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Character Playstyle Summary Page

Amazing Ampharos

Balanced Brawl Designer
Writing Team
Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Messages
4,582
Location
Kansas City, MO
A friend asked me to do this for him as he wasn't sure what type of character he wanted to play in Smash Ultimate and he didn't fully understand what the various characters had to offer; I already wrote this and it's very long so I figured I'd share. This is a basic breakdown of all 74 characters who will be present in the base game of Smash Ultimate. Each character has a brief summary explaining the concept of their playstyle, and each character is rated on the five core attributes that most determine what a character is. All descriptions and ratings are entirely subjective by me, and I tried to be honest more than "nice" so if you see more negatives listed for historically bad characters well I'm being honest. I'm sure even a simple summary like this will have some things just plain off once the game comes out and we all understand it even better, but if you want to pick characters based on gameplay but just aren't sure what's being offered, this is probably much better on average than a strategy guide you might buy at saying what the characters do. Do be aware that most of these summaries are based more on the character's core playstyle that might be observed in many games; I have watched an insane amount of Ultimate footage, but in the end, a character's design tends not to change a lot game to game even if their total value does change a lot.

Qualities scale: Awful < Poor < Below Average < Average < Good < Excellent < Outstanding

:ultmario:Mario:

Combo oriented, focus on good frame data to gain aggressive advantage.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultdk:Donkey Kong:

A "big" character with a focus on using a few good pokes with his long limbs and getting very high reward from grabs. Like all big characters, DK's weakness is that he can really struggle to escape disadvantageous situations.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultlink:Link:

A character who combined the swordsman style disjoint normal spatial control with set play based projectiles to form more complex set-ups. This Link iteration is by far the slowest and strongest of the three with the clearly most complicated game due to his remote bombs.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultsamus:Samus/:ultdarksamus:Dark Samus:

A character who is very good at surviving for a long time due to her very high weight and particular playstyle who really wants to just use Charge Shot a lot while not dying since most of the rest of her tools aren't built to be good.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Average
Power: Poor
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Good

Dark Samus has very few known differences. The main ones known are that she has different roll animations that look better but are pretty similar in practice and that she has a lower falling speed which is remarkable given how floaty Samus was in the first place.

:ultyoshi:Yoshi:

A character who focuses on a combination of strong normals and a very good projectile at the expense of having less diverse gameplay.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Average
Power: Average
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Poor

:ultkirby:Kirby:

A beginner friendly character who focuses more on ease of use than effective results. Most of his options are either very low reward or very high commitment.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Excellent

:ultfox:Fox:

An aggressive character who requires very high precision but has outstanding pressure and extremely high reward.

Attack Speed: Outstanding
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Good
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Below Average

:ultpikachu:Pikachu:

A smaller, peskier character who mostly focuses on utilizing tricky high mobility to create favorable situations. Compared to a space animal, Pikachu has less power but a better projectile and more of a focus on aerial play.

Attack Speed: Excellent
Attack Range: Below Average
Power: Average
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Outstanding

:ultluigi:Luigi:

An extreme character who has extremely low range but extremely high reward for hitting the opponent and a strong combo game.

Attack Speed: Excellent
Attack Range: Awful
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Average

:ultness:Ness:

A mostly well rounded character with a focus on aerial gameplay and a very good grab game mixed with poor recovery.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Average
Power: Good
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultfalcon:Captain Falcon:

A character with high combo potential and a hyper-aggressive playstyle who also has good range but pays for it with slower attack speeds and a pretty exploitable recovery at higher levels of play.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Outstanding
Recovery: Awful

:ultjigglypuff:Jigglypuff:

An extreme aerial specialist character who ultimately has only a few strong moves and thus has a more simple playstyle focused around combining solid fundamental movement with exploiting those moves as much as possible.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Poor
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Excellent

:ultpeach:Peach/:ultdaisy:Daisy:

A more technical character who has a unique floating mechanic and focuses on creating unusual types of pressure that are difficult to defend against.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Excellent

The differences between Peach and Daisy are completely unknown at this time.

:ultbowser:Bowser:

A very "pure" heavy who has long limbs and who hits really hard. His "Whirling Fortress" up special and his massive grab range work together to make him strong at countering opposing shield pressure, but like all bigs, he can get into serious trouble once he actually gets hit.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Good
Power: Outstanding
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultzelda:Zelda:

Her core design is that of a pure power character with less of a "heavy" feel than a real big. However, she's really less mobile than most of them and has an overall attack speed that is no better, and most of her moves do a much worse job of controlling space than a typical big while being light isn't actually a positive. If this sounds like a bad situation to you, then you probably are close to understanding how Zelda has been bottom tier three Smash games in a row. We've seen in Ultimate she has gotten extraordinarily large buffs including a ton of complex set-up stuff that her new Phantom will lead to, but her core design ideas seem largely the same. It's hard to project how a character who has never been functional before might play with such changes.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Below Average
Power: Good
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Good

:ultsheik:Sheik:

Sheik is definitely the main "speed" character in Smash. Her power is remarkably low, but Sheik's attack speed and mobility are both excellent and combine with decent attack range and a deceptively good projectile to allow her to be constantly applying pressure if not performing combos at almost any time.

