Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[hypersonicJD]

Heey guys. Just here to share Xanadu now with 1.1.1 That way we can discuss the changes and differences that we see and maybe actually make some good impresions from the patch (if a mod doesn't mind this though).

http://www.twitch.tv/vgbootcamp

 

[LancerStaff]

Can we keep the shield discussion in the shield topic please? Tired of bouncing between three topics with my tests...

 

[Nobie]

Boss takes Xanadu using a nerfed Luigi, beating Feel Tension as Fox who defeated him pre-patch.

Luigi's now a character that thrives on clever play. The mixups were off the charts!

 

[Ffamran]

Boss takes Xanadu using a nerfed Luigi, beating Feel Tension as Fox who defeated him pre-patch.

Luigi's now a character that thrives on clever play. The mixups were off the charts!

The same thing happened to Diddy... Dedicated Diddy players ended up doing and experimenting a crapton more to get a much as they could out of Diddy. Makes sense when you don't have 1 or 3 really, really good moves overshadow really good and good moves anymore. I expect much more Down Smash usage from Luigi - it's that safe, so come on! Use it! - and hell, even Up Smash usage since Luigi like (Dr.) Mario, Wario, and Mr. Game & Watch can cover a lot with their invincible Up Smashes. Luigi gets bonus points for being able to setup his Up Smash rather than having to rely on reads like Mario. Also, pretty sure Luigi's running Up Smash and JC'd Up Smashes cover a lot of ground too.

 

[Green L]

Luigi's now a character that thrives on clever play. The mixups were off the charts!

I've been posting this for awhile now. Fireball spam and dash grab never was the best strategy with luigi. I hate how people say pre patch luigi was too powerful yet the skill of the luigi main was never mentioned. Boss has been winning tourneys consistently for a long time

 

[HeroMystic]

(though I hear rumor there's some new tech going around that means guaranteed kills from a Dair or something)

Not necessarily new tech as this has always been viable, but Mario mains are trying to perfect it.

Basically, Mario has to do a landing D-air and the opponent has to be knocked back in the direction you're moving. Furthermore, Mario has to turn around or perfect pivot in order for this to be a true hit.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBgfgk6TvAQ&feature=youtu.be&t=8s

I've personally known about it for a very long time but it's been fairly risky to attempt. Increased shield stun might make this safer to attempt on cross-up but definitely not in front of them. If it works reliably, Mario has a kill confirm. If not, Mario has yet another KO setup from empty hop mindgames.

 

[Shaya]

Luigi still likely being the best guaranteed damage racking character in the game while losing guaranteed kill set ups isn't enough to stop him from being relevant. Good.



And hmm, I caught up here. Fun times.
I feel like there were a lot of Meta Knights misunderstanding here... and getting overly upset
And it seems to be an ongoing issue. It's impossible to talk about a character's strengths or abilities "positively" without inciting emotional response (unless it's about Sheik I guess?)

We tend to always use personal pronouns for talking about characters we have invested into, and I like that; but it shouldn't change the fact we're PLAYERS and not characters.
Throughout this recent chat, no direct call for nerfing was made, the observation of "heavy use of dash attack, up air, shuttle loop" being something the balance team may look at in the future seems like a pretty fair statement to make considering their patterns. Talking about the patch cycle and how they've opted to balance things thus far is probably half or more of the interesting things we talk about or I read in this thread; if people are being impersonal about it and suddenly an array of personal attacks come in (possibly enticed by others misconstruing the situation).

A player stating that while something would not be a guaranteed combo, it is so close to real that in the heat of the moment it could be. I'm not sure how any player who's ever gone to a tournament and can press buttons and evaluate a situation dynamically at the same time would not understand this.... so to the Meta Knight's who argued it I'm honestly shocked and perplexed. You hit a dash attack, can you get an up air? very likely or you know how much extra time it takes to get into a position to up air and cover what the opponent could do in that time, so on and so forth.
My extent of pragmatic theorising has had me ignore the "exact" "real" percent all these magical things that apparently work on ZSS since the game was released, and I still don't care about those numbers. Why would I? Combos in smash have rarely been combos, they've always been strings that cover a majority of options an opponent can do, the next hit you get on someone is always a result of contemplating what the opponent can or cannot do and you never think to yourself "because they can get away I'm not going to bother trying", how inane.

If a single move of a character got nerfed (and by nerfed I don't mean gutted), and they went from a good character to trash, they likely weren't a balanced character in the first place. This was actually the catalyst of the conversation and I don't think any MK disagreed with the notion until it stopped being about Luigi and became about them.
Although... why was it about "them", as in, human beings/individuals? I don't really get that.
No one in this thread believes Meta Knight deserves to be nerfed, as in his spot in viability is not [currently] problematic. But we can easily point out some things that could be seen as worth retuning or rebalancing. MK has combo starting moves in his dash attack, up tilt and throws primarily, his dash attack is his best but it is by no means drastically ahead of others in the cast (Fox boys) nor even within himself.
But then you look at Shuttle Loop... you know... the only special move Meta Knight uses, the only thing every combo is going to end in, the only thing that has people respond with "yuck" when they see it executed because of it's ability to kill. Retuning just that move may make him less viable/work out as a nerf overall, but as long as his other tools are pushed up in usability then at an implicit option level, MK gets better. MK doesn't deserve to become weaker, just his power credited to him from one (maybe two) primary moves is arguably enough to see it being touched in the future.

Anyway this is not guaranteed to be coherent, but there has to be some starting point for this dialogue.

