Banning Bayonetta in Tournaments

[King Of Bunnies]

She does have results, though;


And don't give me any "But I mean U.S results" bull, because you specifically asked JUST for results, not results in a specific country.

We have to ban Sheik then because Sheik players win every tournament.

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

Probably shouldn't have used that metaphor.
As goalies have special rules that allow them to pick up the ball with their hands.

So basically like goalies that are given special rules, so to are certain characters in Smash Bros, due to different moves and play-styles.

But goalies being able to touch the ball with their hands is just because otherwise it'd far too difficult for the goalie to do their job well. What use is being a goalie if you can't use anything but the legs to stop shots? That'd be a great way to injure yourself and the other team could play around that limitation and render the goalie basically useless.

Why should Bayonetta, a character with such good properties that she basically makes mincemeat out of anybody that's not at or below medium weights, get to be running scott-free if clearly she has a leg up on pretty much everybody but the other top-tier characters? It'd be like letting a man-eating tiger in the same room as a bunch of elders.

We have to ban Sheik then because Sheik players win every tournament.

Sheik doesn't have 0-deaths, she's never managed to end games within seconds, she doesn't have any punish that's nearly as effective as Witch Time and Sheik has to actually do a lot for her kills. Bayonetta does have 0-deaths, she has managed to end games within seconds, she has the most effective punish tool in the whole game and she doesn't need to work nearly as hard for her kills as Sheik does.

Shiek isn't anywhere close to being as ban-worthy as Bayonetta.

 

[King Of Bunnies]

Sheik doesn't have 0-deaths, she's never managed to end games within seconds, she doesn't have any punish that's nearly as effective as Witch Time and Sheik has to actually do a lot for her kills. Bayonetta does have 0-deaths, she has managed to end games within seconds, she has the most effective punish tool in the whole game and she doesn't need to work nearly as hard for her kills as Sheik does.

Shiek isn't anywhere close to being as ban-worthy as Bayonetta.

Bayonetta is punishable with Witch Time if used wrong and is punishable in a lot of other ways. Maybe you should just accept that fact that Bayo isn't this super ultra mega Smash God you're making her out to be. You should also get better metaphors before posting.

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

Bayonetta is punishable with Witch Time if used wrong and is punishable in a lot of other ways. Maybe you should just accept that fact that Bayo isn't this super ultra mega Smash God you're making her out to be. You should also get better metaphors before posting.

And how often will Bayo players in the top level actually mess up with Witch Time, do you reckon?

Not many, because they already know that Witch Time is punishable if used incorrectly and so won't use it incorrectly, at least not very often. Sure, she's punishable in many ways, but there's a clear problem in her risk/reward ratio here; she doesn't have enough risk to justify her reward, because she has options for basically ANYTHING that are safe.

Whiffed punishes on other moves by the opponent? Witch Time into combo. Misspaced smashes by the opponent? Witch Kick. Basically anything against Bayo can be rendered unsafe just by two moves, not even counting all her other options. She's not broken, but she is unbalanced.

Tell me what other Smash 4 character has ever ended games in seconds before, has options for basically anything, has the best punish move in the game and has easy 0-deaths with read D.I (and believe me, pro Bayos WILL read D.I!), and I'll believe you that Bayo is not unbalanced.

D1 literally calls her ICz, and I'll even use a point I brought up to him on Twitter; Bayo is sort of like if one took Melee Fox, with no changes to his physics, and plonked him into Smash 4. Maybe the Brawl MK comparisons are extreme, but she's by no means a well-balanced character.

 

[Red Stache]

But goalies being able to touch the ball with their hands is just because otherwise it'd far too difficult for the goalie to do their job well. What use is being a goalie if you can't use anything but the legs to stop shots? That'd be a great way to injure yourself and the other team could play around that limitation and render the goalie basically useless.

Why should Bayonetta, a character with such good properties that she basically makes mincemeat out of anybody that's not at or below medium weights, get to be running scott-free if clearly she has a leg up on pretty much everybody but the other top-tier characters? It'd be like letting a man-eating tiger in the same room as a bunch of elders.

My point was that goalies are give special rules so that they have more uses then the other players, just like in Smash Bros that the top tiers usually have "special rules" so they destroy almost all of the lower tiers below them.
That was why I was saying you probably shouldn't have used that metaphor.

Why should Rosalina be allowed then? She has Luma and no other characters have anything close to that.
Despite what nerfs Rosa and Luma got, she still defeats a lot of characters considered lower then her.
But we aren't banning Rosalina and Luma even though they can go amazing things that the others can't, even if it isn't a 0-to-KO.

Same can be said about other high-tiers.

Sheik doesn't have 0-deaths, she's never managed to end games within seconds, she doesn't have any punish that's nearly as effective as Witch Time and Sheik has to actually do a lot for her kills. Bayonetta does have 0-deaths, she has managed to end games within seconds, she has the most effective punish tool in the whole game and she doesn't need to work nearly as hard for her kills as Sheik does.

Shiek isn't anywhere close to being as ban-worthy as Bayonetta.

Pre-Patch Sheik out ranged pretty much everyone, out-rushed Falcon and could camp harder than most of the projectile users.
She also had no losing match-ups and maybe like one or two characters went even with her.
Other characters had a rough time just hitting her, let alone KOing her,

Pre-Patch Diddy was the same, but much harder.
Both of those characters basically controlled everything on and off stage.
Not to mention the fact they were everywhere.

Honestly, while Bayonetta can do amazing things, at this time, I see Pre-Patch Diddy and Sheik were more ban worthy then Bayonetta.

More time is needed to determine where Bayonetta will stand in the future.
Because banning is a very, very serious thing to do in a fighting game.

 

[SoccerStar9001]

According to Smashboards, Bayo has been the third most used character in tournaments since February at a usage of 268 [3rd]. She's reached 8th or better in a tournament 154 [3rd] times while winning only 24 [7th] tournaments. If we shrink down those numbers to the past month, she goes to used 121 [3rd], 8th or better 73 [3rd], and 9 [9th] first places. She appears to be trending downwards in performance.

