~SPONSOR~ Immerse yourself in the wonderful world of LuckCatchers2 by downloading the game at the link - bit.ly/3wxHlEM Use my promo code "Vars", which allows you to get 6 medallions, which allows you to instantly get a skill and 5,000 gold
Zero to deaths not that broken, from all the characters you mentioned only steve is on the top 4 players (much better by difference) and steve is there because he is broken anyways.
@@shaghilathar3588Dude literally posted video of 2 Kunis doing low commit pokes on an infinite stage while trying to say that fighting games are about TODs because they have boundaries, someone get a real fighting game player to explain to him why hes so dead wrong.
just in case you do not know VARS smash bothers ultimate is not designed to be a competitive fighter it is a party game where everyone comes together to play
In Melee and Brawl they literally were touch of death when Nana is alive. In this game they're so hard to play to that level that most people don't bother.
I'd say I agree that TOD's are bad design, but I don't think Sakurai really intended the characters to have them. They're more so found by the players, not put there by the devs. Except Kazuya. I don't know what Sakurai was thinking when he designed Kazuya.
Too obsessed in replicating Tekken to remember it's a Smash game, probably due to hearing our complains of Smash characters not playing like in their franchise. I guess after Steve's release we can see why giving characters cheat codes is a terrible idea.
@N12015 it's not a bad idea, but they need more tweaking to be balanced. Kazuya should have less invincibility everywhere, and Steve's minecart and anvil should've been toned down, especially since they aren't that versatile in Minecraft. Perhaps tone down the strength of u-tilt and uair as well
I don't know if BAMCO had maybe too much to say about Kazuyas design, his design is faithful to Tekken but it might be too much for smash. Also, neither Sakurai nor Nintendo designed Kazuya, they implemented / adapted him in to this game.
Fighting someone like Luigi or Kazuya is so frustrating to deal with on both players' ends because on one hand, the person does NOT want to get grabbed or electric'd respectively and either take a lot of damage or die and on the other hand, the person playing said character is gonna get camped out because of their counterplay.
Luigi’s don’t bother me that much as I co Maine him n know my way around him. Kazuya though…. That’s a bullshxt character there. Every time I play 1 I can be whooping him but a his recovery is jut broken n B, if he grabs me once it’s done
Players be like "Uhg, this game sucks, everyone just camps I hate it" meanwhile we're like "My brother in christ, you are the one who chose 0-To-Death, the Character!"
As other people said, traditional fighting games have almost no zero to death or infinites. The only time they exist is either in older games or if you have "multiple lives" (tag fighters) and, even then, are typically resource restricted or conditional. DBFZ requires you to have and spend pretty much all of your resources to touch of death, for example. No, despite what Smash players think, this is *not* how fighting games play. Most of them now focus on a strong combo into a very stressful knockdown situation, but that knockdown/oki _rarely_ leads to extreme damage unless the defender chooses something *very* risky and is called out (a blocked reversal in 2D, a bad tech option into a trap in Tekken). The scaling from the tools that open people up or lack of combo routes at all if its a throw simply prevent that from happening. It's kind of annoying constantly hearing people compare zero-to-deaths to fighting games, because it just indicates they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to modern ones. We're not playing kusoge like Fist of the North Star anymore.
True, but depends a lot on the game. This type of gameplay of just camp until you find one extremely specific opening is really rare in most fighting games I've played yet exist in literally every single smash game lol
I see no problems with Zero to death combos to be honest. But then again I grew up with Marvel Vs Capcom and that was just kinda the norm for that fighting game franchise.
They remind me of the (pre wobbling banned) Melee Icies counterplay; «dont’t get grabbed». Which is true and certaintly doable, but also so super polarizing
Everyone keeps talking about Melee wobbling when their Brawl Chain grab was worse. At least you can escape wobbling where thr chain grab is actually death st 0%
Sakurai has mentioned that a core philosophy in his char design is that he wants the player using the character to feel like they are cheating, when playing them. So from that viewpoint, Kazuyas character design is a smashing success
The problem with this philosophy is that the person being played against ALSO feels like their opponent is cheating, and that build crazy resentment and frustration.
Sakurai smash philosphy is any player could win a game cause cheating, not only cause a player is 100% better than another one. That's why he created smash.
As a Ridley Main, I just LOVE how landing a super precise and risky skewer read on someone still gives them options to wriggle out of my followup that I have to account for. But if I get lightly tapped by Kazuya the stock is already gone. It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Lack of counterplay? Avoid the grab. "Once they land that move" oh I see so you just want to pretend there is no counter play by ignoring all the things you can do to avoid being in that situation. Alright carry on I guess
@@ironman1458 Yeah it's boring to play/watch unfun matches that can be boiled down to only a few important neutral interactions. This privilege is also only afforded to only a few characters in the cast, and the lack of counterplay against these options, ie. just camp is really unfortunate. Along with SDI and DI being hugely nerfed, once you're in a combo it's basically over.
It’s seems a bit out of character for a character like Luigi to have insane combos like this when in the games he’s usually less aggressive than his brother
@@grunkleg.2934 I get that, but I don’t think he should be able to kill off of grab just like that. Should he have good combos? Yes, he should have similar damaging combos to Mario but with different followups of course. I would honestly trade killing off of grab and dealing ridiculous damage for better stats that make him more Luigi and quirky-like, but obviously keep his funny stuff like shoryuken, missile, down taunt, etc.
As someone who mainly plays traditional fgs: what? No, rounds don't usually end in touch of death sequences, or situations that might as well as be tod sequences due to lack of interactivity. Sure, I can see that sometimes you get steamrolled if you don't know how to block your opponent's offense, but that's not a touch of death, and it really only happens at lower levels. That's just getting pressured and not defending properly.
I don't even think this person plays actual FGs or if they do they somehow only play SF6 against just Marisas or KOFXV against just Ash Crimson somehow
saying 90% of rounds in traditional fighting games are ended by 0-deaths is pretty inaccurate. its very rare, especially in modern fighting games to be able to kill off the first touch, and when it does happen it's usually in very specific circumstances that aren't especially realistic
its insane he uses tekken as the example as well since high level tekken is defined by movement being so strong and launchers in general being so risky that most games are played in movement and poking rather than TODs, completely wrong game to use for an example
@@TheConfusedMasses Yep. Tekken is known for being very defensive. Blocking while back dashing alone is big deal. Movement when mastered can shut down a lot of characters mix, and throws at high level play are consitiently broken means mix ups are limited to mid/low (unless your King, Armor King, or Marduk Tackling people to death).
@@TheConfusedMasses The Touch of Death in Tekken, especially in 7, are just mostly applicable to gimmick characters like Akuma and Geese. But yeah mostly pokes, mixups and wall rush/wall carry/stage destruction dominates the tournament scene than touch of death. The most notorious Touch of Death should belong in UMVC since any characters with level 2-3 x-factor can perform their own touch of death.
still better than the rest of the characters that lack any X factor at all and force soft-resets to neutral constantly due to moves and throws not allowing enough hitstun with low enough knockback to make anything happen at all. Could also make DI more meaningful again to compensate.
...You are aware that in order to ToD someone in smash...you have to know the character inside and out to do it. I can't just hop on to smash, (buy the dlc)pick Kazuya and start steamrolling people in Elite. You have to know spacing, how his abilities/attacks work, match-ups and what moments will lead to the ToD. Then theres stringing the attacks together to ToD properly. You can hate them all you want but you have to admit they require skill to pull off. I would recommend you look up a video by KingofSkill where he duels a dedicated Kazuya main and hardly lets himselfs get ToD plus its just an entertaining video.
Yo there is no way you regularly play normal fighting games. ToD is pretty rare. Even in GG:Strive, known for it's high damage, characters typically need multiple nuetral wins before the round in won. Matches in Tekken are almost never decided by the first touch. Ridiculous.
I agree tekken is mostly about pokes and defense. Most combos now rely heavily on wall carries for stage destruction than with endless air juggles. UMVC should be the best example he should've given since anyone can do infinite with the right set-up. But it sort of balanced itself because of it. Save for Zero, Morrigan and Vergil which has a lot of unfair single player advantage.
I think it's demoralizing to have a character in a game like Smash to have a guaranteed death combo. It's why I find these characters, notably Kazuya and Mario, so boring to watch; going for the same ladder combo or the same ewgf combo for the entirety of different sets. Admittedly it works, but it's not interesting nor fun to play against.
Mario main here. I'd just like to defend us by saying Mario is far from a touch of death character. Many of our moves are negative on hit at lower percent, so we have to be careful with how we build damage for the ladder to work. Too little and they can escape, too much and it they'll be sent too far. It may look easy but there's alot to consider. Much different from Luigi or Kaz.
@AndreBabani I think that's fair! Don't think that's the player's fault, more on the character's design. Like, if it's a good move like Mario's up air or kirby's down tilt, why wouldn't you wanna use it haha Mario's defo more manageable than Luigi or Kazuya honestly since he has quite a bit of counterplay against him. I think smash's problem is that a lot of characters have an overly strong win condition usually can be spammed, so much so that you can predict the outcome if you're watching it, which gets repetitive at a certain point. Like, at a certain point of I see an up air from Mario, I know either a fair or an up b is gonna end it (but I do find it cool otherwise!) Either way I can't ever get hyped about Kazuya 😂
Meta knight is the same thing. He has a kajillion TRUE ToD routes that require really good sdi because he can just follow it. If his neutral wasn't so linear and shit he'd be insane
Kazuya comain here, I personally think the reason why many hate fighting touch of death characters is the simple factor that accounts toward their ability to be always capable of forcing their opponent to not approach due to their threat bubble being so focused on just getting that one move.
I just hate the fucked risk reward aspect because we have to play so much harder against ToD characters and we can win neutral 15 times in a row and still lose the stock first to one tiny mistake. It feels like a "play perfectly and as unexpressive as possible or else"
Can't approach safely, neutral can be lost randomly bc people can't play perfectly or account for every variable, and the whole part where you die from something that would get you hit for 20-50% from the rest of the cast.
@Shmicah1235 yeah, that's why no matter how """casual""" the game is supposed to be it should not have guaranteed zero to deaths for ANY character. This is worse in a game which by design should discourage said zero to deaths because of how knockback scaling works. I hate execution checks in fighting games because half the time it isn't anything other than someone with the knowledge of how to execute said check essentially has an instakill button which removes most aspects of the game other than luck. No one likes luck. NO ONE.
Imo one of the most frustrating parts of kazuya’s touch of death in particular is the fact that he also gets s. Not only do you have to play smart and safe, but he can also go directly through moves too
I personally think it is more the lack of agency. Yes, your di and said does have an impact, but basically if they land a combo starter on you it turns into a single player technical check. Your stock if forfeit regardless of your inputs if they react properly to you di/sdi. In comparison, other characters can have set combos that generate a lot of percentage, but to get a 0 to death it would involve several interactions where nothing is guaranteed that requires excellent reads and situational awareness to pull off.
hi, fighting game veteran here, fighting games are not infested by touch of deaths (TOD) like at all. The only fighting games that have TODs are normally tag or anime games. Tekken is not that at all, played Tekken for over a decade and ive never been hit by a TOD, been in top ranks for both Tag 2, 7, and 8. Normally your vids are well researched but hearing not only the game i mainly play but just a blatant uninformed take on fighting games as a whole has disappointed me. TODs are not common in fighting games, they never have been. side note, this is not to say TODs don't exists, they do in Tekken. the main problem with using Tekken as an example is nearly always TODs always have more to do with side wall combos, wall to wall, or triple wall break combos. To also give the benefit of the doubt there has been standing TODs or janky wall TODs from previous games but its still far from common. i think it comes down to the amount of interactions you need to win in order get a stock/round, its a lot safer to go for something that will lead to a big combo or TOD in smash vs most other fighting games. This comes down too the moves that lead to more damaging combos are a lot more risky to do. some games this doesnt apply, normally being tag fighters and anime games, which typically have other ways to get out of combos. only posting cause it annoyed me hearing things that just arent true about not only Tekken but most fighting games. still love the video and both your channels
Yeah most fighters are only 3 or 4 touches. Plus when casuals attempt other fighters their viewpoint is when they get blown out with their lack of defencive knowledge. IE Tekken Combo into a get up option read into a new combo. They don't know how to get up properly so they feel like they may as well drop the controller and call it 0 counter play.
I think Peach is in a funny position in this category, because she has insane advantage state combos that might go toe-to-toe with the likes of kazuya and steve, while still needing to be acutely aware of spacing, safety and positioning to get these confirms. Peach does conditioning rather than fishing for combo starters. I like watching her because her touch of death combos actually feel earned and are kept in check by difficulty, and I will usually root for a Peach in a match.
I like the mentality of if it’s insanely difficult for consistency then its earned vs it’s just the avg experience to get clocked by at least the most basic variation that an 8yr old with a weeks worth of youtube tutorials and practice can do
Most of the examples he gave need to be aware of all of this aswell kaz tod are not easy and it's also literally not a 1 combo fits all type of thing for kaz/lugi
I really enjoy your content Vars. That being said, I couldn't agree less with most of your takes here. Lol My main issue with your argument here was how broadly you defined TODs. You essentially applied TODs as an issue to any character with a strong combo game developed by the meta. That creates a lot of issues in my mind. 1. Those characters combos (like Mario or Peach) were not necessarily desinged to be as strong as they are. Instead, their combo game was developed over time by the community. So it's not the designers that you're attacking, it's actually the work of the community literally getting good that you're commenting about and speaking negatively about. 2. Smash has ALWAYS had TODs that occur. The special thing about chars like Bayonetta or Kazuya, is that they are inescapable and really accessible from any percentage. Melee has tons of TODs and they are won through mix-ups and deep meta knowledge in combos. That's skill. Kazuya combos are a little different since they are actually inescapable many times. But if you're not making that distinction, then You're talking about something that has almost always existed in every form of smash which is the game that defined this genre, so how can you say that the existence of these combos take away from the genres design, when they've always been a part of it since Smash 64. 3. Last one. As someone who's always played traditional fighting games and Smash, i thought your comparison was really off. Most FGC games do not end in TODs. I missed a couple of Tekkens, but at least back in 6 or Tag Tournament 2, Tekken was never like that. Lol The only games I can think of that would devolve like that are older games with no patches that were broken. Marvel 2 being the most notable in my mind. Often, those games had characters with strats that had infinites off of some setup or something like that. Marvel 3 had a meta like that as well. That being said, usually those characters were far and few in between and they would range from being top tier, to not even mattering. If that character was really good, they dominated the meta and that's what the game became about. If not, then it didn't matter. In Ultimate, the true TOD characters are top 20...top 30 ish and below. That's not really a huge deal compared to most games. This was just a really strange take to me man. I'd also recommend checking out some other "broken" fighting games like CVS2 or something like that. They're REALLY fun. And their meta is defined by how good people got at exploiting the system mechanics, but it actually led to deeper growth and depth in the games! Hopefully, we'll continue to see Ultimate evolve as well just like Melee has.
to me the biggest issue with touch of death characters is the fact that di and sdi are much weaker than they were in melee. fox has infinites and 0-death combos but they aren't all the same button combinations with the same timing simply because the opponent can heavily shift their position while getting hit. this is not the case in the newer games
people hate campers, but they often forget that the camper is more often than not , forced to camp . in this game, most characters can either rank up the damage super fast or outright kill you if you approach , or they dont have the necessary frame data or moveset to play a more aggressive playstyle.
