@@stevepoper8073 I think he means that you can play safe and spam lasers if you want, you can try to space people with fair or ftilt and play the "swordie game" or you can be aggressive and jump in and go for strings/combos. Wolf allows for a lot of different styles of play just like Mario
@@N12015 Wolf has a lot of fundamental play styles that you can lean on or mix into your own personal style like Mario. Wanna space? Go for it, wanna zone, sure. Wanna be aggressive, by all means.
@@stevepoper8073 Wolf is a pretty versatile character. You would be able to play him both agressive and defensively. My post was saying that you would be able to assess a player's tendencies and style of play better with a character like Wolf. Like if you played Wolf you would probably favor his neutral options like the gun and his tilts. You might also prioritize his punish game more as well. As opposed to someone more offensive who would be more inclined to pressure opponents with a more in you face or harassing sort of style.
It's interesting how Wolf Fire has gradually gained traction in the Wolf meta as a kill move. People are starting to realize how deceptively low the endlag is, and how effective it is for tech chases.
Yep I'll generally bank on fire wolf after getting like a soft nair tech chase at the ledge instead of going for a hard read down smash or dash attack since its power is in between both of those options and is generally worth the risk with more options covered.
I don't play Wolf, but when I do, I use it more than most Wolfs I see. What really sucks about getting hit with it, is you don't know which direction you're getting sent
@magnum567134 it's a solid kill option if you can read your opponent, and as a wolf main, it's one that I use frequently. But it requires you to be able to read your opponent or simply wait for an opportunity to strike because it has a fair amount of beginning and end lag and can be easily countered or punished outright. Still though, I wish I got to see more of it in higher level game play.
Basically while Wolf is a perfectly designed generalist, ROB is what you get when you push all of Wolf's factors to 101% to the point where he isn't actually a single archetype because he has the FULL capabilities of every archetype to the point where ROB is basically a transformation character that changes based on how you play him rather than being tied to a specific move. With Wolf they found the exact right point to cap his power so that you HAVE to use all of his traits rather than choosing which one you prefer.
As a Wolf main, I can confirm with everything you said. I was really happy when he came back from Brawl and even with so many new characters since the Wii era, I picked him up because he was so easy to learn at first, but as I started becoming better at the game I saw his potential as a rushdown fighter with very precise but devastating combos. He really is THE jack of all trades of SSBU as he is also very versatile to be used in different playstyles. I like getting up-close and personal, but if my opponent has a playstyle that counters mine, Wolf allows me to re-adjust my playstyle to exploit my opponents' weaknesses. I find myself doing this more often against Sonic players, for example. It's quite hard (especially online) to get up-close with Sonic but Wolf has incredible tools to force the opponent to fight you up-close.
i would love to see a "Why no one plays Greninja". been playing him since smash4 and he's generally considered "strong" but I'd love to see your take on why his player base is smaller comparatively to characters like joker!
I agree. I use too strongly binge play with Greninja but honestly it’s his lack of safe options. Though quick on the ground and even has solid edge getup gimmicks his out of shield options are really limited. His side B is slow and it only good for the occasional mixup kill, his counter isn’t the best due too it’s start up and his weight hurts him more than helps. Granted even with those flaws I believe Greninja is top tier potential. We just have no representation on him
As someone who will play greninja casually, but never competetively, it's his shield. Greninja's shield is one of the worst in the game because of how bad his out of shield options are. Unless you are a parry god, almost everything is safe on greninja's shield unless the attacker does a rising aerial or a cross-up. He has no way of fighting back against someone who hits his shield from upfront. Most other characters who have comparable out of shield options in terms of speed and atleast have more kill power and coverage. For example, Ike has some slow out of shield options, but atleast his grab is a reasonable speed and, if he manages to hit you with his out of shield option (either up-b or backair), you are probably dead. Greninja hitting a rising backair isn't scary and he sure as hell isn't hitting any other out of shield options due to their lack of coverage (up-air & up-smash) or decade long start-ups without enough range to punish spaced moves.
