The thing is, I use him, win with him, and still don’t think he’s good.
I’m not taking it personally, but it does annoy me a bit when people say Sonic sucks. I’ve gotten a thousand times more pressure on me from good Sonics than I’ve ever gotten from Marth. Sonic doesn’t have disjointed hitboxes… so what, Meta Knight doesn’t have fireballs, doesn’t make him low tier. Every character has something another character doesn’t. You speak as if Sonic has absolutely nothing at all, that he’s just a sprite.
I’m not sure if I agree with the whole matchup thing, especially since I’m not sure how matchups go with this Sonic style. In any case I don’t think bad matchups = low tier. Since I’m not sure what you know about Sonic, I don’t know if they can be counted as bad matchups. Not to say that you or anyone else’s info on this sorta thing is unreliable, but before I understand something to be true I have to see something that leads to it
btw, I did Sonic vs Meta Knight recently. I’m not sure what this match is dependent upon at all, but I’ll go ahead and say that the guy I was playing probably wasn’t good with him because I ran most of the match. That and he wasn’t very familiar with the lag on Meta Knight’s attacks. Until I find someone like that, I won’t really get into what I think.
Well, I play meta as my main and am dabbling in sonic, so if anyone wants to play online, I’ll be happy to let you guys practice the meta-sonic match up.
So I was messing around in training mode and I saw some stuff I liked. forward B is better for comboing into normals, you have to let the jump part hit and then jump and combo into a normal, where as the down B version is better for comboing into spin dash jump, like, jump the second the spin dash hits the guy. Does close to 20% and it’s safe, seems like a good approach to me.
Also I was messing around with his forward smash, using fox trotting for it is kinda nice. Or just run full speed behind someone, pause for a brief second and then c stick towards the guy, it’s pretty fast and it seems like a nice way to sneak in a forward smash.
Because of the way he hovers, homing dash seems pretty good for evasion.
I thought most of his KO potential came from F-smash and B-air, but I saw the other day that U-air was great for it too. Hell U-air is great to use overall period IMO. It’s also harder to DI from a throw > spring > U-air than it is a throw > spring > B-air. Kills with much less trouble. I think his homing B is great for edge guarding if they’re a bit aways from the edge, but I only use it once so I can get the knock back. Sometimes, when they’re just normally attacking, you can use it occasionally and it’ll get a hit for you.
damn. I was just messing around with that the other day. I used to use B-down because it’s pretty instance and fast on the ground, but I noticed that B-forward mysteriously comboes better. I hate that it takes startup, but I think it might be better overall.
and sure, if you know how to use the guy’s sword I’ll play you
Okay so here are some random things I’ve learned with Sonic (it might be common knowledge, but i’ll say it anyway):
I really think the big plus sonic has going for him is he has crazy mix-up potential. Down-B can be stopped while being charged or you can slow it down and speed it back up to attack. What i like to do is either:
1)charge down-B and charge at the dude
2)stop the charge and then run in and throw or attack
3)charge up real quick, slow it down, then charge it up and attack
4)or i’ll just dash at them with the down-B, and either as soon as i let go i’ll jump and do an air attack or i’ll jump and cancel the spin dash right before i hit them
those are some mix-ups i use against people. the thing with sonic is he doesn’t really have any good move to spam and rack up dmg real quick. so you gotta play really smart, and just try to trick the other guy, keep him on his toes. it’s a real big mind game when playing sonic.
you also have to use his super fast movement speed to pick your battles. use his run speed to run away from a fight or engage in it.
i really like to use his down smash b/c its very quick and it hits on both sides. what i noticed is i like to use it as a ghetto anti-air since he gets very low during the attack. so if they come at you from the air and try to attack you can try to just time the D-smash so their attack will whiff and you can hit him.
anyway thats all i got right now. i’m still pretty scrubby so take my advice with a grain of salt
hm… question for those who play Sonic. I notice a lot of grabs are necessary to keep up the illusion of attacking while being safe, so I’ve tried to erase the lag from his grabs. However, I notice it’s a bit slower than I think… for those who attack using any grab and for those who try to use a standing grab in all situations, do you think the standing grab is that much more worth it?
edit: eh nm actually. I’ve found that outside of the starting animation, you can get a fast lagless grab 100% of the time. just let go of the control stick while running, shield, then grab
I don’t exactly think there’s a grand conspiracy on SRK to hate on Sonic for some non-existant goal. I mean…He just sucks! You can play him. You can not play him. Either way, there’s no risk of him being able to kill you without an item until you hit 130%. Sonic with items is something to fear. But without them, he’s just not that good! Period!
Man, it’s funny that people are accusing us of hating the game because we say that Sonic sucks.
…that’s why you cancel his run into a shield…don’t let go of the control stick when sonic is running because you’ll often times get his skid. The skid can’t be canceled into a shield unfortunately from my experience…
I’veh ad numerous problems with it, but I understand it all now. if you’re running, shield into grab is actually a lot faster AND safer than normal grabbing. But if you’re starting up a run, you can’t cancel your run into shieldgrab because it’s not truly a run yet. And when I say let go of the control stick, I didn’t mean to the point where he skids… I just meant that this helps against dash grab bias. Come to think of it though I guess you could still hold the control stick if you have the timing down correctly, but I prefer to let it go so that I don’t mess up at all.
false. Sonic can, very easily, kill a lot of chars at kill 60-80% with edge guarding and sometimes KOs. even if he can’t kill, he can edge guard. even if he can’t do that, he’s great at building up damage… which means that at some point he’ll have many edge guard opportunities. of course that’s not discounting the fact that he’d have to take damage to do this if he doesn’t get a straight KO. he’ll KO just about anyone over 100% (read: not specificaly at 130%, just 100%+) if he can get them to the top of the screen, even heavy chars. nevermind the fact that Sonic has the ability to stay safe while doing this.
this is kinda why I get annoyed when people say Sonic sucks. Sonic may damn well be the sorriest son of a bitch character in the game, but most people are spouting BS about his abilities/disadvantages or flat out ignoring them. Know your shit before you start talking… People talking about how hard it is to land his KO moves and shit. If you can land a falcon knee and a Zelda tippy toe, you can land a B-air with much less hassle
eh…let them say what they want…shrugs…I’m still going to be doing my thing regardless…:tup:
The character? No. The food chain? Yes.