Attack Speed: Outstanding
Attack Range: Average
Power: Awful
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Good

:ulticeclimbers:Ice Climbers:

One of the most inherently technical characters, Ice Climbers focus on using two characters simultaneously to create incredibly diverse pressure and hit really, really hard. They have to play very carefully as Nana is very exploitable and can be killed easily if not protected.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultmarth:Marth/:ultlucina:Lucina:

The most approachable sword using character, Marth and Lucina focus on retaining decent all around attributes while having a straightforward and high reward spatial control game with sword normals.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Good
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Average

The difference between Marth and Lucina is the "tipper" mechanic. Marth does extra damage and knockback for hitting with the tip of his sword whereas Lucina's damage is normalized across the blade. In theory this makes Lucina the beginnger friendly version, but in reality, it just changes the types of spacing they go for and which moves are relatively better than which other moves and at a high level they have been shown to be approximately equal.

:ultmewtwo:Mewtwo:

A somewhat unusual character who has very low "priority" (his attacks tend to lose to other attacks) but who has otherwise a favorable combination of high range and power with good combo ability and a good projectile.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Excellent

:ultgnw:Mr. Game & Watch:

Effectively a sword character without a sword, Mr. Game & Watch focuses on controlling space with many disjointed attacks. He is also high mobility but pays for this with very low weight and very limited abilities to create diverse pressure or combos.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Good

:ultdoc:Dr. Mario:

Basically Mario but slower mostly in terms of mobility with more baseline power on his moves that, in 4 at least, is completely offset by reduced combo potential. A very pointless character in 4 who will need buffs in Ultimate to have a purpose.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Average
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Poor

:ultfalco:Falco:

Historically Falco has been a simpler playstyle alternative to Fox with less diverse but not really less effective pressure who also has less but still good mobility but a very good projectile. In 4 Falco was immobile, had several important moves that were tuned to be worthless, and overall Falco was basically useless, but I'll rate him like the Falco of yesteryear who was a real character and who may more closely resemble the new Falco.

Attack Speed: Excellent
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultpichu:Pichu:

A danger to itself and others, Pichu was a meme character in Melee who was a bad character by design. Pichu fundamentally is Pikachu with excessively low range but even more mobility and even less weight; this design doesn't have to be bad in the future.

Attack Speed: Excellent
Attack Range: Awful
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Excellent

:ultganondorf:Ganondorf:

A character with very poor mobility and lacking attack speed who hits really, really hard with moves that have good range and priority and unlike other "big" characters can even combo to devastating effect. Ganondorf gets boxed out easily by opponents and can often lose without ever really having a chance but can win very quickly with strong reads.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Good
Power: Outstanding
Mobility: Awful
Recovery: Awful

:ultyounglink:Young Link:

A weaker Link who trades away much of Link's power and a little of the range in exchange for mobility and attack speed. This version of Link seems tuned to be aggressive and may have a lot of good offensive set-ups.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultroy:Roy/:ultchrom:Chrom:

A Marth-like character who has less "flow" on his attacks, more raw power, and most importantly more mobility. He's definitely built to just play in a more straightforward way that simultaneously benefits a bit more from reads as more of his power is concentrated into some of his slower options.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Good
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Average/Poor

Roy and Chrom have two known differences. One is that Chrom has an Aether-variant up special. This move seems to go higher than Roy's but straight up whereas Roy's can be used at severe diagonals which overall gives Roy a much better recovery. The second is that Roy has a reverse sweetspot mechanic to Marth that puts the sweetspot in the center of his blade whereas Chrom is like Lucina and has balanced blade power. Roy's sweetspot, to be blunt, is just stupid and has done nothing but hurt him in past games; it takes what should be a good range focused character and punishes you for actually using the range which is basically the entire reason Roy is a bad character in 4. However, the question would seem to be whether that overall inferior sweetspot mechanic is bad enough to give up the better recovery to avoid it; that question remains to be answered.

:ultdiddy:Diddy Kong:

One of the more well-rounded characters, Diddy Kong's core is that of a good fundamentals character who comes with a lot of nice upsides. Diddy Kong can use his banana peel to create a lot of strong situations either on defense or offense, Diddy Kong has a leaping forward command grab for layers of mix-up, and Diddy Kong has an all around very good set of normals and grab game to perform well in all phases of the game.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Good
Power: Poor
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Good

:ultwario:Wario:

A more unusual character who focuses on exploiting his high non-traditional mobility. Most of Wario's moves are either very fast and very weak or pretty slow but pretty strong with little in-between, and Wario's strange mobility properties combined with his time charging Wario Waft give him more incentive than most characters to run the clock.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Awful
Power: Good
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Excellent

:ulttoonlink:Toon Link:

This character seems superficially similar to Young Link except he uses his sword for everything and is floatier. In effect, this seems likely to make him into a far more defensive character who will really reward patience and sound spatial control with his outstanding projectiles.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Poor
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultzss:Zero Suit Samus:

A character who on the surface seems to have it all with decent range, good attack speed, and high power to go along with an actually pretty good projectile, ZSS eventually pays for it by having a comically slow grab and lacking safety on many attacks if they are not used with precision. ZSS is rewarding but must be used with care.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Good

:ultpit:Pit/:ultdarkpit:Dark Pit:

Probably the most well rounded character in the game, Pit/Dark Pit only differs from the raw averages by having disjointed attacks (though with a smaller weapon than most other disjoints) and by having unusually safe smash attacks. In a way though, being so well rounded, while it doesn't give large weaknesses, is its own downside as this moveset has no natural strengths either.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Excellent

Pit and Dark Pit were ridiculously similar in 4. Dark Pit had less control over his slightly more powerful arrows, his side-B did more damage but less knockback, and for some reason no one ever undestood, his ftilt did a lot less knockback. That was it, and who can even say how much of that translates to Ultimate?

