captain Falcon and Chuck Norris.

Watch and be amazed.

Not nearly as epic as it should be.

I blame the 3 uneeded clips of the car driving toward chuck, and then the dramatic delay on the kick.

Ugh. Nintendo themed YouTube videos... to date, I have never seen a good one. My 8 year old brother in-law watches these kinds of things nonstop and finds them hilarious. I just don't find someone playing super-mario 64 poorly and then calling it "bloopers" is funny. But, then again, I'm not 8.

On topic, my character of choice is Sonic. Admittedly, his Ultimate smash pretty much makes a novice-to-mediocre player a god, however since I can't ever hit the damn thing, I find other ways to hold my own.

Hey, guys.

What do you think of Ike as a serious character?

I'm by no means a pro-level Brawl player (hell, I'm not even a GOOD Brawl player) but I think Ike's pretty decent. He's powerful, but not freakishly slow like some characters who shall go unnamed. His only downfall is his recovery move. It not only sucks but makes you look like an idiot when you miss. I personally am not particularly good with Ike, but my sister uses him a lot and I've seen what he's capable of when used by a more skilled player. He's got a pretty good reach with most of his attacks, his up-b has some serious power, and he's pretty well balanced for speed. It's just that stupid recovery move that's rather unreliable. For me, anyway.

Ike has a lot (A LOT) of power, and a few moves that can't really be countered by anything other than precognition or just waiting it out from a safe distance (most of his B moves, specifically). However, his approach is hideously predictable when it comes down to it, so he needs to play a half-defensive, half-mindgamey game to win against a skilled player.

And as Mauve said he's ridiculously easy to edgeguard. See 1:34 of this video (actually, watch the whole thing if you haven't already).

But his F-smash, in addition to being RIDICULOUSLY powerful and having a VERY large hitbox, is deceptively mindgamey in its own right.

Ike's pretty much the ultimate nubgrinder, but he starts to fall short in competitive play.

How about Ike's counter? I know it's more powerful than Marth's and everything, but is it slower. Cause I seriously haven't seen anybody use his counter... Oh yeah and does anybody know if Ike has a tip?

Also, you know how if Sudden Death lasts too long, Bombombs start falling from the air? I recently saw a guy catch one of them in mid-air and use it to kill his opponent.... it was frickin' awesome...

Ike's pretty good - I love him because I loved Roy and the very idea of a powerful, sluggish, one-hit-KO machine with a sword was just sexy as hell, but Roy sucked horribly.

Ike's main problem is he has no real 'quick' attacks that have no startup lag, except maybe Ftilt and Fair. Which means that he feels the effects of the new stale moves on damage and knockback the most out of everyone.

I'll still play him relentlessly and love every damn second of it, but he's got his hefty flaws.

EDIT: One thing I don't like is that they changed the way Ike/Roy and Marth's counters work as opposed to Melee. It used to be Marth = 7% flat damage and pitiful KO and Roy = 1.5 damage and KO, now it's just a solid 1.1 and 1.2 for Marth and Ike respectively. A little disappointing.

My main man is Ike and Bowser, and my brother is usually Shiek, Wolf, or Captain Falcon, and his main strategy is air juggling, where mine is 'win'. Were both excellent players, but he always go more on speed and I'm always more on power. Now from my experience with Ike, I can tell you one thing.

You'll want to use your basic triple-a attack often. Very often. It's like hitting them with a smash but without a charge up time. Oh, and never counter. Ever. It takes a second to charge up before it actually takes effect, and I think the counter lasts a little longer than Marth's. Even then, don't use it. There will simply be very few chances to actually get the timing down against your opponent.

Ike is the man. I've only lost once as him against my bro.

Triple A is the easiest way to get 13% in the game. I love it. I've actually had a lot of success with Ike's counter, I haven't seen the one second start up you've been talking about. It has excellent knockback, but so does every other attack. I saw a cute little move, Ike runs over to the guy, the players hits the opposite direction to make him hop that way, then he nails him with the back air and he goes flying. Need to practice that.

Perhaps Ike's speed is a problem in one on one when competitive players will shoot him but honestly we may have some items this time around.

And I can still dream of using heavies to compete!

Oh, there's no question about it, Ike DESTROYS in FFA.

But, no... there still won't be items. Partially because of the past, but mostly because the items are almost universally hideously overpowered in this game.
Ike's counter has about a half-second startup time before it can actually counter anything. But it does have that +10% over Marth's.
I don't see what you're saying here. Stale Moves only applies when you keep spamming the same moves - And Ike's moves are almost ALL kill moves. You spam the jab combo and Fair to rack up damage, then finish them with an FSmash or just about anything else in his arsenal that's equally useable.

His moves are almost universally slow and powerful, which gives you a variety of slow and powerful attacks to use - There's nothing situational about any of them. Just straight up high damage and/or knockback moves.

...Also, his Bair comes out really quick, but has a noticably smaller hitbox compared to the rest of his attacks and no small amount of lag at the end.

You know a lot of people are complaining about this game being too campy. Wouldn't items allow characters without a good ranged attack to get some sort of ranged attack so they can cope better against characters with projectiles perhaps?

The problem is that the characters who already have projectiles have an equal-yet-random shot at getting said items.

On the positive side, there HAS been discussion - albeit quickly quashed discussion, but highly valid nonetheless - of making Final Destination a counterpick stage instead of neutral. The unfriendly ledges and camper-encouraging flatness is really putting up a fight.

I don't think that would be too terrible of an idea. The new Ledgegrab mechanic for lighter characters, tether recoveries, and changed Brawl physics makes it so FD is neutral ground but still gives lots of advantage to the lights.