I will too. In fact I was eager to show people “my thing”, up close and personal in all its glory…
if I could rep you I would. Sonic the char + Sonic the fast food place mentionings always = A+
April 14 edit (because I don’t wanna make a new post): okay, fuck. Remember I enemies are KOed at 60-80% and said U-air’s harder to DI from? Change that to enemies are KOed at 80-100% and it’s useless to follow up on a spring attack unless your opponent doesn’t DI the throw. I think I have a counter though… if they DI your U-throw each time, take advantage of their DI; do a D-throw instead. that’ll use their DI against them.
I thought I had mentioned before that if the opponent was expecting it…a spring pursuit was difficult…eh…oh well
didn’t know difficult meant impossible though. holy shit. using that DI against them is great though.
btw, another thing I’ve figured out lately… the “safe game” I tried to play with Sonic is garbage (tested it, found out there are other chars who can take significantly less damage overall than Sonic); it’s better to just rush at your opponent like a madman and hope that your speed > reaction. This is what I’ve been trying to do lately, moving so fast and doing so much shit that my next move just looks “???” when it comes out. this may be a bad way to play him, but it’s doing much better than being safe. Plus if you’re fast enough, you can control every aspect of the battle, including the positions of both you and your opponent.
I feel a good mixture of both works out well… Which is just playing smart in other words. A turtling Sonic is mad annoying, but when it comes down to crunch time it’s hard for Sonic to pull off a KO, I’ve found. Playing too wildly leads to SDs, and even while playing so wildly, Sonic is still a tad predictable.
yeah, I know it’s predictable. But it’s fast. If it’s fast enough, it doesn’t matter how predictable it is cause it’ll hit (one reason I like using his dash attack so much).
btw i hear you on that good mixture of both. that’s working out fine.
My experience with Sonic is that it’s great to just be as annoying as possible with him. Even if I don’t win the FFAs and whatnot at least I was able to piss everyone off by smacking them and running around a lot. His inability to KO easily has come up many many times in this thread and that is the painful truth.
But one thing I’ve seen is that he’s great in a team with someone who can KO at low percentages. He builds up the pain and then Ganon blows em away. The irritability of Sonic + Killing Power = Beautiful.
El Ninja said something like that too me earlier…so now 2 people say that the team of ganon and sonic might be nice. I haven’t even done any team battles yet but I’d like to explore that venture at some point. I kill people just fine most of the time with the hedgehog though but I suppose where he may be having a bit of difficult Ganon will just waltz in and defeat everyone with his neck beard.
what debate in particular are you talking about? the discussion of the wizard and hedgehog combo?
don’t pay attention to anything Shadow Ace says. he probably can’t even play Sonic. that’s why he hasn’t contributed yet looks down on the topic; he wants to look informed when really he knows nothing special. Tip, Shadow: a person’s inactions can reveal a lot more about them than their actions.
btw Sonichuman, I’ve been using the B moves more lately. People say all 3 of the spins are garbage, but as I get better I find that they get better as well. B-neutral can catch people off-guard, and even if it doesn’t, you’re safe if it connect to them and sends you back into the air. B-right lets you follow up with a combo easily upon hit. B-down’s good for building up damage.
more to add, his F-smash has some nice range. it’s long enough to keep him safe. also, vs chars with slow attacks like Ike, Sonic absolutely rapes them. Ike can’t even throw a smash move vs Sonic without getting punished for it. In fact, the only attacks I think Ike has a solid chance of landing on him are the jab combo, B-right, F-air, U-smash, and N-air. Played a Wolf this morning. Sonic can rape that matchup just by doing 3 things: 1) keeping Wolf from standing very close to him, 2) distance yourself enough to not be hit by attacks like F-smash and his dash attack, and 3) never fight an airborn Wolf (unless he’s above you or you’re below him. but this is at your own risk). if you can avoid a D-smash and most of Wolf’s aerials, you can pretty much avoid death.
btw, as much as I hate to say it, I think I’m excellent at fighting in SSBB but my edge guarding (outside of playing with Meta Knight, Ike, Wario, Lucario, and maybe Mario) needs some serious work. The only real edge guarding tactics I have with Sonic are D-air (which is pretty iffy), trying to hit with a B-neutral (oh yeah, tip about that for those who don’t know: never do your second jump if you plan to edge guard using that move. this works great), and since I rarely use that I haven’t understood the homing. And I’m not sure what causes it, but if you F-air someone that’s off the stage, that sends them back onto the stage. I don’t know if it’s because they can always DI an F-air to land back on the stage or if it’s because I’m doing it too far to the left (ex. they’re on left side of stage, I jump and F-air and Sonic’s head appears at the left of their body, allowing them to DI to the right because the hit came from their left). So any help anyone can give on edge guarding is great.
edit: I don’t know much about team games, but I’m not sure Sonic Ganon would work so well. I kinda notice the chars that kinda have styles that overlap (ex. Marth and Ike) do well together though. For Ganon, give him another power whore to team up with (DK maybe?), and for Sonic, someone who can edge guard yet still move quickly (Pikachu comes to mind) would be lovely.