I'm loving the campy meta right now I've got like 4 extra characters into elite smash this last 2 weeks alone. Nobody knows how to play neutral anymore 🤣
That's why I've been shifting away from ultimate to different games recently. You either need to kill in one hit or make it impossible for the opponent to get the hit to keep up. I can do it but it's not enjoyable. I would rather play p+ or rivals of aether or street fighter or tekken.
The explanation of ToD characters only needing to get the play right once instead of consistently through the whole match reminds me of why many competitive Splatoon players dislike Turf War as a mode. In Turf, one team can dominate for 90% of the match, but if the other team manages to get control just once, in the final seconds of the game, they win anyways. In both situations the issue people have is the need to only win once, rather than to have to continually outplay your opponent. It's the same reason competitive games usually play best of at 3 or more rather than just one game.
Totally agree. I stopped playing splatfests long ago because I was so sick of getting mowed down by aerospray and sploosh players when there was 17 seconds left
Totally agree. It's all risk/reward ratio. When a character and/or move feels unfair it's usually because the risk/reward is unabalanced. Touch of Death characters are throwing out very safe, easy, options but are being rewarded as if they landed Ganon's wizard punch.
True for most but look at the Ice climbers. Their neutral is really bad so they can't just go in and throw it out without being punished heavily. For them it's high risk high reward. But it's true that for most the reward greatly out weights the risk, when there is actually a risk in trying to land it (aka Steve, no risk high reward and incredibly easy to do).
@@Bark_743 Their main openers are Blizzard and Squall Hammer, which are both quite safe--especially considering that landing either easily results in +60% and possible death. I'm not saying it's unbeatable, but I am saying that it's not very fun to watch or play against
@@jeffersonian4 I love to watch Ice climbers play. And that comes from someone who hates to watch matches cause it's boring. But yes they have safe openings to lead to the combos but bro you gotta have a perfect execution to land thoses. Have you ever tried landing a desync combo ? cause I have and it's f*cking hard. Also they may find an opening safely, their neutral still sucks ass. Also Blizzard might be safe against the likes of Cloud idk but not against a Fox. If you wiff Blizzard against a character like Fox, you'll remember not to do it again, cause it has a lot of endlag. I'm not saying it's a big risk all the time cause it's not, but in a bunch of matchups it's not as safe as an EWGF or a Luigi grab to name a few.
@@Bark_743as someone who's followed ics for years, their neutral is actually pretty good. Their desyncs are able to make a lot of strong stage pressure, along with the risk of being punished for landing a grab, they have a great neutral state. one thing that everyone, including the guy that made this video are forgetting is disadvantage. Yes, luigi can kill incredibly early, but his recovery moves are laggy enough so that anyone who's even vaugely familiar with the matchup should be perfectly capable of getting an easy edgegaurd. Ics have it even worse thanks to nana's vulnerability in disadvantage. Kazuya may not have as many weaknesses, but im fairly sure that the same principal applies here, he isnt in S for a reason.
"Touch of Death characters are throwing out very safe, easy, options but are being rewarded as if they landed Ganon's wizard punch. " THANK YOU! Best summary, really.
5:04 Correction, Kazuya doesn't need to follow their di, there is tech called dash option select that allows you to exploit auto turn to always get the right direction meaning di mixups aren't possible if the kazuya does this.
@@TheConfusedMasses But aye big dog, Im sure Nintendo will surely fund and give the smashy bros players a world tour since yall are missing out on Evo 💀
@@mandalorianhunter1 He has several zero to deaths, the dash attack -> uair -> uB one, and his edge guard zero deaths from carrying you off the stage (sort of like Jigglypuff). Puff's combos -> fthrow -> edge guard are also a sort of zero-death.
Setting aside the TOD thing for traditional FGs, which is inaccurate, you've completely forgotten that corner play in traditional 2D fighting games is a HUGE part of the game. Street Fighter 6 right now is emphasizing it more than they ever have before in the series with wall splats & stuns off of drive impact attacks. This means sometimes you might go for stage carry combos over raw damage. You might use lower damage combos or riskier options to escape the corner or side swap and put opponent in the corner. Many combos only work in the corner. Some work better NOT in the corner. Some wall bounce combos don't work unless you're away from the corner because you have more time before the opponent bounces back towards you to recover from your attack than you do if you're right next to the opponent. Some combos (often fireball combos) only work mid screen or only work in the corner because of the way pushback works on attacks. Positioning is incredibly important. Perhaps not QUITE as important, but it's a big factor in the game. The latest Mortal Kombat doesn't use it, but Mortal Kombat and Injustice had stage interactive objects that could extend combos or simply do different things. Tekken's biggest combos often rely on wall knocking someone against a wall and breaking the wall is another aspect. The wall break mechanic is why Mishima Dojo has breakable walls. The game has area transition combo extensions. Getting away from a wall is important and rolling / side stepping to keep your back away from them can be key. Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter both feature 'ring outs' as round win options with Virtua Fighter 1 releasing 6 years before Smash 64, and Soul Edge (precursor to Soul Calibur) releasing 4 years before Smash 64. There is a lot I could go over specifically about TOD characters, especially Luigi, but I figured I'd just point out the traditional fighting game argument you have is pretty telling of your inexperience in that genre. ---- Some games (like KOF) a touch of death requires massive amounts of resources and are limited to maybe being achievable 1x in a match with KOF offsetting that by having 3 separate characters (effectively making a TOD more of a TO 1/3rd). Older games with TODs tend to be unintended, like Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter 2(SF2 TODs tend to only work from randomized stuns that can't be relied on and situational gimmick setups more for combo videos than actually being practical)
I think a few of the occasions you mentioned weren’t tod’s Lucario f-smash is more akin to Roy’s side b then a touch of death Using someone else’s banana is to conditional to be a tod Same with Mario up air strings
In fairness, Wario has plenty of hit confirms into waft that do not rely on banana. IIRC both landing nair into waft and up tilt into waft are true hit confirms (though I might be wrong, not well versed on Wario tech)
My friend use to main Kazuya and I hated playing against his Kaz so much Usually he plays Ken or Ryu, which I liked playing against since even though he was a lot better then me, I felt good even when I lost since I learned what to do against their combos and fight them Against Kaz though I always felt like I was hitting my head against the wall since the only thing that worked against him was Gun spamming and having no fun. Even if his Kaz was worse then his Ken or Ryu I hated it since I felt like I had to make myself have no fun to win instead of having a fair fight where we each have to win multiple interactions to kill. EWGF is just that oppressive
Definitely not with Ryu and Ken. Those are both very solid characters that just have their own toolbox. Terry and Kazuya are definitely some crackpipe characters though. Which is wild because Kazuya isn’t nearly as broken in actual Tekken.
@@riotron1026cheesy yes, poorly designed I’d say no (except for Kaz of course) they’re defienlty good but they have their own weaknesses and aren’t just oppressive and they don’t necessitate camping for the most part. I think Terry is super well designed except for Go meter, and Ryu and Ken are super faithful to SF, even if they are kinda annoying sometimes
@@HerMajestyVelvet A character being faithful to their series and it translating well in another game are two entirely different things. Yes The shotos and Terry may feel faithful to their series but that doesn’t mean it translated well into Smash as one of their most busted features is jab and tilt canceling. Jabs and some tilts in smash were never meant to be combo starters, finishers. They were mostly meant to be a get off me option. Jabs and tilts are usually super quick, low committal and easy to execute move so to have character that can cancel jabs/tilts into their kill special feels like flat out robbery when they already have silly damage output. I’m surprised no one talks about how busted Smash 4 Ryu was. How they function forces the opponent to camp and be defensive unless you have a good disjoint or projectiles or else you risk getting cheesed out by a jab cancel kill. The execution barrier being very low to pull off doesn’t help their case either. Also forgot about aimbot, I mean auto turn around.
@@HerMajestyVelvetyou face Kaz a lot, it's like playing a boring level you don't like over and over, that's OK. Try other characters I'm sure you'll have fun with and figure out things, a character good in the air can significantly help you find a way to have fun. I play a lot against my friend, he's a Sora main since release. He plays Ken Ryu and Terry too, really well, he likes aggressive characters. Some days he can't win a game against me if my invulns are especially on point with my wave dash movement, other days he shows me how annoying a char like Sora can be when camps the air shield poking, fast frame moves, getting out of 0-deaths, he'll feel confident enough to switch to an FGC character, and that's when we really have fun after he got in my head and learned my habits of the day.
your comments about touch of deaths in tekken and other fighting games are mostly inaccurate. there are next to no practical tods in modern tekken games, or any modern fighting game for that matter. most of the time you see a tod will be in a tag fighter like dragon ball fighterz or skullgirls due to the nature of having to kill multiple characters. the tekken clip you showed at 9:45 isn't even a tod, kazuya was able to escape after he hit the floor (and thats if you actually get hit by that jin launcher). tekken and most other fgs are about stray hits and combos, not very different from smash. the only difference is there is no DI or way to get out of the combo until its over (barring combo breakers in games like mk1 for example). 90% of rounds being touch of deaths is incredibly inaccurate.
Yeah. A better example would be something like Marvel vs Capcom, HNK, Karnov and the like. Touch of Death combos are extremely rare, and even though they *do* exist in something like Dragonball Fighter Z the game is often referred to as a "two-touch game" for a reason. In fact, *most* fighting games have systems in place to ensure that touch-of-death combos are extremely rare: Combo scaling that the longer your combo goes on the less your attacks do (down to like 95% reduced damage), systems like Burst in most anime games or Combo Breaker in Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct, infinite protection systems like those in Skullgirls, TFH and Dragonball. Not saying that there aren't 'one-shot' characters in fighting games, there's a reason characters like Balrog, Oro, Makoto, Marissa, Goldlewis and Nagoryuki got the title of "robbery character"... but more often than not these characters do enough damage to end you in two combos, and the first one puts them in a good position to go for the second.
@jetkirby3981 yeah I found him thru league, he isn't any better at analysis for that either. I like his less opinionated documentary videos but whenever bro has a take to sell he picks the dumbest shit fr
I usually really enjoy your videos and did somewhat enjoy this one too so don't take this as mindless hate. But this video felt EXTREMELY biased and just brushed over anything that went against the 'You die from 1 hit' mantra. Many of these characters DO have to read DI or change their combos at certain percent windows and calling some of these 2-hit confirms from an aerial or grab 'Touch of death' is just laughable as probably more than half the cast have a reliable 2-hit kill confirm like this at similar percents. You did make some great points and sometimes these characters ARE ridiculous and unescapable (especially Kaz) but that's way more rare than you make it out to be in this video. You even said yourself that Luigi players have to adjust their combos and kill-confirms based on opponent percent or position on stage but when the same thing applies to Fox it's totally fine? I get it, there are other issues with Luigi, Kaz, etc. that compound and make it ridiculous sometimes but this video came off as just saying these characters literally do no work, hit you once and one shot you no matter the situation, percent, spacing, DI reads, etc. Also, I play Tekken and I don't think the game is anywhere near as 'Get combo'd once and die' as you seem to think it is. It's VERY important to have good fundamentals, movement, poking, framedata knowledge, etc. Certain edge cases in specific situations can be like that depending on character choices, stages that can extend combos, back-turn combos, etc. but you almost never die from 80-100% off one big punish, rarely even die off two big punishes unless they're back-to-back against a high damage character using their absolute max damage punish. Even in that case, you gotta make a mistake big enough for them to get their slowest, biggest launcher on you and then do it again right away, that's on you. Anyway, hope this didn't come off too ranty as I always really enjoy your vids, this is the first one that irked me a little bit as it seemed extremely biased compared to your normal takes on archetypes and felt like you came at it with the conclusion and worked backwards to find ways to satisfy that conclusion rather than looking at the data first and coming to a conclusion based on that.
Just about “Luigi players have to adjust their combos and kill-confirms based on opponent percent or position on stage but when the same thing applies to Fox it’s totally fine?” A skilled Luigi can kill confirm at almost any percent range. Fox has a very strict range for his confirms and they require quick reactions else hes punishable. You can’t fish for it in the same way luigi can fish for a grab.
@@boomstickYTYeah of course, I'm not saying Fox has anything near the same stuff as Luigi, they're completely different characters. It's just not as 'free' as the video made it out to be and he suffers immensely in other areas to gain that power. There's still plenty of skill expression involved in Luigi combos and adjustment IS required, just like Fox. Fox has a tighter range for stuff, sure, but of course he does. Imagine a character with that movement and framedata having Luigi setups and combos, he'd be top 1.
I love these videos so much. I dont follow the smash ultimate competitive scene at all. Its crazy to see characters that were Never used months ago be dominant.