:ultrob:R.O.B.:

Definitely more of a zoner, R.O.B. focuses on having some really outstanding projectiles, good pokes, and good grab reward to control the match. His lack of overall speed can make comebacks difficult.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Excellent

:ultmetaknight:Meta Knight:

Meta Knight has been basically two different characters. In Brawl, he was good at almost literally everything and was simply the best character in the game. In 4, Meta Knight has a hilariously garbage neutral game but, once he lands a hit, he combos extremely well and can just exploit the advantage better than anyone in the game who is not named Bayonetta. It's hard to say where on this spectrum he will land for Ultimate; early signs point somewhate vaguely in the middle.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Excellent

:ultkingdedede:King Dedede:

King Dedede is a big character who is even slower than all of the others and, unlike other bigs, has truly terrible mobility as well. King Dedede has moves that cover huge areas that imply spatial control, but his horrible frame data and lack of safety mostly make him a defensive counterpoke character who mostly looks for his opponents to attack with things he can predict and stuff with his own big attacks.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Awful
Recovery: Poor

:ultolimar:Olimar:

Olimar is a very heavy zoning character. His pikmin used well make him extraordinarily difficult to approach, and when left undisturbed, he can easily chip away at an opponent's health. Olimar struggles to escape offensive pressure once his defenses are broken so, like most zoners in fighting games, he really rewards just keeping control.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Average

:ultwolf:Wolf:

Wolf is a twist on the space animal archetype. He shares many of the ideas including a reward for aggression, but he trades a lot of the speed for some power and while in Brawl he had a lot of moves that kinda flung him around for non-traditional mobility here he seems to just have decent range. He was very poorly tuned in Brawl and mostly just spammed back aerial which seems mostly untrue in Ultimate so it's hard to fully say how the complete picture comes together on his playstyle.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultpokemontrainer:Pokemon Trainer:

Pokemon Trainer is a very special character. He is able to transform between three characters at any point, and he is designed to use the situational advantage of being different characters at different times to put himself ahead. He was very poorly tuned in Brawl with Squirtle having no weaknesses and Ivysaur being unbelievably horrible and his overall framework having some crippling mechanics that ruined the character, but we have strong evidence that his balance is much more functional in Ultimate.

Squirtle:

Squirtle is the speed character of PT. He mostly lacks range and power, but his incredibly high attack speed and mobility give him an extremely high ability to win neutral.

Attack Speed: Outstanding
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Below Average

Ivysaur:

Ivysaur is a lot like a "sword" character except using vines and leaves instead of an actual weapon. His power is somewhat strangely distributed with a few moves that do extremely large amounts of damage or knockback while most of his core moves are pretty low in power, but across the whole moveset his combination of attack speed and attack range has one of the best ratios in the cast.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Awful

Charizard:

Charizard is the anchor of the team. He's a very classic big character with slow, powerful attacks, good grounded mobility offset by poor mobility elsewhere, and decent but not outstanding spatial control normals. He has a somewhat less complete toolset to deal with situations versus other bigs, but he also needs it less because Pokemon Trainer doesn't necessarily need Charizard to compete in all phases of the game.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultlucario:Lucario:

Lucario is a gimmicky character whose "aura" mechanic allows him to do far more damage and knockback when his own damage is high. Nintendo probably intended for him to be a comeback character, but in reality he's a momentum character who can easily win big with an early lead but who can easily collapse if he falls behind early. Otherwise his kit is a little sluggish but well rounded.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Average
Power: Good
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Excellent

:ultike:Ike:

If you want an overwhelmingly large sword that hits really hard, Ike is the character for you. Ike's main claim to fame is just winning the normals spacing game with bigger sword diplomacy, and while he's slow overall, he doesn't pay for the insane range with quite as much sloth as Shulk has to. Ike's poor recovery can often put him in bad situations, but other types of bad situations he can often escape due to his remarkably good jab.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Outstanding
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultlucas:Lucas:

Lucas is a character with a lot of good basic moves and no obvious good way to approach which is a somewhat awkward combination. Lucas has to decide between playing defensively and hoping his good moves can win in situations his opponent creates or making smart plays to get in without strong tools for the task so he can begin to leverage his strong normals.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Below Average
Power: Good
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultsnake:Snake:

Snake hits like an absolute truck, has massive normals that dominate the space around him, and largely just litters the battlefield with explosives that force any opponent to play very carefully. Snake also is very heavy which combines with all of his high damage and explosive traps to allow him to just pursue trades and come out way ahead. The one downside of Snake is that he's all around fairly slow with a dubious recovery so it's possible to just get overwhelmed.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Poor

:ultsonic:Sonic:

A character with a well deserved reputation for being obnoxious, Sonic's claim to fame is running really, really fast. However fast you think Sonic runs compared to all of the other characters, he's actually a lot faster than that. His mobility is offset by normals that aren't great at comboing and that have pretty suspect range that makes them often difficult to use in footsies, but when in doubt, Sonic can always go back to the fact that his mobility ridiculously outclasses even other fast characters.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Poor
Mobility: Outstanding
Recovery: Excellent

:ultvillager:Villager:

Villager is a heavy zoning character who has a lot of tricky trap-style moves but then really basic and oppressive spatial control with the highly spammable slingshot aerials combined with the excellent Loid Rocket projectile. Villager doesn't really have the tools to apply traditional offensive pressure at all so he heavily relies on zoning and pesky moves to win games.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Outstanding

:ultmegaman:Mega Man:

Another heavy zoning character, Mega Man needs to stay at a mid range to function but has a large array of very pesky moves in that zone. Mega Man often struggles to kill due to the significant lack of safety on all of his finishing moves, but he balances that by having just insanely high survivability due to his weight and physics.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Good