These are hardly Meta Knight numbers, where he was obtaining a 60% win-share or greater every week [sometimes 80% or more] and was obtaining character usage rates on a 3-6 times greater than each high tier character. Unfortunately John Number's graphs are all broken links now, or else I'd show them to illustrate this point.

I've pointed this out in another thread, when it comes to banning a character you need to make sure that the character is in fact the problem. This takes time. You need to first examine the match ups, the potential character mismatches, or if there's an issue with the rule set that is allowing the character to be dominate. For example in Brawl, with Meta Knight every character broke down every possible way they could approach the match up. From there, we started to look towards changing the Stage List to remove the best counter-picks for Meta Knight, despite it hurting many low-mid tiers in the process. After that, we further tweaked the rule set towards ledge counts to prevent degenerate game play tactics.

It was only after that, and the accumulation of thousands of competitive matches that we finally got to the point where we were comfortable with banning the character in the URC. I'm not saying that all, or even any of these are the single right way to look at the situation. What needs to occur is that you have to see the effect on the meta of the character, and give it a chance to correct itself.

Once again, taken from -Ran of /r/smashbros

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

My point was that goalies are give special rules so that they have more uses then the other players, just like in Smash Bros that the top tiers usually have "special rules" so they destroy almost all of the lower tiers below them.
That was why I was saying you probably shouldn't have used that metaphor.

Except no high-tier character in Smash 4 has been so potent as to basically narrow the cast down to a chokepoint and act as a solid no-pass zone. Not Sheik, not Zamus, not even pre-patch Diddy or Sheik were solid walls with basically no counterplay that's actually fun for players and spectators.

Why should Rosalina be allowed then? She has Luma and no other characters have anything close to that.
Despite what nerfs Rosa and Luma got, she still defeats a lot of characters considered lower then her.
But we aren't banning Rosalina and Luma even though they can go amazing things that the others can't, even if it isn't a 0-to-KO.

Same can be said about other high-tiers.

Difference is that Rosaluma, Sheik and Zamus all had counterplay that was fun for both people watching and playing the game. Bayo is fun to watch but boring to play against because you need to either play a campy as **** game or pray that you can actually win the match. Bayo basically lacks a true disadvantage state, so obviously you can't abuse her disadvantaged state.

Pre-Patch Sheik out ranged pretty much everyone, out-rushed Falcon and could camp harder than most of the projectile users.
She also had no losing match-ups and maybe like one or two characters went even with her.
Other characters had a rough time just hitting her, let alone KOing her,

Pre-Patch Diddy was the same, but much harder.
Both of those characters basically controlled everything on and off stage.

And yet, those characters were still counter-able. Shiek was good at camping, but she has a very linear recovery and doesn't do much damage unless you get a combo going. Diddy's stage control revolved around his banana, and without it he had a tougher time dealing with characters like Rosaluma and Shiek; and his recovery was not only linear, but could also be directly countered by destroying the Rocketbarrel Pack, which gave you the stock. Even Rosalina is basically garbage without Luma, so focusing down Luma is always something people should have in mind when playing that MU.

Bayonetta's flaws can easily be skirted around just by not throwing her moves out like an utter idiot.

Honestly, while Bayonetta can do amazing things, at this time, I see Pre-Patch Diddy and Sheik were more ban worthy then Bayonetta.

Characters without/with highly unentertaining counterplay are always more prioritized in banning than characters with more generalized/less frustrating counterplay. You wanted to beat pre-nerf Shiek? You made sure to either try and keep her offstage as best as possible to exploit her linear recovery or you simply powershield her needles. You wanted to beat pre-nerf Diddy? You exploited the **** out of his recovery and made sure to not let him gain stage control with the banana.

You want to beat Bayonetta? You have to constantly tiptoe and play a campy game that basically relies on punishing to do damage; and that's not even factoring the omnipresent fear of Witch Time ****ing your attempts at playing around her right over.

More time is needed to determine where Bayonetta will stand in the future.
Because banning is a very, very serious thing to do in a fighting game.

All the more reason to heavily consider what Japan and Spain end up doing with Bayonetta. If they both end up banning her, then we should at the very least be prepared to ban her as soon as she becomes a problem in the meta, if she does.

Because hesitating on banning MK is what led to MK being dominant in Brawl's meta.

 

[Muster]

Once again, taken from -Ran of /r/smashbros

So what i'm seeing here is that despite bayonetta being the 3rd most used character, 8 more characters had more first place wins in tournaments over this time span?
These certainly aren't numbers making her bannable, and i also feel like a soft ban excuse for her lack of results doesn't make sense if she's the 3rd most used in a cast of over 50 characters.

Bayonetta is punishable with Witch Time if used wrong and is punishable in a lot of other ways. Maybe you should just accept that fact that Bayo isn't this super ultra mega Smash God you're making her out to be. You should also get better metaphors before posting.

Don't forget she's light, has one of the worst rolls in the game, and can still take half damage during frame 1-4(ish?) of her air dodge (and certain frames of her grounded dodge), as well as having a recovery reliant on double jumps and hitting the opponent. That, and her smash attacks are easily clankable, have large startup, endlag, and audio as well as visual cues.

 

[Xephilon]

Sheik doesn't have 0-deaths, she's never managed to end games within seconds, she doesn't have any punish that's nearly as effective as Witch Time and Sheik has to actually do a lot for her kills. Bayonetta does have 0-deaths, she has managed to end games within seconds, she has the most effective punish tool in the whole game and she doesn't need to work nearly as hard for her kills as Sheik does.

Shiek isn't anywhere close to being as ban-worthy as Bayonetta.

We're talking about pre-patch Sheik right?

Sheik didn't have 0 - deaths but she did have everything else going for her and she had an answer for EVERY situation (and still does). Witch Time mostly works on scrubs as in people who have a decent thought process not to go all out on a Bayo when she's desperate, on the contrary, they wait out the Witch Time and hard punish. Sheik DID NOT have to do a lot for her kills, you can convert from just about anything she does, could survive anything with Up B's invincibility and when its time to get the kill just Dthrow -> Uair/Up b, it isn't that hard. Just watch the ZeRo vs Ranai match.

