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Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

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    584

Ziodyne 21

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Sonic is still very good in my opinion. He got a lot of things buffed as a trade off for his spin-dash nerfs. Including homing attack which is pretty ridiculous now. I guess he has a bit more trouble vs disjoints now since he is now actullay has to approch them more but it is not too big of a hurdle for him. Really the main issue with Sonic is an issue with a lot of otherwise good characters now. Is that there are top-tiers that do what Sonic wants to do better and easier . i.e :ultpichu::ultfox::ultinkling:
 
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DDK

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Hey everyone, first post here. I've been lurking this thread since it's creation (and on/off with this website through the years), but I've also noticed how little talk there is of :ultsonic: (even the character forum for him is dead), and I think that the pro tier lists are vastly underestimating him by putting him at dead mid-tier/lower mid tier. Sonic has, for the first time ever, a great kit where all of his moves actually are useful and have utility. Down air can reliably spike now, and homing attack is absolutely nuts. His neutral B is a free punish button on someone making a bad read regardless of distance. While Sonic's up air got a nerf to reliability, it's still a valid kill option at higher %s. I think some users/players are kind of overestimating Sonic's nerfs (which there really aren't any besides up air and shield cancelling) and still trying to play him like it's Sm4sh. He's arguably gone from one of the easiest characters to get a grip on in Sm4sh to being one of the hardest characters to master in Ultimate. He can't really be played as a bait-and-punish character effectively anymore. Once Sonic has an opening, he needs to hard rushdown and overwhelm the opponent. Sonic's recovery also got a decent upgrade in this game with directional air-dodging, which can add more vertical or horizontal recovery if needed.

That being said, Sonic definitely has weaknesses that make him much more modest than higher tier characters. While the engine benefits Sonic a lot, it arguably benefits other characters much more, especially characters with disjoints. As far as I'm aware, the only moves Sonic has with disjoints are his back air and forward smash, and only fsmash has good range. Because of this, he gets absolutely wrecked by the better swordies like Lucina and Ike along with the fact that his frame data (outside of his jabs and forward air) isn't fast enough to contest them even when he's actually in their face, and unlike Marth (in Lucina's case) there's no sourspots. Sonic is also pretty light, making him very easy to kill, while also having very poor kill moves himself. Fsmash only really works on a read, up air and forward air only work close to the blast zones, homing attack also requires a read, and his spike is very situational and still hard to land on an opponent who knows how to avoid it. Back air is arguably his only decent kill move, but even at lower kill percents it requires being semi-close to the blast zone. Sonic is incredible at dealing a lot of damage quickly, but his kill power absolutely sucks.

Tl;dr: I feel Sonic is a very good character, just not top tier. Personally, at least from what I (and most other players) know at this point, he feels most appropriate as either the very top of mid tier, or the bottom of high tier. He has okay results too, but I feel like it will grow with time, considering he is a lot harder to play in this game with his defensive game (shield-canceling) being absolutely neutered, as well as his mindgames being trickier.
Heya! I'm also a long-time lurker and Sonic main and your post echoes a lot of my thoughts with the character in Ultimate.

I feel Sonic is in the unfortunate position of "unorthodox kit" and "lacks results" (KEN please travel more), which is probably why you see a lot of people ranking him towards the middle/lower end of the cast. As many others have mentioned in this thread the game is still at its infancy and players are gravitating towards characters with explosive punishes and strong, rewarding buttons.

Looking back at Smash 4, Sonic had both the punish game and strong buttons of a top-tier character. Spindash was such an oppressive tool with the amount of mix-ups, safety, and damage it granted that you'd (understandably) hear the collective groans of everyone in the venue whenever it was known there was a Sonic player in the vicinity.

Fast-forward to Ultimate and you still have a character with a great punish game but without that centralizing "press side-b to win neutral, do 30% in one combo, water your crops" button. Now you have a more well-rounded character that actually has to...play fair?