 

[Dcas]

I've been posting this for awhile now. Fireball spam and dash grab never was the best strategy with luigi. I hate how people say pre patch luigi was too powerful yet the skill of the luigi main was never mentioned. Boss has been winning tourneys consistently for a long time

Dont get me wrong, i have nothing against the tourney nor the guy, but using only that one tourney as a measurement is not the optimal way to do so. Would be better if you had results from several top players against Boss's luigi for example.

 

[|RK|]

I've been posting this for awhile now. Fireball spam and dash grab never was the best strategy with luigi. I hate how people say pre patch luigi was too powerful yet the skill of the luigi main was never mentioned. Boss has been winning tourneys consistently for a long time

And ZeRo was and is the best player, OG Diddy or no. Didn't mean OG Diddy wasn't ridiculous.

 

[G. Stache]

Don't mean to intrude and add something as minuscule as this (as this was practiced with no DI as I didn't have a buddy willing to help). But against fast fallers like fox, luigis up b might still be usable from d throw. I was practicing on fox and d throw into up b seemed to be a true combo from 80-100%. Of course, you need to get the varying jump heights down, and it only works on certain characters (and probably only if they DI poorly, so it's hardly going to be shown in top level play) but it's nice to see that we still have something to work with. Anyways, if someone wants to actually add DI to this and tell me how it goes, that'd be great. Because I kinda want this to be good for things other than a couple For Glory Foxs

 

[Firefoxx]

Also, if we are using this Xanadu as a way to prove things one way or another about Luigi, you would do well to remember that before the patch Poyo was often beating everyone not named Boss or Seagull and is currently 4th on the MD/VA PR. Tonight, with the number 2 and 3 ranked players absent, he finished tied for 13th.

 

[Vipermoon]

Luigi still likely being the best guaranteed damage racking character in the game while losing guaranteed kill set ups isn't enough to stop him from being relevant. Good.



And hmm, I caught up here. Fun times.
I feel like there were a lot of Meta Knights misunderstanding here... and getting overly upset
And it seems to be an ongoing issue. It's impossible to talk about a character's strengths or abilities "positively" without inciting emotional response (unless it's about Sheik I guess?)

We tend to always use personal pronouns for talking about characters we have invested into, and I like that; but it shouldn't change the fact we're PLAYERS and not characters.
Throughout this recent chat, no direct call for nerfing was made, the observation of "heavy use of dash attack, up air, shuttle loop" being something the balance team may look at in the future seems like a pretty fair statement to make considering their patterns. Talking about the patch cycle and how they've opted to balance things thus far is probably half or more of the interesting things we talk about or I read in this thread; if people are being impersonal about it and suddenly an array of personal attacks come in (possibly spearheaded by someone misconstruing what was said in their respective character boards with an avatar that forced a group of people to prejudge a conversation's tone and be essentially twerps within this thread about it; thanks + never change you know who you are).

A player stating that while something would not be a guaranteed combo, it is so close to real that in the heat of the moment it could be. I'm not sure how any player who's ever gone to a tournament and can press buttons and evaluate a situation dynamically at the same time would not understand this.... so to the Meta Knight's who argued it I'm honestly shocked and perplexed. You hit a dash attack, can you get an up air? very likely or you know how much extra time it takes to get into a position to up air and cover what the opponent could do in that time, so on and so forth.
My extent of pragmatic theorising has had me ignore the "exact" "real" percent all these magical things that apparently work on ZSS since the game was released, and I still don't care about those numbers. Why would I? Combos in smash have rarely been combos, they've always been strings that cover a majority of options an opponent can do, the next hit you get on someone is always a result of contemplating what the opponent can or cannot do and you never think to yourself "because they can get away I'm not going to bother trying", how inane.

If a single move of a character got nerfed (and by nerfed I don't mean gutted), and they went from a good character to trash, they likely weren't a balanced character in the first place. This was actually the catalyst of the conversation and I don't think any MK disagreed with the notion until it stopped being about Luigi and became about them.
Although... why was it about "them", as in, human beings/individuals? I don't really get that.
No one in this thread believes Meta Knight deserves to be nerfed, as in his spot in viability is not [currently] problematic. But we can easily point out some things that could be seen as worth retuning or rebalancing. MK has combo starting moves in his dash attack, up tilt and throws primarily, his dash attack is his best but it is by no means drastically ahead of others in the cast (Fox boys) nor even within himself.
But then you look at Shuttle Loop... you know... the only special move Meta Knight uses, the only thing every combo is going to end in, the only thing that has people respond with "yuck" when they see it executed because of it's ability to kill. Retuning just that move may make him less viable/work out as a nerf overall, but as long as his other tools are pushed up in usability then at an implicit option level, MK gets better. MK doesn't deserve to become weaker, just his power credited to him from one (maybe two) primary moves is arguably enough to see it being touched in the future.

Anyway this is not guaranteed to be coherent, but there has to be some starting point for this dialogue.

Agreed. If they change Shuttle Loop (maybe to horizontal KB or a complete redesign) they would have to buff the rest of his moveset.

Something like more damage output (it's among the worst if not the worst in the game) and returning transcendent priority to his moveset (it made him unique and transcendent is different, not necessarily always better). And I would be more than okay with this because I don't like MK's current game plan. But I fear they'd rework SL and keep the rest the same instead.

 

[C0rvus]

Also, if we are using this Xanadu as a way to prove things one way or another about Luigi, you would do well to remember that before the patch Poyo was often beating everyone not named Boss or Seagull and is currently 4th on the MD/VA PR. Tonight, with the number 2 and 3 ranked players absent, he finished tied for 13th.

Poyo confirmed fraud?

The changes to Luigi make him less abusive and force him to play more creatively. Just like post nerf Diddy. I think it does hurt him, but it's a good way to fend of the f***bois, you know? The serious mains stick around and get to work making up for the nerfs. The character evolves. It can be a good thing, only time will tell.

