Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[R3D3MON]

It depends on the character. The general trend is that uair won't kill you when it true combos, and you can jump out by the time it can kill you. However, there are still times where it can just kill you; it helps when the throw is stale, the uair is fresh, and you're playing on a lower ceiling like Town & City.

Okay thank you.

A question for everybody: do you guys think Sheik needs more nerfs? In my opinion, I think she is fine the way she is now because she has already been nerfed 3 times (which resulted in pretty severe nerfs to her below-average killpower and kill setups), and many characters can use rage + their own kill setups/reads to kill her very early (since sheik is actually super light).

On Cloud: he's way too damn fast. For a character that strong to have that much range, that much power, and hit that fast also move fast while moving even faster in EX Mode... Oh, but his recovery balances him out... Yeah, and so does poor air movement in general for Little Mac. Also, Little Mac doesn't have disjoints, high active frames, or aerials... in general and ones that auto-cancel like Cloud was an ice skater. Cloud has by default: Ike and Roy's jump height - so, low aerials -, Sheik's air speed, what looks like Roy's air mobility which is probably average, almost Ike's fall speed, Roy's run speed and some more, Mario's walk speed, Marth-Roy hit frames, Ike's auto-cancel that borderlines Fox's, Rosalina's high active aerials, Ike to Shulk's range, Ike's power, and a bigger Wolf Blaster. With full Limit, his run speed becomes ZSS to Fox's, walk speed to almost Falco's, he has Greninja's charged Water Shuriken, and Dancing Blade or Double Edge Dance if they killed... ~50% earlier and totally confirmed with 1, frame 10 hit that made them invincible for frames 6-11, and Little Mac's KO Punch if you couldn't lose, but it doesn't bypass shields.

Am I being a ***** as I complain about a weeks-old character? Yes? Do I care? No. Also, in other news: today, I learned that Sheik's Up Smash makes her head and arms invincible for frames 8-15... Probably explains why nobody could challenge it... So, developers... Could we give some of that I-frame lovin' to Falco's Up Smash? We totally need it to anti-air stuff.

I think Cloud needs more time before any calls for nerfs should be made. I think people will soon learn to really abuse Cloud's recovery problems and learn to gimp him properly by baiting air dodges and sending him too far away horizontally and by abusing the vulnerability on his Up-B. Also, as stated before, Cloud doesn't really have a super long combo or an extensive punish game from grabs and such. Overall, I think Cloud is a big case of matchup inexperience more than anything else.

 

[Prometheus16]

On Cloud: he's way too damn fast. For a character that strong to have that much range, that much power, and hit that fast also move fast while moving even faster in EX Mode... Oh, but his recovery balances him out... Yeah, and so does poor air movement in general for Little Mac. Also, Little Mac doesn't have disjoints, high active frames, or aerials... in general and ones that auto-cancel like Cloud was an ice skater. Cloud has by default: Ike and Roy's jump height - so, low aerials -, Sheik's air speed, what looks like Roy's air mobility which is probably average, almost Ike's fall speed, Roy's run speed and some more, Mario's walk speed, Marth-Roy hit frames, Ike's auto-cancel that borderlines Fox's, Rosalina's high active aerials, Ike to Shulk's range, Ike's power, and a bigger Wolf Blaster. With full Limit, his run speed becomes ZSS to Fox's, walk speed to almost Falco's, he has Greninja's charged Water Shuriken, and Dancing Blade or Double Edge Dance if they killed... ~50% earlier and totally confirmed with 1, frame 10 hit that made them invincible for frames 6-11, and Little Mac's KO Punch if you couldn't lose, but it doesn't bypass shields.

Wait, Cloud is seriously that powerful?

I knew he was OP, but I didn't realize he was that OP... Jeez...

Also, is there anyone who he struggles against or can stand a chance against him?

 

[ARGHETH]

Ganondorf and Robin? Even if Ganondorf can stone wall everything, it's still kind of stupid how almost everyone can run circles around him while Robin's... Why?

