"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 characters once, but I fear the man who has practiced one character 10,000 times." -Bruce Lee, on the topic of mains in competitive Smash gameplay
honestly i think it has to be because hbox is the only player capable of using the playstyle required to be an elite player with puff, literally no one else has the patience. plus his confidence in his ability with the character makes him the only player who can reliably hit rest opportunities on top players, and be as clutch as he is
@@latheredtrillionaire5701 I’ve never seen hbox do anything technically impressive like isai has. Also both of the goats of melee hate fighting puff like most people who are good at the game do because she is too easy and efficient of a character
I still would enjoy a good description about what makes Hbox so good. Is it his patience? his uncanny sense of danger? his reads? like, what ARE the skills Hbox brings to the table that enable him to take Puff to such a high level that doesnt seem to translate to other character? i feel the video falls short in explaining the question of its title
hbox's other characters are good his tech skill is just shit. like he can barely wavedash with fox for some reason. It might have something to do with the fact that he uses tilt jump, but its hard to say. on a side note, hbox's ness is godlike. i think theres a vid of him bodying the moon in friendlies out there
A player's skill with Puff is directly correlated with the player's IQ. The only reason Hbox's Puff is a god is because Hbox is like 200 IQ. Puff is B-tier at best for normies.
Giving a memeless answer, Puff is very hard to play in high level. It's a great character indeed but it's not like anyone could be great by just picking it. Hbox has shown that he does know how to play with other characters (mainly Ness) but he's just... idk, loyal to the character (considering he uses her in Ultimate too)? Used to it? He knows the basics but he perfected Puff's style. Puff is great but it also requires a very good player to unlock her potential. It's not merely because people don't like her. I find it hard to believe people dislike her more than they'd like to win or at least rank highly in tournaments.
Another reason many lower level players don't play puff is because of the shit you get for doing so. When people bash on your character choice day in and day out, or don't invite you for friendlies because you play puff, that can be very detrimental to trying to be a puff player.
@@thellurium1077 Although hasn't he said in other videos that he has thought that Puff was the best for many years, yet here he isn't saying Puff is better. Unless he's talking about the matchup which it doesn't sound like to me.
@@2000mangoman this video is 2 years old. I know he has always disliked the character, but not sure since when did he start to see puff as the best character.
@@abyzzwarrior3305 Hungrybox (Ghengis Juan) never mained anyone other than puff. He has used some other characters on rare occasions, but he hasn’t seriously switched from puff to another character and played them just as good.
The problem I always found with Puff is that her valid moves pool is so small. Like you'll never rollout, or sing, or down throw. So many of the other characters like Fox or Sheik, have a very wide valid move set that feels less constricting and therefore more fun.
sing ledge grabs, down throw to combos, and rollout... God, I love rollout (but it sucks). I guess you can instant shield break with it, though Puff can be really fun to play, -especially if your opponent doesn't laser camp you-
Its because many top melee players refuse to play new characters once theyve set into their favorites. Also many people think puff is cheap to play, which in a competitive mindset sounds dumb to me, but whatever.
"Cheap" within the smash bros. community isn't a valid argument. People considered (and sometimes still do) c stick as "cheap", although it increases your chances to win. If any element just slightly increases your chance of winning (if it isn't banned), it should be fully utilized; the best one wins.
In my opinion, Puff and ICs specifically aren't played by many people because of the hate that those characters get. Very often watching Hungrybox play in tournament the commentators kinda hate on him and his playstyle, even if he's doing really well. Now it is getting better, but there are still commentators like that, and I think that has an impact on how many new players see Puff. With ICs, nobody likes to get wobbled, and so the community has looked down upon IC players because of the wobble. Now I'm not saying that because of these reasons nobody plays these characters because yes, people do still play them, and I also agree with everything you said in the video, but I think these reasons also have a factor in players' decisions on who to main.
I totally agree. People like scar and toph who prioritize hype before trying to win, both while playing and while commentating, are holding back characters like puff because people think they're lame
Yeah but thankfully Scar and Toph are some of the commentators getting better. The commentators I don't enjoy listen to commentate Hungrybox most are Brandon and Phil *bless their hearts though*. But yes, even Scar and Toph along with Brandon and Phil, these big named popular commentators are influencing other commentators that are not known, just random people, to commentate the same way. I hope in the coming years it gets better. Thank you for the reply!
no one likes ledge stalling little bitches, so that's purely puff players being assholes and stalling to force the enemy to come in a space where they lose 100%. ICs are just hated because of an easy punish that always kills, and no one plays playing purely around one move being a grab.
What's good psychologically, and what's good statistically also don't necessarily line up. If you can chain everything perfectly to kill someone using fox's speed, that's going to feel more impactful than whittling someone down with jigglypuff's slower pace. There's also the difference between character potential and player ability/style. Just because a character has higher outplay potential in a perfect setting, it doesn't matter if it can't consistently be achieved.
While I agree with the reasons provided by Armada, I believe another crucial factor is the amount of hate recieved by players of Jigglypuff. For example, imagine me a couple years ago as a teen, first trying to get into the Melee scene, picking up Puff cause she was cute (knew very little about high level play at the time), find a single local within reasonable distance. I get there and play Puff in a friendly; instantly no one wants to play or talk to me cause I played Puff. Later Netplay gave a platform to play, but I was truly going to switch characters just so I could play with people. I get the meme that "Puff is lame", and most people are pretty chill about it. Though, some people take it a little far and discourage new comers from the character.
I hate puff at the top level, but it's kind of sad that the stigma trickles down to more casual matches too. It's unfair to newer puff players who aren't trying to be the best in the world.
I think it's important to note that playing Puff WELL is really different from just playing Puff. For example a really basic thing is that Puff has increased air mobility while using an aerial.
I think his reflexes become him the only top puff, he's able to answer every move most of the time only by reacting to mistakes and punishing them instantly whith the hardest way (rest), at the same time, his profesional reflexes help a lot to avoid some punishment, other puff mains don't reach that reaction times. Even if top players react really good while playing, Hbox probably noticed that puff could easily set up rests ir you área good enough, combining player skills and character capabilities
This situation reminds me of Leo in Tekken. Like Puff, she is a good character, but you barely see her around because people don't really enjoy using her.