:ultwiifittrainer:Wii Fit Trainer:

A bizarre character, Wii Fit Trainer has moves that have really outstanding speed to power ratios but have hitboxes that are very small and hit in unusual areas. Playing Wii Fit Trainer well is a very unintuitive process that mostly requires being very, very close to your opponent.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Awful
Power: Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultrosalina:Rosalina & Luma:

A "puppetmaster" style character, Rosalina uses Luma to double up her attacks. Unlike Ice Climbers, Luma respawns after death so there is a much smaller need to protect your minion, but Luma is also a lot less dynamic in its attacking ability than Nana so it's a trade-off. Overall it works out that Rosalina is mostly a spatial control character who has complex layers to her game.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Average

:ultlittlemac:Little Mac:

An extremely gimmicky character, Little Mac is literally good in every way on the ground. His mobility is high, his attacks are extremely fast, his attacks hit very hard, and he has super armor on many of his moves for good measure. In the air, Little Mac is dysfunctional. His attacks are still quick but do so little on hit that they are usually not even worth using, and his recovery is just horrendous. Little Mac players at a higher level have to play really smart to force opponents to confront him on the ground, but if he can create situations that play to his strengths, his strengths are truly overwhelming.

Attack Speed: Outstanding
Attack Range: Below Average
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Awful

:ultgreninja:Greninja:

A bit of a strange twist on a speed character, Greninja has the archetypical mobility but his attack speed is really nothing special and he is saddled with a pretty poor grab. Greninja does have good range on more moves than a typical speed character and a lot of moves that can be used in tricky set-up style situations so the character works out to be functional but highly advanced.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Average
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Excellent
Recovery: Excellent

:ultmiifighters::4miibrawl:Mii Brawler:

A bit of a hybrid between Mario and Zero Suit Samus, the Mii Brawler is all about moving in and then cashing out with his attacks that vary between being combo friendly and really high reward. The range is the weakness here.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Good
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultmiifighters::4miisword:Mii Swordfighter:

At heart probably closest to the Links, Mii Swordfighter relies heavily on a variety of decently ranged but not outstandingly ranged sword normals to win fairly traditional footsies. While this character has several projectiles, they are all mostly supplemental to the strategy and not core to it.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultmiifighters::4miigun:Mii Gunner:

In a lot of ways a much more projectile spammy of a character than any of the non-Mii characters, the Mii Gunner just has a huge arsenal of incredibly effective projectiles and moves with huge disjoints that kinda look like projectiles but aren't. Mii Gunner is seriously lacking in power which can cause it to really struggle to finish stocks, but if you just want to throw tons of garbage at your opponent, there may not be a better character to do it.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Awful
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultpalutena:Palutena:

To be perfectly honest, Palutena was so dysfunctional in 4 that it was hard to discern a coherent playstyle other than spamming her few good moves and then probably losing. Based on her changes we've seen in Ultimate, I speculate she's supposed to be some kind of a spatial control character, but it's hard to say how this new playstyle will work for her for better or for worse. She was obviously designed around exploiting super powerful customs in 4 and then the community said no so she was in a lot of ways just not a character in that game; I'd think of her as a sort of newcomer for Ultimate.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Excellent

:ultpacman:Pac-Man:

He had a reputation as an oddball in 4 due to his strange projectiles that were also frequently his undoing since they could all be turned back against him by a strong opponent, but beneath that Pac-Man has the heart of a fundamentals character with really good grounded normals other than his smashes that were tuned to be almost useless in 4. Pac-Man almost literally did not have a grab in 4 his grab was so bad which forced him to rely on complicated zoning nonsense that really wasn't very good in the long run, but we've seen this is improved a lot in Ultimate so Pac-Man may be moving in new and better directions in the new game.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Poor
Power: Poor
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Good

:ultrobin:Robin:

Robin is a resource manipulation sort of zoning character. Robin is very safe with almost his entire moveset, but almost every attack costs a resource that takes time to replenish so a lot must be managed to play Robin well. Robin's comically bad mobility and lack of tools to escape pressure can also make some really bad situations if the opponent gains a strong advantage; be sure to plan ahead with this character.

Attack Speed: Good
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Awful
Recovery: Poor

:ultshulk:Shulk:

Shulk has the most range of any character not in House Belmont, and Shulk has the special gimmick of the Monado artes that can be used to temporarily give him incredible power or great mobility. Shulk pays for this with really, really bad frame data and a recovery that is drastically worse than it looks at first; Shulk has a lot of upside if he can find ways to leverage all of his outstanding properties but is forced to overcome a lot to begin to function.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Outstanding
Power: Good
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Awful

:ultbowserjr:Bowser Jr.:

A weird little character who is hard to judge based off 4 because a lot of Bowser Jr.'s moves were very poorly tuned and/or just didn't work right. This character has a lot of gimmicks and tricks to supplement what is overall a build that trades speed for range/power.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Good
Power: Good
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Average

:ultduckhunt:Duck Hunt:

Usually it's bad to say a character is just one move, but in Duck Hunt's case, the can is truly defining. Duck Hunt has a projectile that can be summoned instantly and then manipulated at any time including if Duck Hunt is being hit; this makes Duck Hunt into a very set-up heavy spatial control character who can do a lot of cool stuff but has ridiculously low power and a lot of unsafe moves otherwise.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Awful
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Poor

:ultryu:Ryu/:ultken:Ken:

Ryu is basically a power character with good combo potential who requires way more tech skill than most characters to play due to his special input system. Ryu's mobility isn't great which further emphasizes how careful you need to be to play this character well, but if you are that careful, the pay-off is large.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Below Average
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Poor
Recovery: Below Average

We have a better sense of the Ryu and Ken differences than for most echo fighters. Ken has a variety of different normals from Ryu that on the surface seem mostly better in that they are stronger with more range. Ken's specials seem more safe than Ryu's but less powerful as a rule, and allegedly Ken has some different special instead of red fireballs that is some sort of kicking attack. Ken also has slightly faster ground movement than Ryu but seemingly not enough to play out hugely differently in the context of the rest of the cast. Early reports are demonstrating that Ryu's kill confirms simply don't work as Ken which could make Ken a more rewarding fundamental character while Ryu has better combos, but of course no one has labbed these complex characters in Ultimate to even know if Ken has some different kill confirms or something like that. It will probably take a lot of time in the lab post-release to really even understand the playstyle implications of the differences, but it seems likely they're more different from each other than any other echoes or even maybe non-echo pairs like Mario/Dr. Mario.

:ultcloud:Cloud:

Cloud is a mobile character with a sword who can charge up a resource that makes him temporarily even more mobile with the option to use special limit moves with insanely advantageous properties and massive power. Cloud really has an excellent blend of speed, power, and range only offset by his suspect recovery; the design has few natural downsides.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Awful

:ultcorrin:Corrin:

Corrin is a variation on the traditional spatial control swordsman idea. Corrin's grounded normals don't really dominate like Marth's or other such swordsmen's do, but Corrin has extraordinary aerials for this purpose instead with nair in particular maybe being the best spatial control move in Smash history and just a wealth of diversity in his toolset with access to stun, the pin mechanic, a few moves with Belmont-level range, a few aerials with movement properties, and the most reliable counter in the game. Corrin outside of those basic strengths is mostly typical as far as a sword character goes without having massive weaknesses.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Outstanding
Power: Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Below Average

:ultbayonetta:Bayonetta:

Bayonetta is the combo queen of Smash; she hits you and you're going for a ride in a way no other character even approximates. She really isn't that powerful on a hit for hit basis including poor finishing power, and her attack speed is actually not good at all despite how it can seem when you're being overwhelmed by her nonsense. Overall she's a very extreme character who has convinced the children who have never played against a top tier before that she's without downside and completely unfair, but if you want to invest into her for Ultimate, I'd be ready for more of a roller coaster with lows balancing off the highs as that's her natural design.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Outstanding

:ultinkling:Inkling:

As a character not in a previous Smash game but in the demo, she's been well studied but still cannot be understood to nearly the depth that the previous characters could be. So far we see a character who is overall quite mobile with a lot of good spatial control moves who doesn't really hit that hard and has a gimmick involving inking the opponent that seems to encourage rushdown to some extent but not really be that defining otherwise.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Below Average
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Good

:ultridley:Ridley:

Like Inkling, Ridley is more of a hypothetical case but at least one well understood from demo play. Ridley takes the big archetype and seems to really shift it toward a focus on momentum. His moves control space a bit better than the other bigs and are even more rewarding due to their hit dynamics, but Ridley's attack speed is just comically bad and his recovery seems to leave a lot to be desired so Ridley often either has momentum and is winning big or is being ragdolled and will lose quickly.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Good
Power: Outstanding
Mobility: Good
Recovery: Awful

:ultsimon:Simon/:ultrichter:Richter:

Like all new characters, a lot is unclear with how the Belmonts play, but at least they can be understood as an extreme. This moveset has more range than any other with an absurd number of moves being variations on "long range poke", and you also get a visibly outstanding set of projectiles. I would expect a very heavy focus on keepaway with these two.

Attack Speed: Below Average
Attack Range: Outstanding
Power: Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Awful

We really have no clue what the differences between Simon and Richter are. We've been told that their jabs are different somehow, but beyond that, it's a mystery.

:ultkrool:King K.Rool:

K.Rool based on the footage we've seen so far looks a lot like a very typical big character. He hits really hard and has good range on most of his attacks, but those attacks are slow somewhat offset by him having decent but not outstanding mobility. To my eye, his normals look better than an average big's normals, but he has visibly poor specials other than his legitimately good recovery so he'll be the most fundamentals focused big.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Good

:ultisabelle:Isabelle:

Isabelle seems to be basically a second take on the Villager with a lot of the same concepts but moves that are on average more straightforward. Like Villager, she's going to depend super heavily on the slingshot aerials to win wars of attrition as she has no obvious way to apply offensive pressure, but her fishing pole and rocket trap will give her more direct payoffs for slow play than some of Villager's set-ups.

Attack Speed: Average
Attack Range: Good
Power: Average
Mobility: Below Average
Recovery: Outstanding

:ultincineroar:Incineroar:

I can't give good ratings for this character as honestly I understand him a lot less well than all of the others based on watching footage, but what we've seen suggests a pretty limited in concept character. Incineroar has high grab reward and a command grab that seems to be the best command grab in the game; he rushes forward fairly quickly either in the air or on the ground and throws the opponent upward with a lot of power. While he does have a few other decent looking moves, most of his normals seem fairly poor in terms of range and speed, his mobility seems pretty bad, and his recovery is quite bad. My personal theorycraft suggests this will be a character who will successfully make his opponents stop playing defense and then just lose when the opponent goes on offense which would suggest Incineroar could be pretty bad, but he has enough moves with interesting properties that it's not hard to imagine something non-obvious emerging from that from which players will discover a useful playstyle.
 