Oh this is not true luigi has been used since the beginning luigi players are just getting better at the combos and kazuya has been a problem for years
It's hard to say that the meta resolves around these characters, given how few actually show up in top level play. Most of the combos you mentioed are not 0 to death, and are just kill setups based on percent.
one other thing I will say is that in most traditional fighters, they tend to be at least 2 touch games save for certain matchups, like nagoryuki vs. chipp in guilty gear strive where you have one of the highest damaging characters vs. one of the least durable characters in the game fighting each other, think of it like ganon puff in smash 4 where ganon could kill puff in a combo but puff had so much mobility that she could make it hard for ganon to get a hit to start that kill combo but outside of that for the most part, you need at least 2-3 combos to actually get a kill, even if you're doing the most optimal combo in a situation and touch of death combos tend to also take a high amount of skill to setup and a big error on the opponent's part, as well as the perfect situation to land, so they're a lot more appreciated I feel because of how much more effort goes into them, like I know people that have been playing for longer than I've been alive who still have yet to hit a touch of death combo
While I agree that ToD characters shouldn’t have their 0 to-death combos, I feel they are rather balanced for how frustrating their combos are. Kazuya for example, has by far the best advantage state in the entire game as he can get 80-a kill with any grab/electric. However, Kazuya infamously has the worst disadvantage state, a very exploitable recovery, awful approaching, and a mediocre neutral. These were things that nobody on Kazuya’s release put into account, as everyone only focused on his stupid broken combos. This is why he has gone from ban-worthy to not even top 10. As for Luigi, he is much more consistent (really not saying much though) than Kazuya but is not as strong as Kazuya. In my opinion, I believe that ToD characters are either so hard (Peach, Ice Climbers) or incredibly inconsistent (Luigi, Kazuya) which makes them not gamebreaking.
traditional fgc player here. no most games usually dont have TOD's. at least not most modern ones. and they're usually require insanely specific requirements they do exist in a modern game.
As a Ridley Main, touch of death combos are incredibly frustrating to go up against due to how big and slow of a target he is. Then I realize that he also has an incredibly simple touch of death in landing an off stage Space Pirate Rush that drags the opponent way past their recovery capabilities. Then I realize that it's an incredibly niche trick that still requires followup to confirm the kill on most fighters and landing an off-stage SPR tends to require a hard read and leaves you crazy vulnerable if it fails, so it's less of a touch of death and more of a death or glory maneuver.
Theoretically this is where L canceling should come in. As much as people believe it's needlessly obtuse tech it would actually decrease the frequency of true zero to death combos by adding extra inputs needed to hit at the perfect timing. Yes people can grind out a rhythm but now to counter it all you need to do is throw off their rhythm with di or sdi
First off, (S)DI is no more a good defense of something like L-Cancelling than it was of Smash 4 Bayonetta's 0-Deaths, because the mechanic in general has coherence issues in its usability. Second, execution would become a needless barrier for being able to handle a given move at all and it would only create confusion in what is going on. It's not a problem with the Spin Shot in Kid Icarus Uprising, because nobody is locked out of Forward Shot usage to begin with, and the opponent can see that strafing. If the opponent L-Cancels and acts faster because of it, you better have predicted usage of a mechanic that is obscurity for its own sake. Otherwise, OOPS. People complained about Smash 4 Bayonetta's Witch Tim, but my experience with it is my first time against it being me scoring a KO thinking I had successfully baited an air dodge. AN AIR DODGE. The reason people got so upset about it specifically is the 0-Deaths making interaction attempts aggravating, to where they were more bound to throw out random attacks for hitting capability pollution and not bother with any sort of scare tactics. Somehow, it's more disgusting than Cheappin's arbitrarily 1HKOing Counter. But what do I expect at this point, people want the sort of junk at 6:18. Know what I have to say to that? Try that sort of thing against me in Kid Icarus Uprising and I guarantee that you will eat SIX Skyscraper Club Neutral Shots before you throw out the Super Jump Punch equivalent and therefore end up being obliterated first because of your choice to carelessly get in my smashing range. Long story short, L-Cancelling wouldn't be a good solution.
I think there's an even worse design: Touch of death, time out edition, from the 2 S+ characters Steve and Sonic. Is not only easy to excecute (Hit then run), but in general will also waste your time with painful boredom due to camping many times.
It’s because Sonic has the ability to damage you or take a stock, get the lead, and then spend the rest of the match running because he’s literally the fastest character and it’s not even close.
@@Zubotron09 maybe on palutena's temple, yeah maybe he can do that. If he's that broken then y don't we see random players picking sonic and winning with him in big tournaments like steve.
I honestly hate fighting Luigi, not because he has the zero to death, but if you want to win against him you have to play super lame otherwise you die instantly. I secondary Kirby and as soon as I swallow Luigi the match becomes a projectile spam fest. It's boring.
First off ToD is not a mechanic, second most fighting games don't end becod a ToD and thirdly "ToD" characters do not dominate the pro scene in smash so its not as bad as you're making it seem. I feel like you just got worked a few times online and are mad
Boy i used to like yugioh, those old duels where I was praying on my next draw at the end of an epic struggle. Even games where i got crap luck would go for some time and I could see my death coming from some ways away. Now just hearing about modern yugioh gives me feelings of betrayal and disgust.
@NightRaven5568 My main gripe with yugioh in its modern state is simply that, like the smash bros vid discusses regarding touch of death fighters, it's a very one sided feeling experience. Yugioh players who care about winning ranks and tourneys treat its gameplay like an arcade fighter more so than an actual card game, and it doesn't translate well to being a good spectator sport. Combos take minutes on end, and that leaves one player inactive and not interacting for more time than they could interact if combos were executed in fewer same-turn actions. Its become optimized down to solitire vs a spectator that may or may not have an interrupt in their hand to try stopping a solitaire combo. It can all end turn one in a ftk or the opponent gets lucky and can stop the combo with their own combo that could end the duel turn 2....yugioh is called fast because of this but...I argue that while fewer turns occur, more time is spent on them than healthy and its a slog to wait through several minute long combos over and over when you can just spend about a minute tops playing your own turn and still win potentially in spite of all the combo play opposing you. Yugioh is so fast, its wrapoed around to being slow again, and not in a fun way imo
Iv mained luigi forever, im always gonna play him cuz i love luigi but i dont love the ease of playing him. But i will say that theres soooo many ways to hit freestyle combos that are true which i love
The combo scaling has to make sure it doesn't backfire. I'm still annoyed by when I punished Mega Man's B button spam with Power Pellet when he was at 120% and he lived, but he could kill me with Up Smash at 80% just fine. I thought Stale Moves was supposed to stop spam, not incite it.
They tried in Brawl. Everyone hated it and I'm starting to get amazed on how many complaints of smash could be answered with a "You tried that in brawl and hated it".
Lucario a touch of death character? Perhaps I'm biased because I used to main Lucario in Smash 4 & early Ultimate, but I'm not aware of any setups that can take a stock from 0%. Taking a stock with his forward smash at 30% is absurd yes, but you gotta remember Lucario has to be at high% to do that, smash attacks are kind of slow so the Lucario needs a hard read to hit it. Used to shock me, but in Ultimate, so many characters have ways to kill off of 30% on the opponent, that Lucario's forward smash just doesn't seem as impressive anymore, and it just kinda comes across as risking everything for a read, and if you miss that read, you are dead. I'd be more concerned with aura sphere charge into back air shenanigans, but again, it's Lucario, you mess up at high%, you die. Again, could be my Lucario bias showing because in Smash 4 I often lasted until high%s (160-190%) as long as you avoid rage shenanigans, regularly getting max aura (often leading to 2 stocks). In Ultimate, I'm lucky to make it past 100% with how many early kill confirms the whole roster has. With other characters I didn't notice it that much, but since Lucario is all about mentally pressuring the opponent when he is high%, it's kinda hard to not notice when he never gets to the % to ever make the opponent worry. In Ultimate, usually the opposite happens where people just underestimate his lower aura %s, so I take more stocks at low to mid aura stocks now. The difference between how Lucario feels between smash 4 and Ultimate is so massive I swear. That vent out of the way. Yeah, touch of death characters kinda suck, but depending on how they are done, I can enjoy touch of death stuff. Like if it's something incredibly hard/rare to do, then I can get down with it. For now, the only touch of death characters I have is Ridley cheesing opponents out in various ways (which feels fine because the opponent is the one 0 to deathing him with 1-2 combos due to him being such massive combo food and light for his size), and Sephiroth because I am addicted to down smash into Giga Flare because the down smash feels kinda telegraphed before he even starts the animation because of his positioning/movement, so a decent opponent will generally see it coming. Also these two characters generally are focused on playing the game normally the majority of the time, because of how unreliable the 0 to deaths are, but they do exist. Honorable mention to Meta Knight. Which is a 30% to death. If he misses that specific window, you know he ain't killing the opponent until something like 170%+ unless he's fighting a character with poor recovery, or he gets a really hard random read. Also the two most consistent good players I play against are: - A Pikachu main that has been playing since 64, and actually took all the advice I gave him to heart, and on top of that went to tournaments. If he catches me off-gaurd, he just needs 1 combo. If I'm paying attention, he only needs 2-3 combos on me with most characters. - A Bayonetta main. Some characters fall out of Bayo's combos, but the ones that can't fall out of those combos.... Yeah she can still 0 to death just fine in Ultimate. Though it feels really random, like anytime I bring Mii Gunner or Ike out, it's 0 to death constantly. Yet my more common picks like Sephiroth, Meta Knight will fall out often. For some unknowable reason my Ridley gets out of the combos, which blows my mind because I'm used to everything working on him due to his sheer size (but ya know, he'll die on the second combo, so it doesn't really matter). I just do not understand Bayo combos at all (but at least I can do well in the bayo ditto against the bayo main. I keep forgetting that I can't hold down b during her combos though.) So yeah, I definitely understand why people get annoyed with 0 to deaths. Kinda just feels like you're skipping a lot of the game, especially if the combo starter is kinda gimmicky and/or extremely hard to avoid.
I think what needs to change mechanics wise is making sdi and di more powerful and more mixup heavy. Focusing less on making it so you can always di out on stuff like greninja dash attack, but rather making it so one has to predict where they'll be. I imagine combos can be made better in general to make up for it (more hitstun and such) while giving more defensive (or increasing defensive) options when you're actually in hitstun/getting combo'd, making it so there's always something you can do. Edit: I would also like a much larger focus on ground movement and tech chases in the mechanics of any potential future games. Edit 2: And add parry
So you are telling me it’s less fun to fight kazuya/luigi/etc than something like steve/sonic/g&w? The most dominant characters in the game, who happen to be camping characters?
All those characters exist on both sides of the same fucked up coin. The way they are designed inherently strips the opponent of agency forcing to either camp in fear of getting one shotted or forced to hastily approach a camping opponent and risk getting punished for trying to chase them down assuming you can even chase them down.
@@N12015 Steve is just an absolute mistake, and those in defense of him (or any busted character) just care about degenerate wins and ruining the scene, as always.
High level tekken is certainly not putting you though a meat grinder, defense and movement are too strong, but most importantly unlike smash opportunities for combos outside stray pokes are much less common. In fact its actually much much easier to get combos in pretty much any smash game than it is to consistently convert in any tekken game. Tekken is a game played in pokes and movement. Also very laughable when you said that there was a confined arena space in traditional fighters when you literally posted footage of an infinite stage.
When since were most fgc's zero to deaths?I only know of that in skull girls and some other anime fighters.Those only happen in tekken 8 under specific circumstances
anyone who has ever played a traditional fighter ever would know that everything you mentioned about them was completely off base. Please do at least a little research next time.
What sidescroller fighters have that smash doesn't have is corner mechanics. Usually in the form of shielding, or the stage resets after a certain amount of damage, or something like that. Smash could have a glass wall so that you need to be bounced off twice per stock, but you can still fall.
Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again... said a shadow at the window... and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time... But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.
You're definitely right that 0-death combos are unhealthy in Smash Ultimate with how they're done. The only way they are healthy is when they are a web that require good execution and a narrow range that each option works based on the SDI, DI and percent. Melee Fox embodies that idea. In fact Melee often has that shown all over as Captain Falcon even has Dair into Falcon Punch at some points.
I don't think melee is a good example. Melee fox isn't what characters should strive to be like. Actual ultimate fox is surprisingly similar for the available mechanics and a lot of non 1% players strongly dislike actually playing against him. He's just really good compared to most the cast, and when you aren't great it's exaggerated to make you feel like you lost at the character select screen. A better ideal to the video would actually be ZSS since she has to actually earn her keep.
Its unavoidable in a high damage high movement, low defense kinda game. It's honestly funny he brings up tekken as a "0 to death" game because high level tekken is mostly defined by low commit poking and defensive movement. You see less combos out of high level tekken than you do mid to low level tekken because launchers have bad risk reward inherently.
Usually in UMVC3 you have to sink a lot of resources to get a kill in one combo though - well, unless it's Zero. Besides, that game is just absolutely bonkers. Game can be over in 10 seconds or it can go to time out, i see both on TNS decently frequently.
Yeah it's frustrating. But if you're talking about character design then Kazuya is the best there is. He comes from Tekken and he plays exactly like a Tekken character would doesn't he.
The worst part is when people try to pretend that it takes "skill" to pull off these ez-bake death combos. None of the characters in this game take mechanical skill (it's a mental skill type of game), but if you want to play a character that requires something that somewhat resembles a high level of mechanical skill, play Sheik.
I particularly agree with your point at the near-end of the video… I’ve always lacked the words to express this though I felt something similar, & I feel grateful that you found these words. Take care!
To be honnest wario only has touch of death combos at top level, even glutonny messes up often his combos as they're very inconsistent due to rage and weird angles
I agree with almost all of this, except I don't really know why you used the Lucario clip at 12:14 as a prime example. For one, Lucario had to live to 146% to do that, which I'm pretty sure is a huge ask. Second, he hit Joker two separate times before the kill hit, joker had several chances to live there, not just one. Third, the kill move was Lucario's forward smash, which is relatively slow and committal. Fourth, he hit him right at the edge of the stage, which is meant to kill earlier, though I'll admit it probably could have killed from mid stage in that instance.
Another thing is in a lot of games like tekken your moves start dealing significantly less damage after just a few hits into the combo, in smash moves getting stale happens much slower
I find it funny that me and a friend of mine were talking about a very similar topic, regarding combo scaling in DragonBall Fighterz, Gulity Gear Strive, And Undernight 2
I like the video! My only gripe is I wouldn't describe Lucario as ToD. Aura is the thing that Lucario is built around - it is his niche. That potential is the reason why you would choose to use him, and he is balanced around that Aura. Not every high percent hit from Lucario is going to kill at 30% either, it's based on a ton of factors. I don't know if a rando-fsmash in the corner is fair to use as an example to say he's ToD. A ToD is typically a universal sequence that works on most characters, not a stray super powered hit. Bowser can also kill at 30% off a random fsmash at the ledge - I don't think I'd describe him as a ToD character in the same breath as Kazuya and Luigi.