One other point is that the melee community seems to have a lot of disrespect for puff players in general, regardless of playstyle. When I first started comp melee, I was a puff main and was constantly put down for it as "playing a braindead character" or "being total cancer". Sadly, this made me move away from puff and pick up marth/fox who are much more respected characters in the community.
Not gonna lie, I don't see how any melee players can respect Falco laser camping and then get mad at Jigglypuff. I think they are just mad because their precious combos end sooner even if jigg stock is ending sooner.
There's a social stigma around maining Puff. I think we should encourage new players to pick Puff so that the meta can be more thoroughly explored. Upward trends in uncommon characters is probably the healthiest thing for the game.
Puff is a top tier character no doubt. The rest makes it so. But hbox is also the only one with the mental capacity to play puff at the highest level. It takes a lot of patience and a different playstyle than leffen or armada would ever be able to take on.
@@brandondriver99 I understand, but it was a really weird opinion to have at a time where puff was already clearly within the top echelon of the game and Hbox was dominating
I've been thinking and arguing this for a long time, totally agree. It's the same reason why getting MU experience against a lot of characters like Sheik, Puff, Icies, etc. is so difficult (and hence those characters do better and people keep playing them in tournament) because most people rarely even wants to play those mains in friendlies since they don't have fun with them, which sucks for all of us.
Wait..what? There are loads and loads of Sheik mains; people have tons of experience against her. Sheik is just a very good character. It's not a matter of people being flabbergasted in the face of Sheik, that makes absolutely no sense.
K.Louis Kansas City. Our best Sheik travels in and out, second best is an old school player that doesn't show up ever, and 3rd best regularly attends and is an up and comer, however from my experience none of them play Sheik regularly in friendlies. Also, most of my Melee experience comes from Netplay, and I very rarely find Sheik players on there as well (that again, actually want to play Sheik in friendly sessions), definitely the least common high tier on the site for me.
what is this general concensus that puff being amazing and hbox being amaazing at using her have to be mutually exclusive. Puff is extremely good cuz she's forgiving on mess ups, is the only character whom doesnt have to care about stage control cuz she has safe access to the offstage as well u cant corner, has an extremely powerful move for punishing just about any bad decision by the opponent (puff is the comeback king), best overall gimping ability in the game, by far best bair in game, 5 mid air jumps plus an air dodge that is about as good as a 6th jump, pound gives unlimited horizontal recover and rising pound with with a jump between each pund gives her incredible vertical recovery as well, overall best recovery in the game for sure followed by pika and mewtwo. Puff has powerful kill options in her aerials, fsmash to punish lag, u-smash oos and u-air for vertical kills. Fun fact did u know that puffs u-air staright up beats falco's dair from underneath. you heard me correctly, not trade, it literally out ranges it. her back throw is absurdly good for getting people off stage regardless of their pcent, u-throw is very good on spacies for obvious reasons and f-throw has good scaling for high pcentage kill power. a stray u-tilt leads to a rest. Puff has the 2nd best crouch after kirby and crouching any relevant characters grab, except fox, falco and marth dash grab nets a free rest. And She's fucking fast because of her drift speed. She literally only loses 1 mu, and yes, the fox mu definitely matters the most but not by enough to invalidate the fact that she goes even with marth, slightly beats falco, solidly beats sheik and IC, destroys peach, pika, samus and doesnt have to worry about any other character in the game than fox which is in reality a 6:4 mu. She loses solidly though not horrifically and it is definitly more than doable. her neytral win:kill potential ratio compared to neutral loss:death potential ratio is just crazy. Puff is a strong contender for 3rd best in the game and is 4th best worst case
i think the stigma plays a bigger part in people not playing puff than puff not being fun. the dopamine rush from landing a rest is unparalleled (second only to kirby roll up tilt)
It would be crazy if Hungrybox was holding back this whole time because he didn't wan't everyone to realize how great puff was. If Hungrybox dominated everyone with puff, many people would try her out and study hungrybox's play. Especially those who are new to the game
Sam Vondersaar , Mang0 was a Puff main at first and switched to spacies because people said that he wasn't a good player but it was because of his caracters. So no, even if Mang0 switched back to puff, she wouldn't be more popular
Puff is really hard starting off getting KO'd at 50% on most stages so you need to have a great defense and sense of when you can rest before doing well with the character. A lot of other characters don't have to think about trading stocks starting off. Then at the top level there isn't as much winning from flubs which a lot of low level puff players rely on to do well. Think at the highest level it requires outplaying the opponent consistently instead of just being able to beat a character which requires an incredible amount of effort each match
I would certainly say character playstyle is the primary reason, but I do think the Fox:Puff matchup is a non trivial factor here as well. Your character having a rather bad matchup against the most common character in the game can certainly be discouraging on top of it outright making success harder.
i think puff has a huge different playstyle and that makes people starting to play smash not having faith in its potential which makes these new players being more comfortable with other caracters and more likely to main one of those
I think puff is just really difficult to play at top level. Having very bad matchups against fox and marth who are 2 of the most common characters is a big roadblock for a lot of low to mid level players. I actually think puff is one of the hardest characters to succeed with in this regard, even more than fox or falco. A lot of the time you end up exploiting matchup inexperience to get wins, and when you have to play against someone who actually knows the matchup and how to not let puff get away with many of her antics; it is very hard to win against someone like this consistently if you do not have very solid gameplans and fundamentals. This may sound as though I'm giving puff players a lot of unnecessary praise, but as a fox main who does not play puff I truly believe players like hbox are overlooked for how impressive their success is.