 

[Ulevo]

After reading the recent Meta Knight dialogue I just want to say one thing. To those of you who believe that Meta Knight is abusing an aspect of his kit because it is effectively overshadowing the rest of his kit, which happens to be good, you are largely incorrect. What is actually happening is these players are preying on your match up ignorance.

Fact of the matter is that Meta Knight's neutral, while not as limited as some people propogate, is still limited. It becomes even more limited when he has to rely on a single move, in a specific % window, to execute a binary objective. The fact is that you guys do not know these %'s (and neither do 99% of the Meta Knights), and we as Meta Knight players feed on this. If this were common or public knowledge then the match up dynamic would change and the Meta Knight player would have to adapt to using a more expansive playstyle, which is exactly what happens against say, Sheik, who has a very marginal window of opportunity to seal the stock. This is also why you will watch Abadongo play matches where he will eat 90% until he lands a dash attack to take a stock when he could have been playing from further ahead by just not being greedy and going for the instant kill.

There are times when fine tuning and rebalancing a kit are in order, but I would chalk this up to inexperience. Meta Knight has not even remotely reached his potential, and a large part of that is because players are exercising poor judgment on when and how to go about taking stocks. When players start playing against more Meta Knights and smarten up against our shenanigans, and the Meta Knight players are forced to adapt, the rest of the cast is going to have an even harder time.

 

[Shaya]

Oh, but if I was not getting the idea of the difficulty required to pull these things off being a reason for them being maintained as is, I could definitely agree to that possibility.
I mean, I get more up airx2 up-bs on for glory than I do otherwise, but that's because I know how to vary timings to cover obvious air dodges. I've never been able to pull off MK combos on for glory consistently in contrast :<
Either of these things only really seem abusive in specific offline anecdotes at top level play it feels like. We can't help but have differences in preferential bias as well, for whatever reason. I think just like ZSS, MKs know how badly things can go for you if just one of these very close to real situations slip from your fingers and you're suddenly in free fall or getting punished for it as feather weights. It's apart of the enjoyment in mastering the character but is also the main difference between us winning and losing; so when it shows up on a stream at a major tournament one's response to it is like "HELL YEAH" [or "**** you Nairo" in the most playful way possible] while others are "wow so lame, easy, needs nerfs".
It's a fine line between knowing the conditions, respecting them, and still relaying an opinion on it and those who talk in complete ignorance. That's one of those painful ironies in life. Fairest thing to do is remember we're not each others enemies.

Also, if we are using this Xanadu as a way to prove things one way or another about Luigi, you would do well to remember that before the patch Poyo was often beating everyone not named Boss or Seagull and is currently 4th on the MD/VA PR. Tonight, with the number 2 and 3 ranked players absent, he finished tied for 13th.

Boss is a real Luigi main and has been forever. He's always been known for being smart and creative, it's just a lot of time I'm sure we can agree the character didn't need to (and there's nothing to gain as a smart player not using the smart/best option).
I can't help but feel happy in an old quip about "guy who mains luigi for a decade doing trivially better or worse than very short pick ups by previously near unheard of players" possibly finally being DEAD, huzzah! We'll see though, he's probably still going to be a nuisance to all match ups he was good in before, just not in an overwhelming way (having match control always due wide-window kill confirms).

 

[rrrRandy]

[] hates any change that makes shielding worse. His strong OoS game (fast ranged grab with a combo and kill throw, Fly, Nair) is one of his biggest assets and it's now quite a bit worse. Projectiles causing more blockstun makes it harder to get in with him as well.

This is correct, though you forgot jump cancel Usmash, which is actually his fastest out-of-shield option. The additional frames of blockstun are actually a much larger problem than "the punish comes out a few frames later", since Charizard's typical out-of-shield options actually have some really awkwardly positioned hitboxes that are prone to not connecting the way you want them to, and this will be further magnified now that the opponent will have a bit of extra time to move away and you'll be spending a bit more time sliding in your shield, which is kind of significant since Charizard is second only to Luigi in shield pushback distance.

On the other hand, high damage moves benefit the most from the shield nerf and Zard has plenty of those. Flamethrower is a lot more annoying and Rock Smash can eat shields extremely well.

This is wrong. One thing the increased blockstun made me realise is that Charizard's highest % on a single hit is only 17% on his (sweetspotted) Fsmash, which has about 45 frames between the hitbox being removed and Charizard being able to act. For comparison, Ganondorf's 24% (reaches 25% when fresh) Fsmash has 33 frames between the last hitbox frame and FAF. Or, even better, Mario's Fsmash (which does 17% sweet/14% sour exactly like Charizard, or more than Charizard if angled up or down) has 30 frames between the hitbox and FAF. Not only do other heavy characters benefit far more than Charizard from the blockstun change, so do fast combo characters like Mario, and this is because a lot of Charizard's moves actually do pitiful amounts of damage for what they are.
Flamethrower is actually less safe on shield in 1.1.1 due to how the blockstun changes interact with hitlag modifiers (Flamethrower has a 0.5x hitlag multiplier), and Rock Smash is hardly any better on shields due to the fact that blockstun isn't additive and that the last hitbox that actually comes into contact with the opponent's shield only does 3%, and also that blockstun overlaps with shield lock now.