Sure, maybe it is bad design, but for one, players are always gonna find the strategies that require the least amount of legwork. So, even if these ToDs were patched out, others might be found. A game's meta is always evolving, and so that means more exploits will be found. Also, most traditional fighters rarely have true ToDs. Unless it's an anime fighter XD (mostly joking) Plus, ToDs take time to master the execution. So, the ToD is the reward for taking time with that character. I get that it xan be bullshit, but unless the game is seriously broken, it doesn't really kill the meta.
I think 0-death is in a similar plan of gimping bad recovery characters or just edge guarding in general as you can also die at 0 from a good edge guard. 1 is just on stage vs off stage and both require skill in either execution+DI Reading or reading recovery habits+positioning.
I'd definitely say edgeguarding is way more... I suppose the word would be dynamic? Than 0-death combos. On top of that, nobody is getting gimped at 0, and it's definitely harder to do that (let alone across the cast when you have character like pika, sora, and many more) than it is to just input the 0td combo
@@igirjei3717 gimping is 100% more likely to happen then getting TOD though. Inputting a TOD is also much more effort then you think it is as if anyone can just pick up a Icy or Kazuya TOD Day 1. Where as with edgeguarding there are plenty of bad recovery characters. Not to mention the good ol elite smash gimps of jab jab at ledge into opponent air dodging to ledge and missing, getting a jump sniped by item/projectile, accidentally foot stooled, etc.
@@burpinator1 well, a few things there. Only reason why gimping is way more likely to happen is because "you get gimped", rather than "you can 0-death", if that makes sense. Being gimpable is just a thing some characters have to deal with, but nobody has to deal with getting true 0-death combo'd. Similarly, not everyone can TOD while everyone can gimp. Secondly, since recovering allows agency (except in specific situations such as when you have to use all of your recovery options to get back and you're like, doc or mac, or when all of your options to recover are exhausted and you're forced into a very specific recovery path). Sparg0 recovers way more often than a cloud should at top level. Why? Because sparg0 is an insane player and is really good at mixing up his recovery and making it back. Thirdly, I won't say anyone can pick up any character and start winning tournaments day 1, because that's simply not true, however, I don't believe practicing one singular combo for an hour a day is even remotely as hard as learning several fundamental concepts and MUs to (reasonably) intricate details. If nearly every issue one could have with X character is solved by just grinding that combo in training mode (or in real matches, if there's no training mod), then I firmly believe that character is not hard I will never think 0-deathing someone 3 times with kazyua is harder than doing the same with lucina, because the lucina requires a much higher understanding of the game to be able to do that. Even if lucina is a really easy character to pick up and play, I would say she's far from the easiest to win with. And finally, disclaimer, no hate to anybody, people are free to pick whoever and play however they need to, all that matters in the end is the W, right? Hating on and harassing players for doing what they do to win, especially when it's perfectly within the rules, is not acceptable, and I find it annoying when smash players do it all the time. I will, however, say the character themself is not exempt from criticism. Characters like Steve and Roy are not playing the same game, and just the design of TODs alone devolves the game into a hurricane of suck. You're either running from the TOD character endlessly, lest you lose immediately because of insane risk reward, or you're endlessly trying to catch your opponent running from you because your character has no mobility or range. Neither player is actually playing the game at that point and I find it problematic
@@igirjei3717 1. Understandable 2. Also understandable but also for top players I believe they opt more for ledge trapping nowadays rather then risk a reversal from an attempted edgeguard. 3. Sure but if you were to go to any fighting game most would suggest you learn x character's Bread and Butter combos. Which is the normal. It's only different in smash cause combos have SO much variance due to weight, %, Height, knockback. That it's definitely the fault of character design when it came to Kazuya, Steve, etc. Did Kazuya need intangibility instead of armor? Not really. 4. You're correct in that a Lucina would have to put in more effort. But the same would be said if in a shiek vs Ganon match up if the number of neutral wins was 10>3 But Ganon still took the stock cause of a miscalculated unga bunga FSmash. Logically Shiek should've won the stock and in a hp dependant fighting game would have but not in Smash. 5. 100% agree with you on that. I think it's due to the creators of smash being out of touch with the competitive audience. Lack of support, patches, etc. Right now the best bet is to just be hopeful the next Smash game will do better while we slog through match ups people don't want to play due to campy characters or Camping TOD characters so you don't get TOD due to bad design on said TOD characters.
@@burpinator1 For 2, that's also true, although that ofc doesn't mean top players will *never* go for an edgeguard, especially against cloud, when him being offstage is about the only time he's really all that vulnerable. Plus, you can get reversal'd when attempting an edgeguard, but you won't get reverse 0-death'd if you drop your combo (unless you're fighting like, Luigi, then *maybe* you might) For 3, yeah, learning your character's combos is completely normal and definitely one of the first things you would tell someone picking up a character, and while kazyua is egregious for more reasons than just this (including the ewgf invuln you mentioned), the fact that his combos almost completely eclipse everything else is what I find problematic. Obviously you don't get to be a top level kazyua and not at least understand the fundies, but generally the most kazyua need to learn how to do is to learn how to catch his opponent and how to make them regret being caught For 4, you say that, but I think you're forgetting something. You don't have to pay for ganon. As in, ganon's f-smash has risk reward that actually makes sense. Granted, nobody wants to be unga bunga'd at 5 and explode on contact for it, but nobody wants to avoid unga bunga for 2 minutes straight and be completely unable to punish or even challenge it, let alone completely unable to survive it at literal 0 no matter where on the stage they are, where at least ganon won't kill you until getting a hit or two minimum (or a shield break, I suppose) For 5, couldn't agree more. It's still so sad that there's not even a clear "correct" answer to dealing with Steve, it's rough how many characters punish you for playing the game, and it's rough how many characters thrive off of *not* playing the game. Ult still has it's great moments here and there, but (and I sound like a boomer rn) pre-COVID ultimate was peak as hell I hope Nintendo tries a bit more to keep the characters that actively promote not playing the game in check, and to make them fun both to play as and to play against. While it'll never have perfect balance, I really don't think the answer to making conventionally trash characters viable should be to throw the concept of risk:reward into the gutter and turn them into cheesers. It's as hilarious as it is obnoxious
Lucario main here! This for the most part is a phenomenal video (as usual coming from you), and while I agree that Lucario has some characteristics of a TOD character, their Aura ability makes it far too polarizing to make then a true TOD character. They're only able to kill at 40% when they themselves are at around 130 or higher. It is kinda funny when Lucario players manage to pull one off.
Yea I thought it was a bit disingenuous for him to list that one at 12:14 as a touch of death, considering he hit Joker 3 separate times, and also was at frikkin 146%, AND had to land a Lucario forward smash. I don't think any other Lucario move could have killed there.
Smash has kinda been in a feature and speed creep death spiral since the back lash to brawl competitive. Its no wonder that the games look more and more like cutscenes now a days
I can agree with some points, but it also feels as though you were scattered about which subject you were actually tackling: Touch of Death characters and early kills. I don't think you really separated them well in this instance and sort of lumped them into together as though they were the same level. Smash is a fundamentally a game where yoou can reasonably die early depending on the context of the situation. Kazuya combos and Lucario scoring a powered up Forward Smash at the ledge are incomparable. Polarization is something you'll find in Smash almost everywhere and what really sets it apart from most other fighters barring Samurai Showdown. I think early kills off something like a good read with a risky move(Lucurai Forward Smash at high Aura) is hype. I think consistent zero-to-deaths with minimal counterplay(Kazuya) is less hype, though in a world where we still had a few more balance patches, could still feasibly have a place.
I agree with your statement when you say that TOD characters should not have confirmed setups that kill in every percent and how (most) characters should have low percent->mid percent->high percent combos that don’t link to one another. For example, I main Mewtwo. He has falling N-air to Jab for low/mid percents and also rising confusion to forward air. As well as a few footstool disable setups. None of those combos link to one another and don’t result in a zero to death.
MVC2 player here! I looked away from the screen and Iron Man killed my three characters, broke my legs, blew up the ambulance, and torched my livestock after landing strong kick! Send help
Really solid breakdown and argument. I'm inclined to agree with your assertion of how problematic it is; it reminds me of the aspects of Brawl Meta-Knight that made him so broken, namely the percentage of his attacks with transcendent priority. Many could argue that that in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic, but in similar fashion to TOD characters, the mere likelihood of that impacting gameplay and skewing in favor of certain characters, all while forcing a different playstyle from everybody else, is considered to be bad balance in the gameplay loop given the gameplay loop's emphasis on variety in attacks and answers that all have counters and fake-out opportunities, which is what adds to the loop's inherent excitement factor and replayability.
I sort of disagree on Lucario being mentioned in this group as a potential example for TODs, mainly due to the risk in comparison to the other examples. Rather than forcing you to run all game, it's more of a time trial in a sense. Your normal gameplay goes as per usual until you take too long, which is what I think is the biggest thing that's missed. Lucario doesn't punish you for getting hit once; it punishes you for taking your time. Or even worse, getting camped by a lighter middleweight with okay-ish speed. It's not like Sonic who's straight up too fast, it isn't Mac who has a comeback on top of extreme power, it's a test on efficiency which I believe encourages utilizing universal skills JUST to meet that faster paced gameplay.
Touch of death isnt bad design in theory it just SUCKS in ultimate because theres no counterplay once youre getting comboed. Literally nobody complains about 0-deaths aka touch of deaths in melee because theyre hype and as the person getting attacked you can do something about it. Just another reason why ult is a bad competitive game.
I feel like your playing devils advocate here a bit like you know some of these points are exaggerated and are in part about feelings, but those feelings do exist for a good reason.
~SPONSOR~ Immerse yourself in the wonderful world of LuckCatchers2 by downloading the game at the link - bit.ly/3wxHlEM
Use my promo code "Vars", which allows you to get 6 medallions, which allows you to instantly get a skill and 5,000 gold
Dude tekken is not about combing your opponent at high level. Its mostly pokes, knockdowns and neutral play. Even at mid and low level.
Zero to deaths not that broken, from all the characters you mentioned only steve is on the top 4 players (much better by difference) and steve is there because he is broken anyways.
@@shaghilathar3588Dude literally posted video of 2 Kunis doing low commit pokes on an infinite stage while trying to say that fighting games are about TODs because they have boundaries, someone get a real fighting game player to explain to him why hes so dead wrong.
just in case you do not know VARS smash bothers ultimate is not designed to be a competitive fighter it is a party game where everyone comes together to play
@@YTTHEGAMINGGUYhow old are you?
The ice climbers being the character that can counter many touch of death characters while theoretically being one themselves is funny
In Melee and Brawl they literally were touch of death when Nana is alive. In this game they're so hard to play to that level that most people don't bother.
@@Quackra I agree, glad someone else remembered how strong they were in Brawl
@@mandalorianhunter1 they were so broken Sakurai had chain grabs removed in Sm4sh.
@@Quackra If ICs could still infinite concistantly, I don't think I would have every mained them. So glad they changed it
Soras a touch of death character change my mind, (i love sora btw, but doesn’t mean its not the truth)
I'd say I agree that TOD's are bad design, but I don't think Sakurai really intended the characters to have them. They're more so found by the players, not put there by the devs. Except Kazuya. I don't know what Sakurai was thinking when he designed Kazuya.
Too obsessed in replicating Tekken to remember it's a Smash game, probably due to hearing our complains of Smash characters not playing like in their franchise. I guess after Steve's release we can see why giving characters cheat codes is a terrible idea.
@N12015 it's not a bad idea, but they need more tweaking to be balanced. Kazuya should have less invincibility everywhere, and Steve's minecart and anvil should've been toned down, especially since they aren't that versatile in Minecraft. Perhaps tone down the strength of u-tilt and uair as well
I don't know if BAMCO had maybe too much to say about Kazuyas design, his design is faithful to Tekken but it might be too much for smash.
Also, neither Sakurai nor Nintendo designed Kazuya, they implemented / adapted him in to this game.
I mean they tried to remove Luigis 0td once, realized that their nerf didnt do anything and then just didnt bother trying again.
I genuinely wonder if certain characters were designed with the explicit intent of ruining the competitive scene
Fighting someone like Luigi or Kazuya is so frustrating to deal with on both players' ends because on one hand, the person does NOT want to get grabbed or electric'd respectively and either take a lot of damage or die and on the other hand, the person playing said character is gonna get camped out because of their counterplay.
Luigi’s don’t bother me that much as I co Maine him n know my way around him. Kazuya though…. That’s a bullshxt character there. Every time I play 1 I can be whooping him but a his recovery is jut broken n B, if he grabs me once it’s done
Players be like "Uhg, this game sucks, everyone just camps I hate it" meanwhile we're like "My brother in christ, you are the one who chose 0-To-Death, the Character!"
As other people said, traditional fighting games have almost no zero to death or infinites. The only time they exist is either in older games or if you have "multiple lives" (tag fighters) and, even then, are typically resource restricted or conditional. DBFZ requires you to have and spend pretty much all of your resources to touch of death, for example.
No, despite what Smash players think, this is *not* how fighting games play. Most of them now focus on a strong combo into a very stressful knockdown situation, but that knockdown/oki _rarely_ leads to extreme damage unless the defender chooses something *very* risky and is called out (a blocked reversal in 2D, a bad tech option into a trap in Tekken). The scaling from the tools that open people up or lack of combo routes at all if its a throw simply prevent that from happening.
It's kind of annoying constantly hearing people compare zero-to-deaths to fighting games, because it just indicates they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to modern ones. We're not playing kusoge like Fist of the North Star anymore.
True, but depends a lot on the game. This type of gameplay of just camp until you find one extremely specific opening is really rare in most fighting games I've played yet exist in literally every single smash game lol
I see no problems with Zero to death combos to be honest.
But then again I grew up with Marvel Vs Capcom and that was just kinda the norm for that fighting game franchise.