I think hbox is the only good puff because he's played pretty much only puff since 2007 and has been established when the game had much less competition so he's just gotten better as the game has gotten more demanding and technical
Senseless Nonsense no my point isn't that because there was not that much competition he got good, I'm saying he became a top player in a time where the competition was not as high, and he's developed with the game
it's a bit of a negative feedback loop too: since so many people play fox, there are a lot of resources out there for learning how to play fox and there are a lot of different play styles of the character. because not as many people play puff, there aren't any "puff role models"
Only thing I don't agree with is that there aren't a lot of ICs players. Most local scenes have 1 or more and there are a decent amount in the top 100. It feels like you see them more than say peach, luigi, or samus
this doesnt make sense to me. plenty of people play puff at mid level. i think the real reason is just sample size. you cant ask questions about character representation just looking at the players who win majors, because there really are so few.
I dual main Falco and Puff and like playing as both of them a lot. To me they're polar opposite playstyles: Falco being very fast and technical acting as an aggressive rushdown character, while Puff I find more defensive and methodical, where i pick apart every little mistake my opponent makes when approaching. Both equally fun, depending on what mood I'm on or who I'm playing against.
I would be surprised if Hbox doesn't play a similar character in other fighting games. For instance, I play Jiggs and Dhalsim in Ultra Street Fighter 4, and most SF players think of Dhalsim in the same way that you describe Melee Puff. Both require this zoning & conditioning mentality in order to play, so much so that you have to be a certain kind of patient player to use each. If you asked me to play a grappler or a rushdown character, I couldn't do it naturally, and this might be true of him as well.
i think its also hard if you imagine that with fox and falco you can destroy your oponents just by surpirior tech skill but with puff you just have to outsmart them straight up because theres little room to out techskill someone with puff and that takes a different skill set to then keep up
at low level(which matters for the top level since you pick your character before getting good with it) puff relies on punishing mistakes from your opponent a lot as opposed to someone like fox who relies on basically not fucking upby example as a noob doing shield pressure that wont get you grabbed is a lot harder than spamming shield grab to rest hoping your opponent fucks up his shield pressure. so if you want to prove that you are better than everyone else characters like fox falco etc...do the job much better. this is very significant because the people who do make it to the top are usually very competitive and the reason they get so good is that they want to prove themselves all the time. so naturally they will be attracted to characters that seem very difficult to play and puff just doesnt seem very difficult to play initially.
Puff is an amazing character, but the same people that like being a unique special snowflake enjoy playing unpopular characters like Puff, so there is a stigma that Hbox is great and puff sucks. No. Puff is amazing and hbox is great too, neither party carries the other.
"If Hbox became the best player for a year or two, I don't think Puff's popularity would go up" I think this aged a bit poorly. Or maybe not. Would be interesting to see if it actually happened like that.
The original reason as to why hbox picked Puff was to pest control all the foxes in competetive. Due to Puff's nature (and hbox' effort to obtain maximum potential with puff), he absolutely obliterated spacies in Melee.
Biggest reason is because nobody else is. If you try to be different and succeed than your name will be spread out further than someone who is good with the best character in the game.
Even though you mentioned subjectivity, the argument that "nobody plays her because she is boring", assumes that the majority of people do not like her play style. Given the demographic of characters used, that would imply most people in the community find her boring? Probably not fair to say. I prefer the fast characters like fox, flaco and captain...and it helps that they're also really good characters. I also like puff because her style is so different, but i wont use her simply because she's more difficult to succeed with consistently, hence not as good a character. I'm not a high level player, but if she was a stronger character (more well rounded) she would definitely be used more
I actually think puff is a lot like falco in her popularity, in that even though she is really good, not many people play her. I think that one of the main reasons for this is because there are so many foxes today and fox is a very hard matchup for puff. Similar to how many players drop falco after plateauing at a mid-level, i would think that a lot of players would drop puff because the matchup is difficult against fox.
I think that theres something more to it. you do have good points armada. Its hard to put a pin on it, but i feel like the skill gap between hbox and the next best puff is too big for the answer to be as simple as not as many people like to play puff. That only explains why there are less puffs, That doesnt fully explain the huge skill difference and why we dont see atleast 1 or 2 more puffs in the top 30. Less puffs can only be 1 peice of the puzzle.
If a character is played much, people get better at playing said character. Hungrybox is the only player that has stuck to Puff for the amount of time he has, and his knowledge sort of stays with him, the meta hasn't evolved for many other players. What armada says indirectly answers the question why no other Puff is as good as Hbox. He knows most of what there is to the character, to be good with her in this meta. Everyone is just lagging behind. They don't have the experience compared to him.
Honestly I think the reason people don't play Puff is that Puff is actually a harder character to play at a high level than other top tiers (despite what Leffen and other Fox mains say). Playing Puff doesn't need anywhere near as much technical skill as Fox, but tactically you have to be so much stronger: other Puff mains have the same technical skill as HBox, but their decision making is nowhere near as good so they can't compete at the top. Basically technical skill is overrated and decision making ability is underrated.
why would u have to be more tactical with puff than with fox? If anything you have to be more tactical with fox since he has to play so differently based on mu's compared to puff which can play similar flow chart gameplans vs most of the roster via spacing bair ect.
@@comettitun8087 Fox has different matchups but they're each a lot easier tactically than Puff's style, the difficulty with Puff isn't learning matchups, it's that there are so many options all of the time and you have to be extremely accurate with them because Puff's strengths (movement, bair, rest) are not suited to close range neutral, and she dies really early, so she has far greater weaknesses than Fox (or any other top tier). Played well, she's likely the best character in the game (Hence #1 on Armada's tier list) because rest is just ridiculously powerful, but the only way she works at the highest level is if you have the awareness and decision making skills to barely ever get caught in close range neutral while not already in the air ready to bair, and to avoid/survive and recover from being hit upwards nearly every time
I sometimes am feeling in the mood for puff but most of the time I don’t like her. The thing is that it’s very difficult to land that instant kill move she had (down B) and most of the time I’m just making myself vulnerable when I try to use it. I guess my reflexes aren’t good enough.
I just think that you have to be a certain kinda way to play Puff that well. Not only do you have to enjoy Puff but you have to not mind being hated for playing to win and not for other people's entertainment.