On the topic of , while losing easy kill confirms out of a grab is fairly significant and will definitely hurt at the highest levels of play (not that Luigi was doing well there to begin with), the character still has the ridiculous frame data and damage-racking combos that stop him from actually being a bad character, and he most likely still has the capacity to dominate locals where it'd be easier to land smashes/up-B (also tech chase misfires, new meta, shhhh). Most Luigi players (myself included, admittedly) probably overreacted to the nerf; not to say it's not a big change that'll take a while to really adapt to, but the character's still very much functional and not too much worse off (though I didn't think Luigi was exactly a top tier threat beforehand either), and being slightly safer on shield now probably means that he won't even have to rely on the grab as often. And people might hate you less for picking Luigi, too, so there's that. The only matchup I see being considerably worse now would be Rosalina, because Dthrow Cyclone kills at 80% were the only thing that made that matchup remotely bearable.

But yeah, after about a week taking it all in, I'm actually salty about what they did to Charizard (which, funnily enough, is nothing) instead of what they did to Luigi.

 

[Browny]

The fact is that you guys do not know these %'s (and neither do 99% of the Meta Knights), and we as Meta Knight players feed on this. If this were common or public knowledge then the match up dynamic would change and the Meta Knight player would have to adapt to using a more expansive playstyle, which is exactly what happens against say, Sheik, who has a very marginal window of opportunity to seal the stock.

What is it then? From what I've seen, witnessed and done myself the kill confirm window is anywhere as low as 19% and when you add dthrow into the mix he can kill confirm off DA or dthrow anywhere up to like... 90.

Sheiks not even close to that lmao.

 

[HeroMystic]

On the subject of

I'm somewhat surprised the developers went for the jugular and got rid of his guaranteed kill setups. Going by Boss' Luigi in Xanadu, he's effectively a more extreme version of Doc. Hits hard, racks up damage, but needs to fish for kills. His mobility is mostly bad but his recovery is very strong. Still a powerful CQC fighter.

While it really sucks he lost his easy kill confirms, you have to admit they were easy in every stretch of the word. If Mario is something to go by, having to make reads to get kills doesn't make you a bad character.

Boss has been a Mario/Luigi/Doc player ever since Melee, so it's no surprise that he'd shrug off this patch and keep doing what he does best. If he believes Luigi remains viable he'll continue maining him. Players should learn by his example.

 

[LancerStaff]

On the subject of

I'm somewhat surprised the developers went for the jugular and got rid of his guaranteed kill setups. Going by Boss' Luigi in Xanadu, he's effectively a more extreme version of Doc. Hits hard, racks up damage, but needs to fish for kills. His mobility is mostly bad but his recovery is very strong. Still a powerful CQC fighter.

While it really sucks he lost his easy kill confirms, you have to admit they were easy in every stretch of the word. If Mario is something to go by, having to make reads to get kills doesn't make you a bad character.

Boss has been a Mario/Luigi/Doc player ever since Melee, so it's no surprise that he'd shrug off this patch and keep doing what he does best. If he believes Luigi remains viable he'll continue maining him. Players should learn by his example.

Wouldn't exactly say Luigi has a strong recovery per say... Well, it's literally strong, but the chances of getting hit very hard by it are slim and it's pretty linear.

 

[Minordeth]

On the new 1.1.1 Xanadu -

- Most of the players I saw hadn't quite adapted to the engine changes. Except for Mister Eric's ROB, who, for a brief moment, seemed to take advantage of the real shield pressure ROB suddenly had available against Boss' Luigi. That shield was draining fast.

- I feel somewhat bad for Poyo. Luigi's dominant buttons made it hard to tell just how much of a gap there was in skill between new Luigi pickups and dedicated mains, like Boss. He clearly was at a loss for how to adapt to that D3, and I'm not sure if it's due to lack of lab time with the patch, or lack of depth of knowledge with Luigi's other really good options.

- Speaking of which, it was wonderful to be reminded that Boss is a really clever player. The baits he was throwing out in the Mister Eric set was wonderful. Plus, the man was pulling out some slick stuff (Dthrow > Dsmash > Regrab). He may have been fishing for Usmash harder than Ally ever has, but it was good to see him adapt like a pro.

- Random Link! against Kenny's increasingly proficient Pikachu was fun.

EDIT: I checked out Poyo's twitter, and sure enough, he chalks up his performance at Xanadu to a poor mental state. Given that he apparently took second with a 1.1.1 Luigi over Snow (notably) and behind Boss at an unstreamed tourney, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt rather than calls of fraud.

 

[MachoCheeze]

I've been posting this for awhile now. Fireball spam and dash grab never was the best strategy with luigi.

 

[Shaya]

I haven't done a bit of a direct list in a while, but this is how I currently feel about the upper half of the game. With pre 1.1.1 results and a bit of theory crafting

()()​

Spoiler

Seeing how the match up between Nairo and ZeRo have gone and the differences it'll have now (needles will be less reliable as a deterrent to movement; zss nair is significantly safer on shield) I think it should be close to even, maybe still an edge to Sheik in the match up itself, but the contrasting degree of gains between these two perceived top two is... crazy fantastic. From there I don't think the gap is too large for Rosa and Sonic; despite both likely losing to the top two they are not too far from even in either case, and I can't really feel confident in one being stronger than the other, so just like I think sheik/zss are tied first, I believe they're tied third.
What separates these characters from others in my mind?
They have the greatest array of options out of the fabourably tuned characters we've seen in this game thus far. I feel as if the feasibility of Sheik not being no.1 is there, and we'll see in time to come; I feel mostly certain (need to double check with recording frame by frame) that reasonable reaction time shielding needles is no longer ruining your life like it did before. This could be the needle nerf we've been looking for and it could have sizable impacts, although I doubt it'll hurt her too much when considering what else the character has (that fair auto cancel, best set of specials in the game, neutral air's duration). The move is less of a nuisance in stifling neutral but not weaker for skilled usage, SUCCESS.