@@KauriRUclipsAdventure YOU WANT TO SEE HOW TO DO A F***ING INFINITE? 😂😂😂 I love the MVC series.
Completely agree, I've played tekken, and GG Strive and ToD doesn't exist in Tekken 8 and if I recall ToDs got patched out of GG Strive
this is not what smash players think, this guys just dumb, i doubt this guy has played a smash game earlier than sm4sh
They remind me of the (pre wobbling banned) Melee Icies counterplay; «dont’t get grabbed». Which is true and certaintly doable, but also so super polarizing
don't get hit
they remind me of pre nerf bayo in smash 4. Just DI Bro, Like shut up😂
Everyone keeps talking about Melee wobbling when their Brawl Chain grab was worse. At least you can escape wobbling where thr chain grab is actually death st 0%
Theres a reason why I refer to these two as "Eskimofos" At least Kazuya, Bayo, and Luigi require attack strings to work properly.
Which is why pm/+ icies are infinitely better in design
Sakurai has mentioned that a core philosophy in his char design is that he wants the player using the character to feel like they are cheating, when playing them.
So from that viewpoint, Kazuyas character design is a smashing success
The problem with this philosophy is that the person being played against ALSO feels like their opponent is cheating, and that build crazy resentment and frustration.
Sounds like Sakurai played Iori in KOF95
Sakurai smash philosphy is any player could win a game cause cheating, not only cause a player is 100% better than another one. That's why he created smash.
@oku Oh Sakurai-san was def a Iori main running Rekka infinites back in 95.
And DHD failed.
The issue is lack of counterplay. Once they
land that one move your controller may as well be unplugged.
As a Ridley Main, I just LOVE how landing a super precise and risky skewer read on someone still gives them options to wriggle out of my followup that I have to account for. But if I get lightly tapped by Kazuya the stock is already gone. It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
@@Cyberguy64DLC Privilege
Lack of counterplay? Avoid the grab. "Once they land that move" oh I see so you just want to pretend there is no counter play by ignoring all the things you can do to avoid being in that situation. Alright carry on I guess
@@ironman1458 Yeah it's boring to play/watch unfun matches that can be boiled down to only a few important neutral interactions. This privilege is also only afforded to only a few characters in the cast, and the lack of counterplay against these options, ie. just camp is really unfortunate. Along with SDI and DI being hugely nerfed, once you're in a combo it's basically over.
@@ironman1458You might as well just make every attack an insta-kill, then just say "don't get hit."
Watching Luigi twist someone into a pretzel is always fun but having it actually happen to you makes you wonder why it's even a thing.
It's extra runny that Luigi of all characters has this
It’s seems a bit out of character for a character like Luigi to have insane combos like this when in the games he’s usually less aggressive than his brother
Luigi's entire personality in Smash is 'funny guy', which is how you end up with things like Green Missile and the Luigi Shoryuken
@@grunkleg.2934 I get that, but I don’t think he should be able to kill off of grab just like that. Should he have good combos? Yes, he should have similar damaging combos to Mario but with different followups of course.
I would honestly trade killing off of grab and dealing ridiculous damage for better stats that make him more Luigi and quirky-like, but obviously keep his funny stuff like shoryuken, missile, down taunt, etc.
As someone who mainly plays traditional fgs: what? No, rounds don't usually end in touch of death sequences, or situations that might as well as be tod sequences due to lack of interactivity. Sure, I can see that sometimes you get steamrolled if you don't know how to block your opponent's offense, but that's not a touch of death, and it really only happens at lower levels. That's just getting pressured and not defending properly.
I don't even think this person plays actual FGs or if they do they somehow only play SF6 against just Marisas or KOFXV against just Ash Crimson somehow
@@Lexicon865 theyve managed to only play against top level hokuto no ken players and nothing else
*laughs in DBFZ and MVC3*
saying 90% of rounds in traditional fighting games are ended by 0-deaths is pretty inaccurate. its very rare, especially in modern fighting games to be able to kill off the first touch, and when it does happen it's usually in very specific circumstances that aren't especially realistic
its insane he uses tekken as the example as well since high level tekken is defined by movement being so strong and launchers in general being so risky that most games are played in movement and poking rather than TODs, completely wrong game to use for an example
@@TheConfusedMasses Yep. Tekken is known for being very defensive. Blocking while back dashing alone is big deal. Movement when mastered can shut down a lot of characters mix, and throws at high level play are consitiently broken means mix ups are limited to mid/low (unless your King, Armor King, or Marduk Tackling people to death).
@@TheConfusedMassesyeah it makes alot of his arguments weak because he doesn't have any real in depth knowledge on how these systems work
💯
@@TheConfusedMasses The Touch of Death in Tekken, especially in 7, are just mostly applicable to gimmick characters like Akuma and Geese. But yeah mostly pokes, mixups and wall rush/wall carry/stage destruction dominates the tournament scene than touch of death. The most notorious Touch of Death should belong in UMVC since any characters with level 2-3 x-factor can perform their own touch of death.
Cause why not just be able to instantly kill your opponent from anywhere? Why need to win neutral more than once
At least they usually have bad/mid neutral to compensate. But yeah its super polarizing
still better than the rest of the characters that lack any X factor at all and force soft-resets to neutral constantly due to moves and throws not allowing enough hitstun with low enough knockback to make anything happen at all. Could also make DI more meaningful again to compensate.
...You are aware that in order to ToD someone in smash...you have to know the character inside and out to do it. I can't just hop on to smash, (buy the dlc)pick Kazuya and start steamrolling people in Elite. You have to know spacing, how his abilities/attacks work, match-ups and what moments will lead to the ToD. Then theres stringing the attacks together to ToD properly. You can hate them all you want but you have to admit they require skill to pull off. I would recommend you look up a video by KingofSkill where he duels a dedicated Kazuya main and hardly lets himselfs get ToD plus its just an entertaining video.
@@ogre589ok but Luigi tho
@@jj6148start mixing that di up and avoid being too confrontational until around 20%
Yo there is no way you regularly play normal fighting games. ToD is pretty rare. Even in GG:Strive, known for it's high damage, characters typically need multiple nuetral wins before the round in won. Matches in Tekken are almost never decided by the first touch. Ridiculous.
I agree tekken is mostly about pokes and defense. Most combos now rely heavily on wall carries for stage destruction than with endless air juggles. UMVC should be the best example he should've given since anyone can do infinite with the right set-up. But it sort of balanced itself because of it. Save for Zero, Morrigan and Vergil which has a lot of unfair single player advantage.
king when I purrfect mash my grab combo and finish with a backflip for tod purrfect meow
I think it's demoralizing to have a character in a game like Smash to have a guaranteed death combo. It's why I find these characters, notably Kazuya and Mario, so boring to watch; going for the same ladder combo or the same ewgf combo for the entirety of different sets. Admittedly it works, but it's not interesting nor fun to play against.
Mario main here. I'd just like to defend us by saying Mario is far from a touch of death character. Many of our moves are negative on hit at lower percent, so we have to be careful with how we build damage for the ladder to work. Too little and they can escape, too much and it they'll be sent too far. It may look easy but there's alot to consider. Much different from Luigi or Kaz.
@@AndreBabani L+up air+ up air+ fair
@@Kapow59 true!
@AndreBabani I think that's fair! Don't think that's the player's fault, more on the character's design. Like, if it's a good move like Mario's up air or kirby's down tilt, why wouldn't you wanna use it haha
Mario's defo more manageable than Luigi or Kazuya honestly since he has quite a bit of counterplay against him. I think smash's problem is that a lot of characters have an overly strong win condition usually can be spammed, so much so that you can predict the outcome if you're watching it, which gets repetitive at a certain point. Like, at a certain point of I see an up air from Mario, I know either a fair or an up b is gonna end it (but I do find it cool otherwise!)
Either way I can't ever get hyped about Kazuya 😂
@@icykuikinu6757 Understandable. You are very kind and understanding. You have my respect.
Meta knight is the same thing.
He has a kajillion TRUE ToD routes that require really good sdi because he can just follow it.
If his neutral wasn't so linear and shit he'd be insane
How to beat TOD characters (WORKS 100% NO GLITCH):
--Start match
--Perform miracle to get stock lead
--Camp for 8 minutes
---You win!
Kazuya comain here, I personally think the reason why many hate fighting touch of death characters is the simple factor that accounts toward their ability to be always capable of forcing their opponent to not approach due to their threat bubble being so focused on just getting that one move.
I just hate the fucked risk reward aspect because we have to play so much harder against ToD characters and we can win neutral 15 times in a row and still lose the stock first to one tiny mistake. It feels like a "play perfectly and as unexpressive as possible or else"
Can't approach safely, neutral can be lost randomly bc people can't play perfectly or account for every variable, and the whole part where you die from something that would get you hit for 20-50% from the rest of the cast.
@Shmicah1235 yeah, that's why no matter how """casual""" the game is supposed to be it should not have guaranteed zero to deaths for ANY character. This is worse in a game which by design should discourage said zero to deaths because of how knockback scaling works. I hate execution checks in fighting games because half the time it isn't anything other than someone with the knowledge of how to execute said check essentially has an instakill button which removes most aspects of the game other than luck. No one likes luck. NO ONE.
Imo one of the most frustrating parts of kazuya’s touch of death in particular is the fact that he also gets s. Not only do you have to play smart and safe, but he can also go directly through moves too
I personally think it is more the lack of agency. Yes, your di and said does have an impact, but basically if they land a combo starter on you it turns into a single player technical check. Your stock if forfeit regardless of your inputs if they react properly to you di/sdi.
In comparison, other characters can have set combos that generate a lot of percentage, but to get a 0 to death it would involve several interactions where nothing is guaranteed that requires excellent reads and situational awareness to pull off.
hi, fighting game veteran here, fighting games are not infested by touch of deaths (TOD) like at all. The only fighting games that have TODs are normally tag or anime games. Tekken is not that at all, played Tekken for over a decade and ive never been hit by a TOD, been in top ranks for both Tag 2, 7, and 8. Normally your vids are well researched but hearing not only the game i mainly play but just a blatant uninformed take on fighting games as a whole has disappointed me. TODs are not common in fighting games, they never have been.
side note, this is not to say TODs don't exists, they do in Tekken. the main problem with using Tekken as an example is nearly always TODs always have more to do with side wall combos, wall to wall, or triple wall break combos. To also give the benefit of the doubt there has been standing TODs or janky wall TODs from previous games but its still far from common.
i think it comes down to the amount of interactions you need to win in order get a stock/round, its a lot safer to go for something that will lead to a big combo or TOD in smash vs most other fighting games. This comes down too the moves that lead to more damaging combos are a lot more risky to do. some games this doesnt apply, normally being tag fighters and anime games, which typically have other ways to get out of combos.
only posting cause it annoyed me hearing things that just arent true about not only Tekken but most fighting games. still love the video and both your channels
Yeah most fighters are only 3 or 4 touches. Plus when casuals attempt other fighters their viewpoint is when they get blown out with their lack of defencive knowledge. IE Tekken Combo into a get up option read into a new combo. They don't know how to get up properly so they feel like they may as well drop the controller and call it 0 counter play.
I think Peach is in a funny position in this category, because she has insane advantage state combos that might go toe-to-toe with the likes of kazuya and steve, while still needing to be acutely aware of spacing, safety and positioning to get these confirms. Peach does conditioning rather than fishing for combo starters.
I like watching her because her touch of death combos actually feel earned and are kept in check by difficulty, and I will usually root for a Peach in a match.
I like the mentality of if it’s insanely difficult for consistency then its earned vs it’s just the avg experience to get clocked by at least the most basic variation that an 8yr old with a weeks worth of youtube tutorials and practice can do
Most of the examples he gave need to be aware of all of this aswell kaz tod are not easy and it's also literally not a 1 combo fits all type of thing for kaz/lugi
I really enjoy your content Vars. That being said, I couldn't agree less with most of your takes here. Lol
My main issue with your argument here was how broadly you defined TODs. You essentially applied TODs as an issue to any character with a strong combo game developed by the meta. That creates a lot of issues in my mind.
1. Those characters combos (like Mario or Peach) were not necessarily desinged to be as strong as they are. Instead, their combo game was developed over time by the community. So it's not the designers that you're attacking, it's actually the work of the community literally getting good that you're commenting about and speaking negatively about.
2. Smash has ALWAYS had TODs that occur. The special thing about chars like Bayonetta or Kazuya, is that they are inescapable and really accessible from any percentage. Melee has tons of TODs and they are won through mix-ups and deep meta knowledge in combos. That's skill. Kazuya combos are a little different since they are actually inescapable many times. But if you're not making that distinction, then You're talking about something that has almost always existed in every form of smash which is the game that defined this genre, so how can you say that the existence of these combos take away from the genres design, when they've always been a part of it since Smash 64.
3. Last one. As someone who's always played traditional fighting games and Smash, i thought your comparison was really off. Most FGC games do not end in TODs. I missed a couple of Tekkens, but at least back in 6 or Tag Tournament 2, Tekken was never like that. Lol The only games I can think of that would devolve like that are older games with no patches that were broken. Marvel 2 being the most notable in my mind. Often, those games had characters with strats that had infinites off of some setup or something like that. Marvel 3 had a meta like that as well. That being said, usually those characters were far and few in between and they would range from being top tier, to not even mattering. If that character was really good, they dominated the meta and that's what the game became about. If not, then it didn't matter. In Ultimate, the true TOD characters are top 20...top 30 ish and below. That's not really a huge deal compared to most games.
This was just a really strange take to me man. I'd also recommend checking out some other "broken" fighting games like CVS2 or something like that. They're REALLY fun. And their meta is defined by how good people got at exploiting the system mechanics, but it actually led to deeper growth and depth in the games! Hopefully, we'll continue to see Ultimate evolve as well just like Melee has.
to me the biggest issue with touch of death characters is the fact that di and sdi are much weaker than they were in melee.
fox has infinites and 0-death combos but they aren't all the same button combinations with the same timing simply because the opponent can heavily shift their position while getting hit. this is not the case in the newer games
Wonder if that might have something to do with our complains about multihits not working.
@@N12015It is precisely that and why i think new smash games are terrible, and so are the people who play them
@@lordmew5 Blame the game, not the people. I don't think it's fair to generalize entire playerbases over something like that.
