Byleth: Joins House Smash Brothers Social Thread

[Deleted member]

The artwork of Sothis in Byleth's Final Smash was posted on the Fire Emblem subreddit, so here it is in all of its glory:

 

[Sigran101]

I made my best friend rage quit with Byleth. He's the most chill person I've ever met, so I must have really been whupping his ass. I think I found my new main.

 

[Concept]

First impression: Byleth is my new main.

As soon as I picked them up, I had to have her. She's a zoner but doesn't use projectiles like I've always wanted. Her Up-B SPIKES. Like, I was wondering why they didn't have that on Isabelle's Fishing Rod and Joker's Up-B, but heyyy this is great.

She might be slow, but she's definitely a heavy hitter with a decent edge-guard game and an e x c e l l e n t recovery. Two specials and an aerial that can potentially break shields...Thank you Sakurai feels_good.jpeg She's a bit laggy tho and the arrow is pretty useless outside of was Mew2King said about its movement options. But do what you must.

 

[Teeb147]

I need more experience with the character, but I definitely don't think I can main her, due to the slow playstle. I still wanna try to use her though.

 

[Idon]

Sakurai you know I love and adore you, but why would you make every single move of his have the equivalent startup and endlag of Ike's fsmash?

 

[Fluttershy]

I'm honestly finding it hard to not get juggled.. Byleth has no real tool for getting out of those situations other than Side B which is predictable and doesn't cover below her.. Dair, Fair, and Bair are difficult to land correctly and Nair doesn't have the range like Palutena's Nair and feels worse..

 

[Idon]

I'm honestly finding it hard to not get juggled.. Byleth has no real tool for getting out of those situations other than Side B which is predictable and doesn't cover below her.. Dair, Fair, and Bair are difficult to land correctly and Nair doesn't have the range like Palutena's Nair and feels worse..

Exactly, Byleth can neither assert pressure nor get out of it... He seems like a character designed purely for stealing kills in Free For All with items, and if that's the case...

yeesh what a disappointment.

 

[Fluttershy]

Exactly, Byleth can neither assert pressure nor get out of it... He seems like a character designed purely for stealing kills in Free For All with items, and if that's the case...

yeesh what a disappointment.

I think the correct style of play is to not commit too much. The tilts are really good for spacing and do a much better job than most of her aerials. Uair is probably her best aerial with the disjoint and can juggle pretty well.. She can definitely kill early but has trouble getting combos down. She's almost like a heavy weight in terms of playstyle but functions as a medium weight

 

[Arrei]

Yknow what the worst thing about Byleth is, though?

Fair and Bair having jab "thwap" sounds on their sweetspots.

What gives? Where are my meaty blade hits? This game has such good audio design on hits normally, what happened here?

 

[Lamperouge]

Here's hoping that future patches significantly reduce the startup and end lag on a bunch of their moves.

I'm loving the character and I'm going to continue trying my best to make them work competitively, but damn if they don't feel outclassed in every way and especially against speedy characters...who also dominate about 60-70% of the online playerbase, so yikes.

 

[Deleted member]

Here's some fan art of the DQ8 Hero as a Black Eagles student made by an artist at a DQ Discord server I'm in!

Dragon Quest 8 Hero, Eight, as a student at Garreg Mach Monastery with his pal Munchie!
He would be with in the Black Eagles house and bares the major crest of Dragovian.
Proficiencies in Swords, Lances, Reason and Faith. #DragonQuest #FireEmblemThreeHouses #SmashBros pic.twitter.com/UtXzxvNebv

— Krizeros @ comms open (@futurexhope) January 27, 2020

 

[Idon]

Yknow what the worst thing about Byleth is, though?

Fair and Bair having jab "thwap" sounds on their sweetspots.

What gives? Where are my meaty blade hits? This game has such good audio design on hits normally, what happened here?