​

Spoiler

Roughly equal in my mind overall for now, it could very well shift in the future. Pikachu got heavy buffs in a lot of his normal's safety on shield, final hit of forward air is +12 between this patch and last and as I've noted before having a functional rising aerial that can feasibly be safe is a significant game changer to his reliability, if Pikachu's still can't garner things after this then he really is doomed (but just the fair buff should be a significant boon to every Pikachu main). Mario is solid, he has high end mobility with frame data nearly unmatched with solid damage values and KO power, albeit not as reliable as we've seen from ZSS or MK thus far; I respect the argument he may be overrated but he seems safely stronger at most levels of play than most characters.
As an aside, both Mario and Rosalina were shown to have a lot closer matches with ZeRo than what the alternative top players had; showing they're not at a dead end at top level just that ZeRo has got both Ally and Dabuz heavily in check [I guess the Q being "is there anyone who he's played more than twice that isn't?"]. Sheik isn't that much stronger than most characters towards top tier before, and likely on average even less now.
Fox is strong at most levels, got a match up boon in one of his most annoying, but is probably looking towards the end of this group going by results in recent months. Sheik and Rosa match ups seems to be gating him a quite a bit as of late, and I'm not sure if Megafox made splashes at TBH5 (see losses to Vinnie and Aba).
Diddy isn't looking to have positive match ups against much of the top characters but isn't deficient or at enough of a disadvantage to require jumping ship in much of any circumstance. Rosa and Sonic seem to be difficult for him at top level and perhaps most others as well, Diddy needs some rejuvenation as he's not carrying the same prominence he did a few months ago.
Ryu got significant safety increases on fair, bair and dair. His sudden explosion and the further buffs this patch should be giving him is more than enough given his feasible abilities to be around this level, and perhaps, even higher. BUT despite his amazing strengths, it looks like he's losing to Sonic and Pikachu, and other characters could come out ahead given more time to develop strategies against him (he is quite different to fight than most others).
These characters have a mixture of a great array of options, great tuning or a bit of both but at this stage seem non-trivially less viable than the top 4 as far as I can see.

​

Spoiler

Again, I don't feel too much separation between most of these. In short, mostly highly tuned characters or good array of options with usually a single major ability.
I've been losing faith in Ness in recent times because it feels like this character has been mostly defeated in the eyes of many. He is a character with poor mobility with unusual physics, who can easily do two actions in every jump, everyone knows what this is and means (sh air dodge nair, sh nair air dodge, ... every possible aerial combination bar dair) and the smart and easiest thing to do is to always shield it. Not sure how he wins anything with this in mind and although it's mid-level, every level of player indulges; even with the insanity of up air and back throw, I wonder if he's as relevant still?
Falcon is in a good spot where there isn't much that can be changed about him; he has a terrible disadvantaged state (abysmal even) but still holds some of the most varied of heavy rewards in the game. Passively liked a lot of what happened in this patch too IMO (needles slightly worse~ and every other top four match up is not out of reach for him). Fair is 11 frames safety on shield and is roughly -17 on shield now; not sure how much more viable that is, but as it's 19 damage~
I think Luigi is also now in an alright spot still, obviously worse, but far away from the menace to the game people felt he was. I did think he was fair to be around top 5 prior to this patch due to his amazing match ups across all of high tier and below, and I think he likely will still see slight advantage against Fox, Pikachu, Diddy and others. His poor match ups may now not be tenable but he shouldn't be counted out yet.
Wario's average range leaves him susceptible to natural out of shield options more so than most of the good characters, so this patch is likely nice for him. Still seems to be kinda falling out of favour in recent times though. Similar could be said to ROB, but he's still doing well by his high level mains.
Meta Knight is alright. Maybe too alright. But he isn't really threatening the game's integrity in my eyes whatsoever. Probably doesn't go better than even with any top 4 character, if not containing some of his worst match ups.

​

Spoiler

The solid crew. All seemingly viable and able to make splashes with taking names or causing upsets. I don't want to go nuts explaining them all here, but I will say that I feel as if Olimar isn't pulling sway like he once was, and I'm assuming this patch has hurt his smash attacks safety (as they're considered projectiles); still a solid counter pick but I think he doesn't rub with the characters which seem universally strong like we thought he did.

I think the gap between bottom and top is perhaps smaller than before, but such statements will never be observably true realistically (better characters will develop faster). Nearly all the weaker characters are known for poor OoS options, so in a game slightly less focused on it they may feel less out of place.
I've felt Samus and Zelda were competent for a very long time now, and Samus in particular liked this patch.
Who could be the weakest/worst character in the game now?
Well, we're getting closer to a point where the theoretical "Mac is worst because of -obvious things-" becomes feasible. But personally I find Jiggs, Duck Hunt, Mii Gunner and Shulk have things most stacked against them. Albeit new mechanics help Shulk quite a bit; I feel ultimately bad for uttering Duck Hunt considering results, and Mii Gunner is still a bit of an unknown in terms of capabilities and rule set ambiguity. Q.E.D. Jiggs

 

[Jamurai]

But then you look at Shuttle Loop... you know... the only special move Meta Knight uses, the only thing every combo is going to end in, the only thing that has people respond with "yuck" when they see it executed because of it's ability to kill.

Fair post overall Shaya, I just wanted to nitpick because a lot of people take your word seriously (rightfully so) and our use of specials isn't quite as polarised as you imply; I want to expand on this for those who are interested. Shuttle Loop is definitely our best special, but Tornado and DCape are also very good specials which get a fair amount of useage. Granted, Drill Rush is pretty lacklustre and situational at best (atm limited to a recovery mixup and a stage spike gimmick outside of the Rosa matchup).