A lot of it has to do with his moves occasionally not working properly like up smash and up air. He's also is a glass cannon similar to Fox. However, unlike Fox, he doesn't have a safe kill move he can just kinda throw out, meaning he has to look for more kill confirms (which are also sometimes inconsistent), or just raw reads. Which makes him a lot worse in those last hit situations. In short, he can be a very frustrating character to play at times and that's why he's not very popular.
Was just thinking about this! He’s such a cool character with really interesting tools but he’s also definitely one of the worst of the fast, high damage low-mid weights
I think it's worth mentioning the fact that he is also a very good counter to zoners, not only because of his reflector, but his air mobility and safe moves.
I’ve been a wolf main for about 8 or so months now, and I have no regrets. This character is fun as hell, cool, strong, and is deserving of all the attention he receives
I want to quote a sentence from MoldyBagel's video about why Kid Buu has stood the test of time and remained a really solid character throughout the life of FighterZ: "Kid Buu is a generalist character, he has tools for all situations and he's really freaking good at them, he got nerfed in some aspects yet his tools remain fundamentally strong" Wolf is pretty much the same, he's an all rounder character that has avobe average options for most inportant scenarios in this game, he could get nerfed but his versatility would remain there
As someone who hates fighting Wolf, it comes down to his agency, as you said it's frustrating to fight someone who can always dictate the speed of the match. That and a lot of Wolf's moves are pretty spammy which is also pretty irritating
I thought I was so cool and special when I realized Wolf was top tier and started maining him week 1. Little did I know everyone had the same thought 😂
The only actual cheese he had in the past was how absurdly early his down smash sweet spot used to kill, and how early his back air kills. 1.) That down smash kill power has already been nerfed 2.) Back air sweet spot is surprisingly difficult to land, has a slow start up, and isn't something you can just throw out without risk
the reason why I like Wolf is that there is no moment where Wolf can't do anything in an MU. all of his tools are functional, he is easy to use, the percentages of his enemies are easy to keep track of for combos, his recovery is decent if not the most fair recovery someone like him can have. Even if an MU looks down on him, he isn't hopeless.
Wolf is also more fun to play against than most top tiers imo. His combos are stylish and it feels less unfair to lose to him than say, Kazuya or Sephiroth
I’m sorry but SEPHIROTH?? That is way more fair than wolf, sephiroth has basically no bullshit and you can always outplay him, wolf has blaster and fair bair and extreme overall power that can make him extremely frustrating to play against.
You forgot to mention that Pikachu can use falling nair to true combo into down smash and up smash which both kill around 130/140%. This works at any percent btw, his nair is just that good. So just something to consider for his kill confirms.
Idea for another series like this. Why Everyone Stopped Playing insert character here. Discussing why certain characters had major dropoff at top level play throughout the lifespan of the game. I think the poster child for this has to be Lucina
Short answer: Because even if you didn’t mean to hit someone or chose the wrong option and traded, his angles still force a tech chase scenario straight into kills making you feel like your amazing at the game. (Real answer for many)
At the end you reference that at no point was Wolf over the cusp of people complaining about him, but I definitely remember seeing people not like Wolf before a certain patch. That patch nerfed his blaster and (sorta) down smash, which were frankly kind of ridiculous back then. Great discussion on generalists tho.
I forgot blaster was nerfed, but I definitely remember having a lot of trouble with it. I remember up smash and dash attack being the biggest problem moves early on though. I think down smash was more of something you would experience in highly competitive matches.
I've been saying this forever, Wolf, Cloud, and Pit are the real jack of all trades in this game. Mario is a short ranged rushdown and Lucina is more or less a spacer who plays defensively
Personally I love playing Wolf because I mained Fox back in OG and Melee, and come Brawl they overtuned Fox's speed to such a ludicrous extent that I would literally lose track of him AS I WAS PLAYING. So I swapped to Wolf, who was functionally Fox but slowed down to a manageable level. I loved their reflect option, the up and side specials were straightforward and shockingly versatile to use, they just felt really good to control. no tricks or gimmicks, and you had a nice range option to default to at range basically whenever.