As much as I loved baiting my opponent into an unsafe action and timing them out until they cursed me and the rest of my lineage, I agree that removing shield cancelling from side b was necessary for the health of the game. Sonic is now a character who you have to fully understand his options in each situation, his strengths and especially his limitations to succeed with. For the player base seeking instant gratification there are definitely better characters to win with that offer more straightforward and damaging punish games.

Sonic has all the right tools to be a good character in this game. As players get better at optimizing his movement, punishes and edge-guards the character should see an improvement. Ultimately, it will come down to how proficient people are at sealing stocks with Sonic, as that is by far the character's greatest hurdle.

At the very least people might actually get hype now when they see a Sonic on stream.
 
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Fatmanonice

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Only things I really agree with about Leffen's tier list is that Isabelle and K. Rool are pretty terrible. K. Rool's a gimmicky mess and was so oversaturated upon launch that virtually everyone now knows how to fight the character. He reminds me of early Smash 4 Duck Hunt or even Little Mac in how their playstyles gave people trouble because they were new to Smash. The crown is annoying at worst, the belly armor is actually kind of a liability especially against other heavies, etc. The character is too slow to be threatening and doesn't do anything that the other heavies don't do better.

As for Isabelle, the early reports of her being better than Villager were definitely overblown. The Lloid rocket is broken in a bad way. Most characters can reasonably negate it and there are a number who can flat out run over it. It should honestly explode like Snake's grenades when directly attacked so it's an honest to god defensive tool. Her oos options are crap and even landing her jab is a free punish. She strangely gets camped out very easily by characters with multiple projectiles. Villager, on the other hand, still has all their defensive options from Smash 4 and I think people really underrate the character overall. Isabelle, however, isn't a total lost cause. Fix her jab and make Lloid work how it's supposed to and that alone would significantly improve her.
 

Luigifan18

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This is a blatant false equivalence though. Characters can rack up a lot of damage, but their individual hits don't do obscene damage. You often need to set those up via throws or reads, and even then, Olimar does way more in comparison.


It's telling that Nintendo had to nerf him (and only him) in WoL because his values are off.
Olimar's problem wasn't his damage values — it was the interactions between his own damage values, Pikmin damage modifiers, and Spirit damage modifiers being thrown out of whack, causing an error in the way the game calculates damage. Somehow, the additional variable of the Pikmin caused an error in the equation of Olimar's base damage being augmented by Spirit modifiers, causing Spirits to increase Olimar's damage far more than the developers intended. I’m not quite sure why only Olimar screwed up the damage formula, given that he isn't the only character who can introduce a unique-to-him/her/itself, non-constant variable into the equation (Shulk has Monado Arts, Wii Fit Trainer has Deep Breathing, Incineroar has Revenge). However, Olimar’s Pikmin are definitely the most complicated of the character-unique damage variables, due to each Pikmin type having different modifiers applied to different attack groups (smashes, aerials, throws, and Pummel+Pikmin Throw), whereas Monado Arts, Deep Breathing, and Revenge all modify all of their users' attacks to the same degree; thus, I suppose it would be easier for an oversight in the damage formula and the Spirit modifier to crop up in relation to Olimar's Pikmin than to other character-specific modifiers. (Also, Olimar is constantly shuffling the Pikmin he's using in his attacks mid-match, whereas the modifiers for Shulk, Wii Fit Trainer, and Incineroar have consistent on/off toggles; thus, Olimar is probably harder for the game's damage/knockback calculation processors to deal with than other characters. This doesn't really impact errors or the lack thereof in the algorithms; it just means that it's a little easier for the program to screw up its calculations, given how quickly it has to perform them.)

Anyways, whatever wonky programming error cropped up in Olimar's Spirit-augmented damage has been fixed in the recent patch, from what I've heard. But honestly, I don't think that this is the right place to discuss anything involving Spirits, given that they're unlikely to be allowed in competitive play.
 