While Bayo did end matches in seconds, that's mostly cause of bad DI. Getting those "easy" 0 - death combos require certain bad DI, read said bad DI and then do the inputs correctly. Also, where did this stupid idea that Bayo is easy came from? Like do people actually watch others do a pretty long Bayo combo for a kill and say "Pshhhh I can do that as soon as I pick her up" ?

 

[Cook]

And how often will Bayo players in the top level actually mess up with Witch Time, do you reckon?

Not many, because they already know that Witch Time is punishable if used incorrectly and so won't use it incorrectly, at least not very often. Sure, she's punishable in many ways, but there's a clear problem in her risk/reward ratio here; she doesn't have enough risk to justify her reward, because she has options for basically ANYTHING that are safe.

Whiffed punishes on other moves by the opponent? Witch Time into combo. Misspaced smashes by the opponent? Witch Kick. Basically anything against Bayo can be rendered unsafe just by two moves, not even counting all her other options. She's not broken, but she is unbalanced.

Tell me what other Smash 4 character has ever ended games in seconds before, has options for basically anything, has the best punish move in the game and has easy 0-deaths with read D.I (and believe me, pro Bayos WILL read D.I!), and I'll believe you that Bayo is not unbalanced.

D1 literally calls her ICz, and I'll even use a point I brought up to him on Twitter; Bayo is sort of like if one took Melee Fox, with no changes to his physics, and plonked him into Smash 4. Maybe the Brawl MK comparisons are extreme, but she's by no means a well-balanced character.

None of those things you cite are relevant.

All that matters is who wins. Are Bayos dominating tourney results? No. So, she shouldn't be banned.

 

[Greward]

I'll give a bit of an in depth in how bayonetta combos works based on her three special moves. I kinda see everywhere too many people talking about her combos without much knowledge:
afterburner kick (ABK)
divekick
witch twist

Her basic vertical 0 death is starting with divekick (in the air).
She can combo divekick into divekick and into upB. If the opponents DIs down and away, she has to fair1 into upB instead. This is reactable, so she shouldn't drop the combo.
Greninja can escape the divekick into upB combo by DIing away and using shadow sneak, but it's the only character in the game able to do so.
UpB comboes into upB, and so the basic kill combo is divekick x2 upB x2. If she starts the combo in the air, she gets the kill without the need of an aerial.
She has plenty of movements that combo into divekick (like dtilt, uptilt, witch time) so she can get kills off of that.

Her "bad" combo and the first one the bayonetta players usually learn is the:
upB - ABK - upB - ABK - aerial

this one is her typical combo to kill at higher % and the bread n butter damage combo. However, upB - ABK doesn't always combo, it's % dependant and sometimes you can airdodge between this. I'm not exactly sure why.

ABK can combo into divekick, basically being able to setup the divekick + witch twist combo from ABK. This combo works sometimes (low%, DI dependant?)

So basically:

Divekick combos into : UpB [fair1], divekick
ABK combos into : UpB, divekick (low% only), aerial attacks
UpB comboes into: UpB[fair1], ABK, aerial attacks

She has other options (and mixups) but these are the most basic ones I've seen.
ABK is the worst option for combo because it can miss, however sometimes she has to (when starting from upB for example).



On the topic of her recovery, she can actually double jump + upB kinda at the same time and she somehow (bug I guess) doesn't waste her double jump. It's very hard to take her double jump away since upB is close to impossible to oppose. However, her upB does have some blind spots if hit from the side, which can force landspikes.

 

[Shaya]

Perhaps we can try to stray from the MK comparisons a bit.
Because Bayonetta is not a Meta Knight - most complaints about her from high level players aren't that she's unbeatable. In fact it seems like a pro-ban player or two are situated between thinking she's "not good for the health of the game" and "I want to learn to beat this character because it's challenging and I like challenges".

Meta Knight was never 'officially' banned. It's a lie. Many regions opted to ban him, including the biggies (Socal, ny/ny).
Two main reasons he didn't stay banned:
1. "Blackmail" from Japan - we won't travel if you have meta knight banned.
2. Ice Climbers, a problem character with complaints since his inception similar to Bayonetta now, with similar calls to him being banned or his infinite chain grabs being banned like now who's unpopularity in the scene because of how they played and what they achieved far outweighed how strong most people agreed the character was. Suddenly ICs had dominant showings on the East Coast and most player's answers to Ice Climbers for YEARS was a pocket meta knight; most characters were hard countered by ICs but were reasonable disadvantages against MK. It didn't take long, but MK was unbanned in regions with ICs players and not long after essentially everywhere else.

Ice Climbers never had the results MK did.
Ice Climbers never won a major tournament. Never. I think 2 ICs existing in top 8 of a large tournament was as good as it ever got.
They were an incredibly unpopular character that received a lot of flack for existing, but a community which had dealt with a MK-ban, Sirlinist arguments shoved down their throats and a general hope from most players that someone else would take them out of bracket than themselves. And if they didn't want to rely on bracket luck, they had a pocket MK trained to air stall and time them out (the only 'strategy' widely considered semi-applicable for beating them).