Hbox can do the aerial drift better than any other puff or Kirby to the point where it's like the difference between Hugs and Armada, Hugs got stray hits and maybe a two piece on Armada, while Armada's peach gets 5 hit combos for like 70. But Hbox has the absolute worst tech skill out of the entire top ten. And in the words of Mango, "Come on Juan, how do you have amazing aerial drift but make more flubs than anyone in the top ten. You can do the hard part but not the easy part."
Wyman III okay Mr.Man whatever you say. Look at MIOM lists over the years and look at Falco. Even if you mean lower levels of Melee its not common enough, a competent melee player knows Falco's amazing aspects but know the character has some MAJOR flaws especially in comparison to Fox. And Falco is still considered top 3 in the game
Do you think people would be more drawn to her if she was better? You mention that a lot of people don't play her because they don't think she's fun. Well what if she was the best character and they thought winning was fun?
I actually picked up peach due to Armada. Well. I liked her movement but would never play her because I can't attack well with her. Dropped link recently and decided on peach after seeing it can be done.
Not that hard to pick up and learn, but at higher levels it's more difficult to play as her for a number of reasons, in particular her light weight. Not a bad character by any means if you're just starting out or playing for fun, though.
kirjian he's not. Lol. There are plenty of other Marths at high level. PPMD is a great example, but historically Marth has always been a good character with great representation. In comparison Puff has had one consistent top level player for the 7 years and a couple decent players
sooo , is Armada basicallly just doing videos on all the same subjects that Yahoo Esports did a while ago ? its cool to hear is opinions on these subjects at least.
I think you are missing one key component of the argument. A lot of people, like Leffen, say that Puff is a low skill character that is easy to learn and easy to play. If this was actually true, then there would be more top puff players out there.
puff is a-ok character but as her worst match up is fox winning with her is really hard and that's why ppl don't play her as much as ppl don't like her in the end many would play her to win if she was better than fox or the fox match up was at leas even.
I've always wondered why peach wouldn't be second on a tier list.. going by character potential, armada at his best beats every even good for. In tournament results, peach is first.
Puff Fox feels absurdly unwinnable at lower tiers of play, which is why I think people drop puff more often than not, including me when they are just starting out. I just don't think it's worth it to learn the match up when it's that uphill for you just because her counter is far, far too popular.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 characters once, but I fear the man who has practiced one character 10,000 times."
-Bruce Lee, on the topic of mains in competitive Smash gameplay
lol
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Next video: Why is Armada the only top peach?
Right now the second best Puff is ahead of the second best Peach which invalidates that.
Probably for similar reasons, they prefer the design of other characters and have more fun with them.
prince abu < bladewise
Second best Peach by elo is Llod, and Abu is ahead of him.
Ok but bladewise is still ranked higher....
honestly i think it has to be because hbox is the only player capable of using the playstyle required to be an elite player with puff, literally no one else has the patience. plus his confidence in his ability with the character makes him the only player who can reliably hit rest opportunities on top players, and be as clutch as he is
Isaiah?
@@Ayryvyl Ain't shit to Hbox's puff, to be honest.
@@latheredtrillionaire5701 I’ve never seen hbox do anything technically impressive like isai has. Also both of the goats of melee hate fighting puff like most people who are good at the game do because she is too easy and efficient of a character
Hbox is the FLOAT. FUCKING LAMEST OF ALL TIME
@@CrusaderWillfox is way more efficient puff isnt technical, puff is hard at top level dies at 60, definition of glass cannon
"hbox is pretty gud" -- Armada
mr.majoni k
I still would enjoy a good description about what makes Hbox so good. Is it his patience? his uncanny sense of danger? his reads? like, what ARE the skills Hbox brings to the table that enable him to take Puff to such a high level that doesnt seem to translate to other character? i feel the video falls short in explaining the question of its title
He's got a very safe play style, most of the time he just annoys other players until they make risky moves and punishes them for it.
His aerial drift is extremely good
Camping + forward air ... It's so boring
hbox's other characters are good his tech skill is just shit. like he can barely wavedash with fox for some reason. It might have something to do with the fact that he uses tilt jump, but its hard to say.
on a side note, hbox's ness is godlike. i think theres a vid of him bodying the moon in friendlies out there
@@BobbyReborn fair? that's new.
A player's skill with Puff is directly correlated with the player's IQ. The only reason Hbox's Puff is a god is because Hbox is like 200 IQ. Puff is B-tier at best for normies.
I heard people that watch Rick and Morty are great puff mains.
@@ColdHumor he turns into a pickle! it was the funniest thing ive ever seen
Giving a memeless answer, Puff is very hard to play in high level. It's a great character indeed but it's not like anyone could be great by just picking it. Hbox has shown that he does know how to play with other characters (mainly Ness) but he's just... idk, loyal to the character (considering he uses her in Ultimate too)? Used to it? He knows the basics but he perfected Puff's style. Puff is great but it also requires a very good player to unlock her potential.
It's not merely because people don't like her. I find it hard to believe people dislike her more than they'd like to win or at least rank highly in tournaments.
You have to be smart to play almost any character at top level
garbage take, puff is arguably the best character in the game, i hope this is a joke answer
Another reason many lower level players don't play puff is because of the shit you get for doing so. When people bash on your character choice day in and day out, or don't invite you for friendlies because you play puff, that can be very detrimental to trying to be a puff player.
"I don't think puff is better than fox".. Funny how opinions changed over the time xD
@@paolosworld99 I agree with you, but Armada changed his opinion over the years as he sees Puff as the best in the game nowadays.
He got salty and retired
Jonni no...
@@thellurium1077 Although hasn't he said in other videos that he has thought that Puff was the best for many years, yet here he isn't saying Puff is better. Unless he's talking about the matchup which it doesn't sound like to me.
@@2000mangoman this video is 2 years old. I know he has always disliked the character, but not sure since when did he start to see puff as the best character.
I feel like puff is the kind of character that you can't dual main without becoming inconsistent with your playstyle.
Big true
Tell that to Genghis Juan.