Tornado is underused for how good it is. This is possibly because it almost does too much damage (up to 22%), such that if the opponent has taken two hits, a full Tornado pushes a lot the cast's % too high for the death combo. It is hard to control to lessen the % and tailor it to death combo % but it's possible that this is another advancement in MK's meta which we could explore. Nado works very well to cover getup options from the ledge, it can catch all but ledge roll, which makes it a useful tool to condition the opponent to ledge roll or to not buffer their getup option, so we can ledge trump and hit em with a powerful Bair. It's brilliant for catching spotdodges, rolls and airdodges (and is criminally underused in this regard imo). You can also combo it out of Dthrow and dash attack at very low %s for very easy dmg racking.

DCape isn't as fantastic as the others but it's certainly not bad. A teleport makes escaping disadvantage states (eg. juggles, edgeguards) a breeze when combined with having six jumps to work with. It can autocancel at a certain height, which is kinda cool for baiting a punish and makes it less risky to use; ledgedrop > AC DCape onstage > Dtilt/Ftilt/etc. is a mixup we can use to get back onstage. The attack form of the move is useful for making opponents insecure, if you read an opponent doing a one-directional move such as charging a smash, firing a slow projectile or spamming a jab, you can teleport behind them and backstab. This does a lot of dmg and knockback and ends stocks from (iirc) ~90-120% depending on stage position. It's underused because it is shieldable and punishable on reaction, and is simply for reads only (offline), and also is best saved until kill % so you can make the most of your surprise.

The MK meta is very centralised around abusing the death combo right now, but as Ulevo says, if/when opponents start figuring out how to fight against it, we will be forced to reevaluate our options, and hence make more use of Tornado especially. MK is still a pretty good character without the death combo but I agree that if it gets nerfed without compensation (buffs to other things; SH Fair pls ) we will struggle against the better characters as winning our linear neutral no longer gives us anywhere near as good a reward.

*I use brackets too much...

 

[Mario766]

Would Meta Knight really be THAT bad without Shuttle Loop shenanigans?

I don't believe so. Have you even looked at his frame data? It's one of the best in the game, WITH disjoints.

Frame 7 dash attack, one of the best in the game for combo starting and in neutral.
Frame 4 Down Smash. WHAT IS THIS?
18 endlag F-Smash, safe on shield. Kills decently early.
Frame 6 U-Air, Frame 4 D-Air.

Sheesh.

 

[Yikarur]

I think Diddy belongs in the Tier above.
He has still one of the best frame data of the game while having an absurd broken ground game. He is also kinda underdeveloped.
I wish there would be more players that use and lab Diddy, because the character has much more to offer than everything I've seen in streams so far.

 

[Thinkaman]

Shaya's list is pretty good--most difference between my current list are all less than 3 spaces. (I'm a known pessimist on Sonic and a known optimist on Ness, but whatever.)

The next three characters I have just outside Shaya's cutoff (in no customs) are Marth, Robin, and WFT. Does that sound right, and do we think they do indeed fail to make our arbitrary-but-real cutoff point?

Also, I can't buy Duck Hunt for bottom 10, even in no customs, even despite his many issues. (With customs, I have Duck Hunt Zig-Zag Shot making it into the upper half!)

 

[Ghostbone]

Frame 4 Down Smash. WHAT IS THIS?

I mean, when it does awful damage, never kills, doesn't link into anything and has far more endlag than most tilts....

Like it's a good gtfo move but frame data isn't everything.

Edit: Actually I pretty much only ever down smash as MK when I mean to buffer a dash attack but do it too early lmao.

 

[Radical Larry]

I might as well make my own tier list (and try making it accurate) soon, because there should be a version 3 of my own thoughts now. No, it won't be a troll or biased tier list; my past ones haven't been yet.

I mean, when it does awful damage, never kills, doesn't link into anything and has far more endlag than most tilts....

Like it's a good gtfo move but frame data isn't everything.

It's a quick gimping/edge-guarding move, or can even set up for edge-guarding itself. You can be surprised at how powerful that attack really can be, even if it doesn't have the KO potential that you'd think.

 

[bc1910]

This is not the needles nerf we need. As long as it's an unreactable long range chargeable projectile it's not gonna be okay. Being worse against shields isn't gonna change the effectiveness much.

 

[Horseketchup]

Shaya's list is pretty good--most difference between my current list are all less than 3 spaces. (I'm a known pessimist on Sonic and a known optimist on Ness, but whatever.)

The next three characters I have just outside Shaya's cutoff (in no customs) are Marth, Robin, and WFT. Does that sound right, and do we think they do indeed fail to make our arbitrary-but-real cutoff point?

Also, I can't buy Duck Hunt for bottom 10, even in no customs, even despite his many issues. (With customs, I have Duck Hunt Zig-Zag Shot making it into the upper half!)

In terms of Marth, to what extent do you think the new patch helped him? Even with some added shield safety on tippers, I just can't help but see Marth's neutral as being pretty lackluster.

 

[warionumbah2]

Would Meta Knight really be THAT bad without Shuttle Loop shenanigans?

He would be mediocre. S2H is an example of a MK who doesn't(or can't) uair combo which results in his placements being meh(never getting top 20), as well struggling against the likes of Marth in tournaments.

This is only if MK lost his shuttle loop shenanigans while everything else remains the same. Best swordsman in the game will then go to Ike in an instant.

Frame 4 Down Smash. WHAT IS THIS?

Down smash(front hit) compared to Dtilt has less range, is less safe on block, doesn't set up combo's, 1 frame slower and more end lag. Not a good move at all.

 

[Ulevo]

I will be up front. Shuttle Loop is not the problem, if there is even one to be has. It is up air. Shuttle Loop serves its purpose and is an excellent move, but if you were to change it in any way it would harm the character while either not solving the original concerns or outright crippling the character. Dash attack to up air to Shuttle Loop is fine, but multiple up airs into a kill at %'s as low as 10% might not be.