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Crystanium

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I think you need to define attack speed, attack range, power, mobility, and recovery. You then need to define what words you use for each one. For example, is attack speed about frame data? If so, how do you determine whether it's awful or outstanding? These words seem to be abstract. If attack speed is about frame data, then do you total the amount of frames per character? Yet, frames affect more than attacks, so it cannot be purely about frames.
 

Zapp Branniglenn

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Mmm, I think if I had to condense characters into five attributes, recovery would be included in "survivability". Obviously a vital component to how a character survives, but disadvantage states and weight class would also be considered. Recovery is largely dependent on air and fall speeds, which ties more directly into "mobility" which is already an attribute. Another vital area of comparison would have been "grabs" if this were Smash 4. However with Ultimate making grabs more laggy and having less reward (seemingly) across the board, that's probably not going to be nearly as important going into the new game.

Anyway, I'm not going to sit and nitpick every little detail, but the Roy/Chrom entry has me scratching my head a bit. Power as excellent seems bizarre as his damage values don't compare to heavy weight damage output and certainly not knockback. Most characters in Smash 4 had at the very least a great B-air for KOing, but Roy's knockback on most moves is quite unremarkable even with the sweetspot, relying more than most on smash attacks, his Up B, or a counter. And said weakness in power will be more than apparent with Chrom as well. If anything, his mobility is the high point. He's captain falcon with a sword, and his movement stats, at least in neutral scenarios are the biggest highlight to playing him over other swordies.
 

osby

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Not big on competitive play, but Bayonetta's part made me laugh.
 

ZephyrZ

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I wouldn't call Mewtwo's mobility "below average". Unless Ultimate changed him too much, his ground speed, jump height and horizontal air speed are both excellent and allow him to keep up offensive pressure when he needs it, even if his less impressive aerial acceleration and floaty-ness holds him back somewhat. He's certainly more mobile overall then Charizard.
 

Amazing Ampharos

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I think you need to define attack speed, attack range, power, mobility, and recovery. You then need to define what words you use for each one. For example, is attack speed about frame data? If so, how do you determine whether it's awful or outstanding? These words seem to be abstract. If attack speed is about frame data, then do you total the amount of frames per character? Yet, frames affect more than attacks, so it cannot be purely about frames.
I don't want to go off on a wild tangent which is easy to do on this topic, but I'll just put it this way. This game is very, very far from mathematically solvable, and any one of these five values could be sub broken into a minimum of dozens and up to hundreds of component values that need weighted in complex and non-obvious ways where often different values are of wildly different importance to different characters. The idea was to help a friend who didn't have total familiarity with every character in Smash have something more digestible as a starting point than "spend dozens of hours exploring everything in the game and then try to figure it out on your own". I fully admit all values are very, very fuzzy, but I'm unsure they could possibly not be fuzzy since making them precise and scientific would basically require the game to be solvable which I think it really isn't.

Mmm, I think if I had to condense characters into five attributes, recovery would be included in "survivability". Obviously a vital component to how a character survives, but disadvantage states and weight class would also be considered. Recovery is largely dependent on air and fall speeds, which ties more directly into "mobility" which is already an attribute. Another vital area of comparison would have been "grabs" if this were Smash 4. However with Ultimate making grabs more laggy and having less reward (seemingly) across the board, that's probably not going to be nearly as important going into the new game.

Anyway, I'm not going to sit and nitpick every little detail, but the Roy/Chrom entry has me scratching my head a bit. Power as excellent seems bizarre as his damage values don't compare to heavy weight damage output and certainly not knockback. Most characters in Smash 4 had at the very least a great B-air for KOing, but Roy's knockback on most moves is quite unremarkable even with the sweetspot, relying more than most on smash attacks, his Up B, or a counter. And said weakness in power will be more than apparent with Chrom as well. If anything, his mobility is the high point. He's captain falcon with a sword, and his movement stats, at least in neutral scenarios are the biggest highlight to playing him over other swordies.
I would mostly agree that survivability is a more useful long term concept than recovery, but of course that's even fuzzier to begin to quantify as some playstyles are naturally lower risk than others which means those characters often get hit by weaker stuff which is a big part of why a few characters just seem to always live forever (looking at you Samus and Mega Man). Honestly I went with recovery because it's a lot less obvious than simple weight (which for most of the cast you can kinda guess by looking, a few odd exceptions like Mewtwo) but still something I felt like I could talk about decently and usefully.

I totally might have given Roy too much credit for how hard his smashes hit and not enough punishment for how unimpressive his aerials are. I do agree that mobility is the main point; my section on Roy probably needs some revision.

I wouldn't call Mewtwo's mobility "below average". Unless Ultimate changed him too much, his ground speed, jump height and horizontal air speed are both excellent and allow him to keep up offensive pressure when he needs it, even if his less impressive aerial acceleration and floaty-ness holds him back somewhat. He's certainly more mobile overall then Charizard.
Yeah, I short sold Mewtwo pretty badly on that point, didn't I? His floatiness and aerial acceleration together really do pose real limitations on his ability to leverage aerial mobility and his initial dash isn't great so he can't be read straight up just from run speed/air speed, but Below Average was in retrospect a really unfair rating. The "big two" numbers would imply Excellent but the limitations make Good more accurate; part of it was also probably me considering his lower running speed from before being patched which would make a ranking more like Average a lot more accurate. I do think Charizard, while probably on the low end of Average, qualifies for the group with a good run speed and multi-jumps even if most of his other mobility numbers are bad. 74 characters is a lot...
 