I'm sure you could find a lot by searching through the brawl boards for Ice Climber discussions. They would mimic a lot of thoughts and fears now.
"What if this character became efficient" "what if they never dropped their grabs?" "what if they develop their neutral game to not be explicitly about grabs?"
All the fear / theory was rejected. "MK is worse (but worse in a totally different way) / we didn't ban him" + "we'll need to wait and see for him taking all top 8 spots at tournaments like MK never did before we would" + "Sirlinist doctrine down your throat".
Well, it took maybe 4-6 years, but the theory started showing itself. Nearly every player relied on their pocket MKs because MK had the tools to slightly negate the extremely skewed risk/reward of ICs (5 jumps + down air and tornado) which allowed a better player to beat a worse player. An extremely small remaining scene which "got over MK" because they had developed their match ups against them did not have it in them to handle ICs, many many players I know argued that they'd rather ban ICs than MK and this was a common thought process that didn't matter because the game was dead. I finally quit Brawl because of Ice Climbers, despite my belief that my character (Marth) went even at worse, I did not have it in me to continue playing a game where dash grab/back roll was so mechanically (if you didn't hit both climbers you would still get grabbed = death) stupid that despite my love for the game and the enjoyment of overcoming all the challenges, there was no answer to this and the stress was not worth it.

tl;dr
ICs were extremely unpopular characters who never could amount to the tangible dominant results of MK. Theory was there for years that this character was problematic. Communities and players far and wide were complaining about this character, arguing possible bans or limits. Regions which had prolific ICs (for example; this may be ironic: MD/VA) had a significant drop in tournament attendance/died. @Seagull Joe could comment, there's probably more to it than just that.
It's never going to be possible to stop an ICs-like problem in a community that denotes the only bar for banishment to be Sirlinist / "top 8 results of majors being all Ice Climbers". Because that bar is never going to be achievable in modern balanced/patched games - especially if they have a "soft ban" placed upon them.

I'm not saying any fair bar has been reached right now.
But I think any 'bar' currently being suggested implies that we need to wait for active communities to give up before those who aren't experiencing these things directly will budge.
Edit: The results quote that has been highlighted here before is not really validating her being a problem, although in the last month (I believe) Bayonetta has been the most popular and successful character throughout top 16s at large tournaments (150 man or higher); this isn't indicative either.

Bayonetta is a more readily playable and popular character than Ice Climbers was and ever will be.
And they may never be as extreme as what ICs were theorized to be or shown to be. But if they're anything like what ICs forced upon players, then I vehemently disagree that waiting for the game to be dead or over saturated with results (which will be subjective and interpreted by certain people to "not be enough yet") is the right decision.

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

While Bayo did end matches in seconds, that's mostly cause of bad DI. Getting those "easy" 0 - death combos require certain bad DI, read said bad DI and then do the inputs correctly. Also, where did this stupid idea that Bayo is easy came from? Like do people actually watch others do a pretty long Bayo combo for a kill and say "Pshhhh I can do that as soon as I pick her up" ?

I'm not saying she's super easy and utterly anybody can pick her up and get 1st in a major; I'd be a royal idiot to think that. I'm just saying that I feel that her risk/reward is much less balanced than other characters with not as many options to work around it that's enjoyable for everybody.

I mean, the Hoo-Hah was annoying, but Diddy never managed to kill off of a single error just because of Hoo-Hah. Needles were annoying, but Shiek could never kill directly off of needles alone. They needed to play just as cautiously as their opponent did.

Bayonetta can easily punish misspaces, lag or charged attacks with Witch Time into one of her many combos. There's less work to do for Bayo to get into her massively powerful advantage game, which is why people are even considering banning her to begin with! If Bayonetta had the same power of advantage but was balanced so that she had to work just as much as the other top-tiers for it, that would have been perfectly balanced.

It's that she has to work so little to get into advantage that I'm drawing my complaint. A character with her level of combo skill SHOULD NOT be easy to get into her advantaged state. That's the entire point of giving her that ludicrous advantaged state; she still has ridiculous combos and everything, but she has to work for those combos instead of fishing out moves from her opponents that she can easily punish with Witch Time.

None of those things you cite are relevant.

All that matters is who wins. Are Bayos dominating tourney results? No. So, she shouldn't be banned.

We've only had her for two months. Of course she isn't going to be dominating the meta yet in the U.S, because we've barely had any time for her to even be a factor in it!

And if Japan and Spain are considering banning her in the first place, clearly she's becoming a majorly dominant character for their tourney results, which is what's important here.

 

[King Of Bunnies]

I

We've only had her for two months. Of course she isn't going to be dominating the meta yet in the U.S, because we've barely had any time for her to even be a factor in it!

And if Japan and Spain are considering banning her in the first place, clearly she's becoming a majorly dominant character for their tourney results, which is what's important here.

Putting a lot of italics in your post doesn't make your argument good. Does it matter what Japan or Spain think? No, it should be up to everyone to have their own opinion. Not "these people say Bayo is OP, so she must be OP and banned immediately." Relying on other people to form your opinions shows that you can't form your own properly and should work of that. Bayo isn't OP. She's got tons of slow start up, she's light, which makes her easy to kill at lower percentages, and she also has a lot of openings if you combo in the air with her a lot making her landing animation longer.

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

Putting a lot of italics in your post doesn't make your argument good. Does it matter what Japan or Spain think? No, it should be up to everyone to have their own opinion. Not "these people say Bayo is OP, so she must be OP and banned immediately." Relying on other people to form your opinions shows that you can't form your own properly and should work of that. Bayo isn't OP. She's got tons of slow start up, she's light, which makes her easy to kill at lower percentages, and she also has a lot of openings if you combo in the air with her a lot making her landing animation longer.

I never said she had to be banned immediately, I said that IF SHE PROVED TO BE A MAJOR ISSUE, AND IF JAPAN AND SPAIN DO BAN HER, we should consider banning her.

Also, Shaya brings up a perfect point;

Bayonetta is a more readily playable and popular character than Ice Climbers was and ever will be.
And they may never be as extreme as what ICs were theorized to be or shown to be. But if they're anything like what ICs forced upon players, then I vehemently disagree that waiting for the game to be dead or over saturated with results (which will be subjective and interpreted by certain people to "not be enough yet") is the right decision.

If Bayonetta forces people to play like how we had to play VS. Icies in Brawl, then we absolutely should not wait for some arbitrary time of Bayonetta being all over the top spots of a tournament to ban her, because that'd basically be the exact same situation we had with MK and Icies before, and we'd have learned absolutely **** all from that. It'd basically be us bashing our heads into a wall and saying to ourselves "SHE'S NOT OVERSATURATING THE RESULTS!" over and over untill the game dies.