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ARISTOS

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K. Rool's a gimmicky mess and was so oversaturated upon launch that virtually everyone now knows how to fight the character. He reminds me of early Smash 4 Duck Hunt or even Little Mac in how their playstyles gave people trouble because they were new to Smash. The crown is annoying at worst, the belly armor is actually kind of a liability especially against other heavies, etc. The character is too slow to be threatening and doesn't do anything that the other heavies don't do better
They wanted to create a unique heavy in K. Rool and overcompensated by making the endlag for everything he does incredibly long.

Literally anything K. Rool does is a heavy commitment apart from jab, and in a game where people are flying around with low commitment options at all levels the kit doesn't work once people respect and play around crown. A really patient/1080 no scope reads player might be able to do something possibly but such a person would do better playing almost anyone else.

RE :ultsonic::ultfalcon:: I don't think these characters are bad (Sonic>Falcon probably) but like :ultzss: they suffered from having their old gameplans reworked in the transition to Ultimate. Smash 4 Sonic had a one button answer to tons of situations that the opponent had to overly compensate for in Spin Dash, and as a result players both at a low and high level resorted to playing a very defensive, campy style of Sonic (it took 3 games to get Sonic's actual personality in playstyle right, but here we are). The player base will have to adjust to the changes (I can't imagine Wrath/Komo flocking to the character as much, but 6WX and Ken should see more success with Sonic), though I don't think anything can make up for losing a tool like Smash 4 Spin Dash.

Likewise, Falcon in S4 seemed to revolve around hitting those Specific Setups (Uair --> Knee primarily) and using dash grab/attack mixups to get them there (sprinkle jab/bairs in, and you have :4falcon: in a nutshell). Falcon in Ultimate seems to focus a lot less on setting up 100% situations and on players making reads and conditioning opponents to turn 70% situations into kills (which is much easier due to no teching on grounded dair/more generous and safer knee). Falcon can't fish for falling uair anymore (and falling nair1 is OK but still kinda trash) but with the new AD mechanics opponents have to make tough choices when they get uaired: do I eat a 2nd/3rd uair and risk a potential knee? Do I AD and risk getting stomped/reset? I don't know if Fatality will thrive with this more "scrambly" Falcon (my opinion/read of him is that he was more of the "I do this which means X happens"), but I do think someone who thrives off turning soft reads into high damage/death can do well with the character. He's very much a high risk/high reward character in this incarnation as opposed to in 4.

Of course, more range on uair and bair so he can air-to-air/land safer on shield would probably be great~

someone check me if this is all a load of hoopla
 
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NotLiquid

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Outside of the deliberately bait-y way of lumping in half of the cast in a "I don't care about these characters" category there's not too much about Leffen's list that strikes me as objectively questionable despite me having a few question marks about some of the ordering. If anything the fact that the roster is so packed by now makes the quarry of sub-mid tiers feel like all the more of a formality that I can't begrudge Leffen for making a category for characters that seem kinda unremarkable if the goal in this very second for him is trying to lay out characters that are tiered from best to worst for some very notable reasons.

Snake for instance, it's interesting to explore why Leffen is fairly adamant that he's a mid-tier character considering his kit would suggest he has one of the most versatile movesets within the game. What is it about his fairly unique moveset that undoes him, or is there more to it that can bring him higher? On the flipside, one could argue that characters like Pit or Zelda could qualify for mid-tiers based on their moves but there's not really anything that notably sticks out about them that makes them interesting to talk about other than "yeah they have attacks that work about as well as you expect and a good player can win with them I guess". (On the topic of Pit, his SSB4 incarnation was probably the absolute best example of this phenomenon where almost everyone agrees that he has a balanced moveset, but despite that he was one of the most uninteresting and unpopular characters to talk about because all his qualities began and ended with "has a pretty good neutral")