You should do a dual episode, or just release 2 videos around the same time. The first would be “Why everybody plays Ness” and the second would be “Why nobody plays Lucas”
There is nothing more beautiful in Ultimate than a Wolf player that just sits there menacingly and reacts to your wiffs. This is why despite him not playing Wolf for like 3 years, Zackray is still my favorite Wolf player, his Wolf matches back then were a work of art.
@@gabrielmoravargas4728 cloud in the same tier as Steve, Pyra or joker? Absolutely no. Some few People just think he’s top tier cause online or because their characters lose the cloud matchup so bad, but this is offline and he’s not top tier definitely, too many flaws. Upper high tier tho
@@Ericspil790 bro, he is like a slightly less powerful Roy pretty much, he has good speed, absurd range, extremely safe on shield, and a pseudo bad recovery that is actaully good once every like 5 times. If you consider top tier to be top 20 or 15, he's definitely top tier for me
i would like to slightly disagree with the sugesstion at the beginning that in melee fox and falco had similar win conditions, while on the surface their kits were identical their win conditions couldnt be more different. falco's two strongest kill moves, down air and f smash are both either only alright on fox in the case of f smash or literally can never kill ever in the case of dair
When I got back into competitive Smash last year, I initially had a few doubts on Wolf. Then I realized I live in the same region as CDK and I began to use the character more often. Now I believe Wolf is Top 3 in Ultimate.
Keep in mind that before Ult's release, nobody expected Pichu to be as good as he was on launch since he was originally designed to be a joke character but people didn't consider that Melee was the game where Pikachu was at his weakest and Pichu has most of his stats slightly altered from Pika, and if Pikachu is top tier in the game the Pichu returns, I think you can do the math.
I absolutely hate fighting Wolf because he’s pretty much just everything you could ever want in a character. He beats other brawlers with his disjoints and Blaster (I HATE THIS MOVE UGH), he whiff punishes sword characters with his great aerial mobility, and he disrupts zoners with his reflector. He even has a last-ditch effort cheese kill that’s not too hard to land (landing F-air to Side B offstage). Basically, I get skill checked incredibly hard against this character 😅
Yeah Rob legitimately does everything Wolf does but better with his main downside being a bit slower and bigger. Probably one of the reasons why Rob is one of Wolf's hardest MUs. If you struggle fighting Wolf, I legitimately recommend picking Wolf up and learning his facets since its a character that everybody should know how to fight against. I've been a Wolf main for 3 years and I don't lose to Wolf players because I understand his biggest weaknesses and common habits that most Wolf players have, including myself.
@@spicymeatballs2thespicening Genuinely I think he's one of the easiest characters in the game to parry with a complete lack of any multihits plus his main neutral tools (fair and nair) both being frame 7 (up air as well) and both being easy to shield grab if not spaced properly (or if you use sourspot nair). I also think this one factor is a big reason why he can struggle against FGC characters a lot since he has to commit a lot more to aerial pressure than like any swordie or Palutena. Obviously recovery is the most glaring weakness with him being extremely double jump dependant and having an awful airdodge, but I think he has a number of small weaknesses that hinder him from freeing up worse characters or having slight losing matchups to relevant characters. The fact that Wolf can't do two aerials in one shortop or even one full hop can make his aerial approaches very predictable and like I said earlier, makes him have to commit more for big callouts. Wolf also being the perfect combo weight and kill weight in addition to being a fast faller can put him in 50/50 situations where he can just plainly die at sub 50 or lose his double jump and play the offstage game. His out of shield game might also be his second worst trait since shield grab is generally his fastest option with nair and fair out of shield being really easy to punish due to the amount of airlag they have and up smash being really only viable out of parry on any non burst option move. This trait generally makes Wolf players have to jump or roll out of shield and respect pressure from swordies and brawlers with better frame data. When it comes to Wolf player weaknesses, I'd easily say that most Wolf players are really bad at using laser and rely on it wayy too much neutral where its best purpose is in safe whiff punishing, safe advantage (off of throws and tech chases) and