And that is something that would make us a real laughing stock in the fighting game scene.

If Bayo forces things like what Icies did onto people, I vote to ban her without hesitation. Because no matter what, banning a character should be something that benefits the game AND it's playerbase; because without a playerbase, a game is nothing but a piece of software collecting dust. And if Bayo proves as problematic over time here as she does in other regions, we need to be proactive about banning her instead of repeating the same situation we had with Icies in Brawl.

 

[Scribe]

Excellent video, I think one of the most important part to beating Bayonetta is to remain grounded, use ground moves (jab, tilt, smashes), grab a lot, shield and dodge often, and most importantly, punish the special landing lag CAREFULLY.
Aerial approach is a nightmare against Bayonetta, but she struggles against grounded opponents since her frame data is lacking there.
It is kinda like playing Little Mac, I was able to 3 stock Bayo with this strategy. The Bayonetta is not a top player by any means, but at least I wasn't taken out quickly by noobs.

This is exactly what I mean when I say to play the neutral like you would in a traditional fighting game. Emphasize careful footwork on the ground, grounded anti-airs, grounded combo starters, etc.

We're talking about pre-patch Sheik right?

Sheik didn't have 0 - deaths but she did have everything else going for her and she had an answer for EVERY situation (and still does). Witch Time mostly works on scrubs as in people who have a decent thought process not to go all out on a Bayo when she's desperate, on the contrary, they wait out the Witch Time and hard punish. Sheik DID NOT have to do a lot for her kills, you can convert from just about anything she does, could survive anything with Up B's invincibility and when its time to get the kill just Dthrow -> Uair/Up b, it isn't that hard. Just watch the ZeRo vs Ranai match.

While Bayo did end matches in seconds, that's mostly cause of bad DI. Getting those "easy" 0 - death combos require certain bad DI, read said bad DI and then do the inputs correctly. Also, where did this stupid idea that Bayo is easy came from? Like do people actually watch others do a pretty long Bayo combo for a kill and say "Pshhhh I can do that as soon as I pick her up" ?

It's a combination of bad DI and poor neutral game (I'm never going to let Greward live down running straight into of Bayo's 0-deaths twice in a row). ZeRo pointed out on twitter that the optimal DI is down and away from her, and I've heard people say that mixing up DI a bit is also good for throwing her off. Plus, again, most of those long Bayo combos rely on a lot of 1-frame links.

And people constantly bring up Komorikiri's results with Bayo and try to discredit him as if he was some random scrub before picking him up, but didn't he absolutely wreck people with Cloud and Sonic at G3? Are we going to pretend that didn't happen or something?

 

[Nobie]

I can't help but feel that there's a certain irony to the fact that Smash Bros. has traditionally been criticized for catering too much to lower level players (because the highest level play is what's most important to balance!), whereas now the threat Bayonetta poses to the Smash 4 scene is argued to be how she guts out the lower and mid level players.

I know not everyone who argued the former is arguing the latter, but it's just funny to me.

 

[Muster]

If Bayo forces things like what Icies did onto people

Icies killed you off of a grab, did they not? If there was nothing you could do to an icies chaingrab, then there's no comparison between them and bayonetta, as you can DI and SDI out of her combos. The biggest offender, witch twist, can be SDI'd out of with quarter circles towards bayonetta
.

it's even easier on the wii u version because of Dual stick SDI (edit: dual stick sdi doesn't exist, but sdi itself is easier still) and makes any of her roof combos that require witch twist nearly obsolete.

 

[Kofu]

Icies killed you off of a grab, did they not? If there was nothing you could do to an icies chaingrab, then there's no comparison between them and bayonetta, as you can DI and SDI out of her combos. The biggest offender, witch twist, can be SDI'd out of with quarter circles towards bayonetta
.

it's even easier on the wii u version because of Dual stick SDI and makes any of her roof combos that require witch twist nearly obsolete.

Dual stick SDI doesn't exist in this game. Smash stick overrides directional inputs and tilt stick has no effect.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Icies killed you off of a grab, did they not? If there was nothing you could do to an icies chaingrab, then there's no comparison between them and bayonetta, as you can DI and SDI out of her combos. The biggest offender, witch twist, can be SDI'd out of with quarter circles towards bayonetta
.

it's even easier on the wii u version because of Dual stick SDI and makes any of her roof combos that require witch twist nearly obsolete.

So far that has proven to be about as reliable in tournament as hoping that the IC main dropped their chain grab.

Realistically the ICs dropped a grab at least once a game. Either due to bad positioning, or it being on smashville's moving platform, or nerves or awkward character to combo or w/e.

Didn't make them any less of a problem in Brawl.

---

The current situation of "TOs doing what their particular local community needs, everyone keeping an eye out on the various larger scenes/results while waiting for the next patch" is probably the healthiest thing for now. Areas that need to ban her, Bayo still evolves so we can see what happens.

However, if the next patch doesn't really solve the problem, we cannot be as slow about banning characters as we were in Brawl. 4-6 years was way too slow, crippled the scene, and you still had people going "not enough data yet".

Seriously people, read Shaya's post up there, listen to the people who went through Brawl with MK and the ICs and the issues they had. MK and ICs should have been banned by about the end of year 2 and the Japanese blackmail should have been ignored. Would have kept the scene healthier, you wouldn't have had people dropping Brawl because they had sunk too much time into MK/ICs and didn't want to play if they couldn't use them, you would have had a larger and healthier stage list (which would have let more characters be viable): Brawl might still be around if they did that. "Wait until Bayo is winning every tournament" is never going to happen. Its a false criteria, a way of saying "never ban her". A true line in the sand criteria is impossible to make. We go with what the community decides more or less by gut instinct. When North America's top players are effectively soft banning a character, that says a lot right there about how the community is going to go.

What other FGCs do is irrelevant really: we're Smash. We have a very different game. We don't have chip damage wins, we have a lot more people emotionally attached to characters, we're Player vs Player vs Stage based, we have stocks instead of rounds, we're much more grassroots based, we have different rules from region to region. We do things our own way. And in Smash, keeping the community as a whole interested and engaged in the game outweighs any other criteria that can be presented. Doesn't matter if its illogical or not, if the community gets to the point where it realistically needs to ban a character so be it. We learned that the hard way with Brawl.