@@Kyuzeth
The general fanbase consists of casuals.
Yes, it is Fair to Blame them.
@@lordmew5you have issues
people hate campers, but they often forget that the camper is more often than not , forced to camp . in this game, most characters can either rank up the damage super fast or outright kill you if you approach , or they dont have the necessary frame data or moveset to play a more aggressive playstyle.
I'm loving the campy meta right now I've got like 4 extra characters into elite smash this last 2 weeks alone. Nobody knows how to play neutral anymore 🤣
F neutral. Why do we have to play by some societal rules? Let's have some fun@@JoeJoe0o 😈
@@danielmartins9901 ok when I get home today I'll get my friend code and send it over!
@@danielmartins9901 FC: SW-5111-5250-4747 let's smash
That's why I've been shifting away from ultimate to different games recently. You either need to kill in one hit or make it impossible for the opponent to get the hit to keep up. I can do it but it's not enjoyable. I would rather play p+ or rivals of aether or street fighter or tekken.
The explanation of ToD characters only needing to get the play right once instead of consistently through the whole match reminds me of why many competitive Splatoon players dislike Turf War as a mode. In Turf, one team can dominate for 90% of the match, but if the other team manages to get control just once, in the final seconds of the game, they win anyways.
In both situations the issue people have is the need to only win once, rather than to have to continually outplay your opponent. It's the same reason competitive games usually play best of at 3 or more rather than just one game.
Totally agree. I stopped playing splatfests long ago because I was so sick of getting mowed down by aerospray and sploosh players when there was 17 seconds left
Totally agree. It's all risk/reward ratio. When a character and/or move feels unfair it's usually because the risk/reward is unabalanced.
Touch of Death characters are throwing out very safe, easy, options but are being rewarded as if they landed Ganon's wizard punch.
True for most but look at the Ice climbers. Their neutral is really bad so they can't just go in and throw it out without being punished heavily.
For them it's high risk high reward.
But it's true that for most the reward greatly out weights the risk, when there is actually a risk in trying to land it (aka Steve, no risk high reward and incredibly easy to do).
@@Bark_743 Their main openers are Blizzard and Squall Hammer, which are both quite safe--especially considering that landing either easily results in +60% and possible death.
I'm not saying it's unbeatable, but I am saying that it's not very fun to watch or play against
@@jeffersonian4 I love to watch Ice climbers play. And that comes from someone who hates to watch matches cause it's boring.
But yes they have safe openings to lead to the combos but bro you gotta have a perfect execution to land thoses. Have you ever tried landing a desync combo ? cause I have and it's f*cking hard.
Also they may find an opening safely, their neutral still sucks ass.
Also Blizzard might be safe against the likes of Cloud idk but not against a Fox. If you wiff Blizzard against a character like Fox, you'll remember not to do it again, cause it has a lot of endlag.
I'm not saying it's a big risk all the time cause it's not, but in a bunch of matchups it's not as safe as an EWGF or a Luigi grab to name a few.
@@Bark_743as someone who's followed ics for years, their neutral is actually pretty good. Their desyncs are able to make a lot of strong stage pressure, along with the risk of being punished for landing a grab, they have a great neutral state.
one thing that everyone, including the guy that made this video are forgetting is disadvantage. Yes, luigi can kill incredibly early, but his recovery moves are laggy enough so that anyone who's even vaugely familiar with the matchup should be perfectly capable of getting an easy edgegaurd. Ics have it even worse thanks to nana's vulnerability in disadvantage. Kazuya may not have as many weaknesses, but im fairly sure that the same principal applies here, he isnt in S for a reason.
"Touch of Death characters are throwing out very safe, easy, options but are being rewarded as if they landed Ganon's wizard punch. " THANK YOU! Best summary, really.
5:04 Correction, Kazuya doesn't need to follow their di, there is tech called dash option select that allows you to exploit auto turn to always get the right direction meaning di mixups aren't possible if the kazuya does this.
Nintendo: Nah bro Diddy with an infinite/0-death not okay
Also Nintendo: Icies and Luigi
Coming as a Tekken player, seeing smashers mald over Kazuya is mad funny lmao. He's the only reason I'd even consider playing Smash
Also very funny to hear that tekken is a "meat grinder" when the last few evos for tekken were mostly backdashing and poking.
i will gladly send your kaz back to tekken
@@raulespinosa5306 Sending me to play Tekken instead of Smash? You'd be doing me a favor dog lmao. I dont even main Kazuya in Tekken.
@@TheConfusedMasses Pshhh, at least Tekken is at Evo lmfaooo.
@@TheConfusedMasses But aye big dog, Im sure Nintendo will surely fund and give the smashy bros players a world tour since yall are missing out on Evo 💀
Meta Knight flying under the radar as usual
🤫
His zero to death isn't as strong as it was in Smash 4
MK isn't as op as it used to be, it needs requires now
@@mandalorianhunter1 He has several zero to deaths, the dash attack -> uair -> uB one, and his edge guard zero deaths from carrying you off the stage (sort of like Jigglypuff). Puff's combos -> fthrow -> edge guard are also a sort of zero-death.
@@aoeu256 Those aren't guaranteed and don't always lead to death.
Also Jiggs can't wall of pain like she used to
I got touch of death’d by Luigi at my first local tournament 🫠
That’s tough
same i lost the first round against a luigi and then went through a bunch of losers bracket but then got 4th to a different luigi
Setting aside the TOD thing for traditional FGs, which is inaccurate, you've completely forgotten that corner play in traditional 2D fighting games is a HUGE part of the game. Street Fighter 6 right now is emphasizing it more than they ever have before in the series with wall splats & stuns off of drive impact attacks. This means sometimes you might go for stage carry combos over raw damage. You might use lower damage combos or riskier options to escape the corner or side swap and put opponent in the corner. Many combos only work in the corner. Some work better NOT in the corner. Some wall bounce combos don't work unless you're away from the corner because you have more time before the opponent bounces back towards you to recover from your attack than you do if you're right next to the opponent. Some combos (often fireball combos) only work mid screen or only work in the corner because of the way pushback works on attacks. Positioning is incredibly important. Perhaps not QUITE as important, but it's a big factor in the game.
The latest Mortal Kombat doesn't use it, but Mortal Kombat and Injustice had stage interactive objects that could extend combos or simply do different things. Tekken's biggest combos often rely on wall knocking someone against a wall and breaking the wall is another aspect. The wall break mechanic is why Mishima Dojo has breakable walls. The game has area transition combo extensions. Getting away from a wall is important and rolling / side stepping to keep your back away from them can be key. Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter both feature 'ring outs' as round win options with Virtua Fighter 1 releasing 6 years before Smash 64, and Soul Edge (precursor to Soul Calibur) releasing 4 years before Smash 64.
There is a lot I could go over specifically about TOD characters, especially Luigi, but I figured I'd just point out the traditional fighting game argument you have is pretty telling of your inexperience in that genre.
----
Some games (like KOF) a touch of death requires massive amounts of resources and are limited to maybe being achievable 1x in a match with KOF offsetting that by having 3 separate characters (effectively making a TOD more of a TO 1/3rd).
Older games with TODs tend to be unintended, like Marvel vs Capcom or Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter 2(SF2 TODs tend to only work from randomized stuns that can't be relied on and situational gimmick setups more for combo videos than actually being practical)
Touch of deaths arent super common in most traditional fighting games, especially not tekken
I think a few of the occasions you mentioned weren’t tod’s
Lucario f-smash is more akin to Roy’s side b then a touch of death
Using someone else’s banana is to conditional to be a tod
Same with Mario up air strings
In fairness, Wario has plenty of hit confirms into waft that do not rely on banana. IIRC both landing nair into waft and up tilt into waft are true hit confirms (though I might be wrong, not well versed on Wario tech)
My friend use to main Kazuya and I hated playing against his Kaz so much
Usually he plays Ken or Ryu, which I liked playing against since even though he was a lot better then me, I felt good even when I lost since I learned what to do against their combos and fight them
Against Kaz though I always felt like I was hitting my head against the wall since the only thing that worked against him was Gun spamming and having no fun. Even if his Kaz was worse then his Ken or Ryu I hated it since I felt like I had to make myself have no fun to win instead of having a fair fight where we each have to win multiple interactions to kill. EWGF is just that oppressive
To be fair, all the FGC’s are poorly designed and cheesy as heck.
Definitely not with Ryu and Ken. Those are both very solid characters that just have their own toolbox. Terry and Kazuya are definitely some crackpipe characters though. Which is wild because Kazuya isn’t nearly as broken in actual Tekken.
@@riotron1026cheesy yes, poorly designed I’d say no (except for Kaz of course) they’re defienlty good but they have their own weaknesses and aren’t just oppressive and they don’t necessitate camping for the most part. I think Terry is super well designed except for Go meter, and Ryu and Ken are super faithful to SF, even if they are kinda annoying sometimes
@@HerMajestyVelvet A character being faithful to their series and it translating well in another game are two entirely different things. Yes The shotos and Terry may feel faithful to their series but that doesn’t mean it translated well into Smash as one of their most busted features is jab and tilt canceling.
Jabs and some tilts in smash were never meant to be combo starters, finishers. They were mostly meant to be a get off me option. Jabs and tilts are usually super quick, low committal and easy to execute move so to have character that can cancel jabs/tilts into their kill special feels like flat out robbery when they already have silly damage output. I’m surprised no one talks about how busted Smash 4 Ryu was. How they function forces the opponent to camp and be defensive unless you have a good disjoint or projectiles or else you risk getting cheesed out by a jab cancel kill. The execution barrier being very low to pull off doesn’t help their case either. Also forgot about aimbot, I mean auto turn around.
@@HerMajestyVelvetyou face Kaz a lot, it's like playing a boring level you don't like over and over, that's OK. Try other characters I'm sure you'll have fun with and figure out things, a character good in the air can significantly help you find a way to have fun.
I play a lot against my friend, he's a Sora main since release. He plays Ken Ryu and Terry too, really well, he likes aggressive characters.
Some days he can't win a game against me if my invulns are especially on point with my wave dash movement, other days he shows me how annoying a char like Sora can be when camps the air shield poking, fast frame moves, getting out of 0-deaths, he'll feel confident enough to switch to an FGC character, and that's when we really have fun after he got in my head and learned my habits of the day.
your comments about touch of deaths in tekken and other fighting games are mostly inaccurate. there are next to no practical tods in modern tekken games, or any modern fighting game for that matter. most of the time you see a tod will be in a tag fighter like dragon ball fighterz or skullgirls due to the nature of having to kill multiple characters. the tekken clip you showed at 9:45 isn't even a tod, kazuya was able to escape after he hit the floor (and thats if you actually get hit by that jin launcher). tekken and most other fgs are about stray hits and combos, not very different from smash. the only difference is there is no DI or way to get out of the combo until its over (barring combo breakers in games like mk1 for example). 90% of rounds being touch of deaths is incredibly inaccurate.
Yeah tbh how Kazuya even plays in Ultimate is extremely inaccurate
This guy's videos are mostly jokes to anyone who knows the game on a competitive level lol
Yeah. A better example would be something like Marvel vs Capcom, HNK, Karnov and the like. Touch of Death combos are extremely rare, and even though they *do* exist in something like Dragonball Fighter Z the game is often referred to as a "two-touch game" for a reason. In fact, *most* fighting games have systems in place to ensure that touch-of-death combos are extremely rare: Combo scaling that the longer your combo goes on the less your attacks do (down to like 95% reduced damage), systems like Burst in most anime games or Combo Breaker in Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct, infinite protection systems like those in Skullgirls, TFH and Dragonball.
Not saying that there aren't 'one-shot' characters in fighting games, there's a reason characters like Balrog, Oro, Makoto, Marissa, Goldlewis and Nagoryuki got the title of "robbery character"... but more often than not these characters do enough damage to end you in two combos, and the first one puts them in a good position to go for the second.
@@mayt4852This too...I was surprised he wanted to be a Smash authority
@jetkirby3981 yeah I found him thru league, he isn't any better at analysis for that either. I like his less opinionated documentary videos but whenever bro has a take to sell he picks the dumbest shit fr
I usually really enjoy your videos and did somewhat enjoy this one too so don't take this as mindless hate. But this video felt EXTREMELY biased and just brushed over anything that went against the 'You die from 1 hit' mantra. Many of these characters DO have to read DI or change their combos at certain percent windows and calling some of these 2-hit confirms from an aerial or grab 'Touch of death' is just laughable as probably more than half the cast have a reliable 2-hit kill confirm like this at similar percents. You did make some great points and sometimes these characters ARE ridiculous and unescapable (especially Kaz) but that's way more rare than you make it out to be in this video. You even said yourself that Luigi players have to adjust their combos and kill-confirms based on opponent percent or position on stage but when the same thing applies to Fox it's totally fine? I get it, there are other issues with Luigi, Kaz, etc. that compound and make it ridiculous sometimes but this video came off as just saying these characters literally do no work, hit you once and one shot you no matter the situation, percent, spacing, DI reads, etc. Also, I play Tekken and I don't think the game is anywhere near as 'Get combo'd once and die' as you seem to think it is. It's VERY important to have good fundamentals, movement, poking, framedata knowledge, etc. Certain edge cases in specific situations can be like that depending on character choices, stages that can extend combos, back-turn combos, etc. but you almost never die from 80-100% off one big punish, rarely even die off two big punishes unless they're back-to-back against a high damage character using their absolute max damage punish. Even in that case, you gotta make a mistake big enough for them to get their slowest, biggest launcher on you and then do it again right away, that's on you. Anyway, hope this didn't come off too ranty as I always really enjoy your vids, this is the first one that irked me a little bit as it seemed extremely biased compared to your normal takes on archetypes and felt like you came at it with the conclusion and worked backwards to find ways to satisfy that conclusion rather than looking at the data first and coming to a conclusion based on that.
Just about “Luigi players have to adjust their combos and kill-confirms based on opponent percent or position on stage but when the same thing applies to Fox it’s totally fine?” A skilled Luigi can kill confirm at almost any percent range. Fox has a very strict range for his confirms and they require quick reactions else hes punishable. You can’t fish for it in the same way luigi can fish for a grab.