Because strategy. The developers needed a major weakness for Robin mains to work around and they apparently decided on run speed or something. I don't really know, it's definitely an intended weakness but seems really...arbitrary.
It's odd because Robin has the same move distance as everyone else in Awakening and has an average Speed growth rate.

 

[AlvisCPU]

Okay thank you.

A question for everybody: do you guys think Sheik needs more nerfs? In my opinion, I think she is fine the way she is now because she has already been nerfed 3 times (which resulted in pretty severe nerfs to her below-average killpower and kill setups), and many characters can use rage + their own kill setups/reads to kill her very early (since sheik is actually super light).

Y... yeah. Even though she's been nerfed into oblivion, I guess so. She's still sitting pretty up the top of the tier lists. I'm not sure what would need to change without making her useless though. The alternative is that other characters could be buffed up to that level, but I guess Smash is a game where inherently quick characters tend to do well anyway.

I think she hinges on having such quick moves and since that's what Sheik does, you can't take that away. Her agility, fast attacks and combos into Bouncing Fish make her very overwhelming. Without that, terrible damage output and terrible knockback would drop her way down in the standings. I think the only thing that could be done would be giving one or two of her combo moves slightly more knockback.

Also, you may want to 'edit' your second post into your previous post, since you're not allowed to post twice in a row on Smashboards

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Wait, Cloud is seriously that powerful?

I knew he was OP, but I didn't realize he was that OP... Jeez...

What the hell constitutes "OP" these days? Smh

 

[Ffamran]

Wait, Cloud is seriously that powerful?

I knew he was OP, but I didn't realize he was that OP... Jeez...

Also, is there anyone who he struggles against or can stand a chance against him?

Mobility-wise, he's highly tuned... and so are Roy and Marth, but they're not considered high tier at all and Yoshi's on and off as a high tier with even Captain Falcon joining. Damage-wise, he's on par with heavy hitters, but the problem is can he close stocks out like Ganondorf with his boots or can he combo with high damage and/or high knockback moves reliably enough like Falco and Ike? And not specifically which seems to be the case as he's good at low percent damage building, but at high percents, he doesn't have as far as development goes, enough reliable options to close stocks out or setup kills. Even range can be an arbitrary factor as Shulk and Triple D have incredible range, but are barely scraping by while Fox, Luigi, and Mario have short range, but are doing phenomenally.

 

[R3D3MON]

Y... yeah. Even though she's been nerfed into oblivion, I guess so. She's still sitting pretty up the top of the tier lists. I'm not sure what would need to change without making her useless though. The alternative is that other characters could be buffed up to that level, but I guess Smash is a game where inherently quick characters tend to do well anyway.

I think she hinges on having such quick moves and since that's what Sheik does, you can't take that away. Her agility, fast attacks and combos into Bouncing Fish make her very overwhelming. Without that, terrible damage output and terrible knockback would drop her way down in the standings. I think the only thing that could be done would be giving one or two of her combo moves slightly more knockback.

Also, you may want to 'edit' your second post into your previous post, since you're not allowed to post twice in a row on Smashboards

That sounds like a good idea, actually. I guess if I really had to nerf her I would nerf the damage output on her f-tilt and maybe change the angle on her F-throw to make it less combo-able. She already had her damage output nerfed in fair, d-tilt, and uair, so I think any more damage nerfs would be kind of unnecessary and pointless. Also, to be honest I don't actually see an overwhelming amount of sheik players win tournaments all the time, and I don't see PR lists being dominated by sheik players. The only sheik I see really dominating tournaments is ZeRo, and I think that has more to do with ZeRo's skills rather than the character itself. Or maybe I'm blind

Side note: Okay, thank you for reminding me about the double posting. Is there a way to merge two posts in smashboards? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dre89]