ZephyrZ

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Yeah, I short sold Mewtwo pretty badly on that point, didn't I? His floatiness and aerial acceleration together really do pose real limitations on his ability to leverage aerial mobility and his initial dash isn't great so he can't be read straight up just from run speed/air speed, but Below Average was in retrospect a really unfair rating. The "big two" numbers would imply Excellent but the limitations make Good more accurate; part of it was also probably me considering his lower running speed from before being patched which would make a ranking more like Average a lot more accurate. I do think Charizard, while probably on the low end of Average, qualifies for the group with a good run speed and multi-jumps even if most of his other mobility numbers are bad. 74 characters is a lot...
I think this just goes to show how hard it is to measure concepts such as "mobility' when there's so many different factors to it. Some characters are good at chasing and pressuring landings, some are good at running or jumping away from pressure, and some are good at going offstage or pursuing opponents into the air. I've personally thought of Mewtwo's overall mobility to be kind of insane myself but when I stopped to think about it I realized he really did have a lot holding him back, and that floatiness will probably be more of nuisance this time around now that he's not going to be able to abuse Confusion and air dodge as much.

Overall I think this looks like a pretty solid list for what it is, I just felt the need to nag about one of my most played. I'm sure there will be other people with their own personal nitpicks to, as there always is with this sort of list. I wasn't really trying to disagree with Charizard's mobility rank either, his ground speed is vital to his play style even if his air speed holds him back, so I think "average" is fair.
 

DJ3DS

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:ultkrool:King K.Rool:

K.Rool based on the footage we've seen so far looks a lot like a very typical big character. He hits really hard and has good range on most of his attacks, but those attacks are slow somewhat offset by him having decent but not outstanding mobility. To my eye, his normals look better than an average big's normals, but he has visibly poor specials other than his legitimately good recovery so he'll be the most fundamentals focused big.

Attack Speed: Poor
Attack Range: Good
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Average
Recovery: Good
I think it's worth perhaps mentioning the speed of his attacks relative to other heavyweights, because he does have this where it's needed - particularly in Jab and Up Tilt, respectively. Here's a comparison of the frame data (courtesy of Pushblock Gaming) relative to the Smash 4 heavyweights frames.

K Rool - 4 / 5
Bowser - 7 / 11
Charizard - 4 / 9
DK - 5 / 5
Ganon - 7 / 21 (I used Up Smash here, for obvious reasons)
King Dedede - 10 / 9

His other normals don't quite have the same speed but have utility; F-Tilt is frame 12 but has super armour to effectively make it a bargain version of Little Mac's forward smash, for example.

On his specials, I think they have more utility than you grant. The boomerang is as fast as Link and has super armour throughout the whole endlag, and it has been confirmed that the blunderbuss can be used as a vacuum without firing the cannonball so you can use it solely as a command grab in situations where it would be useful.
 

Mogisthelioma

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:ultkingdedede:King Dedede:

King Dedede is a big character who is even slower than all of the others and, unlike other bigs, has truly terrible mobility as well. King Dedede has moves that cover huge areas that imply spatial control, but his horrible frame data and lack of safety mostly make him a defensive counterpoke character who mostly looks for his opponents to attack with things he can predict and stuff with his own big attacks.

Attack Speed: Awful
Attack Range: Excellent
Power: Excellent
Mobility: Awful
Recovery: Poor
Just curious, how is Dedede's recovery poor? He has five jumps, not to mention a high vertical recovery with super armor.
You basically got everything else right, but you should also mention Dedede's amazing edgeguarding game, as well as his gordo setups. Dedede can edgeguard most fighters pretty well, except for, you know, BAYO, and ironically, himself. Gordo setups allow for a great amount of stage control, and now Dedede can inhale and spit out reflected gordos, giving him lost of more options. Gordo triangulation sets up for kill sutups with up air, and now with the new 100% gordo stick, anytime the opponent goes below stage, Dedede can create an inescapable kill setup.
 

Rakurai

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I'm not too sure G&W's bit about "limited abilities to create diverse pressure or combos" is very accurate anymore in light of the many changes he's received to his moveset.

His new fair in particular opens up a world of possibilities, being a falling projectile that can be used to safely pressure anyone who's below him without being a huge commitment like dair, and his new uair is ridiculously oppressive to people who are trying to land, moreso because of the airdodge limit.

The bury on his sweetspot down smash can also lead into immediate follow-ups while they're still buried, or he can easily exploit the vulnerable frames after they pop-out with pretty much any of his other aerials or even go for a 9 if he feels gutsy.
 
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Crystanium

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I don't want to go off on a wild tangent which is easy to do on this topic, but I'll just put it this way. This game is very, very far from mathematically solvable, and any one of these five values could be sub broken into a minimum of dozens and up to hundreds of component values that need weighted in complex and non-obvious ways where often different values are of wildly different importance to different characters. The idea was to help a friend who didn't have total familiarity with every character in Smash have something more digestible as a starting point than "spend dozens of hours exploring everything in the game and then try to figure it out on your own". I fully admit all values are very, very fuzzy, but I'm unsure they could possibly not be fuzzy since making them precise and scientific would basically require the game to be solvable which I think it really isn't.
I'm sure anyone with enough time and effort could come up with equations for SSBU. This game would be solvable since in order to develop it, it requires logic and mathematics anyway. I'm not asking for math or science, though. I'm asking for clarity.
 

Luigifan18

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I was expecting this thread to define playstyle terms such as rushdown, zoner, trapper, and turtle.
 

meleebrawler

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Kirby's really being sold short here, yes he's made to be easy to use but in all games except Melee he has a great combo game and frame data up close.

Palutena's gameplan seems based on thwarting offensives with tilts that don't rebound on clank, long ranged smashes and specials plus a two-in-one reflector/counter combo. Very defensive.
 