 

[Ghidorah14]

I will never be ok with banning something in a game just on the premise of it "potentially being problematic," instead of "actually being problematic." We'll never truly know if bayo is if we ban her just as she gets her foot out the door!

There is no "before it's too late" either. If bayo proves to be the grim reaper of smash4 in the coming months, then guess what? YOU CAN STILL BAN HER.

Stop using brawl as a crutch for your weak arguments. This isnt brawl anymore. This is smash 4, and in smash 4, we have multiple top tiers and multiple viable characters. Bayonetta is just the newest top tier.

I really dont want to accuse this community of being full of scrubs, but goddamn, you people are really making a solid case for it.

 

[sedrf]

This is what brawl players had to deal with when facing ics.
If the people here are comparing bayo to ics.
Naturally this is more exaggerated,but this makes.
I think for those who want to counteract bayo you could apply the way icies in brawl wer dealt with by walling them out and playing patience.
Or as esam says"just sdi"
Still there is some statements about fun ,but alot of mus against characters like rosa exist.
And we don't see request to ban rosa.
Idk bayo is weird to me. I feel people need to wait for ceo and not clamor for nerfs or banning.
We should try to deal with it or just move on like over fgc groups did in the past.

 

[Charoite]

The smash 4 community really likes to handle problems the worst way possible and jump the gun , maybe is because they're are to traumatised by what happened to brawl, but brawl problems were too many to be saved.

Now people need to realize that to ban bayo you need actual results to prove that she is broken, and you need more actual data that 2 months, why not wait for another 3 months, because this is normally the time which the balance patch drops, that is enough time to prove that she is really broken and bad for the metagame, and the community can demonstrate to the balance team what makes she too strong, and how she can be adjusted to be more healthy, but if the 5 months passes and is demonstrated that bayo is really broken and patch didn't drop then you a ban is justified, but if we ban bayo right now you dont:

Demonstrate that she is broken, because we can't play her so we can't have results backing up our theory that she is too good.

Highlight why she is overturned to the balance team so they can nerf her in the right areas and dont overdo.

I believe 5 or 6 months is enough time to prove if she is ban worthy or not, and if a balance patch drops then you players will have enough experience to deal with a more weaker bayo, but if a patch didn't happen there enough evidence to declare if she is or not broken. IMO

 

[sedrf]

Ghid I feel your doing the similar by suggessting anybody who disagrees with your stance as stupid or scrubs.
Also there were many games in the fgc were characters were banned like gil or akuma.
Not to say I agree with banning bayo.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

me ? im not the smash community moron, this is what happens in places where skill is the most valued thing over winning using cheap as hell characters
If you wanna play your favorite characters which happens to be broken do it online or with your friends where nobody cares but if you dare to step into a tournament, local, national or international play like a man with REAL skills


hahahaha XD u mad kiddo? mmmmm delicious salt for my chips!!! thanks dude too bad you lack any real skill that you need to purchase them for 5.99

ScrubQuotes

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Personally?

Wait until September.

I say this for a multiple reasons.

• At that point we will know if patches are a reliable thing.
• We will have gone through a couple of majors by then, including EVO. This provides data that could be useful for both arguments.
• This gives time for Bayo players to optimize their skill and other players to learn counter play. Then we can see where she develops.
• Initial knee jerk reaction w I'll have died off by then and both sides can look at it rationally.

Just a bit more time, then we can seriously discuss this.

 

[Shaya]

Okay, let me be more clear about what my goals are:
1. Acknowledging there is a problem, not necessarily a bannable one (although a universally agreeable ban is never going to happen). A community like Spain having a hyper majority poll indicating anti-bayo sentiments is enough proof to me that there is a problem.

2. That wanting results to show that the character is unbeatable is the only acceptable reason - well "unbeatable" is quite the improbable requisite, and if people feel that MK/ICs were remotely bannable (common theme here is that they were, still, not unanimous by any means ) then we already know that won't ever happen. There needs to be acknowledgement of this or I'll keep thinking "gosh I dislike Sirlinists who aren't active smash tournament players"; because only people who have no investment in their community would rather see tournament numbers dwindle to non-existent while those that remain "gutgud" [the same requisite existing for MK ended with a 'too late'/dead game conundrum, all those gutgud survivors are a tight knit bunch though, so there were benefits]

3. That the type of issues that can exist in a Smash game for a character extends past the case people are most comfortable comparing to from Sirlinist ideologies (e.g. "Ivan Ooze") through Meta Knight. An "Ice Climber" scenario played out a lot differently and shares more (current) similarities to Bayonetta than Meta Knight in Brawl did.

Stop using brawl as a crutch for your weak arguments. This isnt brawl anymore. This is smash 4, and in smash 4, we have multiple top tiers and multiple viable characters. Bayonetta is just the newest top tier.

Then stop preaching an unattainable requirement echoing ideas that are over a decade old. Stop acting like you have a stake in the argument while not being apart of any active smash scene whatsoever.
Stop assuming. That would be good too, because I'm not calling for a Bayonetta ban but rather giving fleshed out explanation of a perspective.
Brawl had multiple top tiers and multiple viable characters as well.

I assume a patch will come, then we'll go from there. A lot of the unfortunate fear we have here is that we don't know if another patch will come; if we knew it was 100%, I doubt this conversation would exist to the extent that it has. But if we're sitting here half a year from now with many individual scenes (not just 'scrubs') against Bayonetta being legal, then you're likely going to see a lot more regions follow suit.
The unbeatable requirement won't have been reached.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Then stop preaching an unattainable requirement echoing ideas that are over a decade old.

What, you mean...

...adapting?

...learning the matchup?

...gitting gud?

Those are unattainable?

Stop assuming. That would be good too, because I'm not calling for a Bayonetta ban but rather giving fleshed out explanation of a perspective.

