So here's my question. Why is Bayo's jank any worse than what we've all dealt with for years?
We've seen ZSS make the same exact comebacks multiple times with her own ladder combos and acted like it was hype.
And yet Bayo is the problem.
More importantly, we play a game where the existence of spikes means that almost any character can kill you at 20-ish% off a read.
Hell, anything touching you offstage was a death sentence back in 64.
So why is this the problem? Bayo is innocent here. We've been over her not having the data to justify a ban already. Metaknight had almost 3 times the representation at the same point in Brawl's life, so we know she isn't comparable to that. It's not a situation of "we all say we should've banned MK; don't make the same mistake." It's a situation that doesn't compare.
If you ban her, you set a horrible precedent for banning characters that people don't like. No other fighting game does that despite not having the jank that Smash as a series has always had. Spikes have always done the same thing here, so we should be used to it. Competitively, when Phoenix makes a comeback in MvC3, everybody despises her because nothing else in the game has her combevack potential to win off of one stray hit. (Bar X-Factor shenanigans, but that is universally agreed to be a mistake and isn't capable of wiping a whole team like she can.) we play a game where jank is an inherent part of the game. How many times have any of us won a game off of a spike or an edgeguard when we were down too much to deserve the stock? That has even less counterplay because it's stricktly a guessing game of "when should I air dodge."
And yet Bayo is the problem.
People might quit if we leave her here? Ban her and you also risk losing all of her players and fans. And yes, her fans do exist. She won the Smash poll for a reason, and it's not that anyone expected her to be less than top tier.
She's boring to watch? The character with a questionable neutral but insane reward is boring to you all? We're the only community who thinks like that. Similar characters like Q in Street Fighter and Arakune in Blazblue are usually considered to be great hype generators.
And yet Bayo is the problem.
Honestly, the thing that frustrates me about the Smash community is that we do cry and whine about everything. I'm guilty of it at times too, but it's never a solution, and we can't seem to grasp that. Banning characters should be a last resort in all situations. Unless the character is truly dominant (Akuma, Metaknight, Ivan Ooze, Pet Shop, Rachel Alucard, for examples in other games) the character doesn't warrant it. Banning a character for community health doesn't improve the community. It teaches that whining works. It alienates players who liked the character. It sets terrible precedent. It ignores the core issue.
If you have to ban a character who doesn't statistically deserve it, the character isn't the problem. The community itself is.
And yet Bayo is the problem.
This is just people needing something to direct their anger at the game towards. We all signed up to play this janky game knowing that it was the kind of thing where you would sometimes lose matches you didn't deserve to. And then we complain as if that shouldn't be the case.
If that's the kind of game you want, then you should be playing stamina matches with edgeguarding and ladders banned, so it'll be a health system like in every other fighter. But we play this because it's something unique, even if it messes us up sometimes. It's our game that we chose knowing the flaws. The flaws that can show up in every single match, regardless of the characters involved.
And yet Bayo is the problem.
She's a scapegoat that's being used to ignore this community's unhealthy mindset. If she weeds out the people who make a community toxic, then she's improving the game. If you ban that, then you're not looking at the community's health. You're looking at your own frustrations.
Smash has a 17 year old scene. It isn't going anywhere, with or without Bayonetta. Smash 4 will either live until Smash 5 happens, or go the way that Melee did. The people who honestly want to keep the game alive will. We just have to realize that "good for the community" doesn't always mean maintaining the highest possible viewership and playerbase numbers.
To sum it up simply:
ZSS/MK ladders are overhyped as hell, yes, but there is something attached to them that Bayo doesn't have:
Risk.
If ZSS wants to ladder you, in most situations she's required to grab you with a move that can result in a smash attack when dodged or whiffed. MK is less punishable but has essentially no neutral game, can't camp effectively, and his ladders often result in his own death. On top of all of that, MK's up-b isn't consistent - I've seen a ton of people fall out of shuttle loop before the second hit connects and get off basically scot-free.
Bayo has none of these problems. On top of ladders, she has hitboxes larger than the master sword vertically on witch twist, making it impossible to challenge from above (Seriously, it's more vertically disjointed than Rosa's dair - a move that isn't even connected to Rosa's body), and this is a consistent trend with a lot of her moves, from fair to up tilt to after burner kick and more. Bayonetta has the safety of a sword character with none of the frame data issues that traditionally hold back sword characters (The only other character that can compare to her on a data to damage level is Luigi, who has significantly less range and a host of other problems), on top of her insane reward that garauntees about 20% or more at best off of nearly all her moves, and at worse a stock.
On top of that, her disadvantage state is miles ahead of even ZSS, between a ton of amazing aerial burst options that, if she hasn't used them enough, can lead right into her amazing advantage state, unlike something like Flip kick, which just hits you and is done with it. She also has bats within, which can be both a blessing and a curse, but will save her life more often than other characters (except Duck hunt, I guess) will be able to. She also has the best "Don't touch me" button in the game, bar none. Her disadvantage segues better than any other character in the game to her advantage state, which is, if not the best in the game, really close to it. It's also near impossible to gimp her due to giant hitboxes, the triple jump, a wall jump, her side-b regenerating, and not a single move of hers putting her into freefall.
People will claim her neutral is bad, but as Salem and even Zack in a few select sets have shown us, her neutral is far from it, and it's not at all unreasonable to suggest that she is the single best character at air and platform camping, due to her fast and threatening burst options, and her large, lagless bullet art attacks that chip you from a distance that a lot of characters cannot match. And if you approach wrong, you lose stage control, eat a ton of percent, and generally get bayo'd. The reward on her options is also threatening enough to let Bayo players get away with some very unsafe options in neutral, since if the opponent messes up a punish Bayo either gets away scot-free and continues pelting you with bullets from halfway across the stage, or you eat a ton of percent for it from bayo combos. Bayo's neutral being bad is a bad joke.
I haven't even mentioned Witch Time yet.
Top player sentiment on Twitter seems to be "I hate Bayonetta and would love to never fight her again, but I'm still making money off this game and she isn't broken". a notable exception to this is Manny, who has said that he doesn't travel out of his region out of pocket due to Bayonetta specifically. Dabuz agreed with similar sentiments of his in the past, too.
I don't think Bayonetta is broken enough to be banned in a traditional sense (don't get me started on doubles Cloud, though, but we're never going to do it because nobody cares about doubles). I also don't think we should ban her because she may or may not be impacting viewership, because that sets an awful precedent. HOWEVER, if tournament numbers across the board start to go down with a number of players at all levels citing her specifically for why they quit or aren't attending (hell, even ZeRo has said something similar about why he didn't attend FE saga), or everyone starts switching to her since she has the best matchup with herself of any character, then we have a problem.