@@abyzzwarrior3305 Hungrybox (Ghengis Juan) never mained anyone other than puff. He has used some other characters on rare occasions, but he hasn’t seriously switched from puff to another character and played them just as good.
The problem I always found with Puff is that her valid moves pool is so small. Like you'll never rollout, or sing, or down throw. So many of the other characters like Fox or Sheik, have a very wide valid move set that feels less constricting and therefore more fun.
sing ledge grabs, down throw to combos, and rollout... God, I love rollout (but it sucks). I guess you can instant shield break with it, though
Puff can be really fun to play, -especially if your opponent doesn't laser camp you-
Its because many top melee players refuse to play new characters once theyve set into their favorites. Also many people think puff is cheap to play, which in a competitive mindset sounds dumb to me, but whatever.
"Cheap" within the smash bros. community isn't a valid argument. People considered (and sometimes still do) c stick as "cheap", although it increases your chances to win.
If any element just slightly increases your chance of winning (if it isn't banned), it should be fully utilized; the best one wins.
@@bastjansejberg105 exactly exactly
Armada: hbox is not very good with other characters.
Hbox: laughs in Genghis Juan
I mean.. compared to other top level players it's "not very good"
I legitimately love Puff's play style (both to watch and to play). I don't play Puff much though because I'm trash with him.
In my opinion, Puff and ICs specifically aren't played by many people because of the hate that those characters get. Very often watching Hungrybox play in tournament the commentators kinda hate on him and his playstyle, even if he's doing really well. Now it is getting better, but there are still commentators like that, and I think that has an impact on how many new players see Puff. With ICs, nobody likes to get wobbled, and so the community has looked down upon IC players because of the wobble. Now I'm not saying that because of these reasons nobody plays these characters because yes, people do still play them, and I also agree with everything you said in the video, but I think these reasons also have a factor in players' decisions on who to main.
I totally agree. People like scar and toph who prioritize hype before trying to win, both while playing and while commentating, are holding back characters like puff because people think they're lame
x7ramjet I
Yeah but thankfully Scar and Toph are some of the commentators getting better. The commentators I don't enjoy listen to commentate Hungrybox most are Brandon and Phil *bless their hearts though*. But yes, even Scar and Toph along with Brandon and Phil, these big named popular commentators are influencing other commentators that are not known, just random people, to commentate the same way. I hope in the coming years it gets better. Thank you for the reply!
no one likes ledge stalling little bitches, so that's purely puff players being assholes and stalling to force the enemy to come in a space where they lose 100%. ICs are just hated because of an easy punish that always kills, and no one plays playing purely around one move being a grab.
People dislike rest just as much as wobbling and it doesn't help that Hbox occasionally ledge stalls for minutes on end, wasting the viewers time.
Just look at the Hfox clip and then you'll realize that Hungrybox is good for totally different reasons than most players.
What's good psychologically, and what's good statistically also don't necessarily line up. If you can chain everything perfectly to kill someone using fox's speed, that's going to feel more impactful than whittling someone down with jigglypuff's slower pace.
There's also the difference between character potential and player ability/style. Just because a character has higher outplay potential in a perfect setting, it doesn't matter if it can't consistently be achieved.
While I agree with the reasons provided by Armada, I believe another crucial factor is the amount of hate recieved by players of Jigglypuff. For example, imagine me a couple years ago as a teen, first trying to get into the Melee scene, picking up Puff cause she was cute (knew very little about high level play at the time), find a single local within reasonable distance. I get there and play Puff in a friendly; instantly no one wants to play or talk to me cause I played Puff. Later Netplay gave a platform to play, but I was truly going to switch characters just so I could play with people. I get the meme that "Puff is lame", and most people are pretty chill about it. Though, some people take it a little far and discourage new comers from the character.
Rave Scratch true, netplay players are pretty rude to puffs
I hate puff at the top level, but it's kind of sad that the stigma trickles down to more casual matches too. It's unfair to newer puff players who aren't trying to be the best in the world.
I think it's important to note that playing Puff WELL is really different from just playing Puff. For example a really basic thing is that Puff has increased air mobility while using an aerial.
I think his reflexes become him the only top puff, he's able to answer every move most of the time only by reacting to mistakes and punishing them instantly whith the hardest way (rest), at the same time, his profesional reflexes help a lot to avoid some punishment, other puff mains don't reach that reaction times.
Even if top players react really good while playing, Hbox probably noticed that puff could easily set up rests ir you área good enough, combining player skills and character capabilities
This situation reminds me of Leo in Tekken. Like Puff, she is a good character, but you barely see her around because people don't really enjoy using her.
One other point is that the melee community seems to have a lot of disrespect for puff players in general, regardless of playstyle. When I first started comp melee, I was a puff main and was constantly put down for it as "playing a braindead character" or "being total cancer". Sadly, this made me move away from puff and pick up marth/fox who are much more respected characters in the community.
Go back to Puff and make your dreams come true. Heck play game n watch. Most people are forgetting his move set so you might make it pretty far :)
Not gonna lie, I don't see how any melee players can respect Falco laser camping and then get mad at Jigglypuff.
I think they are just mad because their precious combos end sooner even if jigg stock is ending sooner.
Tbh I respect a Puff main over a sword character main any day.
Pepe The Platypus When tf does marth ever nair anyone to death? And a lot of people hates falcos lasers
marth? now you you can get respect and play a braindead character. its a win win
I think a key part of the success of Hbox is the years of experience against all the top players, especially the variations of fox play
There's a social stigma around maining Puff. I think we should encourage new players to pick Puff so that the meta can be more thoroughly explored. Upward trends in uncommon characters is probably the healthiest thing for the game.
Jmook played a shiek unlike m2k and improved her. Maybe puff can be improved beyond hbox's style, to play more dangerously and fast
Puff is a top tier character no doubt. The rest makes it so. But hbox is also the only one with the mental capacity to play puff at the highest level. It takes a lot of patience and a different playstyle than leffen or armada would ever be able to take on.