You could buff and nerf him at the same time instead. For one, DK's I-frames are a bit silly at times compared to Bowser's since they last much longer or begin earlier. Reductions in those could open up to buffs as compensation. Like, I don't know, Giant Punch not causing helpless mode for who knows why. It's basically a wind-up Falcon Punch. You don't see Captain Falcon give up in the air after using it and Ganondorf dies because he takes too long to use Warlock Punch. Imagine DK being able to use Giant Punch freely in the air. It would be one of the most devastating edgeguard moves. Or how about making it so Spinning Kong always connects in return for damage reduction? It does what? 36%? How about a guaranteed 26% with almost no chances of it dropping? And Down Smash should have a spike hitbox for airborne characters. I don't give a damn how stupid it would be considering DK's massive wingspan, but his Down Smash should drive you down like a hammer on a nail.

Also, hitbox fixing, but those seem like bug fixing rather than buffs or nerfs as the dysfunctional moves are just that. It's not like they're situational or bad, but completely failing their purpose like Zelda's Up and Side Smash did or Samus's Up Smash which sure, it can't hit low, but it's a good anti-air that's dysfunctional which overrides any merit it has. Meta Knight has good moves, but at launch on the 3DS, I would argue he was the worst character because he was dysfunctional; his moves failed their purpose of even basic hitting. That's much worse than having poor character design as while Zelda is heavily limited, she's functional to a degree.

Everything you said would just make DK much worse.

Giant punch not making you helpless is a horrible buff if it's intended as compensation for nerfing core aspects of his gameplay like I-frames or damage. GP offstage would still be extremely situational, you'd virtually never use it. Why commit to something extremely slow and laggy when you can just bair which if spaced correctly will either hit them or frame trap.

I also wouldn't want that upb change because you can get it to do 30%+ consistently out of grabs at low percents. You can also get that damage with it offstage or even onstage if you get really close to them via baiting an airdodge or something.

If you're making it consistently do 26% even at higher percents, you'd have to remove its KBG, which then guts its utility as a frame-trap offstage kill move, and for wall of pain gimps against bad recoveries. You're basically Lucina-ing the move by lowering its reward and the skill ceiling.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

On Cloud: ... Ike's power

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Ike have much more power than Cloud? I mean, yeah his Limit Break specials are pretty strong, but it's not like he's always in Limit Break mode. Not to mention he only has one chance to use it once he fills the meter.

 

[Kofu]

With Sheik, the two options that come to mind are either increasing her landing lag/messing with her autocancel windows or tweaking her specials. FAir is absurdly cancerous with its safety on shield and how easily it autocancels. It's such a pivotal move for her I don't know what messing with its air-to-ground transitions would do.

I'd be more for altering her specials. Needles... eh, they're really good but I'm not sure what you could change without trashing the move. I'd personally want to shorten Vanish's starting invincibility (probably from 28 on instead of 19 on), and would like to remove the reappearing hitbox (windbox can stay) and possibly weaken its main hitbox very slightly. The invincibility is the main change, though. Bouncing Fish could possibly use a change as well.

 

[san.]

Mobility-wise, he's highly tuned... and so are Roy and Marth, but they're not considered high tier at all and Yoshi's on and off as a high tier with even Captain Falcon joining. Damage-wise, he's on par with heavy hitter, but the problem is can he close stocks out like Ganondorf with his boots or can he combo with high damage moves reliably enough like Falco and Ike and not specifically which seems to be the case as he's good at low percent damage building, but at high percents, he doesn't have as far as development goes, enough reliable options to close stocks out or setup kills. Even range can be an arbitrary factor as Shulk and Triple D have incredible range, but are barely scraping by while Fox, Luigi, and Mario have short range, but are doing phenomenally.

If Marth and Roy had a good dash + shield, they would be so much better. Cloud has that in addition to a 4-frame jump squat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Ike have much more power than Cloud? I mean, yeah his Limit Break specials are pretty strong, but it's not like he's always in Limit Break mode. Not to mention he only has one chance to use it once he fills the meter.