@@boomstickYTYeah of course, I'm not saying Fox has anything near the same stuff as Luigi, they're completely different characters. It's just not as 'free' as the video made it out to be and he suffers immensely in other areas to gain that power. There's still plenty of skill expression involved in Luigi combos and adjustment IS required, just like Fox. Fox has a tighter range for stuff, sure, but of course he does. Imagine a character with that movement and framedata having Luigi setups and combos, he'd be top 1.
I love these videos so much. I dont follow the smash ultimate competitive scene at all. Its crazy to see characters that were Never used months ago be dominant.
Oh this is not true luigi has been used since the beginning luigi players are just getting better at the combos and kazuya has been a problem for years
Coney called this archetype the "Luigi" archetype.
Nah bro. That rob Gluto did on Tweek and most recently, Kola damn near made me wanna go on strike
Wario ain't innocent, no way
Losing and getting free stocks to win is L4M3
It's hard to say that the meta resolves around these characters, given how few actually show up in top level play. Most of the combos you mentioed are not 0 to death, and are just kill setups based on percent.
We do have a name for this archetype. It's called Luigi. Luigi is green Luigi. Kazuya is FGC Luigi. Ice Climbers is 2 Luigis.
Every Luigi main ever: Just dont get grabbed 🤷♂️
one other thing I will say is that in most traditional fighters, they tend to be at least 2 touch games save for certain matchups, like nagoryuki vs. chipp in guilty gear strive where you have one of the highest damaging characters vs. one of the least durable characters in the game fighting each other, think of it like ganon puff in smash 4 where ganon could kill puff in a combo but puff had so much mobility that she could make it hard for ganon to get a hit to start that kill combo but outside of that for the most part, you need at least 2-3 combos to actually get a kill, even if you're doing the most optimal combo in a situation and touch of death combos tend to also take a high amount of skill to setup and a big error on the opponent's part, as well as the perfect situation to land, so they're a lot more appreciated I feel because of how much more effort goes into them, like I know people that have been playing for longer than I've been alive who still have yet to hit a touch of death combo
While I agree that ToD characters shouldn’t have their 0 to-death combos, I feel they are rather balanced for how frustrating their combos are. Kazuya for example, has by far the best advantage state in the entire game as he can get 80-a kill with any grab/electric. However, Kazuya infamously has the worst disadvantage state, a very exploitable recovery, awful approaching, and a mediocre neutral. These were things that nobody on Kazuya’s release put into account, as everyone only focused on his stupid broken combos. This is why he has gone from ban-worthy to not even top 10. As for Luigi, he is much more consistent (really not saying much though) than Kazuya but is not as strong as Kazuya. In my opinion, I believe that ToD characters are either so hard (Peach, Ice Climbers) or incredibly inconsistent (Luigi, Kazuya) which makes them not gamebreaking.
traditional fgc player here. no most games usually dont have TOD's. at least not most modern ones. and they're usually require insanely specific requirements they do exist in a modern game.
As a Ridley Main, touch of death combos are incredibly frustrating to go up against due to how big and slow of a target he is. Then I realize that he also has an incredibly simple touch of death in landing an off stage Space Pirate Rush that drags the opponent way past their recovery capabilities. Then I realize that it's an incredibly niche trick that still requires followup to confirm the kill on most fighters and landing an off-stage SPR tends to require a hard read and leaves you crazy vulnerable if it fails, so it's less of a touch of death and more of a death or glory maneuver.
Theoretically this is where L canceling should come in. As much as people believe it's needlessly obtuse tech it would actually decrease the frequency of true zero to death combos by adding extra inputs needed to hit at the perfect timing.
Yes people can grind out a rhythm but now to counter it all you need to do is throw off their rhythm with di or sdi
First off, (S)DI is no more a good defense of something like L-Cancelling than it was of Smash 4 Bayonetta's 0-Deaths, because the mechanic in general has coherence issues in its usability. Second, execution would become a needless barrier for being able to handle a given move at all and it would only create confusion in what is going on. It's not a problem with the Spin Shot in Kid Icarus Uprising, because nobody is locked out of Forward Shot usage to begin with, and the opponent can see that strafing. If the opponent L-Cancels and acts faster because of it, you better have predicted usage of a mechanic that is obscurity for its own sake. Otherwise, OOPS.
People complained about Smash 4 Bayonetta's Witch Tim, but my experience with it is my first time against it being me scoring a KO thinking I had successfully baited an air dodge. AN AIR DODGE. The reason people got so upset about it specifically is the 0-Deaths making interaction attempts aggravating, to where they were more bound to throw out random attacks for hitting capability pollution and not bother with any sort of scare tactics. Somehow, it's more disgusting than Cheappin's arbitrarily 1HKOing Counter. But what do I expect at this point, people want the sort of junk at 6:18. Know what I have to say to that? Try that sort of thing against me in Kid Icarus Uprising and I guarantee that you will eat SIX Skyscraper Club Neutral Shots before you throw out the Super Jump Punch equivalent and therefore end up being obliterated first because of your choice to carelessly get in my smashing range.
Long story short, L-Cancelling wouldn't be a good solution.
I think there's an even worse design: Touch of death, time out edition, from the 2 S+ characters Steve and Sonic. Is not only easy to excecute (Hit then run), but in general will also waste your time with painful boredom due to camping many times.
how is sonic a touch of death? most of his kills are off edgeguarding. I beat most sonics with ryu, just gotta play patient against him.
It’s because Sonic has the ability to damage you or take a stock, get the lead, and then spend the rest of the match running because he’s literally the fastest character and it’s not even close.
@@MD-se8ftSonic has a touch of death look it up
@@Zubotron09 maybe on palutena's temple, yeah maybe he can do that.
If he's that broken then y don't we see random players picking sonic and winning with him in big tournaments like steve.
@@cashbag there is no such thing as a "sonic touch of death"
Luigi was already kinda like that in 4 too he could land a 80-90% combo from a single grab and then could kill you with his true shoryuken
I honestly hate fighting Luigi, not because he has the zero to death, but if you want to win against him you have to play super lame otherwise you die instantly. I secondary Kirby and as soon as I swallow Luigi the match becomes a projectile spam fest. It's boring.
First off ToD is not a mechanic, second most fighting games don't end becod a ToD and thirdly "ToD" characters do not dominate the pro scene in smash so its not as bad as you're making it seem. I feel like you just got worked a few times online and are mad
Oh my god you are LITERALLY describing the modern Yu-Gi-Oh! meta
I never play competitive Yu-Gi-Oh for that reason
Boy i used to like yugioh, those old duels where I was praying on my next draw at the end of an epic struggle. Even games where i got crap luck would go for some time and I could see my death coming from some ways away. Now just hearing about modern yugioh gives me feelings of betrayal and disgust.
@@-JaggedGrace- back doing my day there weren't 50 billion cards that negated effects and trap cards were actually scary
@NightRaven5568 My main gripe with yugioh in its modern state is simply that, like the smash bros vid discusses regarding touch of death fighters, it's a very one sided feeling experience. Yugioh players who care about winning ranks and tourneys treat its gameplay like an arcade fighter more so than an actual card game, and it doesn't translate well to being a good spectator sport.
Combos take minutes on end, and that leaves one player inactive and not interacting for more time than they could interact if combos were executed in fewer same-turn actions. Its become optimized down to solitire vs a spectator that may or may not have an interrupt in their hand to try stopping a solitaire combo. It can all end turn one in a ftk or the opponent gets lucky and can stop the combo with their own combo that could end the duel turn 2....yugioh is called fast because of this but...I argue that while fewer turns occur, more time is spent on them than healthy and its a slog to wait through several minute long combos over and over when you can just spend about a minute tops playing your own turn and still win potentially in spite of all the combo play opposing you. Yugioh is so fast, its wrapoed around to being slow again, and not in a fun way imo
Iv mained luigi forever, im always gonna play him cuz i love luigi but i dont love the ease of playing him.
But i will say that theres soooo many ways to hit freestyle combos that are true which i love
I think smash should introduce something like combo scaleling or at least buff DI.
The combo scaling has to make sure it doesn't backfire. I'm still annoyed by when I punished Mega Man's B button spam with Power Pellet when he was at 120% and he lived, but he could kill me with Up Smash at 80% just fine. I thought Stale Moves was supposed to stop spam, not incite it.
They tried in Brawl. Everyone hated it and I'm starting to get amazed on how many complaints of smash could be answered with a "You tried that in brawl and hated it".
Lucario a touch of death character? Perhaps I'm biased because I used to main Lucario in Smash 4 & early Ultimate, but I'm not aware of any setups that can take a stock from 0%. Taking a stock with his forward smash at 30% is absurd yes, but you gotta remember Lucario has to be at high% to do that, smash attacks are kind of slow so the Lucario needs a hard read to hit it. Used to shock me, but in Ultimate, so many characters have ways to kill off of 30% on the opponent, that Lucario's forward smash just doesn't seem as impressive anymore, and it just kinda comes across as risking everything for a read, and if you miss that read, you are dead.
I'd be more concerned with aura sphere charge into back air shenanigans, but again, it's Lucario, you mess up at high%, you die.
Again, could be my Lucario bias showing because in Smash 4 I often lasted until high%s (160-190%) as long as you avoid rage shenanigans, regularly getting max aura (often leading to 2 stocks). In Ultimate, I'm lucky to make it past 100% with how many early kill confirms the whole roster has. With other characters I didn't notice it that much, but since Lucario is all about mentally pressuring the opponent when he is high%, it's kinda hard to not notice when he never gets to the % to ever make the opponent worry. In Ultimate, usually the opposite happens where people just underestimate his lower aura %s, so I take more stocks at low to mid aura stocks now. The difference between how Lucario feels between smash 4 and Ultimate is so massive I swear.
That vent out of the way. Yeah, touch of death characters kinda suck, but depending on how they are done, I can enjoy touch of death stuff. Like if it's something incredibly hard/rare to do, then I can get down with it. For now, the only touch of death characters I have is Ridley cheesing opponents out in various ways (which feels fine because the opponent is the one 0 to deathing him with 1-2 combos due to him being such massive combo food and light for his size), and Sephiroth because I am addicted to down smash into Giga Flare because the down smash feels kinda telegraphed before he even starts the animation because of his positioning/movement, so a decent opponent will generally see it coming. Also these two characters generally are focused on playing the game normally the majority of the time, because of how unreliable the 0 to deaths are, but they do exist.
Honorable mention to Meta Knight. Which is a 30% to death. If he misses that specific window, you know he ain't killing the opponent until something like 170%+ unless he's fighting a character with poor recovery, or he gets a really hard random read.
Also the two most consistent good players I play against are:
- A Pikachu main that has been playing since 64, and actually took all the advice I gave him to heart, and on top of that went to tournaments. If he catches me off-gaurd, he just needs 1 combo. If I'm paying attention, he only needs 2-3 combos on me with most characters.
- A Bayonetta main. Some characters fall out of Bayo's combos, but the ones that can't fall out of those combos.... Yeah she can still 0 to death just fine in Ultimate. Though it feels really random, like anytime I bring Mii Gunner or Ike out, it's 0 to death constantly. Yet my more common picks like Sephiroth, Meta Knight will fall out often. For some unknowable reason my Ridley gets out of the combos, which blows my mind because I'm used to everything working on him due to his sheer size (but ya know, he'll die on the second combo, so it doesn't really matter). I just do not understand Bayo combos at all (but at least I can do well in the bayo ditto against the bayo main. I keep forgetting that I can't hold down b during her combos though.)
So yeah, I definitely understand why people get annoyed with 0 to deaths. Kinda just feels like you're skipping a lot of the game, especially if the combo starter is kinda gimmicky and/or extremely hard to avoid.
I think what needs to change mechanics wise is making sdi and di more powerful and more mixup heavy. Focusing less on making it so you can always di out on stuff like greninja dash attack, but rather making it so one has to predict where they'll be. I imagine combos can be made better in general to make up for it (more hitstun and such) while giving more defensive (or increasing defensive) options when you're actually in hitstun/getting combo'd, making it so there's always something you can do.
Edit: I would also like a much larger focus on ground movement and tech chases in the mechanics of any potential future games.
Edit 2: And add parry
There is a Parry. Perfect Shield.
@@espurrseyes42 Whoops, I meant parry reflect, but that was indeed perfect shield at some point.
@@z-leigh6554
Oh. So you mean like Advancing Guard? Or a Burst. Something to push opponent's back and get pressure off you?
So you are telling me it’s less fun to fight kazuya/luigi/etc than something like steve/sonic/g&w? The most dominant characters in the game, who happen to be camping characters?
All those characters exist on both sides of the same fucked up coin. The way they are designed inherently strips the opponent of agency forcing to either camp in fear of getting one shotted or forced to hastily approach a camping opponent and risk getting punished for trying to chase them down assuming you can even chase them down.
yes
@@riotron1026 Then there's Steve in both sides of the coin at the same time; it can with the right tools ToD you and can also camp you out.
@@N12015 Steve is just an absolute mistake, and those in defense of him (or any busted character) just care about degenerate wins and ruining the scene, as always.
@@riotron1026Ironically, the character with the most "creative concept" kills creativity because of how limitless his options are.
High level tekken is certainly not putting you though a meat grinder, defense and movement are too strong, but most importantly unlike smash opportunities for combos outside stray pokes are much less common.
In fact its actually much much easier to get combos in pretty much any smash game than it is to consistently convert in any tekken game. Tekken is a game played in pokes and movement. Also very laughable when you said that there was a confined arena space in traditional fighters when you literally posted footage of an infinite stage.
When since were most fgc's zero to deaths?I only know of that in skull girls and some other anime fighters.Those only happen in tekken 8 under specific circumstances
anyone who has ever played a traditional fighter ever would know that everything you mentioned about them was completely off base. Please do at least a little research next time.
I think... you dont play traditional fighting games very much based on how you describe them lol
What sidescroller fighters have that smash doesn't have is corner mechanics. Usually in the form of shielding, or the stage resets after a certain amount of damage, or something like that. Smash could have a glass wall so that you need to be bounced off twice per stock, but you can still fall.
The stage for terry do have glass walls tho
Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again... said a shadow at the window... and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time...
But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.