Saying puff is top tier is like saying Panda is viable
@@brandondriver99 what?? Even when you posted this, Puff was 5th in the game
@@simanolastname2399 my opinions have changed in the last 4 years, my friend
@@brandondriver99 I understand, but it was a really weird opinion to have at a time where puff was already clearly within the top echelon of the game and Hbox was dominating
@@simanolastname2399 a correct assessment of my previous opinion 👍
I've been thinking and arguing this for a long time, totally agree. It's the same reason why getting MU experience against a lot of characters like Sheik, Puff, Icies, etc. is so difficult (and hence those characters do better and people keep playing them in tournament) because most people rarely even wants to play those mains in friendlies since they don't have fun with them, which sucks for all of us.
Wait..what? There are loads and loads of Sheik mains; people have tons of experience against her.
Sheik is just a very good character. It's not a matter of people being flabbergasted in the face of Sheik, that makes absolutely no sense.
EvilApple567 Sheik? What region are you in that has a shortage of Sheik mains?
K.Louis Kansas City. Our best Sheik travels in and out, second best is an old school player that doesn't show up ever, and 3rd best regularly attends and is an up and comer, however from my experience none of them play Sheik regularly in friendlies. Also, most of my Melee experience comes from Netplay, and I very rarely find Sheik players on there as well (that again, actually want to play Sheik in friendly sessions), definitely the least common high tier on the site for me.
Hearing armada speak on jigs in 2017 is hilarious.
I'm a new player, like 18 years late, and seeing Puff beating up a good chucnk of the Nintendo roster made me laugh and made me wanna play too.
So are you still enjoying playing jigglypuff 4 years later?
Because he mastered the quest to git gud
what is this general concensus that puff being amazing and hbox being amaazing at using her have to be mutually exclusive. Puff is extremely good cuz she's forgiving on mess ups, is the only character whom doesnt have to care about stage control cuz she has safe access to the offstage as well u cant corner, has an extremely powerful move for punishing just about any bad decision by the opponent (puff is the comeback king), best overall gimping ability in the game, by far best bair in game, 5 mid air jumps plus an air dodge that is about as good as a 6th jump, pound gives unlimited horizontal recover and rising pound with with a jump between each pund gives her incredible vertical recovery as well, overall best recovery in the game for sure followed by pika and mewtwo. Puff has powerful kill options in her aerials, fsmash to punish lag, u-smash oos and u-air for vertical kills. Fun fact did u know that puffs u-air staright up beats falco's dair from underneath. you heard me correctly, not trade, it literally out ranges it. her back throw is absurdly good for getting people off stage regardless of their pcent, u-throw is very good on spacies for obvious reasons and f-throw has good scaling for high pcentage kill power. a stray u-tilt leads to a rest. Puff has the 2nd best crouch after kirby and crouching any relevant characters grab, except fox, falco and marth dash grab nets a free rest. And She's fucking fast because of her drift speed. She literally only loses 1 mu, and yes, the fox mu definitely matters the most but not by enough to invalidate the fact that she goes even with marth, slightly beats falco, solidly beats sheik and IC, destroys peach, pika, samus and doesnt have to worry about any other character in the game than fox which is in reality a 6:4 mu. She loses solidly though not horrifically and it is definitly more than doable. her neytral win:kill potential ratio compared to neutral loss:death potential ratio is just crazy. Puff is a strong contender for 3rd best in the game and is 4th best worst case
i think the stigma plays a bigger part in people not playing puff than puff not being fun. the dopamine rush from landing a rest is unparalleled (second only to kirby roll up tilt)
It would be crazy if Hungrybox was holding back this whole time because he didn't wan't everyone to realize how great puff was. If Hungrybox dominated everyone with puff, many people would try her out and study hungrybox's play. Especially those who are new to the game
If mango played puff,puff would become popular again
Sam Vondersaar , Mang0 was a Puff main at first and switched to spacies because people said that he wasn't a good player but it was because of his caracters. So no, even if Mang0 switched back to puff, she wouldn't be more popular
Come on now, if mango started playing fucking bowser, that shit would become popular
Faulheit I meant to say if he played puff again, since he used to it's actually possible where Bowser is kinda... not
Plus mangoes approach to Puff is very different than hungry boxes probably much more of a high risk reward than hungry boxes safe Style
dude his stupid fans will do anything he does
Puff is really hard starting off getting KO'd at 50% on most stages so you need to have a great defense and sense of when you can rest before doing well with the character. A lot of other characters don't have to think about trading stocks starting off. Then at the top level there isn't as much winning from flubs which a lot of low level puff players rely on to do well. Think at the highest level it requires outplaying the opponent consistently instead of just being able to beat a character which requires an incredible amount of effort each match
I would certainly say character playstyle is the primary reason, but I do think the Fox:Puff matchup is a non trivial factor here as well. Your character having a rather bad matchup against the most common character in the game can certainly be discouraging on top of it outright making success harder.
i think puff has a huge different playstyle and that makes people starting to play smash not having faith in its potential which makes these new players being more comfortable with other caracters and more likely to main one of those
I'm also a Top Level Puff, i just haven't debuted yet.
Have you debuted yet?
@@nahometesfay1112 Not yet.
@@MrTeamFoolish Could you reply when you do? It would be pretty funny if you actually became a top-level puff
@@nahometesfay1112 Plot twist, he never will
@@tappajaav But what if they do????
I think puff is just really difficult to play at top level. Having very bad matchups against fox and marth who are 2 of the most common characters is a big roadblock for a lot of low to mid level players. I actually think puff is one of the hardest characters to succeed with in this regard, even more than fox or falco. A lot of the time you end up exploiting matchup inexperience to get wins, and when you have to play against someone who actually knows the matchup and how to not let puff get away with many of her antics; it is very hard to win against someone like this consistently if you do not have very solid gameplans and fundamentals. This may sound as though I'm giving puff players a lot of unnecessary praise, but as a fox main who does not play puff I truly believe players like hbox are overlooked for how impressive their success is.