That's because for some bizarre reason, Byleth doesn't swing the lances. He slaps them at you. For his fair, he hits you with the blunt end of the glaive and for his bair, he hits you with that flat area.

 

[Sigran101]

Zero put out his analysis and says they're high tier. I agree. Ya'll are whining too much. Byleth's not THAT slow. Ike fsmash? Seriously? Not even close. Designed for stealing kills with items? It's okay to be a little salty but come on. And their kit is fantastic enough to balance out the lack of speed.

Zero's analysis

 

[Teeb147]

Zero put out his analysis and says they're high tier. I agree. Ya'll are whining too much. Byleth's not THAT slow. Ike fsmash? Seriously? Not even close. Designed for stealing kills with items? It's okay to be a little salty but come on. And their kit is fantastic enough to balance out the lack of speed.

Zero's analysis

In my opinion, Zero is way off, and most other pro smashers say that byleth isn't very good. Though zero does admit that he/she can't really deal well with top tiers. But most people think the character is bottom, while he places them at high tier, it's just way too big of a contrast. I dont think I mind positive opinions tho, it'd be nice if the character can be good in some ways.

 

[Jomosensual]

I just played for the first time against another person competitively and had a hard time. That person was a Mii Gunner Sans though, so that wasn't the best matchup

 

[Dukefire]

Take your time to learn Byleth's moves and playstyle. Also, like what Byleth said "Each chance is a chance to grow."

 

[Xeno_Emblem]

I just play Smash Bros casually so all these issues don't really matter to me honestly. Byleth is my main no matter what. I love his/her playstyle and I'm just blessed to have them as a playable character because this is what I've wanted since I completed Three Houses. Female Byleth for life! <3

 

[Nah]

Zero put out his analysis and says they're high tier. I agree. Ya'll are whining too much. Byleth's not THAT slow. Ike fsmash? Seriously? Not even close. Designed for stealing kills with items? It's okay to be a little salty but come on. And their kit is fantastic enough to balance out the lack of speed.

Zero's analysis

No, the character is definitely bad. All that range and kill power means little if you can’t make consistent use of it. Devs put way too much stock into the character’s raw range alone.

I’m not about to drop the character, it’s only day 2, and there’s a chance that we could be wrong, but right now it’s very hard to believe that’s gonna be the case. Like, they had nearly two months to do something to the character, but didn’t.

 

[HyperL]

I could see Byleth being high tier if she didn't have so much lag in all of her moves.

Like, halving the startup on Side B alone would make her jump a whole tier up from wherever she is right now.

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

I guess carrying multiple large weapons (with one made of dragon bone, no less) can seriously hinder one's speed.

 

[Arrei]

Zero put out his analysis and says they're high tier. I agree. Ya'll are whining too much. Byleth's not THAT slow. Ike fsmash? Seriously? Not even close. Designed for stealing kills with items? It's okay to be a little salty but come on. And their kit is fantastic enough to balance out the lack of speed.

Zero's analysis

Meanwhile, Nairo spent the better part of his first evening taking them for a spin with MKLeo calling the character doo-doo trash garbage and lamenting how he wanted them to be good but was seriously feeling that they were bottom 10.

The character's tilts are pretty good, but nothing we haven't already seen on characters with better mobility. Their smashes do their job with killing but are very slow and not even safe when spaced. That leaves us with... their neutral special, which could have been a conventional charge special but was made incredibly ineffective in a misguided effort to make it unique. Their up special, which doesn't have true followups except with certain platform or ledge positioning, and puts Byleth in disadvantage for landing it. Side special, which can't be spaced safely despite being billed as a space control attack and doesn't kill reliably with its sweetspot despite being a slow, unsafe move that demands accuracy. Down special, which is Warlock Punch, and has enough endlag that people will learn to just back off until it ends to punish as they like.