You're definitely right that 0-death combos are unhealthy in Smash Ultimate with how they're done. The only way they are healthy is when they are a web that require good execution and a narrow range that each option works based on the SDI, DI and percent. Melee Fox embodies that idea. In fact Melee often has that shown all over as Captain Falcon even has Dair into Falcon Punch at some points.
I don't think melee is a good example. Melee fox isn't what characters should strive to be like. Actual ultimate fox is surprisingly similar for the available mechanics and a lot of non 1% players strongly dislike actually playing against him. He's just really good compared to most the cast, and when you aren't great it's exaggerated to make you feel like you lost at the character select screen. A better ideal to the video would actually be ZSS since she has to actually earn her keep.
I think Tod is fine. He's a cool guy. Sometimes it sucks when you can't get ToD off.
Its unavoidable in a high damage high movement, low defense kinda game. It's honestly funny he brings up tekken as a "0 to death" game because high level tekken is mostly defined by low commit poking and defensive movement. You see less combos out of high level tekken than you do mid to low level tekken because launchers have bad risk reward inherently.
As a UMvC3 player, first time?
Usually in UMVC3 you have to sink a lot of resources to get a kill in one combo though - well, unless it's Zero. Besides, that game is just absolutely bonkers. Game can be over in 10 seconds or it can go to time out, i see both on TNS decently frequently.
@@-JaggedGrace- Yeah lol
It's so incredibly depressing we'll never see a patch to tone down these Zero to Death combos.
Yeah it's frustrating. But if you're talking about character design then Kazuya is the best there is. He comes from Tekken and he plays exactly like a Tekken character would doesn't he.
The worst part is when people try to pretend that it takes "skill" to pull off these ez-bake death combos. None of the characters in this game take mechanical skill (it's a mental skill type of game), but if you want to play a character that requires something that somewhat resembles a high level of mechanical skill, play Sheik.
I particularly agree with your point at the near-end of the video… I’ve always lacked the words to express this though I felt something similar, & I feel grateful that you found these words. Take care!
To be honnest wario only has touch of death combos at top level, even glutonny messes up often his combos as they're very inconsistent due to rage and weird angles
10:05 wow thats crazy they really need to add a stage with infinite space or something to fix that
i dont mind characters with high reward. Or... infinite reward. The problem is that its not in melee and pm where you can properly move ariund them
I agree with almost all of this, except I don't really know why you used the Lucario clip at 12:14 as a prime example. For one, Lucario had to live to 146% to do that, which I'm pretty sure is a huge ask. Second, he hit Joker two separate times before the kill hit, joker had several chances to live there, not just one. Third, the kill move was Lucario's forward smash, which is relatively slow and committal. Fourth, he hit him right at the edge of the stage, which is meant to kill earlier, though I'll admit it probably could have killed from mid stage in that instance.
Bayo can still be touch of death
When the best option for counterplay is not playing, that's a problem.
If smash players keep insisting on playing with more than 2 stocks then I say keep adding more ToDs
7:16 - "Icies get their hands on you, and you basically die." (Words from a true IC main.)
Another thing is in a lot of games like tekken your moves start dealing significantly less damage after just a few hits into the combo, in smash moves getting stale happens much slower
Luigi grabbed so that kazuya could electric
12:44 Gluto Popped off unleashing his inner kid 😂😂 I haven’t moved like that since I was like 10 😂😂
C- CAPTAIN TOAD?!?!?
I find it funny that me and a friend of mine were talking about a very similar topic, regarding combo scaling in DragonBall Fighterz, Gulity Gear Strive, And Undernight 2
I like the video! My only gripe is I wouldn't describe Lucario as ToD. Aura is the thing that Lucario is built around - it is his niche. That potential is the reason why you would choose to use him, and he is balanced around that Aura. Not every high percent hit from Lucario is going to kill at 30% either, it's based on a ton of factors. I don't know if a rando-fsmash in the corner is fair to use as an example to say he's ToD. A ToD is typically a universal sequence that works on most characters, not a stray super powered hit. Bowser can also kill at 30% off a random fsmash at the ledge - I don't think I'd describe him as a ToD character in the same breath as Kazuya and Luigi.
Sure, maybe it is bad design, but for one, players are always gonna find the strategies that require the least amount of legwork. So, even if these ToDs were patched out, others might be found. A game's meta is always evolving, and so that means more exploits will be found.
Also, most traditional fighters rarely have true ToDs. Unless it's an anime fighter XD (mostly joking)
Plus, ToDs take time to master the execution. So, the ToD is the reward for taking time with that character.
I get that it xan be bullshit, but unless the game is seriously broken, it doesn't really kill the meta.
Luigi is also a polarizing character because yeah if he gets you he can steal a stock from you, but his recovery is also super easy to gimp
I think 0-death is in a similar plan of gimping bad recovery characters or just edge guarding in general as you can also die at 0 from a good edge guard. 1 is just on stage vs off stage and both require skill in either execution+DI Reading or reading recovery habits+positioning.
I'd definitely say edgeguarding is way more... I suppose the word would be dynamic? Than 0-death combos. On top of that, nobody is getting gimped at 0, and it's definitely harder to do that (let alone across the cast when you have character like pika, sora, and many more) than it is to just input the 0td combo
@@igirjei3717 gimping is 100% more likely to happen then getting TOD though. Inputting a TOD is also much more effort then you think it is as if anyone can just pick up a Icy or Kazuya TOD Day 1. Where as with edgeguarding there are plenty of bad recovery characters. Not to mention the good ol elite smash gimps of jab jab at ledge into opponent air dodging to ledge and missing, getting a jump sniped by item/projectile, accidentally foot stooled, etc.
@@burpinator1 well, a few things there. Only reason why gimping is way more likely to happen is because "you get gimped", rather than "you can 0-death", if that makes sense. Being gimpable is just a thing some characters have to deal with, but nobody has to deal with getting true 0-death combo'd. Similarly, not everyone can TOD while everyone can gimp.
Secondly, since recovering allows agency (except in specific situations such as when you have to use all of your recovery options to get back and you're like, doc or mac, or when all of your options to recover are exhausted and you're forced into a very specific recovery path). Sparg0 recovers way more often than a cloud should at top level. Why? Because sparg0 is an insane player and is really good at mixing up his recovery and making it back.
Thirdly, I won't say anyone can pick up any character and start winning tournaments day 1, because that's simply not true, however, I don't believe practicing one singular combo for an hour a day is even remotely as hard as learning several fundamental concepts and MUs to (reasonably) intricate details. If nearly every issue one could have with X character is solved by just grinding that combo in training mode (or in real matches, if there's no training mod), then I firmly believe that character is not hard
I will never think 0-deathing someone 3 times with kazyua is harder than doing the same with lucina, because the lucina requires a much higher understanding of the game to be able to do that. Even if lucina is a really easy character to pick up and play, I would say she's far from the easiest to win with.
And finally, disclaimer, no hate to anybody, people are free to pick whoever and play however they need to, all that matters in the end is the W, right? Hating on and harassing players for doing what they do to win, especially when it's perfectly within the rules, is not acceptable, and I find it annoying when smash players do it all the time. I will, however, say the character themself is not exempt from criticism. Characters like Steve and Roy are not playing the same game, and just the design of TODs alone devolves the game into a hurricane of suck. You're either running from the TOD character endlessly, lest you lose immediately because of insane risk reward, or you're endlessly trying to catch your opponent running from you because your character has no mobility or range. Neither player is actually playing the game at that point and I find it problematic
@@igirjei3717 1. Understandable
2. Also understandable but also for top players I believe they opt more for ledge trapping nowadays rather then risk a reversal from an attempted edgeguard.
3. Sure but if you were to go to any fighting game most would suggest you learn x character's Bread and Butter combos. Which is the normal. It's only different in smash cause combos have SO much variance due to weight, %, Height, knockback. That it's definitely the fault of character design when it came to Kazuya, Steve, etc. Did Kazuya need intangibility instead of armor? Not really.
4. You're correct in that a Lucina would have to put in more effort. But the same would be said if in a shiek vs Ganon match up if the number of neutral wins was 10>3 But Ganon still took the stock cause of a miscalculated unga bunga FSmash. Logically Shiek should've won the stock and in a hp dependant fighting game would have but not in Smash.
5. 100% agree with you on that. I think it's due to the creators of smash being out of touch with the competitive audience. Lack of support, patches, etc. Right now the best bet is to just be hopeful the next Smash game will do better while we slog through match ups people don't want to play due to campy characters or Camping TOD characters so you don't get TOD due to bad design on said TOD characters.
@@burpinator1 For 2, that's also true, although that ofc doesn't mean top players will *never* go for an edgeguard, especially against cloud, when him being offstage is about the only time he's really all that vulnerable. Plus, you can get reversal'd when attempting an edgeguard, but you won't get reverse 0-death'd if you drop your combo (unless you're fighting like, Luigi, then *maybe* you might)
For 3, yeah, learning your character's combos is completely normal and definitely one of the first things you would tell someone picking up a character, and while kazyua is egregious for more reasons than just this (including the ewgf invuln you mentioned), the fact that his combos almost completely eclipse everything else is what I find problematic. Obviously you don't get to be a top level kazyua and not at least understand the fundies, but generally the most kazyua need to learn how to do is to learn how to catch his opponent and how to make them regret being caught
For 4, you say that, but I think you're forgetting something. You don't have to pay for ganon. As in, ganon's f-smash has risk reward that actually makes sense. Granted, nobody wants to be unga bunga'd at 5 and explode on contact for it, but nobody wants to avoid unga bunga for 2 minutes straight and be completely unable to punish or even challenge it, let alone completely unable to survive it at literal 0 no matter where on the stage they are, where at least ganon won't kill you until getting a hit or two minimum (or a shield break, I suppose)
For 5, couldn't agree more. It's still so sad that there's not even a clear "correct" answer to dealing with Steve, it's rough how many characters punish you for playing the game, and it's rough how many characters thrive off of *not* playing the game. Ult still has it's great moments here and there, but (and I sound like a boomer rn) pre-COVID ultimate was peak as hell
I hope Nintendo tries a bit more to keep the characters that actively promote not playing the game in check, and to make them fun both to play as and to play against. While it'll never have perfect balance, I really don't think the answer to making conventionally trash characters viable should be to throw the concept of risk:reward into the gutter and turn them into cheesers. It's as hilarious as it is obnoxious
Lucario main here! This for the most part is a phenomenal video (as usual coming from you), and while I agree that Lucario has some characteristics of a TOD character, their Aura ability makes it far too polarizing to make then a true TOD character. They're only able to kill at 40% when they themselves are at around 130 or higher. It is kinda funny when Lucario players manage to pull one off.
Yea I thought it was a bit disingenuous for him to list that one at 12:14 as a touch of death, considering he hit Joker 3 separate times, and also was at frikkin 146%, AND had to land a Lucario forward smash. I don't think any other Lucario move could have killed there.
Smash has kinda been in a feature and speed creep death spiral since the back lash to brawl competitive. Its no wonder that the games look more and more like cutscenes now a days
Was that music at the beginning from "One Step From Eden"?
I know that I have heard it, but I am not sure if I am mistaking it for something else.
I can agree with some points, but it also feels as though you were scattered about which subject you were actually tackling: Touch of Death characters and early kills. I don't think you really separated them well in this instance and sort of lumped them into together as though they were the same level. Smash is a fundamentally a game where yoou can reasonably die early depending on the context of the situation. Kazuya combos and Lucario scoring a powered up Forward Smash at the ledge are incomparable. Polarization is something you'll find in Smash almost everywhere and what really sets it apart from most other fighters barring Samurai Showdown. I think early kills off something like a good read with a risky move(Lucurai Forward Smash at high Aura) is hype. I think consistent zero-to-deaths with minimal counterplay(Kazuya) is less hype, though in a world where we still had a few more balance patches, could still feasibly have a place.
Steves combo's just look so minecrafty and i love them
I agree with your statement when you say that TOD characters should not have confirmed setups that kill in every percent and how (most) characters should have low percent->mid percent->high percent combos that don’t link to one another.
For example, I main Mewtwo. He has falling N-air to Jab for low/mid percents and also rising confusion to forward air. As well as a few footstool disable setups. None of those combos link to one another and don’t result in a zero to death.
IF you have multiple stocks/characters/life bars you don't get to bitch about ToD characters.
KOF/Marvel guy
MVC2 player here! I looked away from the screen and Iron Man killed my three characters, broke my legs, blew up the ambulance, and torched my livestock after landing strong kick!
Send help
True honestly
Really solid breakdown and argument. I'm inclined to agree with your assertion of how problematic it is; it reminds me of the aspects of Brawl Meta-Knight that made him so broken, namely the percentage of his attacks with transcendent priority. Many could argue that that in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic, but in similar fashion to TOD characters, the mere likelihood of that impacting gameplay and skewing in favor of certain characters, all while forcing a different playstyle from everybody else, is considered to be bad balance in the gameplay loop given the gameplay loop's emphasis on variety in attacks and answers that all have counters and fake-out opportunities, which is what adds to the loop's inherent excitement factor and replayability.
TODs are so annoying, especially kazuya, because its damn near impossible to evade combos.
I sort of disagree on Lucario being mentioned in this group as a potential example for TODs, mainly due to the risk in comparison to the other examples.
Rather than forcing you to run all game, it's more of a time trial in a sense. Your normal gameplay goes as per usual until you take too long, which is what I think is the biggest thing that's missed.
Lucario doesn't punish you for getting hit once; it punishes you for taking your time. Or even worse, getting camped by a lighter middleweight with okay-ish speed. It's not like Sonic who's straight up too fast, it isn't Mac who has a comeback on top of extreme power, it's a test on efficiency which I believe encourages utilizing universal skills JUST to meet that faster paced gameplay.
Ice Climbers will always be Touch of Death characters
Touch of death isnt bad design in theory it just SUCKS in ultimate because theres no counterplay once youre getting comboed. Literally nobody complains about 0-deaths aka touch of deaths in melee because theyre hype and as the person getting attacked you can do something about it. Just another reason why ult is a bad competitive game.
1:08 Danganronpa 1 music, omg
I feel like your playing devils advocate here a bit like you know some of these points are exaggerated and are in part about feelings, but those feelings do exist for a good reason.
Kazuya is not a touch of death character when i play him
Im bad at his inputs