A simple change in knock back growth and base knock back would fix this. Personally I would prefer this change, since remembering death % windows is a pain, and I prefer a more intuitive approach to my character

Edit: Also, down smash is terrible. By far his worst move.

 

[Yikarur]

Wouldn't it be boring if anything would be intuitive?
Of course if you want to get good at a game you have to work for it =P

 

[L9999]

I haven't done a bit of a direct list in a while, but this is how I currently feel about the upper half of the game. With pre 1.1.1 results and a bit of theory crafting

()()​

Spoiler

Seeing how the match up between Nairo and ZeRo have gone and the differences it'll have now (needles will be less reliable as a deterrent to movement; zss nair is significantly safer on shield) I think it should be close to even, maybe still an edge to Sheik in the match up itself, but the contrasting degree of gains between these two perceived top two is... crazy fantastic. From there I don't think the gap is too large for Rosa and Sonic; despite both likely losing to the top two they are not too far from even in either case, and I can't really feel confident in one being stronger than the other, so just like I think sheik/zss are tied first, I believe they're tied third.
What separates these characters from others in my mind?
They have the greatest array of options out of the fabourably tuned characters we've seen in this game thus far. I feel as if the feasibility of Sheik not being no.1 is there, and we'll see in time to come; I feel mostly certain (need to double check with recording frame by frame) that reasonable reaction time shielding needles is no longer ruining your life like it did before. This could be the needle nerf we've been looking for and it could have sizable impacts, although I doubt it'll hurt her too much when considering what else the character has (that fair auto cancel, best set of specials in the game, neutral air's duration). The move is less of a nuisance in stifling neutral but not weaker for skilled usage, SUCCESS.

​

Spoiler

Roughly equal in my mind overall for now, it could very well shift in the future. Pikachu got heavy buffs in a lot of his normal's safety on shield, final hit of forward air is +12 between this patch and last and as I've noted before having a functional rising aerial that can feasibly be safe is a significant game changer to his reliability, if Pikachu's still can't garner things after this then he really is doomed (but just the fair buff should be a significant boon to every Pikachu main). Mario is solid, he has high end mobility with frame data nearly unmatched with solid damage values and KO power, albeit not as reliable as we've seen from ZSS or MK thus far; I respect the argument he may be overrated but he seems safely stronger at most levels of play than most characters.
As an aside, both Mario and Rosalina were shown to have a lot closer matches with ZeRo than what the alternative top players had; showing they're not at a dead end at top level just that ZeRo has got both Ally and Dabuz heavily in check [I guess the Q being "is there anyone who he's played more than twice that isn't?"]. Sheik isn't that much stronger than most characters towards top tier before, and likely on average even less now.
Fox is strong at most levels, got a match up boon in one of his most annoying, but is probably looking towards the end of this group going by results in recent months. Sheik and Rosa match ups seems to be gating him a quite a bit as of late, and I'm not sure if Megafox made splashes at TBH5 (see losses to Vinnie and Aba).
Diddy isn't looking to have positive match ups against much of the top characters but isn't deficient or at enough of a disadvantage to require jumping ship in much of any circumstance. Rosa and Sonic seem to be difficult for him at top level and perhaps most others as well, Diddy needs some rejuvenation as he's not carrying the same prominence he did a few months ago.
Ryu got significant safety increases on fair, bair and dair. His sudden explosion and the further buffs this patch should be giving him is more than enough given his feasible abilities to be around this level, and perhaps, even higher. BUT despite his amazing strengths, it looks like he's losing to Sonic and Pikachu, and other characters could come out ahead given more time to develop strategies against him (he is quite different to fight than most others).
These characters have a mixture of a great array of options, great tuning or a bit of both but at this stage seem non-trivially less viable than the top 4 as far as I can see.

​

Spoiler

Again, I don't feel too much separation between most of these. In short, mostly highly tuned characters or good array of options with usually a single major ability.
I've been losing faith in Ness in recent times because it feels like this character has been mostly defeated in the eyes of many. He is a character with poor mobility with unusual physics, who can easily do two actions in every jump, everyone knows what this is and means (sh air dodge nair, sh nair air dodge, ... every possible aerial combination bar dair) and the smart and easiest thing to do is to always shield it. Not sure how he wins anything with this in mind and although it's mid-level, every level of player indulges; even with the insanity of up air and back throw, I wonder if he's as relevant still?
Falcon is in a good spot where there isn't much that can be changed about him; he has a terrible disadvantaged state (abysmal even) but still holds some of the most varied of heavy rewards in the game. Passively liked a lot of what happened in this patch too IMO (needles slightly worse~ and every other top four match up is not out of reach for him). Fair is 11 frames safety on shield and is roughly -17 on shield now; not sure how much more viable that is, but as it's 19 damage~
I think Luigi is also now in an alright spot still, obviously worse, but far away from the menace to the game people felt he was. I did think he was fair to be around top 5 prior to this patch due to his amazing match ups across all of high tier and below, and I think he likely will still see slight advantage against Fox, Pikachu, Diddy and others. His poor match ups may now not be tenable but he shouldn't be counted out yet.
Wario's average range leaves him susceptible to natural out of shield options more so than most of the good characters, so this patch is likely nice for him. Still seems to be kinda falling out of favour in recent times though. Similar could be said to ROB, but he's still doing well by his high level mains.
Meta Knight is alright. Maybe too alright. But he isn't really threatening the game's integrity in my eyes whatsoever. Probably doesn't go better than even with any top 4 character, if not containing some of his worst match ups.