Why do you assume I'm talking about you? I'm talking about the folks who're like "BAN THIS FILTH."

 

[Shaya]

Because I'm the one using Brawl as a main point for my arguments perhaps? Who are you talking to currently within this discussion then? Throwing out potshots towards the community for the umpteenth time who aren't going to read it?

Do we need more of those in this thread, or in the discussion in general?

 

[Ghidorah14]

Because I'm the one using Brawl as a main point for my arguments perhaps?

Dude, EVERYONE and their dog is making comparisons to brawl MK.

"We didnt ban MK and look what happened! Brawl was teh ruin'd!"

Who are you talking to currently within this discussion then? Throwing out potshots towards the community for the umpteenth time who aren't going to read it?

You're reading it.

The people liking my posts are reading it.

And the people watching this thread are reading it.

 

[sedrf]

Well brawl was ruined by it's ****ty mechanics but the flying runt didn't help either.

 

[Shaya]

You're being overtly literal in your facetiousness as much as you can. Unless you're actually going to respond to things rather than the cherry picking literal remarks, I'll say again to continue this in PMs if you feel the need to.

But assuming you have serious intents and don't just live for having the final word (inb4 "so are you", I just want the conversation to continue moving forward in some way, I'd prefer not to actually be apart of it).
We're talking about more than just brawl MK though, and if you're not responding to anyone in this thread you're just repeating something that's already been asserted and gains nothing (bar the 'likes'). I would hope you want this discussion to actually move forward. Maybe you don't think it can, but that would be a good indication to resign from the conversation, not just hold on for grim death when you're self-admitted to not be apart of the [previously omitted but anyone could get implicitly] active tournament attending community and (tell me otherwise?) don't have a stake in the decisions being made here.
To put it simply, if neither decision has any impact on you, while you're not willing to actually be apart of the discussion in any contributory and forward moving way, you shouldn't continue. I hope you understand this.

 

[Ghostbone]

The results quote that has been highlighted here before is not a valid example, although in the last month (I believe) Bayonetta has been the most popular and successful character throughout top 16s at large tournaments (150 man or higher).

That's an oddly cherrypicked data set.

If you just look at all tournaments since Bayo's release, she's the 3rd most used character after Mario and Cloud (who's way ahead of the pack), the same trend continues to top 8s, where she's 3rd after Mario and Cloud.

I'm not sure if I agree with the way you've analysed the ICs vs Bayo comparison. ICs were a problem in Brawl, and yes they never achieved dominating results. But they lived in a meta dominated by another broken character, who was even more broken than they were, who was also their worst matchup. If MK never existed in Brawl, I have no doubt ICs would have achieved similarly dominating results as MK. (MK was never banned long enough to really see this to fruition)

But even then, comparing bayo to ICs is contingent on the assumption that Bayo's reward is actually anywhere near that level, and there's no evidence for that. It's all assumptions about her having 0/pre-20 > deaths, which aren't proven as people haven't put in the work to lab all avenues of DI. I can say that I haven't actually ever seen a 0 > death from Bayo that wasn't DIable. We're seeing extensive Bayo combos that require constant DI reads from the bayo player, this is actually very interactive from both players and very different to ICs grabbing you and you being able to do nothing.

 

[Ghidorah14]

At this point in time, this discussion cannot move forward. Period.

If I'm repeating myself, it's because I'm responding to the same complaints and arguments.

It is too early to say one way or another if bayonetta is truly in need of banning.

Personally, I dont think people are willing to give her a fair chance. Here's what the future holds for bayo as it currently stands:

Instead of learning how to deal with her, and allowing the metagame to develop, people are gonna hold out hope for a patch to nerf her into the ground (lets be real; none of the anti-bayo people will settle for anything less). Here's how its gonna go down, from my perspective.

A. Bayonetta gets nerfed hard in an upcoming patch. Character is likely ruined and players feel they "dodged a bullet (art)."

or

B. Bayonetta doesnt get nerfed. Character gets banned from tournaments on the premise of "what if."

Either way, the future doesnt look promising for bayo. People will despise this character and want to snuff her out of the game no matter what happens.

 

[sedrf]

I doubt the character will get nerfed hard seeing diddy and sheik.
The character will be banned unless further investigation is developed.
But you know whatever helps your persecution complex.

 

[Shaya]

Ghostbone I probably should've noted how small that sample size is (and how little it generally means other than 'latest indication' and definitely not a statistical pattern). It was apart of a point that a few (mostly) japanese tournaments weren't exactly indicative either, ffffff

And yeah, dynamics are different between games, but there is an (albeit it very small) period of time where MK was banned and ICs were not.

But even then, comparing bayo to ICs is contingent on the assumption that Bayo's reward is actually anywhere near that level, and there's no evidence for that.

(just so context isn't confused)
I could give a big spiel on why ICs ended up as they did and that their 2008 face value [that people felt were sufficient enough for a ban] was not entirely the problem, it was a compaction of things. If there were no solo CGs available to Sopo then ICs likely wouldn't have been the same demon they were; but the focus by most people were just the fact they had their 0-death CGs; but if it wasn't for the former I'd say the counter play would've been sufficient to dealing with them.

I wouldn't argue she's literally achieving the same reward, that's silly.
Is she achieving that level comparatively in Smash4 to ICs in Brawl? "uhhh, not really" either; but it isn't a complete clone of ICs or relies on similar mechanics.
Brawl was full of cheesy overpowered characters. Is it the same now?

But to push things in the other direction, if she could be shown to achieve the same reward as ICs than she would be banned already (or the pro-ban would be a lot louder I'm sure), considering she:
- does not have a percent weakness shortfall like ICs did - if you were outside of solo CG percent range than ICs were significantly less threatening for the period of time before mashing out to let Nana catch up wasn't possible anymore.
- does not rely on a semi-controllable AI puppet that could die or "randomly" screw over the player.
- following on, does not have the horrendous disadvantage state, a limited selection of options in most situations or perceptibly poor legal stages
- while tripless CGs were possible, they weren't implemented at top level (maybe 9B was starting to get there?), every regrab had a 1% chance for freedom.
- is not limited to a single primary set up move to achieve her "problematic abilities" having multiple aerial and grounded options. ICs did have some platform shenanigans and they could snuff you with blizzard or ice block things too though.