To use an analogy, it's like when you're going to see a movie, you'd preferably want to see something that actually feels stimulating or interesting to piece apart. Preferably it would be something that you enjoy immensely and is a great piece of executed cinema. Perhaps something that is flawed but still unique enough that it sticks with you and is interesting to note, even a middle-of-the-road product can have a bunch of redeeming factors to it that makes it more engaging to think about compared to something that's considered "better". But even something that is so offensibly bad (or at least bad enough that it's entertaining) would be preferable to discuss over something so utterly boilerplate that only allows you to say "yeah that was a competent movie" and completely forget about the next day. That same way when it comes to fighting game tier lists, most people are always more interested in a character that's remarkably great (characters like Brawl MK, Diddy, Falco, Snake, Olimar, Ice Climbers, Pikachu, ZSS, etc.), or at least willing to talk about what makes a character so remarkably bad (characters like Brawl Falcon, Ganondorf, Lucas, Jigglypuff, Sheik/Zelda, etc.), but the characters that fall into that lower-end of mid-tier that aren't exactly that interesting to talk about? You're going to find a few niches but I'd be hard pressed to think of a lot of people that are going to be debating the minutiae of why a character like Lucario is less mediocre than Ridley. You don't get more unproductive in debating that.

With Ultimate poised to have roughly 75 characters by the end of this current year, that gulf of awkward middle children is going to be even wider, and I wouldn't be surprised if the official UBR tier lists are going to be a mess in the lower categories in their first few iterations.
 
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earthboundspacefree

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As a Snake main, I wouldn’t say that he’s mid tier necessarily, but I certainly don’t think he’s top tier, and I think he may skew towards the lower end of high tier. The problem is kinda similar to the problem ivy has - if he struggles to zone you out, GGs. Grenades can be great at controlling space, but if you are a) fast enough or b) have a way to reflect grenades, he struggles a lot. In addition to that, if anyone gets in close, his CQC moves aren’t great. He has a good OoS option with dair, frame 1 grenades are nice for combo breaking, edgeguarding is solid and EZ and having a kill confirm is nice. However, the previously mentioned issue, as well as his horrific recovery, means I think he isn’t as good as some think, and may fall off to some degree later on
 

Fatmanonice

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As a Snake main, I wouldn’t say that he’s mid tier necessarily, but I certainly don’t think he’s top tier, and I think he may skew towards the lower end of high tier. The problem is kinda similar to the problem ivy has - if he struggles to zone you out, GGs. Grenades can be great at controlling space, but if you are a) fast enough or b) have a way to reflect grenades, he struggles a lot. In addition to that, if anyone gets in close, his CQC moves aren’t great. He has a good OoS option with dair, frame 1 grenades are nice for combo breaking, edgeguarding is solid and EZ and having a kill confirm is nice. However, the previously mentioned issue, as well as his horrific recovery, means I think he isn’t as good as some think, and may fall off to some degree later on
This. A lot of people struggle against him because they don't remember how to fight him. If you respect the grenades too much, let him camp you, don't pay attention to the C4, or always try to do 69 combo strings every time there's an opening, you will lose. You have to slow down against this character and it took people roughly two years to learn this back in Brawl.
 

Diddy Kong

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I don't care about Leffen tier list for the most part but is Mario really not meta relevant or is that just one of Leffen extreme takes like he initially had with Snake and Olimar?
I've seen Mario doing well with results however. But I don't know if it's national or regionals. He isn't really all too bad, but not great either. Definitely a bit watered down from Smash 4, like Diddy, but not as badly as Sheik or Bayonetta. In theory, Mario should be fine. I get why he's not a very exciting character to play anymore without the Smash 4 'auto combos' though.
First, work on Squirtle! His combos can be nasty once you master them and I’m liking him more and more. You can even KO with Squirtle with some specific set-ups.

I think characters that lose hard to PT are heavies. Squirtle can combo them to >60% with one grab, Ivysaur outranges them, and Charizard’s got a speed edge over them. It’s really Ivy that wrecks them though.

Makes sense that bad/good matchups boil down to how well the best Pokémon :ultivysaur: fares. Consequently, good matchups are where Ivy dominates and bad matchups are the ones where Ivy struggles.
I actually think Diddy has advantage over all 3 Pokemon.
 
