Custom Villager analysis/how to beat it - improved formatting edition

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Alright so, ive been encouraged to make a PSA of sorts about Custom Villager and how he as a character affects the metagame now and in the future if customs continue to be a staple. For starters, im just going to lay down my personal opinions on what'd probably be the move most people think is suspect: Extreme Balloon Trip (exploding balloons). Honestly, of the three primary custom moves villager has (Pushy Lloid, Counter Seed, Extreme Balloon Trip) i think the least integral of the whole camp/defensive strategy is the balloons, now dont get me wrong theyre great but as im going to go into detail youll see why if anything theyre just an extra rather than what validates the strategy itself.


Now something you should know of course about the exploding balloons is how they function, all too many times ive been asked "how are you detonating them?" "what button did you push?" "what was that?" probably because the player hasnt tested the move itself but ill go over the details to alleviate any confusion. There are of course 2 balloons that are deployed every time you use up-B, while in balloon trip at any point of time if you press A(attack) you will detonate 1 balloon, an interesting thing to keep in mind is that no matter which way you are facing when you explode 1 balloon the one that detonates will ALWAYS be the one on the right, if you explode the 2nd balloon you will fly upwards in free-fall/helpless and only after reaching the apex of the burst upwards will you be able to grab the ledge(note: after using balloon trip for extended periods of time, in the same concept of R.O.B. and his gasoline, the balloon trip will not be able to go as far, and at some point when you go to press A to detonate one balloon it will automatically detonate both and send you into free-fall leaving yourself very open to a punish), this makes punishing villager if he somehow misses the ledge from the balloon trip itself relatively easy.


The main "tactic" though that everyone thinks is suspect is grabbing the ledge over and over with the exploding balloons, how does this work? Well, at any point of time, if there are balloons on the screen from a villager that have been disconnected from him because of balloon trip ending, most commonly from grabbing the ledge but also from landing on the ground or balloon trip running out (flying with it too long) if you use up-B again before they regularly disappear, wherever they are, they will explode. An intricacy that is easily missed is that the explosions themselves have two hitboxes, a "weak" one and a "strong" one the weak one is on the outskirts of the explosion radius and deal roughly 5-6% damage, and then there is the strong hitbox that deals 8-9% which is in the center of the explosion radius, the stronger hitbox has capability of killing although only after 160% in most cases.


Now ill go into its properties, and just why this is even complained about in the first place, the balloons are transcendental and so are the explosions, so when grabbing the ledge from balloon trip (this even applies for default) the balloons will fly out and way from when they disconnect from villager when he grabs the ledge(note: the balloons themselves will fly off in random directions based off of RNG so it is impossible to accurately plan and cover yourself with them due to their random nature, although they are usually helpful regardless), often causing one balloon to clip through the stage itself and because the balloon and its explosion are transcendental dropping off the ledge and using up-B will explode both previous balloons instantly and the previous balloons explosion is used to essentially shark people on stage and at face value seems to be near impossible to deal with, but ill get to how thats incorrect.


Like everything in smash and fighting games in general, no move is literally perfect, and everything has an answer, and extreme balloon trip is no exception, the basis of the strategy is of course the planking/ledge stalling and constant explosions from a "safe spot" to pester and make your opponent become impatient. But lets think about the implications, you have to re-grab the ledge in order for this to work effectively, landing on stage with the balloons would leave yourself so open that its obviously never going to be used in this way, so you are more or less relegated to grabbing the ledge again, and introduced with Smash 4 is the mechanic of losing any invincibility if you re-grab the edge before either touching the ground again and or taking any amount of damage. Because of this, the whole strategy if anything is more of a novelty than necessity.


So just what can counter it? Because thats the meat of what im going to be talking about instead of details and etc. above, now keep in mind that i havent played devils advocate and tested literally everything and im going off of past experience and things that can theoretically work, also im sure there are some custom moves that provide an answer but i dont know about, hell, mike kirby did this to me the first time i played against him with Kirby's meteor stone custom that gave him a decisive win over me, because im sure he actually bothered to think out what would counter this strat, something that apparently many players refuse to do which is why i have to write this out for you in the first place.