I think playing jigglypuff has it's own charm that nobody will understand. Only certain people can tap into it. That's how I feel about puff
Same with Ganondorf :)
I read the title as "why is Armada the only top Jigglypuff?" And wondered what backwards timeline I stumbled into
I think hbox is the only good puff because he's played pretty much only puff since 2007 and has been established when the game had much less competition so he's just gotten better as the game has gotten more demanding and technical
Andrew Kyrouac yeah, that's the true answer imo too
Andrew Kyrouac Your coment is so flawed in so many ways...
Dr. Dafuq care to explain?
There are so many players who started when the scene was young and got nowhere, many have just started and have gotten extremely good recently
Senseless Nonsense no my point isn't that because there was not that much competition he got good, I'm saying he became a top player in a time where the competition was not as high, and he's developed with the game
it's a bit of a negative feedback loop too: since so many people play fox, there are a lot of resources out there for learning how to play fox and there are a lot of different play styles of the character. because not as many people play puff, there aren't any "puff role models"
Only thing I don't agree with is that there aren't a lot of ICs players. Most local scenes have 1 or more and there are a decent amount in the top 100. It feels like you see them more than say peach, luigi, or samus
this doesnt make sense to me. plenty of people play puff at mid level. i think the real reason is just sample size. you cant ask questions about character representation just looking at the players who win majors, because there really are so few.
I dual main Falco and Puff and like playing as both of them a lot. To me they're polar opposite playstyles: Falco being very fast and technical acting as an aggressive rushdown character, while Puff I find more defensive and methodical, where i pick apart every little mistake my opponent makes when approaching. Both equally fun, depending on what mood I'm on or who I'm playing against.
Still playing like that, enjoying both characters?
i love puff, im gonna get my local scene hip to getting rested
I would be surprised if Hbox doesn't play a similar character in other fighting games.
For instance, I play Jiggs and Dhalsim in Ultra Street Fighter 4, and most SF players think of Dhalsim in the same way that you describe Melee Puff. Both require this zoning & conditioning mentality in order to play, so much so that you have to be a certain kind of patient player to use each. If you asked me to play a grappler or a rushdown character, I couldn't do it naturally, and this might be true of him as well.
Cause he's the only Jigglypuff that can actually beat the top level foxes.
i think its also hard if you imagine that with fox and falco you can destroy your oponents just by surpirior tech skill but with puff you just have to outsmart them straight up because theres little room to out techskill someone with puff and that takes a different skill set to then keep up
I like the way he pronounces “popular.”
Armada's maturity and open minded intelligence, are breathes of fresh air in the smash community.
Puff and ICs are my favorite characters to play lol.
I just main peach because she is the only one I can stand to play vs fox with.
___ I3ambi you must get a lot of hate
I agree with a lot of your points, and i think this can be extended to some extent with bayo in sm4sh
Well said, Armada. I agree with you.
at low level(which matters for the top level since you pick your character before getting good with it) puff relies on punishing mistakes from your opponent a lot as opposed to someone like fox who relies on basically not fucking upby example as a noob doing shield pressure that wont get you grabbed is a lot harder than spamming shield grab to rest hoping your opponent fucks up his shield pressure. so if you want to prove that you are better than everyone else characters like fox falco etc...do the job much better. this is very significant because the people who do make it to the top are usually very competitive and the reason they get so good is that they want to prove themselves all the time.
so naturally they will be attracted to characters that seem very difficult to play and puff just doesnt seem very difficult to play initially.
ultimate olimar of melee
Puff is an amazing character, but the same people that like being a unique special snowflake enjoy playing unpopular characters like Puff, so there is a stigma that Hbox is great and puff sucks. No. Puff is amazing and hbox is great too, neither party carries the other.
Mango did it too before Hbox. Was a different meta back then, but if he continued, I'm confident there'd be two top Puffs.
"If Hbox became the best player for a year or two, I don't think Puff's popularity would go up"
I think this aged a bit poorly. Or maybe not. Would be interesting to see if it actually happened like that.
how has this aged poorly? Theres still barely any puffs
he was right though lol
Puff is the hardest character to play at elite level.
Hardest top tier. Still way easier than characters like bowser or Kirby.
how
I share pretty much the exact same opinion. Very well explained.
The original reason as to why hbox picked Puff was to pest control all the foxes in competetive. Due to Puff's nature (and hbox' effort to obtain maximum potential with puff), he absolutely obliterated spacies in Melee.
Biggest reason is because nobody else is. If you try to be different and succeed than your name will be spread out further than someone who is good with the best character in the game.
It's the same for Ice Climbers.
What do you think about puff ?
Young Armada : "gay"
Actually there was a study shown across hundreds of smashers, and 10% of them played puff. So thats not a very low playercount.
Even though you mentioned subjectivity, the argument that "nobody plays her because she is boring", assumes that the majority of people do not like her play style. Given the demographic of characters used, that would imply most people in the community find her boring? Probably not fair to say.
I prefer the fast characters like fox, flaco and captain...and it helps that they're also really good characters.
I also like puff because her style is so different, but i wont use her simply because she's more difficult to succeed with consistently, hence not as good a character.
I'm not a high level player, but if she was a stronger character (more well rounded) she would definitely be used more
how is she more difficult to succeed with
I actually think puff is a lot like falco in her popularity, in that even though she is really good, not many people play her. I think that one of the main reasons for this is because there are so many foxes today and fox is a very hard matchup for puff. Similar to how many players drop falco after plateauing at a mid-level, i would think that a lot of players would drop puff because the matchup is difficult against fox.
I think that theres something more to it. you do have good points armada. Its hard to put a pin on it, but i feel like the skill gap between hbox and the next best puff is too big for the answer to be as simple as not as many people like to play puff. That only explains why there are less puffs, That doesnt fully explain the huge skill difference and why we dont see atleast 1 or 2 more puffs in the top 30. Less puffs can only be 1 peice of the puzzle.
If a character is played much, people get better at playing said character. Hungrybox is the only player that has stuck to Puff for the amount of time he has, and his knowledge sort of stays with him, the meta hasn't evolved for many other players. What armada says indirectly answers the question why no other Puff is as good as Hbox. He knows most of what there is to the character, to be good with her in this meta. Everyone is just lagging behind. They don't have the experience compared to him.