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Fatmanonice

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I've seen Mario doing well with results however. But I don't know if it's national or regionals. He isn't really all too bad, but not great either. Definitely a bit watered down from Smash 4, like Diddy, but not as badly as Sheik or Bayonetta. In theory, Mario should be fine. I get why he's not a very exciting character to play anymore without the Smash 4 'auto combos' though.

I actually think Diddy has advantage over all 3 Pokemon.
This game has a lot more build a bear characters than Smash 4 did. In that game, there were a lot of characters that had to be played a specific way or they weren't very good. This game doesn't really have any jank aside from a few over tuned moves so people are having to be more creative with their picks. I think this is why people are very slowly waking up to the potential of characters like ZSS, Bayonetta, and Ridley because now people are now having to think more about a character's overall kit instead of mostly just their best moves.
 

KirbySquad101

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I don't care about Leffen tier list for the most part but is Mario really not meta relevant or is that just one of Leffen extreme takes like he initially had with Snake and Olimar?
Mario has been performing very well, tournaments result-wise. MastaMario, Zenyou, and Super Dan have all had really good showings with him in locals, while Dark Wizzy and Prodigy placed 17th and 13th with him at Genesis 6, respectively. On most other tier lists (ESAM, Tweek, Samsora, etc.), he is ranked as a high tier, so it is something most likely exclusive to Leffen's tier list.
 

ZephyrZ

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Agree that :ultmegaman::ultyounglink: are problematic for Pokémon Trainer. Squirtle can do a decent job getting in against some zoners but they’re definitely much harder matchups. I find the rats easier to deal with when you stick to center stage, too.

First, work on Squirtle! His combos can be nasty once you master them and I’m liking him more and more. You can even KO with Squirtle with some specific set-ups.

I think characters that lose hard to PT are heavies. Squirtle can combo them to >60% with one grab, Ivysaur outranges them, and Charizard’s got a speed edge over them. It’s really Ivy that wrecks them though.

Makes sense that bad/good matchups boil down to how well the best Pokémon :ultivysaur: fares. Consequently, good matchups are where Ivy dominates and bad matchups are the ones where Ivy struggles.
Oh I agree that between Squirtle's combos, Ivysaur's zoning and Charizard's advantage PT is strong against superheavies. However I think most supers also have strong tools to fight against all three.

PT can get really wrecked by DK in disadvantage. Ivysaur and Charizard really struggle at landing in general while Squirtle has issues dealing with DKs massive hitboxes. I think it might be in PT's favor but not immensely.

I'm need more experience against Bowser, but he seems similar to DK but easier for a careful Squirtle to get in on.

K.Rool's crown beats out Razor Leaf and he can challenge Ivy's range. Squirtle can abuse K.Rool's big hurtbox and poor frame data but is liable to die super early. His up-b is deceptively difficult to edgegaurd to so he's going to living to higher percents then Charizard. His projectiles thankfully aren't spammy enough to keep Zard out for too long.

Incineroar seems easy on paper but Revenge means Razor Leaf spam is super risky. It also keeps you from overextending on untrue Squirtle strings. All three pokemon have great edgegaurding though which I still think puts this matchup in their favor.

Ganondorf however I think PT absolutely destroys. Squirtle overwhelms him with frame data and is able to take advantage of Dorf's poor movement by dancing outside his burst range. He has no answer to Razor Leaf if you stay outside the range of Wizard's Foot. All three pokemon have great edgeguarding to and can kill him early with it. I think Ganondorf might even be PT's best match up.
 