burning an airdodge offstage. I've seen so many Wolf players lose sets from 1 or 2 bad lasers as against certain characters it can either cost you stage control or set you up for an easy aerial combo starter. I'm speaking from personal experience as I used to get destroyed by rush downs from relying on laser while I now rely on his best trait which is ambiguous movement and aerial drift. Last point, I think the actual main reason why Wolf can struggle to kill is due to his bair not autocancelling low to the ground like fair, making it only useful in pressuring at short hop and beyond height (unlike a Palu or Joker bair for example). This makes it so Wolf doesn't have a killing forward facing aerial at all and his only reliable killing aerial is bair specifically when catching jumps. In comparison to other top tiers, it makes Wolf have to work that extra bit harder and be more creative at high level in order to secure that kill post tech chase percents as he can't really rely on overwhelming someone with his frame data; even lots of low-mid tiers have better frame data with equal or greater kill power for a number of moves. There's a few other small weaknesses but they'd probably be considered more like nitpicks to most people lol. Sorry for the unintentional essay, been maining the character for 3.5 years and have developed a lot of thoughts on him and in the meta
I would also add that his disadvantage is pretty good against anyone who is not a swordie: he can fastfall airdodge through anything or just move away and reversal you even with a combo starter, also his hurtbox is smol and shifts a lot while being protected by big hitboxes
I think that, also from a viewership perspective for the more casual fanbase, people like Shofu had a large influence on building up hype for him ever since he wasn’t added in smash 4.
IMO Wolf is the most fun character to play in this game. I go through phases where I play different characters but I always go back to Wolf at the end of the day.
I’m a bit curious if you make a video talking about the generalists (the jack-of-all-trades), because the concept itself has really fascinated me for the longest time and want to learn more about them on how to make them successful without making the either too weak or too broken.
I agree that wolf is good at a lot of things, especially the things you mentioned (range, combos, stray kills, and mobility despite not being as fast Fox), but I wouldn’t say he’s a master, or even good, at everything. My main thing is that I think his recovery is, at most, sub-par like many other top tiers, such as The Aegis and Kazuya. His up b is very short and suffers from the same charge thing as the up b’s of the other two in his franchise, Ridley, and Sephiroth. And wolf slash puts you in free fall so you can’t use it in conjunction with his up-b like the other two in his franchise can use theirs. Even Kazuya can atleast still use moves after u-b or side-b. I think what makes him very respected (even more so than Cloud as far as I know) is the fact that he doesn’t use this weakness of recovery to justify making himself really good in one specific area or a few specific areas, and instead just uses it to justify making himself good at a bunch of things (as you said). Cloud also suffers from this recovery issue, and while Cloud is still pretty well-rounded in the rest of his moveset, Cloud uses this recovery weakness to justify having very good range without the significant tradeoff of killpower or frame data. He’s a tiny bit of a glass cannon, but instead of funneling all his power into one area like some other glass cannons (Mac and Sephiroth being notable examples), he evenly distributes it among the rest of his moveset. And of course, just like you said, the thing that separates him from many others that are similar to him in the previously mentioned ways is that he is objectively overtuned. But no one really cares, cuz at the end of the day, he’s just cool like that, and you gotta respect him for it.
Just started practicing with wolf and it’s so different from the other characters I’ve played for a bit. I think it will definitely be worth the grind tho. His damage output is great and he’s pretty skill intensive so I’m excited to practice with him
dude wolf was my main on smash brawl and him coming back was pretty goddamn hype for me, and he felt way better than before, but i don't main him on ultimate cause i wanted to play other offers like cloud, sephiroth, bowser, byleth, etc.
Fox and Falco are known because of Melee, and Wolf is known not even because of Brawl, but because of Ultimate at this point. And why not preserve the characters this way
This would be an AMAZING follow up to Wolf since they both are jack of all trades, yet one is very popular and the other one never played. I'm guessing it's inconsistency and lack of sauce.