Then we have their aerials, which are mostly functional in a vacuum (except Dair) but are universally hampered by Byleth's air speed making them all-in committal options because they can neither chase nor fake out opponents very well with their mobility. Their attacks may have range, but plenty of other characters on the roster also have more versatile long-range attacks they can use in their arsenal on top of other strengths, and those moves are often safer to boot, whereas it seems like reach is Byleth's only claim to fame, all else be damned.

If they made this character to be defensive, they seem to have forgotten speed is both an offensive and a defensive stat, just as it is in Byleth's home games. They move like an archetypal zoner but can't zone. When I use Byleth, I feel like I'm playing Smash 4 again with how slow and committal their play is.

 

[DrKatz]

So after having more time with the character, I don’t think he’s that bad. I’m not gonna lie and pretend they’re top tier, but am definitely wouldn’t say bottom 10.

Byleth’s ledge trapping game, uptilt, and upair are incredibly strong tools. Fair and bair are pretty great when spaced defensively as well, or used to punish. The character definitely has a lot of flaws, but he has a few saving graces that’ll make him at least usable as a solid mid-tier character. Nair is very important in neutral to read people’s jump timings as well.

Overall, still think he needs buffs, mainly to his frame data, but mobility wouldn’t hurt either. Those are literally all the character would need changed to be high/top tier.

 

[Teeb147]

The character does have strengths..

I think the aerials are actually really good, with good range. It's what they have going the most. It's just I figure it might be predictable enough for the opponent to always shield them, since air and run speed is so poor that you can't faint them into running grab.

Side-B is actually good to catch people off guard from afar, and especially good if they're not on the ground, but if they just shield often, they can punish often. and you have to be close to break their shield. Sweet spot back air does have more shield damage, so maybe someone could learn to pressure shields in several ways?

I think that with the range ,including on the tilts, someone who reads the opponent well can do ok with Byleth, but I think fast characters will be able to go in and out fast enough that it's quite hard to do on them. Luckily the strength of the moves makes it that if you do get some good reads you can take them out. I ko'ed pikachu pretty early and it made me think maybe it's not an impossible matchup like I thought, but still really hard.

Take it how you will, but I do think the character is lower mid-tier. But I don't solo-main anyway, so let's just have fun

 

[Idon]

Discussions of viability aside...

can I just say how much I love how he just... looks?
The way he stands with his longsword stretched out across his back and his calm focused demeanor? when he uses the sword, he has a level of precision and grace that feels almost divine, which is super fitting for his lore. You really can see him either being a legendary emotionless mercenary or a wizened and tactical war master or even a divine warrior demigod. I must give props to the animation team for translating his moves from FE3H in such a nice way.

I'm kinda disappointed then by how he kinda ditches all that grace for the 3 Lord weapons, ngl. Down B feels like a move that belongs on Caspar, lmao.

 

[Absolute Justice]

How are you guys handling very defensive characters that can zone you out with range or projectiles (Samus, Banjo, Snake, etc)? I find approaching extremely difficult or near impossible, like there's nothing I can do to stop them from running away and camping me out since Byleth is so slow and doesn't really have any counter projectile play with how slow neutral B is. Samus in particular feels almost unwinnable most of the time.

Speaking of hard MUs, how are y'all handling characters like Mario, Fox, the Pikas without wanting to throw your controller into a blender? I've tried abusing my range against them and trying to use platforms to my advantage, but most of the time it's hard to not get completely ran over.

 

[Idon]

How are you guys handling very defensive characters that can zone you out with range or projectiles (Samus, Banjo, Snake, etc)? I find approaching extremely difficult or near impossible, like there's nothing I can do to stop them from running away and camping me out since Byleth is so slow and doesn't really have any counter projectile play with how slow neutral B is. Samus in particular feels almost unwinnable most of the time.

Speaking of hard MUs, how are y'all handling characters like Mario, Fox, the Pikas without wanting to throw your controller into a blender? I've tried abusing my range against them and trying to use platforms to my advantage, but most of the time it's hard to not get completely ran over.