Rizen

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Only things I really agree with about Leffen's tier list is that Isabelle and K. Rool are pretty terrible. K. Rool's a gimmicky mess and was so oversaturated upon launch that virtually everyone now knows how to fight the character. He reminds me of early Smash 4 Duck Hunt or even Little Mac in how their playstyles gave people trouble because they were new to Smash. The crown is annoying at worst, the belly armor is actually kind of a liability especially against other heavies, etc. The character is too slow to be threatening and doesn't do anything that the other heavies don't do better.
.
K.Rool probably has the best anti-zoning of any heavyweight. VS DK you can wall him hard but K.Rool reflects projectiles and has several moves that armor through them. He's also a monster offstage with an armored Nair that eats hitboxes, spikes and a long recovery both vertically and horizontally. His startup is very strong although this is balanced by endlag. I agree he's a scrub killer but he has a lot of tools other heavies wish they had.
 

PK Gaming

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His WOL nerf was about attack bonuses from spirits somehow getting amplified for his Pikmin attacks, not his raw (spirit-free) damage being too high. Like, Olimar + Akuma would legit do around 150 damage with a single fair. It absolutely trivialized spirit battles. Just saying.
Ahh, my mistake. I probably should have looked into it more.

Anyways, whatever wonky programming error cropped up in Olimar's Spirit-augmented damage has been fixed in the recent patch, from what I've heard. But honestly, I don't think that this is the right place to discuss anything involving Spirits, given that they're unlikely to be allowed in competitive play.
To be honest, I have no idea what prompted the lengthy response. It wasn't the crux of my post, and I feel like my main point got lost in the shuffle, heh.
 
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Frihetsanka

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S1 made a Ness MU chart,
. Some interesting matchups: Ness loses to most top and high tiers (and Robin, apparently), goes even with Wolf, Pichu, Fox, Greninja, Pokémon Trainer, and only beats Pikachu and Snake in top tiers (MVD doesn't think Ness wins the MU though). That's interesting, and I don't think it's too implausible either. With a MU chart like that he's not going to be a top 20 character this time either. Probably a solid high-mid tier character though.
 

MG_3989

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S1 made a Ness MU chart,
. Some interesting matchups: Ness loses to most top and high tiers (and Robin, apparently), goes even with Wolf, Pichu, Fox, Greninja, Pokémon Trainer, and only beats Pikachu and Snake in top tiers (MVD doesn't think Ness wins the MU though). That's interesting, and I don't think it's too implausible either. With a MU chart like that he's not going to be a top 20 character this time either. Probably a solid high-mid tier character though.
Ness doesn’t lose to Inkling, Peach, YL, or Megaman and I’m unsure on ZSS. Also MVD is wrong about Snake. All the sword characters are doable but technically losing matchups but not by a ton

I’m not gonna talk much about this but you really seem to think Ness isn’t as good as most people do. Is there a reason for that?

Also S1 is super pessimistic about Ness anyway and not the Ness player I’d trust to make a MU chart
 
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The_Bookworm

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S1 made a Ness MU chart,
. Some interesting matchups: Ness loses to most top and high tiers (and Robin, apparently), goes even with Wolf, Pichu, Fox, Greninja, Pokémon Trainer, and only beats Pikachu and Snake in top tiers (MVD doesn't think Ness wins the MU though). That's interesting, and I don't think it's too implausible either. With a MU chart like that he's not going to be a top 20 character this time either. Probably a solid high-mid tier character though.
Wait, so he was trolling when he said that he was dropping Ness? Or was he not kidding? I don't know anymore. lol

The main gripe that I have about this matchup chart is that about 1/3rd of the cast is put in the "unsure" category. Perhaps more experience is needed before constructing it. Nevertheless, this matchup chart seems interesting to go deep into.
 

MG_3989

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Wait, so he was trolling when he said that he was dropping Ness? Or was he not kidding? I don't know anymore. lol

The main gripe that I have about this matchup chart is that about 1/3rd of the cast is put in the "unsure" category. Perhaps more experience is needed before constructing it. Nevertheless, this matchup chart seems interesting to go deep into.
I just don’t trust him especially when I know some of the matchups he says are losing Ness goes even on or win. He said Ness was horrible and has always been pessimistic about him. I wouldn’t put much stock into S1’s matchup chart when he’s obviously not optimistic nor even realistic about the character
 