His power is only 1 level below Ike's in most areas. That's still quite good, but noticeably weaker (uair, bair, dair, fair, ftilt, and smash attacks). I think his power is fine everywhere except for uair. Trela was killing Karna's Sheik with uair at stage level at around 105%, and who knows how staled it was.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Well then I stand corrected.

 

[Patriot Duck]

The question we should be asking ourselves is whether or not Cloud invalidates other characters. Answering that is going to take time though. Calling for nerfs now is jumping the gun.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Wait, Cloud is seriously that powerful?

I knew he was OP, but I didn't realize he was that OP... Jeez...

Also, is there anyone who he struggles against or can stand a chance against him?

From what I've seen, he's not that bad. Characters that have fast attacks, good aerials, close combat options, good landing options, and offstage tools seem to hold their own or trump him. From my initial impressions these past couple of weeks:

Beat him:
Break even:

 

[SaltyKracka]

"You can't meaningfully nerf Shiek without making her absolute trash!"

AYFKM?

Oh noes, Shiek might have to suffer the indignity of having an actual weakness! It would be the worst thing to ever happen to the game, ever!

Get over yourselves.

 

[Djent]

So I'm starting to lean towards Cloud being Lucario's first -3 matchup (if ZSS wasn't already). Literally this character counters everything that Lucario has. Good god when people talk about limit break being okay I swear they are only taking in the top 5-6 fastest characters, and literally missing out on how much his toolkit dumps on the rest of the cast.

- His projectile cancels up to 120% AS
- Kills stupid early, negating aura. Literally just get Lucario to like 25% and fish for Finishing touches while accumulating a bit of rage and you are zero risk of dying, ever.
- Ridiculous disjoints at speeds none of the cast has had yet
- Good speed and no commit charge mechanic mean against slower characters he will ALWAYS have limit break. Like really?

You wonder why some characters got speed changes? Cloud is the reason why. I bet in playtesting they realised how much they ****ed up and how much the design clashed with current characters and changed them in a panic.

I'm not sure I agree with the last part, but I think you're spot-on about Lucario. When Motsunabe won Umebura this past weekend, I thought "cool. Too bad it'll never happen again once people develop their Clouds more." The worst part is that there's no way to make this MU not awful that doesn't involve a character overhaul or a truly broken Lucario.

 

[LancerStaff]

It depends on the character. The general trend is that [Sheik's] uair won't kill you when it true combos, and you can jump out by the time it can kill you. However, there are still times where it can just kill you; it helps when the throw is stale, the uair is fresh, and you're playing on a lower ceiling like Town & City.

Huh... For something so big I sure haven't heard much about it. Is it reasonable to control the staleness like that or something? And floaties would escape the combo easier, I assume.

 

[Lavani]

Boy, we're on Sheik nerfs again already, huh?

Suffocatingly good frame data and the ability to win neutral consistently is kind of her schtick, but I don't think she needs that kind of safety everywhere in her moveset. Remove the jump from Vanish so she can't jump above the ledge then teleport down to it for free invincible snaps, remove either the reappear hitbox, windbox, or both to make it less safe reappearing onstage, and remove the ability to manually kick after Bouncing Fish so she can't just kick early to avoid landing lag after rebounding off a shield, and so she can't act as quickly after using it to recover.

I think that would meaningfully hurt her without destroying her viability. Might not even drop her off the #1 spot, but I'm not opposed to her being queen as long as her disadvantage state exists just a bit more than it currently does.

 

[Fatmanonice]

"You can't meaningfully nerf Shiek without making her absolute trash!"

AYFKM?

Oh noes, Shiek might have to suffer the indignity of having an actual weakness! It would be the worst thing to ever happen to the game, ever!

Get over yourselves.

I'd argue that if you're a low or a mid tier main, this mentality is an easier thing to get because you're already used to playing as someone who's likely locked out of being viable for 2-3 big reasons. I think a lot of high tier exclusive players would rather lose a foot than have a meaningful nerf. Honestly, the likes of survived having some teeth pulled, I don't think the metagame would collapse on itself if some adjustments were made on and .