​

Spoiler

The solid crew. All seemingly viable and able to make splashes with taking names or causing upsets. I don't want to go nuts explaining them all here, but I will say that I feel as if Olimar isn't pulling sway like he once was, and I'm assuming this patch has hurt his smash attacks safety (as they're considered projectiles); still a solid counter pick but I think he doesn't rub with the characters which seem universally strong like we thought he did.

I think the gap between bottom and top is perhaps smaller than before, but such statements will never be observably true realistically (better characters will develop faster). Nearly all the weaker characters are known for poor OoS options, so in a game slightly less focused on it they may feel less out of place.
I've felt Samus and Zelda were solid for a very long time now, and Samus in particular liked this patch.
Who could be the weakest/worst character in the game now?
Well, we're getting closer to a point where the theoretical "Mac is worst because of -obvious things-" becomes feasible. But personally I find Jiggs, Duck Hunt, Mii Gunner and Shulk have things most stacked against them. Albeit new mechanics help Shulk quite a bit; I feel ultimately bad for uttering Duck Hunt considering results, and Mii Gunner is still a bit of an unknown in terms of capabilities and rule set ambiguity. Q.E.D. Jiggs

So I'm not the only one who is losing faith in Ness? Because I do. Every Ness I see on stream either gets rekt or gets Gravitational Gimped by Dabuz. There were no Ness players on top 32 in BH5, and I haven't heard things about FOW and Shaky. Speaking of BH5, there were like a billion Rosalinas.

 

[wedl!!]

Honestly I'm still surprised that people are still that optimistic about Mega Man.

 

[Mario766]

Rosalina is one of the more common characters used in Michigan, with Rayquaza being the big one who only goes Sheik when his Rosalina loses. It shows since his Sheik isn't nearly as good as his Rosalina.

That's probably one reason why Rosalina was so frequently seen.

 

[Shaya]

This is not the needles nerf we need. As long as it's an unreactable long range chargeable projectile it's not gonna be okay. Being worse against shields isn't gonna change the effectiveness much.

You aren't screwed for perfect shielding it anymore, nor reactive (11 frame start up?) or anticipated shielding either. Before now you either held shield well before needles were coming, dodge it somehow or get shield locked on top of a long duration of shield hit lag. Yes they're still amazing, but at the very least Sheik has to be even further away to safely needle someone's approaching shield and that expansion in ability to

So I'm not the only one who is losing faith in Ness? Because I do. Every Ness I see on stream either gets rekt or gets Gravitational Gimped by Dabuz. There were no Ness players on top 32 in BH5, and I haven't heard things about FOW and Shaky. Speaking of BH5, there were like a billion Rosalinas.

Shaky is currently no.1 in Norcal, and I'd assume Fow is still no.1 in Vegas. Neither were there I think, and beyond that there isn't much going for them?

Honestly I'm still surprised that people are still that optimistic about Mega Man.

I keep a higher judgement because of Japan/Europe's perceptions of him a bit, although there was a time I was starting to think very poorly of him. He has a lot of room to go down I guess.

 

[TriTails]

Boss taking Xanadu? Gotta check that stuff out.

Also, lots of Luigi doscussion here. Wow.

I suppose I've calmed down a bit, but I still think Luigi now belongs to like high mid tier. His MUs post-patch probably have gotten worse across the board (Again. RIP Luigi vs Sheik. Also Luigi vs Rosalina). People have been praising on how he still has his good CQC (Definitely 2nd best behind Mac) or frame data, or his damage output. But I find it ironic people forgot one solution to beat Luigi pre-patch...

Luigi is *** vs camping.

Diddy got hit hard? Sure. He still kept his bananas, aerials (Namely F-air and B-air), Monkey Flip, and mobility. Luigi can't get in for flip against campy characters/top tiers/*Insert characters with strong camping game (Lol Sheik, Rosalina, ZSS). Diddy can or at least have much bigger chance to do so because he doesn't have the 2nd slowest airspeed in the game. That's the difference. Luigi was ****ed by camping and he still is. When combined with the lesser rewards for getting in at high percents (read: struggle to get a kill), you facepalm your face off.

 

[Amadeus9]

I don't do this often, but I'm going to go ahead and apologize for getting too personal in my defense of MK

I hope at least the reasons can be understood, I think it's easy to rationalize getting upset after investing hundreds of hours into a fighter before being able to even score a combo once every couple games, and then having said fighter being called as braindead as pre-patch Diddy or Luigi. But that's not the point; again, sorry. I'll try to be a little less "passive aggressive MK" in the future.

I will say I actually agreed with most I read on this page between Shaya Jamurai and Ulevo 's posts. There would definitely need to be heavy compensation for the loss of usage for any one of MK's combo moves. At this point I'm so invested in the character that if he got nerfed (if I continued playing Smash 4), I would still play him, so I'd hope for at least that.

 

[Nobie]

Relating back to Poyo's poor mental condition at the Xanadu yesterday as part of the reason he didn't do so well, I wonder how much success with a given character is determined by how "resistant" they are to mindset.

Like, if your head's not on straight you're not gonna do quite as well no matter what (see Zero at TBH5), but it's perhaps possible to argue that characters like prep-patch Luigi or hoo hah Diddy could still function better if your mental game was off, succeeding in the good times and the bad. Other characters that require more constant re-evaluation and judgment in terms of options, opponent habits, etc., that require your brain to be firing on all cylinders, would then be more greatly affected by changes in mental condition.

I think this might even be the foundation of certain disagreements over viability, in that some characters have a ton of tools at their disposal, but they might require more of a constant sharpness to one's mind that falters tremeondously if not enough thinking is happening. For example, this might be why there's so much disagreement over Marth's neutral game. He has plenty of tools and options to make the right decision at all times, but if you go on auto-pilot you're eating something fierce.