Frihetsanka

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I’m not gonna talk much about this but you really seem to think Ness isn’t as good as most people do. Is there a reason for that?
I think he's around top 25 or so; better than in Smash 4 but worse than characters like Link, Young Link, Mega Man, Chrom, etc, and has a fair amount of losing MUs. I wouldn't say "as most people do", most tier lists seem to put Ness in high-mid rather than high (unless they have a very broad definition of high). While Ness got some good buffs from 4, he also got some nerfs: PKT2 kills later now (making it a bit worse as a clutch factor), and his down-throw has worse follow-ups. While down-Smash is better overall it's also slower (frame 12 instead of frame 10).

I also, personally, am inclined to say his new up-air is worse than his old one. Not because the new one is bad (it's very good), but because his old one was so, so good. It was legit one of his best landing options in 4.

Does Ness have any really bad (-2) MUs in Ultimate? I don't know, based on what I know right now I'd be inclined to say "no". Corrin, his worst MU in Smash 4, got nerfed, and while it's pretty likely that she still wins the MU it might just be -1 now. That helps a lot, and I don't think he loses -2 to any of the current top tiers (maybe Cloud and/or Lucina?).

The main gripe that I have about this matchup chart is that about 1/3rd of the cast is put in the "unsure" category.
Better than misplacing characters, at least.
 

MG_3989

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I think he's around top 25 or so; better than in Smash 4 but worse than characters like Link, Young Link, Mega Man, Chrom, etc, and has a fair amount of losing MUs. I wouldn't say "as most people do", most tier lists seem to put Ness in high-mid rather than high (unless they have a very broad definition of high). While Ness got some good buffs from 4, he also got some nerfs: PKT2 kills later now (making it a bit worse as a clutch factor), and his down-throw has worse follow-ups. While down-Smash is better overall it's also slower (frame 12 instead of frame 10).

I also, personally, am inclined to say his new up-air is worse than his old one. Not because the new one is bad (it's very good), but because his old one was so, so good. It was legit one of his best landing options in 4.

Does Ness have any really bad (-2) MUs in Ultimate? I don't know, based on what I know right now I'd be inclined to say "no". Corrin, his worst MU in Smash 4, got nerfed, and while it's pretty likely that she still wins the MU it might just be -1 now. That helps a lot, and I don't think he loses -2 to any of the current top tiers (maybe Cloud and/or Lucina?).

Better than misplacing characters, at least.
Ness’s new uair is actually a buff though. Falling it’s a combo starter that at 0% combos into itself until 50% or so. If you fastfall it at high percentages it can true combo into a grab and a back throw kill confirm. It still kills at about 110-120%. Uair is definitely a buff. Down smash is a HUGE buff and usmash can actually kill now. PKT2 still kills dangerously early but you’re right on that, but trust me it’s still clutch. Uair combos replace the east dthrow followups

He also has better landing options overall now such as double jump cancel PSI Magnet (basically floats in the direction you choose) into any aerial you want. I literally cannot overstate the importance of how PSI Magnet in this game

I understand your skeptical of him and that’s your right but I do think that matchup chart is a little off and he definitely doesn’t lose to Inkling, YL, Megaman, or Peach. He does even with all of them and probably beats at least YL and Megaman and maybe Inkling. He also might beat Wolf. S1 literally just said the character is horrible and now he’s making matchup charts? I don’t trust it

When it comes down to it you’re entitled to your opinion and I’m entitled to mine so again I don’t wanna have this argument because I agreed not to yesterday
 
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NotLiquid

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Ness vs Inkling is a matchup Ness loses more than he doesn't. Has to deal with BAir, ledgetraps, empty hops and an edgeguarding game that is second to none. I can see why it may lean even when grounded but this isn't a matchup that's going to evolve in his favor the further meta progresses.

I'm tired of Ness. I want to know more about Captain Falcon. I'm still not sure how much worse he is from Smash 4.
 