 

[san.]

Huh... For something so big I sure haven't heard much about it. Is it reasonable to control the staleness like that or something? And floaties would escape the combo easier, I assume.

I'm mostly extrapolating my knowledge from Ike's combo game. When percents are fuzzy, you definitely want to stale your throw by the time you reach that golden % (for Ike, it's uthrow). The stale queue is reasonably large, but the best way to immediately stale it is to use it twice in a row or at least close to each other.

Unfortunately, rage tends to screw things up for most throws and that tends to counteract any staling you might try. That's why that some kill combos are much easier once you've lost a stock and land the grab.

 

[Y2Kay]

So I'm starting to lean towards Cloud being Lucario's first -3 matchup (if ZSS wasn't already). Literally this character counters everything that Lucario has. Good god when people talk about limit break being okay I swear they are only taking in the top 5-6 fastest characters, and literally missing out on how much his toolkit dumps on the rest of the cast.

- His projectile cancels up to 120% AS
- Kills stupid early, negating aura. Literally just get Lucario to like 25% and fish for Finishing touches while accumulating a bit of rage and you are zero risk of dying, ever.
- Ridiculous disjoints at speeds none of the cast has had yet
- Good speed and no commit charge mechanic mean against slower characters he will ALWAYS have limit break. Like really?

You wonder why some characters got speed changes? Cloud is the reason why. I bet in playtesting they realised how much they ****ed up and how much the design clashed with current characters and changed them in a panic.

I don't know why you think it's becuz of cloud, but I can double confirm that the Cloud MU is frustrating

Also today's my b day

 

[TriTails]

Kirby has some of the worst Air Speed, also in the bottom 4 of the cast. These characters both lack(ed) meaty options that could take advantage of Cloud's playstyle, with really no way to deal with Clouds' stupidly good mobility for the size of his disjoints.

Next patch I guarentee you will likely bring more of these changes or nerf Cloud in some way, once they have figured out how stupid run away + charge limit break is.

Soo.... We buff Luigi's erespid ?

Okay thank you.

A question for everybody: do you guys think Sheik needs more nerfs? In my opinion, I think she is fine the way she is now because she has already been nerfed 3 times (which resulted in pretty severe nerfs to her below-average killpower and kill setups), and many characters can use rage + their own kill setups/reads to kill her very early (since sheik is actually super light).

Removing her ability to outrange a sword character with a frame 5 F-air that has very generous autocancels on a character with one of the best SHFF game and talking away needle's growth in order to not just ROTFL some characters won't make her utter trash.

Her current design stuggles to be bad. She is a very combo oriented character and is designed to be safe. Hard to be low tier when you got safe attacks and good mobility to continually harrass your opponent. Removing some unintended stuffs like needles camping everyone in the game or F-air being such a huge*** disjoint wouldn't hurt her so much she drops into nothingness.

Happy Birthday Chainz!

 

[PGH_Chrispy]

The Up-B nerf would certainly hurt Sheik without really pusing her down the tiers. Another nerf I think makes sense is to pull back the disjoint on her Fair - Sheik body is already contorting in impossible ways, why should she get extra range out of that? It wouldn't break her fair trains, but it would also mean that her biggest combo extender isn't also one of her safest approach options.

 

[S_B]

I don't think the metagame would collapse on itself if some adjustments were made on and .

I think the metagame would blossom like a flower that had not seen rain in a year if those two were nerfed.

You have to figure that the real problem with the current state of the metagame isn't just that these are two amazing characters, but that BECAUSE they're so amazing, they've attracted a lot of high level players who only serve to flesh out their metas even further.

Mind you, this doesn't mean that a properly fleshed-out lower tier character is actually capable of countering one of them, only that they've successfully labbed out every single trick in the Sheik and ZSS book so it makes these matchups even more painful for lower tiers.

