I can definitely see Cloud in the top 10. He's got so much going for him, he can easily keep up with sheik from my experience so far.

Only main downside is his smash attacks have quite a bit of ending lag, and has little to no horizontal recovery w/o limit break, but literally everything else about him is fantastic.

It's also great his dair goes through the ledge, the amount of Shiek players I meteor'd with Dair at the ledge is amazing.

as long as his recovery is as bad as it is, he won't have a positive matchup against Sheik

if you're playing on wifi, you're probably going up against bad Sheiks

I'm playing against my room mates who all play sheik regularly. So no, it's not against bad sheiks. It's all about the timing of which you use the recovery.
Use Nspecial to get them to back off the ledge

i'm gonna sound like a douche

are your roommates tournament players or do they just play Sheik casually? if the former, do they get any decent placings? if not, then your games with them might not be a very good basis for matchups

if they're getting hit by nspec while you, being Cloud of all characters, is recovering, then they might want to work on their Sheik play

Cloud can't snap to ledge without limit. that alone makes him REALLY gimpable.

They place top 3 out of average 30-40 players every week. They're really good.

What kinda games are you playing with Cloud? I've been able to snap to the ledge with his normal recovery no problem. That doesn't mean he always does, I just haven't had an issue with it myself. I've seen that a lot from people so far and I don't quite understand it. Edit: It might be just because I mained Ike and I'm used to recovering low but I don't think that's the reason...

Also I didn't mean just throwing Nspec all the time, I meant it's very useful to use it to punish bad dodges, rolling, etc.

I just tried that it doesn't go through the ledge down air hits the ground when near the ledge and it doesn't hit. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

He actually can snap without limit, just a little late into the animation so similar to Shulk's recovery and recover low.
Edit - I forgot who was showing it off exactly but the second hit of his recovery is good apparently for recovering.

^ After a bit of testing, it does give Cloud a bit more height before he descends downward, but it's really risky.
Edit: Also his 2nd hit with his upB is good to spike while ledge guarding

It's also really good to kill yourself and taking a last stock

he can snap, his recovery can't.

think like Mac or a lot of Melee characters

But if a lot of characters do that and can recover just fine anyway then I don't see the issue there. His recovery CAN but it DOESN'T every time.

a lot of characters don't do that. they did in Melee. the only characters i can think of that don't snap the ledge with their recoveries at all in Smash 4 are Little Mac, Dedede, Diddy (?), and.. i think that's it. and his recovery only snaps the ledge when it's coming down sometimes. if you're able to snap the ledge when coming down, chances are you didn't really need the recovery lol

unlike even Mac, Cloud's recovery is really linear and predictable. if you get Cloud bumped back just a little bit, he's dead. a friend of mine killed me by gimping me with an uncharged Sun Salutation.

i can't imagine trying to recover after a fair string.


if Falcon gets gimped easily by Sheik and he ledge snaps like a b****, and his recovery is better in not only distance but also due to the fact it ledge snaps, then Cloud's is like, really bad, lol.

Sonic's doesnt snap either. Not until he finishes rising up.

oh, it doesn't? that's news to me lol

his recovery's a hell of a lot better than Cloud's though



EDIT: wait, doesn't it snap near the end of the recovery?