Well, there's no easy answer because the tools Byleth has aren't equipped to handle zoners or rushdown characters. The fact of the matter is Byleth is a character that wasn't designed for competitive play and is clearly a return to form "only good in casual FFA" style balancing Sakurai likes.

The best advice I can give you for these characters is to try to catch them mid-jump with aerials like neutral air (but don't try to contest any aerials with them because you will lose 90% of the time) and well spaced fairs/bairs. If you can get the zoners into upair juggles, you can lead them into an usmash kill by baiting an airdodge. For rushdown characters that often have get out of jail cards (cough pika quick attack) you really are better off trying to hardcall their approaches with your decently fast and ranged tilts. Also when all else fails, just hit jab on those characters and hope they run into the followup kick and whip flurry.

Some people might have better advice, but this is what I tend to do. Just don't go into matches expecting to win or even do reasonably well.

 

[Arrei]

I haven't played against many especially good zoners as Byleth, but I seemed to have some success menacing these characters from side special range. Close enough for side special to be a threat, but far enough that I can react to projectiles or avoid the approaches they like to use. Where it seems to fall apart is that going in requires a big commitment myself, making it a game of both players not really wanting to go in...

 

[Altais]

Having tried Byleth, I can say now that he's arguably most suitable for players with a read-based fighting style. Like Robin, he can't handle rushdown. In order to land those long-range hits, you're going to have to predict your opponent well. Just like an instructor sizing up the students, you want to anazlyse your opponent's habits and learn what makes them tick.

Overall, just as I predicted, I'm not good with this character. Still, he has an interesting moveset.

 

[Absolute Justice]

Well, there's no easy answer because the tools Byleth has aren't equipped to handle zoners or rushdown characters. The fact of the matter is Byleth is a character that wasn't designed for competitive play and is clearly a return to form "only good in casual FFA" style balancing Sakurai likes.

The best advice I can give you for these characters is to try to catch them mid-jump with aerials like neutral air (but don't try to contest any aerials with them because you will lose 90% of the time) and well spaced fairs/bairs. If you can get the zoners into upair juggles, you can lead them into an usmash kill by baiting an airdodge. For rushdown characters that often have get out of jail cards (cough pika quick attack) you really are better off trying to hardcall their approaches with your decently fast and ranged tilts. Also when all else fails, just hit jab on those characters and hope they run into the followup kick and whip flurry.

Some people might have better advice, but this is what I tend to do. Just don't go into matches expecting to win or even do reasonably well.

Thanks for the tips, I've been trying to work on my spacing a bit more and apply more baits and punishes when my opponent is in the air. Small, fast characters are still the bane of my existence however, and Byleth's pencil thin hitboxes don't help with that. Seems characters like Yoshi who usually struggle with disjoints can just dance all over her due to her sluggish mobility and frame data.

Honestly that was my biggest fear seeing this character, that she'd only be good for nutty FFAs. It feels true tbh, all she is is a clump of power moves designed to steal kills in a crazy FFA environment.

Nevertheless I'm still going to work on her. I'm not going to pray for buffs or overhauls since I doubt they'll give her what she needs although maybe the obvious FE favoritism will pull through and save her. Just gonna try to make due with what we got.

I haven't played against many especially good zoners as Byleth, but I seemed to have some success menacing these characters from side special range. Close enough for side special to be a threat, but far enough that I can react to projectiles or avoid the approaches they like to use. Where it seems to fall apart is that going in requires a big commitment myself, making it a game of both players not really wanting to go in...

Yeah honestly, vs certain characters (mostly more linear ones like Ryu/Ken) I mostly find myself just chillin on plats waiting for them to come to me cuz, well, there's not much else you can do since approaching them is too dangerous.

 

[DrKatz]

No offense, but I think you guys are severely underrating this character. For the first day or so I thought they were pretty bad, so I can’t blame you. But Byleth has a lot of potential.