We're pretty good at analyzing the potential of a character VERY quickly these days, and the odds that another "melee Marth" is hiding somewhere in the ranks of SSB4 is extraordinarily slim. If anything, it could've been hiding in characters like PacMan or DH who have very strange projectile setup games, but even they've been labbed to death and Sheik and ZSS eat them for lunch...

So yeah, toning these characters down could only help the meta in the long run, and I hope Sakurai gets off his duff eventually and does it before the last update patch hits and we're doomed to 5 more years of ZSS/Sheik-filled grand finals...

 

[Blobface]

I really think Sheik would be fine if you removed the invincibility (partial and total) of Bouncing Fish and Vanish, and shrunk the hitboxes of her F-air and Bouncing Fish (especially Bouncing Fish). Grab stuff too but I've had enough of that for today.

That's really it, she's not as absurd as people sometimes make her out to be.

 

[Ghostbone]

"You can't meaningfully nerf Shiek without making her absolute trash!"

AYFKM?

Oh noes, Shiek might have to suffer the indignity of having an actual weakness! It would be the worst thing to ever happen to the game, ever!

Get over yourselves.

There's no point nerfing sheik to trash tier levels, the bad characters all get destroyed by every other top tier anyway, so if she becomes as bad as those characters you're effectively just deleting her from the game, lowering the game's competitive depth.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Sheik's not Brawl Metaknight ridiculous but she is unquestionably the best character. Who knows, maybe she'll become like Brawl Snake and people will figure her out enough to make her drop with time? ZSS's only real weakness is her grab but, if it weren't for that, she'd easily be the best character in the game.

 

[TriTails]

There's no point nerfing sheik to trash tier levels, the bad characters all get destroyed by every other top tier anyway, so if she becomes as bad as those characters you're effectively just deleting her from the game, lowering the game's competitive depth.

Pretty sure what Kracka was saying is, nerfing Sheik so she has a weakness to exploit wouldn't move her to the trash can.

 

[ARISTOS]

Sheik and ZSS both have this nifty thing where they can entirely avoid a disadvantage state- this is one of the things that separates them from the rest of high tier land.

Bringing them down to speed with the rest of the cast should ideally involve nerfs to Bouncing Fish/Flip Jump+Vanish/The endless chasm of tools ZSS gets to recover with

 

[Dre89]

Sheik's not Brawl Metaknight ridiculous but she is unquestionably the best character. Who knows, maybe she'll become like Brawl Snake and people will figure her out enough to make her drop with time? ZSS's only real weakness is her grab but, if it weren't for that, she'd easily be the best character in the game.

ZSS's grab is not a weakness because it's better than a conventional grab in every situation except for shield grabbing.

She'd actually be worse if she had a conventional grab. Because then spacing her grab wouldn't beat every single option in the game except jumping, and wouldn't be free on landings.

The frame data is to balance the reward of the grab and how easy they are to land due to how many options it beats. But it's not a weakness given that it's still better than a normal grab.

 

[Ffamran]

Fun Sheik fact of the day: Sheik's Bouncing Fish hit has 8 active frames. Fun ZSS fact of the day: Flip Jump's input kick has 6 active frames while the footstool/no input has 1. Yeah...

Jab facts: Mega Man's being a projectile means it's just going to stay out; each part of his jab stays out for 18 frames. This also extends to his Ftilt and Nair and this also means he has the highest active frame jab in the game. For parts of their jabs, some characters have high active frames: Greninja's jab 3, Link, both of Luma's last jabs, Mii Gunner, Mii Swordfighter, Ryu, and Toon Link all have 5 active frames for their last jab. Following, Duck Hunt's jab 3, Ike, Ness, Pac-Man, and Samus all have 4 active frames. What's more interesting are characters with high active frames for the beginning jabs which includes Greninja's jab 1 at 4 and Robin's jab 1 at 4 and jab 2 at 5. Why do they need this? I have no idea.

 

[Y2Kay]

Fun little question: What will your new year's resolution be ( in regards to smash of course)?

