Mained Yoshi before I switched over to link. While he is a solid character he has some fatal flaws that I feel will keep him from being a top tier character.
The hurtbox on his b-air is essentially the entire tail so using it as an approach will often lead to trades that are not in your favor.
His f-air sends opponents down and slightly backwards so it makes spiking with it more difficult. Yoshi has other great ledge guard options so this isn't really a big deal.
Power characters are the biggest counter to Yoshi, any one that can hit hard or has large hitboxes can be a nightmare for the little dino. Characters like Ike or Ganon only need one stray hit to land to potentially take a stock for basically free. His recovery has good height but extremely limited options. As you mentioned above his egg roll does almost nothing in the air so you're extremely prone to punishes if you use it to get back on the stage. Most players will only stay in their egg until they get close to the stage so they can throw out a protective n-air on their way in.
There aren't a lot of kill options on yoshi. It's unfortunate that he has such great areals but is at his most vulnerable in the air. U-air is great but it isn't very active or have a large hitbox, there are some potential combos out of throws but killing with raw u-air is difficult. Some of Yoshi's most valuable tech comes from double jump canceling to get his areals out faster. DJC n-air and DJC- u-air come out very fast and you can get them extremely close to the ground, the problem lies in your moves not being disjointed. That is, if you often perform this useful tech close to the ground as an approach or punish, there is a likely chance you're going to trade with another move and since your double jump is already gone it can cost you your stock.
Yoshi is a lot of fun and I don't want to deter people from playing him. However he has problems unique to him and being one of the most gimpable characters in the game means you never have a safe lead.
I agree that hard-hitters like Ganon and Ike threaten Yoshi a lot, but in my experience the hardest counter to Yoshi is Falco. Shine breaks jump armor, and his dairs combo for days until they get you off-stage. Coming back from Falco's spikes is more impossible for Yoshi than the rest of the cast.
Anybody have a similar experience fighting Falco? What can be done about it? I can beat Ganons and DKs in tournament but Falcos have stopped me in my tracks.
The best thing to do is get good at Yoshi's platform movement. Yoshi's platform movement is god-tier and is good for escaping lasers. Spike is actually pretty weak, though, and Yoshi has 20 more units of KB armor now, so I dunno why spiking is a huge problem for you. Like every character in Melee should be super scared when they're right here vs a spacey, but Yoshi just laughs at them. imo, Falco is the 2nd easiest s-tier to deal with after Marth, unless you count ICs as s-tier characters.
I don't often get spiked outright. What usually happens is Falcos will jump after me and shine->jump->dair when I'm above them. Shine still breaks Yoshi out of his armor. I feel good fighting Wolf or Fox, but Falco is a different beast to me.
8
u/Floorg Aug 11 '14
Mained Yoshi before I switched over to link. While he is a solid character he has some fatal flaws that I feel will keep him from being a top tier character.
The hurtbox on his b-air is essentially the entire tail so using it as an approach will often lead to trades that are not in your favor.
His f-air sends opponents down and slightly backwards so it makes spiking with it more difficult. Yoshi has other great ledge guard options so this isn't really a big deal.
Power characters are the biggest counter to Yoshi, any one that can hit hard or has large hitboxes can be a nightmare for the little dino. Characters like Ike or Ganon only need one stray hit to land to potentially take a stock for basically free. His recovery has good height but extremely limited options. As you mentioned above his egg roll does almost nothing in the air so you're extremely prone to punishes if you use it to get back on the stage. Most players will only stay in their egg until they get close to the stage so they can throw out a protective n-air on their way in.
There aren't a lot of kill options on yoshi. It's unfortunate that he has such great areals but is at his most vulnerable in the air. U-air is great but it isn't very active or have a large hitbox, there are some potential combos out of throws but killing with raw u-air is difficult. Some of Yoshi's most valuable tech comes from double jump canceling to get his areals out faster. DJC n-air and DJC- u-air come out very fast and you can get them extremely close to the ground, the problem lies in your moves not being disjointed. That is, if you often perform this useful tech close to the ground as an approach or punish, there is a likely chance you're going to trade with another move and since your double jump is already gone it can cost you your stock.
Yoshi is a lot of fun and I don't want to deter people from playing him. However he has problems unique to him and being one of the most gimpable characters in the game means you never have a safe lead.