Honestly I think the reason people don't play Puff is that Puff is actually a harder character to play at a high level than other top tiers (despite what Leffen and other Fox mains say). Playing Puff doesn't need anywhere near as much technical skill as Fox, but tactically you have to be so much stronger: other Puff mains have the same technical skill as HBox, but their decision making is nowhere near as good so they can't compete at the top.
Basically technical skill is overrated and decision making ability is underrated.
why would u have to be more tactical with puff than with fox? If anything you have to be more tactical with fox since he has to play so differently based on mu's compared to puff which can play similar flow chart gameplans vs most of the roster via spacing bair ect.
@@comettitun8087 Fox has different matchups but they're each a lot easier tactically than Puff's style, the difficulty with Puff isn't learning matchups, it's that there are so many options all of the time and you have to be extremely accurate with them because Puff's strengths (movement, bair, rest) are not suited to close range neutral, and she dies really early, so she has far greater weaknesses than Fox (or any other top tier). Played well, she's likely the best character in the game (Hence #1 on Armada's tier list) because rest is just ridiculously powerful, but the only way she works at the highest level is if you have the awareness and decision making skills to barely ever get caught in close range neutral while not already in the air ready to bair, and to avoid/survive and recover from being hit upwards nearly every time
You basically just told me that Hbox is the best puff because puff could be a good character...cmon adam make sense plz
I sometimes am feeling in the mood for puff but most of the time I don’t like her. The thing is that it’s very difficult to land that instant kill move she had (down B) and most of the time I’m just making myself vulnerable when I try to use it. I guess my reflexes aren’t good enough.
Only use it when you have 120%, 0%, its guaranteed to land, or you are down 1 stock.
I just think that you have to be a certain kinda way to play Puff that well. Not only do you have to enjoy Puff but you have to not mind being hated for playing to win and not for other people's entertainment.
Hbox can do the aerial drift better than any other puff or Kirby to the point where it's like the difference between Hugs and Armada, Hugs got stray hits and maybe a two piece on Armada, while Armada's peach gets 5 hit combos for like 70. But Hbox has the absolute worst tech skill out of the entire top ten. And in the words of Mango, "Come on Juan, how do you have amazing aerial drift but make more flubs than anyone in the top ten. You can do the hard part but not the easy part."
Is it the same situation as amsa and yoshi?
What is hbox's secondary?
Falco
Falco is a perfect example. He isn't played much yet is usually considered the 2nd best character in the game.
Dino Spumoni falco is the most used/common character in the game
Wyman III okay Mr.Man whatever you say. Look at MIOM lists over the years and look at Falco. Even if you mean lower levels of Melee its not common enough, a competent melee player knows Falco's amazing aspects but know the character has some MAJOR flaws especially in comparison to Fox. And Falco is still considered top 3 in the game
Wyman III Not even close to true, no idea where you got that idea. Fox is by far the most used character in the game.
rip yahoo esports
It’s because he’s good
Do you think people would be more drawn to her if she was better? You mention that a lot of people don't play her because they don't think she's fun. Well what if she was the best character and they thought winning was fun?
I actually picked up peach due to Armada. Well. I liked her movement but would never play her because I can't attack well with her. Dropped link recently and decided on peach after seeing it can be done.
True. Look at Link in smash games. Many ppl play him even though hes rarely very good.
Aniki vs Ken and Armada vs Hungrybox
this knowledge was a great increasement to my intellect
The way he says Icies with his accent I thought he meant ISIS for a second.
Mango is like the war hero that everyone wants to sleep with
So what happened to manga?
Non smasher here. How hard is Puff to play really?
Not that hard to pick up and learn, but at higher levels it's more difficult to play as her for a number of reasons, in particular her light weight. Not a bad character by any means if you're just starting out or playing for fun, though.
do you know what di is
Shes regaurded by most to be the easiest character to play at low level, but harder at a high level
You guys heard it here! Armada said Puff is better than Fox! Lets circle jerk this to the top page on reddit.
Please make "why is mew2king so far beyond the rest of the marths"
PPMD though :l
He's been playing for waaaaay longer than the rest of the top Marths
kirjian he's not. Lol. There are plenty of other Marths at high level. PPMD is a great example, but historically Marth has always been a good character with great representation.
In comparison Puff has had one consistent top level player for the 7 years and a couple decent players
ppmd doesnt count he hasnt played in forever.
Zain is catching up now
why is armada the only top peach
sooo , is Armada basicallly just doing videos on all the same subjects that Yahoo Esports did a while ago ? its cool to hear is opinions on these subjects at least.
Brief summary: Hungrybox The Only Top Jigglypuff coz Jigglypuff is boring.
Well HBox has been #1 for a year. And I think Armada’s prediction came true: Puff didn’t get more popular
Hbox is just the most experienced puff
I think you are missing one key component of the argument. A lot of people, like Leffen, say that Puff is a low skill character that is easy to learn and easy to play. If this was actually true, then there would be more top puff players out there.
puff is objectively easy to play compared to every other relevant melee character
@@comettitun8087 how things changed haha. Can't be an easy character to play in tourney when you have a losing match-up to fox.
puff is a-ok character but as her worst match up is fox winning with her is really hard and that's why ppl don't play her as much as ppl don't like her in the end many would play her to win if she was better than fox or the fox match up was at leas even.
Says the peach main kekw
I've always wondered why peach wouldn't be second on a tier list.. going by character potential, armada at his best beats every even good for. In tournament results, peach is first.
Because it's not so much that peach is the second best character in the game but Armada is just an amazing player.
Puff Fox feels absurdly unwinnable at lower tiers of play, which is why I think people drop puff more often than not, including me when they are just starting out. I just don't think it's worth it to learn the match up when it's that uphill for you just because her counter is far, far too popular.
Or maybe Puff takes mechanics and people aren’t patient enough for those mechanics?
Cause he's hungry for more