by Doc – Owner, Founder, Resisted the Urge to Swear in the Article Headline
Amiibo Stereotypes
Every redneck uncle has insisted at one point or another that stereotypes have some truth behind them – which is a valid point, because you just accepted that someone would say something like that based solely on the “redneck” stereotype.
Competitive amiibo is no different. Heavyweights have the stereotype of being very good contenders in competitive amiibo, and it shows in the amiibo tier list. The amiibo tier list page currently has the last four official amiibo tier lists, and you can see the trends very concretely across time. Bowser, Incineroar, King K. Rool, PIranha Plant, Ridley, Terry and so on all place pretty well in the amiibo tier list, even when they don’t have great AI. The stereotype of “I’m fat so I must be good at amiibo” holds true.
This is all pretty true except for the ROB amiibo. Across the last four amiibo tier lists, ROB has had two D+ placements, and two D placements. He is by far the lowest heavyweight on the tier list, with Bowser Jr. being a relatively close second (but I consider Bowser Jr. to be very underrated). So… why is ROB so bad?
Taking the “Intelligence” out of Artificial Intelligence
My favorite section of the entire website is the “AI Issues” section of the training guides. You never know what sort of ridiculous garbage that goes on with an amiibo until you train them, and it’s darkly funny just how dumb the AI is from time to time.
Well, let’s check what RAPJM’s ROB guide says about the ROB amiibo:
“ROB has no idea how much charge his Up special has, so this can lead him to SD. On a rare occasion he won’t recover at all.“
SD issues are often very crippling for amiibo. Sometimes they can be mitigated, like with Young Link’s tether recovery issues being limited by teaching him to recover with Up Special instead. ROB doesn’t have that luxury – he only has his Up Special to recover with, and there’s no way to mitigate that problem.
“Down tilt would be a very good move for ROB but the thing is that he’ll freeze after 2 or 4 down tilts for a couple of seconds after the move is used, even though in the 11.0.1 update they sort of fixed it.”
Classic Nintendo, they make the amiibo use a good move, but do it badly. At least they partially fixed it, right?
“In this update they made his Up tilt (his worst move) make him freeze.”
Oh. Well, that doesn’t help, it just moves around the problem.
“ROB’s Down throw is also bugged, he’ll punish with other moves such as Down smash, leaving the opponent to be able to get out and leaving ROB to miss a kill. “
This isn’t something Nintendo can make happen for ROB – rather, it’s due to the fact that amiibo mash at 30 inputs per second. ROB has great potential with a Down Throw to Down Smash follow-up, but the opponent’s mashing ruins it.
ROB has a lot more AI problems and shortcomings, but these are the most major ones.
The Truism
As I’ve explained with the Utility Formula, a successful amiibo doesn’t just need a good character to succeed. It also has to have a functional, non-shite AI. ROB has a character that could potentially be tremendously succesful. He’s got:
- Great recovery both horizontally and vertically
- Incredible multihit killer (Side Special)
- Long-range gimping (Neutral Special Laser thingamabob)
- Solid potential for Down Tilt and Up Tilt follow-ups
- AI Breaker potential with Gyro
Despite all this, the AI just can’t take advantage of his moveset. ROB defies the heavyweight amiibo stereotypes.
Amiibo Doctor 