Also, I swear there was something that was said that Stale Moves applies much more harshly than before and a breakdown of it. I'm searching Smashboards to find it right now.

It DOES apply far more harshly than before. The point is, Ike has so many killing moves at his disposal that you could assign any number of them to "damage dealer" roles and he'd still be perfectly capable of knocking them out of the park when their damage goes high enough.

There's also the strategic value of deliberately weakening a specific move for comboing purposes.

True as that may be, his moves are laggy enough on startup that he is laughably easy to dodge with Fsmash and Aether and Usmash. Most of his damage dealing is resorting from grab, A once, then upthrow and Nair/Fair/Bair.

I like Ike too but he seriously is too laggy to sufficiently combo. The most you can really do is hit them with one of his attacks that's strong enough to knock them away and cause damage, and hope to repeat that over and over. And that flat out is not nearly as reliable as true inescapable combos that the quicker characters have.

Current Evo tourney rules are as follows:

Evo Brawl Beta Ruleset Revision 16
These rules are tentative and subject to change at any time.

First game of a match to be played on Evo Custom Map. Players can decide to play on any map, if both players agree.
Excessive stalling or abusing terrain to not engage the enemy is not prohibited, and can be enforced by a tournament director only. This will result in a loss of the match.
Losing player can pick a new stage or new character, not both.
Winner keeps character (users of Samus/Zamus, Zelda/Shiek, and Pokemon Trainer are currently ALLOWED to change which character/mode they start in even after a win) but must select character/mode before other player has to choose stage/character.
2 Stock, 3 Min timer, 3/5 Games
Items on medium spawn.
Sudden Death will decide the outcome of the game.
Allowed Items: Banana Peel, Unira, Spring, Mr. Saturn, Green Shell, Smoke Ball, Freezie, Super Scope, Sandbag, Food, Screw Attack, Warp Star, Metal Box, Bunny Hood, Beam Sword, Baseball Bat, Lip's Stick, Star Rod, Hothead, Smash Ball, Ray Gun, Pitfall, Cracker Launcher, Motion-Sensor Bomb, Hammer, Golden Hammer, Bumper, Blast Box, Franklin Badge.
Banned Stages: New Pork City, Hyrule Temple, Warioware, Spear Pillar, Flat Zone 2, Original Mario Brothers, Mushroomy Kingdom, Norfair.

Go nuts.

Evo? What's that?

Though I wonder why Norfair, with its predictable and easily-avoided hazards (sky-high lava wave can be shielded or spot-dodged with minimal penalty), would be banned?

[EDIT] Perhaps a link is in order?

To be fair, NOBODY can legitimately combo, period. Airdodging can be done almost immediately after being hit, making it entirely possible to break out of most moves (exceptions include stuff like D3's infinite and most chaingrabs, which stay on the ground mostly and aren't subject to airdodge rules).

[EDITEDIT] Okay, this is just insane.

Evo is the US's biggest fighting game tournament and Brawl will be played at this year's Evo. Those are the current rules for that tournament.

I dug around and found the very link I had asked for. Click

I think I can safely say there won't be a lot of competitive Smashers going to Evo. It also seems pretty obvious that Evo is going not for a truly competitive game (some of the things on that list make absolutely no sense and I'm not talking about the items), but more or less just to piss off the SWF userbase.

The SRK view on things is to only ban stuff once everything's been tested throughly, instead of grandfathering in rules from previous games like SWF did with Brawl. I don't get why they want SDs though.

Unless this is all just a huge prank on behalf of Mr Wizard himself?

I saw those rules a few days ago, I hope it's a joke. Items are ridiculously powered already (Cracker Launcher, a super ranged weapon? Pitfall, a free meteor or a free smash? The Smash Ball? Come on). Putting them in tournaments would be a nightmare.

We can keep arguing the point, but Ike suffers from laggy attacks. This means that when it comes to mindgames and landing attacks he has less opportunities to mix it up and therefore land anything.

Not a great comparison, but even Bowser, Snake, Dedede, and Ganondorf have some quick attacks in their arsenal.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, I found some breakdown on Stale Moves. Tadah:
So, yeah, it starts to affect after the second one albeit just a little bit. It also depends on what attacks hit.

It's not like those items can't be dodged in any way. the pitfall maybe.

They've yet to provide actual, "tested thoroughly" reasoning for their specific rules. To explain:

Why? Why not simply choose any of the numerous neutral stages we already have, like Battlefield, Smashville, or god forbid, Final Destination? These stages are revered by the competitive community because they are (with the exception of a few kinks on FD) good stages.
The rules behind counterpicking are somewhat complicated and a bit of a metagame in and of themselves. And so I'll simply quote someone on SWF. Moving on.

Not nearly enough time. The reason Brawl tournies began to move from 4 stocks to 3 stocks is because it simply took too long to kill people. When the tournament matches move to higher level play, it will take more than three minutes to finish most matches. And from there we move to...
...this horrible idea. Sudden Death isn't so much the Great Equalizer of Smash Bros as much as an enforced way of saying "This has gone on long enough. Will one of you bastards just win already?" A single hit from damn near any attack is a guaranteed win here, and does not begin to take into account stuff like how close the match was BEFORE SD, or how some characters have a head-and-shoulders advantage over everybody else in such a situation (the speedy characters, mostly).
I'm not going to put quote tags for every single one of these things, so those I have a comment on have the comment in red.

I'm not even going to start on their list of banned stages (or rather, which things belong there but aren't, and why the hell is Norfair on there?)

Yeah this had better be "Evo Fools!" or something because I don't see competitors going to this tournament at all.