

Smash 4 3DS/4 Wii U introduces equipment, custom moves and (only used in Smash run) items. There has already been a lot of talk about custom moves, and all have been revealed/ translated already. Thank you to all the users who have posted in depth analysis of custom move sets. Custom moves are tournament viable, but I’m not sure if equipment is, due to the extremely random nature of it. This is my feeling after playing playing Single Player modes for over 32 hours. Let me explain:

What is Equipment:

Each character can equip up to 3 pieces of equipment. Equipment that increases Attack (But lowers Defense), equipment that increases Defense (but lowers Speed) and finally equipment that increases Speed (but lowers Attack). In Smash Run, certain pieces of equipment can effect the amount of items you can hold. However, in regular Classic Mode/ Versus there is no drawback on equipping three powerful equipment.

Some equipment are character specific. For example, Olimar can equip Pikmin related equipment but Mario cannot. Bowser and Bowser Jr. can equip items that have spiky shells, etc.

There is also a tier of equipment. For example, there are “familiar boots” which are almost always less effective than “stylish boots”.

Effects:

Each item can have their own effect. More research needs to be done if some are equipment tiered specific. Some of the effects include, auto-healing, increasing/decreasing speed and jump, holding an item (which doesn’t appear on Omega/Master Core Battles but appears in the Credits Roll), increasing Smash start up time, etc. Currently, I have 81 different effects. I believe there are still more.

Drop System:

Each time you collect a custom pieces, you have a chance to receive a piece of equipment, custom move, hat or costume. You collect these custom pieces through local multiplayer matches, and almost all the single player modes (The Multi-Man Melee being an exception). For Classic Mode, the amount you receive is dependent on the “slot” you pick at the start of each match. On higher difficulties, the amount received is increased. As of right now, I cannot see a difference between the quality of items received on the difficulties, but more testing is to be done (More on this below). In Smash Run, you can collect the custom pieces through chests and by random enemy drops. You can get up to 10 per “run” (Pun intended). Each run lasts about 6-7 minutes, so that means Smash Run is currently the most efficient way to collect drops, as long as RNG (Random Number Generator) is on your side. Typically in Trophy Rush you can get up to 3, depending on skill and again RNG.

Stats:

As far as I can tell, the equipment stats are almost completely random. There are some noticeable difference in tiers, but within the tier it seems that the numbers are decided among drop. After 600+ pieces of equipment, I have yet to find a piece of equipment that has the same exact stats as the other.

Here’s a list of “Stylish boots” I have found: All + are towards speed, and the the – is towards Attack.The number after the equal sign is the difference between the two. Please note that items with effects, will sometimes have a negative impact on stats.

+26 -23 = + 3

+31 -16 = +15

+35 -17 = +18

+36 -21 = +15

+36 -24 =+12

+38 -19= +19

+39 -26 =+13

+40 -26=+14

+42 -21 =+21

+42 -25 =+17

+42 -27 =+15

+42 -28=+14

+44 -23 =+21

+45 -29=+16

+46 -28 =+18

+46 -29=+17

+47 -31=+16

+48 -26 =+22

+48 -27=+21

+50 -32=+18

+50 -33=+17

+51 -28=+23

+51 -35=+16

+52 -34=+18

+54 -29=+25

+54 -36=+18

+55 -30=+25

Here is some miscellaneous information about the equipment above:

Difference between +/- in ascending order:

3,12,13,14,14,15,15,15,16,16,16,17,17,17,18,18,18,18,18,19,21,21,21,22,23,25,25

Mean Difference: 17.2963

Median Difference: 17

Mode Difference : 18

The program probably has a set requirement for each type of equipment differences, and then decides to go X amount above or below.

No End for Equipment?

In the Challenge Window, there is no challenge for completing all the equipment. This makes me believe that there is no definite list of equipment to collect. It seems that I can continue to farm equipment until my eyes bleed and fall out.

Why They Might Not Be Tournament Viable:

Since you can continually collect equipment, and is totally dependent on RNG, players who farm equipment in Single Player may have an unfair advantage to those who don’t. Looking at the list of “Stylish boots”, some have the same increase but different decreases.