Although a very blunt and to some an unacceptable answer to this is after getting a % lead camping out on the opposite side of the stage and waiting for me to come to you, which will inevitably happen, why? Because if i dont have the % lead and i refuse to approach you, you will eventually win the match by time-out, something that i recognize and therefore wont let happen, but because of that it ends up with me having to approach you, something villager isnt that great at, giving you not only an advantage but stopping the tactic from even happening. But youre here to get answers on how to stop it from happening after its started, and yes i hate to admit it but it can be very character specific in certain circumstances. In general, because the tactic obviously involves me leaving myself completely vulnerable for upwards of 30frames at a time in a pre-determined area (the ledge) a very easy way to stop this from happening is by having some form of a projectile that can hit me on the ledge, the ones that tend to be most effective are something downward angled and or just large enough to hit me on the ledge (note: villagers head slightly pokes over the ledge while holding onto it so youll be surprised just how many projectiles can manage to clip his hitbox).


Some examples of me going through the character select screen from left to right top to bottom to simplify it for me: Marios default fireball, Luigis bouncing fireball custom, Peach's turnips(?), Bowsers large but fast dissipating fire breath(?), Yoshis eggs, Luma warps appearing hitbox, Bowser Jr.s mechakoopa being thrown, Warios dismounted bike(?), Diddy kongs banana pluck/throw(?), G&W's bacon(?), Just about all of Links projectiles, Zeldas dins fire(maybe also her downB), Sheiks gravity grenade and default grenade, Just about all of Toon Links projectiles, Samus' full charge shot, Pits arrows (?), Palutenas Explosive Flame, Robins archfire, Duck hunts can(?), Dedede's gordos(?), Pikachus jolts, Lucarios full charged/max aura aura sphere, Greninjas full charged water shurikan, R.O.B.'s angled laser, Ness' default PK fire and Lucas version PK thunder, Villagers Pushy Lloid detonation, Olimars pikmin toss, Wii Fit trainers full charged sun salutation and downwards soccer ball custom, Dr. Marios default pills with proper positioning, Dark pits arrows(?), Pac man's hydrant and certain fruit, Mega Man's down air, down forward metal blade, skull barrier thrown, probably other stuff but idk what, Sonics spring (?), Mewtwos full charged shadow ball, Mii brawlers shotput.


Now keep in mind i havent personally tested nor experienced all of these and im sure there are other projectiles (some of which likely being customs) not even mentioned here that would work to hit me while im on the ledge, although you have to also keep in mind that i can of course find some sort of way to dodge some of these by either falling off the ledge or rolling onto the stage, etc. But the point is that they CAN hit me on the ledge and you should be relatively safe/completely safe in going for the attempt so its something you need to take advantage of, because ill only really go for the exploding balloon stall/gimmick for as long as its going to keep on working in my favor, if i play someone and they show no sign of countering it or making me pay for it im going to keep on doing it until it bites me in the ass (see: mike kirby using meteor stone) which brings me to my next point, SPIKES


With meteor canceling removed AND the obvious 30-ish frames of me being incapable of doing anything there are ample times where you can go for spikes/meteors which often times will result in taking a stock, giving you an insane lead over me which only gets worse when you realize villager struggles getting kills, and no i dont mean the %'s at which he gets them like bowling ball, i mean what it takes to actually get them, all of my kill moves involve getting a read or a clean hit in some way and they dont combo into eachother like a hoo-haa or whatever.


Now itd be even harder to determine what spikes would exactly be effective but ill tell you whats given me trouble, keep in mind you could go into the lab and figure it out yourself but this is the smash community so ill give you some ideas: Donkey Kongs reverse forward air spike, ZSS' downB spike, Kirbys Meteor Stone(this one is especially effective since it soaks the explosions), Charizards down air, Captain falcon stomping on my head (brother), Mega mans down air, Sonics down air. These are just things i can think of off the top of my head that ive been hit by and kicked myself for being hit by them because i got too greedy using the exploding balloons. Quite a lot of characters have meteors/spikes now so you should try and see whatd work effectively, keep in mind though that because i can detonate 1 balloon right before i grab the ledge that you have to be smart about how you go about getting these spikes.