I caught a good portion of MKLeo’s stream earlier and it really helped me realize what Byleth is capable of. He played against a Samus and used his movement to avoid a majority of projectiles and zone with fair. Also Nair combos into a lot more than I initially thought and sets up nasty tech chases. It’s just finicky for get the right timing down, I think you want to avoid fast falling it.

Keep practicing guys, don’t give up. Frozen took a pretty convincing win against a Fox player in a recent tourney too. I understand outplaying a worse player is a thing, but I still think this character has loads of potential.

 

[Absolute Justice]

No offense, but I think you guys are severely underrating this character. For the first day or so I thought they were pretty bad, so I can’t blame you. But Byleth has a lot of potential.

I caught a good portion of MKLeo’s stream earlier and it really helped me realize what Byleth is capable of. He played against a Samus and used his movement to avoid a majority of projectiles and zone with fair. Also Nair combos into a lot more than I initially thought and sets up nasty tech chases. It’s just finicky for get the right timing down, I think you want to avoid fast falling it.

Keep practicing guys, don’t give up. Frozen took a pretty convincing win against a Fox player in a recent tourney too. I understand outplaying a worse player is a thing, but I still think this character has loads of potential.

In due time I'm sure we'll figure things out. Her flaws are quite glaring and can't be ignored, but I'm not going to give up on her. I think it's great so many top players are taking interest in her too!

 

[Arrei]

I mean, just because people are saying they're bad doesn't mean they're calling them utterly nonfunctional. We're far from the days of Brawl Ganondorf. Byleth has stuff that works. They've got combo tools and they seem made to get opponents to endanger themselves trying to get through their Fair and Bair only to get caught by tilts, Nair, Uair. But... they're not the only character on the roster with good moves hindered significantly by other traits. Tier lists haven't been kind to characters like Incineroar, Corrin, Zelda, Kirby, etc. who have moves that can bring some real pain in the right moment but find it very difficult to get those moments, and most of those characters don't even have meme moves. Conversely, many of the characters that consistently rate high get their own good tools and combo conversion with much more manageable downsides as a result of their superior mobility and/or data.

Because of this, I consider it dangerous to give a character a glowing seal of quality when they have such massive downsides, because plenty of characters get to enjoy their own benefits without similarly large negative qualities.

 

[Idon]

Honestly, maybe the biggest thing that bugs me is that disadvantage state. No matter how good a player you are, you will inevitably have to deal with the fact you're going to get hit, and in Smash getting hit leads to a sliding slope of worse and worse circumstances unless you can escape.

Despite Byleth having some pretty powerful trapping tools, when they have to deal with pressure, they crumple. Now most characters have bad disadvantage states, it's in the name, but Byleth's is on a whole nother level. He has a combination of terrible air-drift, a stubby nair whose hitbox may randomly shift out of the way when you need it most, every other aerial being both slow and narrow, being extremely floaty, a giant hurtbox, terrible landing options, the list could go on and on and on.

It's just not fun to continually get hit so many times you aren't allowed to play the game anymore.

 

[DrKatz]

Honestly, maybe the biggest thing that bugs me is that disadvantage state. No matter how good a player you are, you will inevitably have to deal with the fact you're going to get hit, and in Smash getting hit leads to a sliding slope of worse and worse circumstances unless you can escape.

Despite Byleth having some pretty powerful trapping tools, when they have to deal with pressure, they crumple. Now most characters have bad disadvantage states, it's in the name, but Byleth's is on a whole nother level. He has a combination of terrible air-drift, a stubby nair whose hitbox may randomly shift out of the way when you need it most, every other aerial being both slow and narrow, being extremely floaty, a giant hurtbox, terrible landing options, the list could go on and on and on.

It's just not fun to continually get hit so many times you aren't allowed to play the game anymore.

I can absolutely agree they have a terrible disadvantage state. One of their biggest weaknesses IMO, as well as their difficulty dealing with pressure. Those things hold them back competitively.