In contrast Bayo's stuff can be DI'd out of, she's not locking out the player's inputs but the question remains whether there is a significant, plausible and consistent interaction for a player to have - assuming optimization.
We know she isn't killing you from 0% (bar some silly anecdotes) without any player input which was incredibly demoralizing and a common theme of ICs at all levels of play. However she does have less weaknesses and more tools to achieve her game plan and while I am not able to imagine Bayo directly mimicking the impact on a player's psyche like ICs did, I cannot deny the possibility. -IF- Bayo is that demonic, and it'll take more time than what's happened thus far to show it, then I know what I'd be opting for.

In the mean time, I know all my top tiers do fine against her, and I see no one local hating the game because she exists. You should consider stopping traveling to Melbourne

 

[Scribe]

Ghid I feel your doing the similar by suggessting anybody who disagrees with your stance as stupid or scrubs.
Also there were many games in the fgc were characters were banned like gil or akuma.
Not to say I agree with banning bayo.

I don't know the situation with Gill in 3S (I know as a boss, he had a move that revived him when KO'd, I don't know if he had that as a playable character), but with Akuma, he straight up broke the game's rules. The game, simply put, couldn't handle things like air fireballs or the various other tools in his arsenal, and supposedly Capcom employees straight-up told Japanese players at the time that he was deliberately designed to be too good to use in tournaments and, as a playable character, was meant to be just for fun.

Well brawl was ruined by it's ****ty mechanics but the flying runt didn't help either.

That's another factor that people fail to take into account when comparing things to Brawl. It wasn't just MK and Icies that gatekept a lot of characters. Some of Brawl's core mechanics, such as hitstun canceling, as well as general tools that many characters had, such as jab lock infinites and chain grabs, outright invalidated many characters' playstyles. It's like the opposite of Guilty Gear - rather than having core defensive mechanics that act as built-in balance failsafes that allow for a wide variety of playstyles with all of them being both viable to use and possible for any character to counter, you instead have defensive mechanics and offensive tools that make certain playstyles unusable and limit the scope of what's viable in competitive play.

Overall, I have to agree with Swamp Sensei on this one. We should probably give it until September, when we'll have SCR, CEO, Apex, EVO, Shine, and Super Smash Con (any other upcoming majors I'm missing?) all under our belts because of the possibility of another balance patch in response to the CEO, EVO, and possibly SSC results, or if no balance patch comes, whether she's actually dominant enough of a force to actually warrant a ban.

 

[NotLiquid]

I do sympathize with the notion that it's best to wait some more months to figure out where she stands on a global level.

Nothing in a fighting game community is ever undone by flukes. The positive thing about a scene is that it can afford to wait. Smash in particular has grown so big that it eclipses just about most other fighting games on the planet at the moment, with the only real exception being Street Fighter. As much as the Smash scene likes to think of itself as being the little guys it's bigger than a lot of people give it credit for, and Brawl survived long enough for a large portion of it's community to boost Smash 4 out of the gate in spite of Ice Climbers, Meta Knight and many of it's core systems theoretically ruining much of it's credibility.

It's not going to be undone by Bayonetta players being carried in the lower-mid levels. If saturation increases across majors (something I rather doubt since I still don't believe her payoffs come from the balance that is inherent to other top tiers at the time) it'll start to show whether it's something worth considering. It's hard to believe right now that a subsequent Top 8 will be dominant by players who have managed to cheese their way through the brackets, and if that happens it's something that can afford to be discussed and afford to let happen in increments. The Smash scene has experienced much worse as far as ill-constructed events go, and the FGC in general is mature enough at this point to not stick a fork in something on account of a potential egregious example that may arise on the world stage. Smash isn't the only game in this community that has had a particularly silly display in Top Finals.

Smash won't die because you didn't immediately foresee a potential problem that you didn't pull the trigger on, and even if that problem ends up a constant that you eventually do have to deal with, I doubt that people who were shying away from the game because of it won't return.

 

[teluoborg]

The main problem I see with the "let's wait for results" argument and that as it's been seen in the MK case in Brawl is that it's too early to ban a character until it's too late.
At some point in time the "character hasn't shown enough results to warrant a ban" turn into "there are too many people maining character and banning it now would be unfair towards the efforts they have provided", I remember seeing some debate where both arguments were presented simultaneously.

Currently I have no opinion about the Bayo ban as I am one of those that believe the almighty patch will come settle the issue, but one thing must be clear to everyone :
there is no right time to ban a character. No matter how much you wait or don't wait and if it's a yes or a no a part of the community will be alienated by the decision.

 

[Xephilon]

The main problem I see with the "let's wait for results" argument and that as it's been seen in the MK case in Brawl is that it's too early to ban a character until it's too late.

There's a big difference here. MK wasn't banned for years while Bayo has only been out for just 2 months. While she made remarkable progress, I say its still slightly too early to ban her because people haven't gotten completely used to her yet. I play with friends with Bayo for about a month and now they constantly get out of Bayo combos and I can barely kill off the top anymore.
Also, pretty sure the patch will come out this month (or as late as the next) as each patch takes around 1 - 2 months to come out.
Cloud patch = Dic
Bayo/Corrin Patch = Feb
Corrin fix Patch = March

Let's just give it a little more time and see.

Edit: Things I expect/want from this patch:
Nerfs:
-Less damage on most moves (a combo character shouldn't deal that much damage in one go)
-Up B range decreased IF it hits anyone otherwise, it stays the same.
-Witch time scales depending on the attack countered. A jab slows you for 1s and a smash for 3s (and it stales)
-Dair KB decreased

Buffs:
-Utilt hitboxes fixed (now sends up even if it hits infront)
-Dtilt has less endlag or make some moves come out slightly faster.