And i think the last thing i should write about and probably the most straightforward is just going up to the ledge, holding shield, wait for me to grab the ledge(emphasis on this because i can detonate 1 balloon right before grabbing the ledge to cover myself slightly) and with proper timing some characters can straight up hit me with something during the time where i cant do anything when im grabbing the ledge, and honestly, even if you dont want to overcomplicate it you can likely trade with the balloons with some sort of attack that hits me on the ledge and youll likely come out on top, which sends me the message "oh, this player is making me pay for being greedy, im going to have to resort to just zoning onstage now"
Now something you might be thinking in regards to this is "what about trip sapling?" well, simply put, while i do want to put the trip sapling more inwards of the corners of the stage, i wont literally put it next to the ledge unless its an accident, why? because if i dont properly partition the stage with its positioning the amount of space that im controlling actually isnt that much and its not worth it to do that to avoid being clipped by trades on the ledge ESPECIALLY when people dont make me pay for it


Speaking of which, the other thing people complain about with custom villager is Counter Seed/Trip Sapling, and unfortunately unlike exploding balloons this move/tactic is much more solid, and easier to understand. I'll go through the details.


After its been planted, itll last for 960 frames (16 seconds) while it is planted it is essentially a constant hitbox that will trip you if you are pushed into it, rise into it, roll into it during the end of a roll (when invincibility frames stop) or simply just walking/running into it. It will always do 2% damage for every time that it trips you, and unfortunately there isnt anything you can do about it, which leads me to my next point, how you should counter-act it: honestly, in some circumstances its better to just wait it out for when it subsides and then go aggro, because you have to remember that i do have to re-new it every 16 seconds at minimum and since the animation itself lasts around 40-50frames(?) it does leave me open quite a bit which is why youll see i dont always immediately go for replanting it as soon as the previous one disappears because its not worth it to take 15%+ damage or etc. just to plant it again, otherwise youre just going to have to play smart and work around it, in the end, especially if youre playing someone extremely mobile like sheik it ends up not being that hard to work around.


And lastly, pushy lloid, which is what i think is actually villagers best custom move since it is in my opinion light years better than the regular lloid also has some pretty definitive answers although when players start punishing me for them i just have to use the lloid more intelligently/sparingly. The move has no hitbox until it starts moving, although, it is possible to "break" the lloid while it is appearing, something that i sometimes intentionally go for if as an example, i see a sheik using bouncing fish towards me, i can press sideB and during the animation in which its appearing if its hit by something strong enough itll instantly explode, otherwise not a hitbox whatsoever until it starts moving. Speaking of that, the gyroid doesnt start moving for in the scheme of things A LONG TIME, seriously, its almost 60 frames until it starts moving from the beginning of the animation of villager placing it infront of himself. So how do you counter it? Pretty simple, you have two main options and one sorta extra option. You can grab villager and instantly use some sort of throw, added into smash 4 is that while throwing someone you have a form of armor that stops you from being hit by certain moves, one of which are the attacks of the lloid rocket flying so sometime you can just run up to me, grab me, throw me instantly and you wont even get hit. The other thing is that certain characters have great zone breaking tools, ideas might be: ZSS' dash attack, Yoshis dash attack, Captain Falcons dash grab, etc. that can hit me while simultaneously going past the rocket, and because its hitbox wouldnt have started yet its a free hit, its often times after i start getting hit by stuff like this that i start becoming more sparing in using the lloid rocket. And lastly, some projectiles just straight up clip right through the gyroid, the most annoying of which id have to say is definitely Mega Man's metal blade.


Which brings me to my final point, or rather answer to the broad question "what counters this?" Villagers worst MU's in my opinion are Mega Man, Rosalina, Olimar, Sheik, ZSS, Fox, Ness, in that order for the most part, now granted Sheik and onward are do-able for sure but still are more troubling than most characters id say, on the other hand Mega Man, Rosalina and Olimar id personally say are way worse and do give villager quite a bit of trouble, also something to just keep in mind is that reflector moves give villager trouble in general, im not going to go into detail here because im not literally going to tell you how to beat me im just here to tell you about how in reality villagers probably a high-tier at best and that hes not even remotely close to being broken.

TL;DR: ADAPT! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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