 

[Fatmanonice]

Pretty sure what Kracka was saying is, nerfing Sheik so she has a weakness to exploit wouldn't move her to the trash can.

To add to this, given Rosalina has gotten 16 nerfs since the game came out and is still arguably top 5, I think Sheik would survive. Either way, balancing in this game has been done pretty well.

Unquestionably viable:



Viable with few doubters:



Arguably viable:



Weird viability purgatory (very strongly debated):



Might be after some small adjustments:



Need big adjustments:

 

[BSP]

Soo.... We buff Luigi's erespid ?

Imagine Mario with Luigi's aerials.

Then imagine throwing your Wii U out of a window in frustration.

Let's not

Fatmanonice I would think Mario and Sonic are unquestionably viable at this point. If we're thinking they've got some iffy MUs to be up there, Rosalina should probably be taken out too.

 

[Nobie]

I know we like to talk about how the Pits have no extreme strengths or weaknesses which somehow or another is supposed to be a "problem," but Earth did just win that tournament over Ranai. If Ranai is a better player (and a lot of people think he is), and Pit is able to beat him and everyone else, I would argue that this puts Pit (and Dark Pit) into viable territory as well, with few doubters.

 

[G. Stache]

I feel as if we've had this discussion before, but do we have a general consensus on what 'viable' means to us?

 

[Nysyr]

You could give Vanish back Melee's distance and landing lag now that she has BF, and maybe she would be less stupid.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Top Tiers and the higher High Tiers in this game have either ridiculous killpower, overwhelming neutral game, or reliable kill setups.
No matter how much of a weakness they have, these attributes are just too good and make up for anything.

Pits lacks either of these, so I think they might be high tier at best, like Villager/Falcon tier.

 

[Ghostbone]

ZSS's grab is not a weakness because it's better than a conventional grab in every situation except for shield grabbing.

Wut
Just because it's disjointed doesn't mean it's better, it comes out slower and has more endlag, only her running grab is good and that's mostly because she lunges further than falcon does.

She'd actually be worse if she had a conventional grab. Because then spacing her grab wouldn't beat every single option in the game except jumping, and wouldn't be free on landings.

Yea no.
Do you really want to have to deal with ZZS using empty hop grabs at the rate Sheik does and dash grabs at the rate Falcon does? Plus shieldgrabbing is still very important as there's lots of stuff that's more safe on ZSS's shield because of how slow her grab is (she has up-b OoS but that's more committal and they fall out depending on positioning and what not)

The frame data is to balance the reward of the grab and how easy they are to land due to how many options it beats. But it's not a weakness given that it's still better than a normal grab.

Again, wut
Just because tether grabs have some strengths (range + disjointed) doesn't mean their slow speed and ridiculous endlag isn't a weakness, it definitely is, and you see top ZSS's get heavily punished all the time from missing grabs. If she had a normal grab any punish would be far less severe and she'd be able to fish for grabs way harder.

Like tether grabs are arguably better in a metagame dominated by characters like marth since ZSS can shieldgrab stuff like landing fair where other characters can't, but having a normal grab is better in basically every other matchup. Sheik, Diddy, Sonic, etc. would all be far worse off with a tether grab, and ZSS would be the best character in the game with a normal grab (especially since you'd be giving her a better dash grab than falcon lmao).

 

[Nobie]

I was also watching The Break Weekly's finals last week, where Blue's Mewtwo lost to Chaos's Lucina in Grand Finals. I know at this point people mainly pick Lucina out of some illogical preference, but man if Lucina's "who cares" blade didn't make things difficult for M2.

Basically, Lucina would get Mewtwo to the edge, and if the read was right could end Mewtwo's stock at about 60% with a single well-placed Frame 10 F-smash. Quite simply, if that were Marth that wouldn't have happened. On top of Marth and Lucina also being pretty good at stopping followups just due to the arcs of their swords, it makes Lucina feel especially dangerous for Mewtwo in a way few characters can. That said, I don't think it's a terrible matchup like what Mario can do.