Probably the most boring character to play in the whole game imo, they do nothing which some other character doesn't do better. Average or below average at everything. They suffer a bit as well from having ungenerous hitboxes like WFT.
I think a Why No One Plays for Ike would be pretty interesting. I'm of the opinion he's high B or low A tier but almost no one plays him, especially when compared to the height of WiFi or the start of Ultimate.
Yes I'd like this as well. I main Ike and on paper he's solo viable, with good matchups across the board except against a few top tiers. But he also has almost no representation at top level so it's hard to know for sure if he's underdeveloped or just lacks the tools to win big tournaments.
@@oscarcapac1786 it almost feels like he has the same problem he had in brawl, where he's pretty alright except that the matchups against the high tiers prevent him from seeing representation
@@BlackKnightsCommander It's not even like he's bad against all top tiers : Ike beats Ness and GnW for instance, and arguably goes even with Steve as well. But he does have unfavorable matchups against min min, sephiroth, joker, roy and palutena, which are all pretty common.
@@oscarcapac1786 it was the same in Brawl. The matchups against MK, Olimar and Dedede were bad enough to drop him to mid tier even though he was alright against the rest of the cast.
For being one of the easiest characters to edgeguard in the game but also being played by everyone and considered a top tier is honestly saying something
Wolf becoming a top tier after being pretty below average in Brawl made me so happy. Plus them updating his design to be closer to Star Fox 64 than Star Fox Command was the icing on the cake.
Can somebody tell me what he said at 12:32 right after "amazing two framing potential" it goes: "he has a (missing word) kick that kills" Thanks!. I hear "sex" but i don't think that the right word^^'
Been a Wolf main since I saw Zackray's run at Genesis 6 and I do genuinely think that he's most respectable and fun top tier to play with the ability to imprint your playstyle onto all of his varying facets. I do think that he has definitely dropped off a little in the meta and sits around the top 15 placing with him struggling a bit more with the super meta relevant characters like Rob, Steve and Roy but he'll likely always be a strong pick if you wanna bet on your fundamentals and ability to outplay your opponent. I'm probably biased but I legit think Wolf might be the best designed character in at least Smash Ultimate and maybe Smash in general as he benefits greatly from utilizing literally move in his kit
Wolf has been my solo main in Brawl. Deeply missing from smash 4 I replaced him with Mewtwo until Ultimate came out and Wolf is my solo main again. Not gonna lie, I feel kinda salty everyone plays Wolf because he’s top tier when everybody bashed him back in Brawl.
Hey nice video but just a quick remark, I’m kinda sick and have some headaches for context but in order to eat your voice I had to put the sound up but when an ad poped it was very loud and uncomfortable and same for the music at the end, I don’t think I’m alone in that case so just letting you know
Used to main wolf alongside falcon and Mario, but now that I almost always play against CPUs, I find wolf too simple in both play style and personality, plus his recovery often majorly aggravates me, as it doesn’t let you do much cool edge guarding, so now dedede has replaced him :)
Wolf is the one character i really want to get better at, but struggle to get wins with. My fundies aren't great, and ive only been playing for less than a year. It's actually sad my most successful characters against my friends is Isabelle and Incinaroar.
wolf always has been good in super smash. given that they are old and were good in most games people will complain less quickly about them. only exception is jigglypuff but wolf also has a cool design to boot
I was honestly hoping you’d bring up some more comparisons with Falco when you brought up Edgeguarding… kinda disappointing. Please do a video on Falco.
Wolf is different from characters in that he doesn't really have a flowchart or universal gameplan for most MUs and playstyles, so its up to the Wolf player to understand what kind of playstyle they need to be using, mixing up their aggression and defence and looking for weaknesses in the opponents play to make decisive plays
Especially dislike his dthrow dash attack combo. It just feels like it combos for too long and it takes just a bit too long to execute that the feeling of lack of agency just pops up constantly with it. Even though other throw combos are the same, his just really triggers that feeling of annoyance.