My best advice is to use your fundamentals as well as you can in disadvantage. When you’re above use the little aerial drift you have and a well timed Nair. It’s fast and at the right angle it can catch people. Do not spam dair. It is far too slow to get out of disadvantage and you will be hit out of it everytime.

On the ledge/offstage, you actually have a surprising amount of mixups to get back safely. You can side B to control some space, tether cancel, drag down Nair, and go incredibly low and still recover.

But yeah, Byleth has a bad disadvantage state. Hope some of those tips help though.

 

[Sigran101]

Discussions of viability aside...

can I just say how much I love how he just... looks?
The way he stands with his longsword stretched out across his back and his calm focused demeanor? when he uses the sword, he has a level of precision and grace that feels almost divine, which is super fitting for his lore. You really can see him either being a legendary emotionless mercenary or a wizened and tactical war master or even a divine warrior demigod. I must give props to the animation team for translating his moves from FE3H in such a nice way.

I'm kinda disappointed then by how he kinda ditches all that grace for the 3 Lord weapons, ngl. Down B feels like a move that belongs on Caspar, lmao.

Caspar should be using gauntlets not an axe you monster.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I agree with the sentiments here. I also kind of think that Byleth is underwhelming. Very fun, but underwhelming still. If you got bad mobility, and laggy moves, plus a bad disadvantage, you gotta be able to put people on the defensive at all times. Byleth can't.

I also think the Areadbahr moves are kind of underwhelming. F Air and B Air have range, and when tippered also power. However, you kind of miss the way a sword arcs in other fighter's F Air and B Air. Especially compared to the other Fire Emblem fighters we have. Side B is situational. It's a great anti air, but you know.. Byleth doesn't need to be approached from the air as much, of you have better ground speed, anything will do.

Tilts are honestly great. So is dash attack, and so is basically everything regarding the attacks used with the Sword of the Creator. In a way, I wish Byleth stayed more truthful to the "Sword Lord" archetype... Say if we got more ground attacks like U Air, U Smash instead of the "Relic gimmick" moves... That would make Byleth a sort of mix between Ike and the Belmonts. Which is better than what we have now.

Sure as far as representation and uniqueness is concerned, this way of having Byleth is great. However, Byleth failed to truly master the weapon levels of the Lance, Bow and Axe, and we got a lacking professor because of it in Smash. A better gimmick would've been 'charge Smash attacks to increase reach of the Sword of the Creator' I feel. Then give Byleth a more typical sword fighter moveset with mobility still as his weakness, but very strong range regardless of tippers and end lag.

Anyway, I like Byleth, but wish they'd be more generic ironically....

 

[KirbyWorshipper2465]

When your series finally gets enough members to do this kind of squad formation:

Byleth is pretty fun ngl. Super quick sketch to celebrate the newest member of Fire Emblem: Ultimate#Byleth pic.twitter.com/54PAh7ETCy

— Paii ✨ (@paiiart) January 31, 2020

 

[BlackInk]

No offense, I have to say that Byleth is one of the worst designed and misguided characters I’ve ever seen. They’re supposed to be “fun” with their down-b and laggy as **** moves, but their mobility is so **** that it’s not even worth it. You can’t even space with Byleth or hit your opponent when they do stupid stuff because their mobility is one of the worst in the game.

 

[Flyboy]

No offense, I have to say that Byleth is one of the worst designed and misguided characters I’ve ever seen. They’re supposed to be “fun” with their down-b and laggy as **** moves, but their mobility is so **** that it’s not even worth it. You can’t even space with Byleth or hit your opponent when they do stupid stuff because their mobility is one of the worst in the game.

Considering your history I don't find your comment to be in particularly good faith but anyway while their competitive viability is incredibly poor they are in fact a ton of fun in spirit battles and FFA so. Aight

 

[Altais]

This was a pretty epic match.