Putuk

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My nitpick is that Pichu is referred to as a "meme" character.
Stop.
It's called a joke character. The word "meme" means something that is spread by repetition.

also
>Ivysaur
>he
 

1FC0

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R.O.B.'s dashing speed is actually about average. It is pretty close to Mario's. And his frame data is pretty average as well. What makes you think R.O.B. is slow?

R.O.B.'s recovery in Smash 4 is also not really excellent. In SSBB he had one of the best recoveries with his recovery rivalling those of Meta Knight and Jigglypuff but in Smash 4 they nerfed his speed and made it impossible to keep rising while using an aerial out of Robo Burner. This nerfed his recovery a lot. His recovery can still cover a lot fo distance and it still can be attacked out of, but now it is really easy to intercept since it is so slow and the fact that attacking makes R.O.B. drop forces him into dangerous mindgames. So his recovery still is not bad but it is not really excellent anymore either.

But right now I am talking about Smash 4. I do not know whether this still goes for Smash Ultimate.
 
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Big-Cat

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The descriptions here are rather nebulous and would require someone with prior knowledge of the characters to really understand them. Things like frame data, running speed, etc. don't really mean much if it's not understood as to how the character plays. Ironically, I'd argue that you would need a more concise list of descriptors. Just to use some examples. Here's what I'd do.
:ultmario:
Style: All around.
Suited For: Offense
Difficulty: Beginner
Pros: Good hit confirms, several tools available.
Cons: Limited range.

:ultcloud:
Style: Pokes
Suited For: Offense
Difficulty: Beginner
Pros: Great startup on attacks with good spacing provided by aerials.
Cons: Limited recovery, needs Limit Break to circumvent weaknesses.

:ultsonic:
Style: High-risk, High-reward
Suited For: Balanced
Difficulty: Medium
Pros: Fastest running speed, unpredictable.
Cons: Mixups are not safe and damage per hit is weak.
:ultincineroar:
Style: Bait and Punish
Suited For: Defensive
Difficulty: Advanced
Pros: High power, best throws in the game.
Cons: Slow movement, prone to being predictable.

:ultisabelle:
Style: Zoning
Suited For: Defensive
Difficulty: Medium
Pros: Great stage control, small hurtbox.
Cons: Lightweight.

:ultpokemontrainer:
Style: Rushdown, Zoning, Bait and Punish for each respective Pokemon
Suited For: Balanced
Difficulty: Advanced
Pros: Easy to change strategies on the fly. Gives you a Marvel vs. Capcom experience.
Cons: Intensely high learning curve. Best mileage requires learning all three.

What do you think of this method?
 
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Luigifan18

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Sonic's a middleweight, not a lightweight, though he's on the lighter end of the middleweights.
 

Stanpants

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The descriptions here are rather nebulous and would require someone with prior knowledge of the characters to really understand them. Things like frame data, running speed, etc. don't really mean much if it's not understood as to how the character plays. Ironically, I'd argue that you would need a more concise list of descriptors. Just to use some examples. Here's what I'd do.
:ultmario:
Style: All around.
Suited For: Offense
Difficulty: Beginner
Pros: Good hit confirms, several tools available.
Cons: Limited range.

:ultcloud:
Style: Pokes
Suited For: Offense
Difficulty: Beginner
Pros: Great startup on attacks with good spacing provided by aerials.
Cons: Limited recovery, needs Limit Break to circumvent weaknesses.

:ultsonic:
Style: High-risk, High-reward
Suited For: Balanced
Difficulty: Medium
Pros: Fastest running speed, unpredictable.
Cons: Mixups are not safe and damage per hit is weak.
:ultincineroar:
Style: Bait and Punish
Suited For: Defensive
Difficulty: Advanced
Pros: High power, best throws in the game.
Cons: Slow movement, prone to being predictable.

:ultisabelle:
Style: Zoning
Suited For: Defensive
Difficulty: Medium
Pros: Great stage control, small hurtbox.
Cons: Lightweight.

:ultpokemontrainer:
Style: Rushdown, Zoning, Bait and Punish for each respective Pokemon
Suited For: Balanced
Difficulty: Advanced
Pros: Easy to change strategies on the fly. Gives you a Marvel vs. Capcom experience.
Cons: Intensely high learning curve. Best mileage requires learning all three.

What do you think of this method?
I like the style. I’d read more
 

Azura Ahai

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I’m not one to go so far as looking at frame data but I feel like Palutena doesn’t suffer from slow attack speed anymore like she did in 4. Her smash attacks, sure, but her tilts and aerials seem faster. I also feel like her projectiles don’t make for good zoning. Autoreticle seems not so great to me and I use it sparingly. EF however has a lot of potential for edge guarding and even killing at high percentages. It’s too easily punishable to be used in the neutral though.

You’re selling her mobility short as well, she can get around pretty quickly. I think the best Palutena players will be the ones that bring the pressure and keep at it rather than those that try to zone even though her two projectiles suggest otherwise. Again, I don’t know anything about frame data and I’ve not taken a Smash game seriously since Melee so I could be completely wrong, these are just my gut feelings from trying to learn her in Ultimate.
 

redenchanter

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I love Pit. He give opponents fits with his aerial game. and he has a dark clone
 
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THE SLOTH

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Apologies for the necro, but would anybody be interested in making a proper update to this now that the game's been out for about 2-3 months? Having a more solid, comprehensible resource describing every character's general playstyle would be a great tool for better understanding some characters better imo, especially for a game with 70+ different characters.
 
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