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MG_3989

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Ness vs Inkling is a matchup Ness loses more than he doesn't. Has to deal with BAir, ledgetraps, empty hops and an edgeguarding game that is second to none. I can see why it may lean even when grounded but this isn't a matchup that's going to evolve in his favor the further meta progresses.

I'm tired about Ness. I want to know more about Captain Falcon. I'm still not sure how much worse he is from Smash 4.
I saw Fatality make a video saying that he thinks Falcon will be good eventually, he’s just a difficult character and people have to adjust to his new movement and options. Now I don’t know how true that is seeing as Fatalitiy is a Falcon main but we’ll see
 

Envoy of Chaos

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The new Up air is a tradeoff not a nerf or buff tbh. Old up air did all of the things you listed. Both up airs still kill, still has an obnoxious hitbox (new one is the same size just in multihit form) Both combo start at zero (Just differently now). The one big trade between the two was 4 was able to be used to land (he still couldn't land) particularly against people trying to reset strings or juggle (Mario and Fox come to mind) while the new one can't do that what it can do over the other one is become a kill confirm that combos into grab an uptilt and Ftilt that kill at any percentage. Being a multihit he can cross shield up with it to make it ambiguous if the opponent shields. Having the strongest bthrow (the yeet smash video didn't account for DI) and being able to legitimately confirm into it is pretty big.

It's honestly more on what you value which would indicate which up air you prefer but personally I think the new one fits Ultimate Ness better than his old one would have.

Also that MU chart isn't bad my only gripe is some of the MUs he lists I don't think are any worse than even. Inkling, Ylink and Peach in particular.

Only commenting since this is something actually different from the last few pages of pointless conversation on the character
 
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Heracr055

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So...another character who seems to be doing quite well and is receiving quite a bit of talk after Genesis is Mega Man. Some felt that Mega Man would do drastically worse and fall into obscurity after the 2.0 patch change to Leaf Shield. However, the move itself continues to be excellent after the fact. Combine that with his excellent zoning tools, annoying poke in lemons, and excellent killing tools, and you have a character who looks to be staying in high at minimum.
 

MG_3989

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So...another character who seems to be doing quite well and is receiving quite a bit of talk after Genesis is Mega Man. Some felt that Mega Man would do drastically worse and fall into obscurity after the 2.0 patch change to Leaf Shield. However, the move itself continues to be excellent after the fact. Combine that with his excellent zoning tools, annoying poke in lemons, and excellent killing tools, and you have a character who looks to be staying in high at minimum.
I definitely think he has staying power. He has some of the best zoning in the game, he can edgeguard really well with both fair, bair, and dair, he’s pretty heavy, and I honestly think Leaf Shield might be the best move in the game
 

Rizen

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I actually feel Ness wins the YL MU. Both characters can be annoying but Ness has chances for early kills. PKT2 and Bthrow kill much earlier than anything YL has.
 

Rocketjay8

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I definitely think he has staying power. He has some of the best zoning in the game, he can edgeguard really well with both fair, bair, and dair, he’s pretty heavy, and I honestly think Leaf Shield might be the best move in the game
I think the award for best move in the game is WFT's deep breathing.
Basically it gives this character Cloud's limit boost for 10 seconds. It turns her killing power up a few notches. Seriously, I've killed a Luigi once at 75% with a non charged forward smash.
 
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KirbySquad101

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Ness vs Inkling is a matchup Ness loses more than he doesn't. Has to deal with BAir, ledgetraps, empty hops and an edgeguarding game that is second to none. I can see why it may lean even when grounded but this isn't a matchup that's going to evolve in his favor the further meta progresses.

I'm tired of Ness. I want to know more about Captain Falcon. I'm still not sure how much worse he is from Smash 4.
To elaborate on what MG said, from what I heard, CF is another case of ZSS or other Smash 4 top/high tiers where his gameplan is much less linear than previously; essentially his dash grab is worse in this game, back air is weaker, and up air isn't as ideal for follow-ups, so trying the same stuff that CF mains did with him in Smash 4 isn't gonna fly in Ultimate. He also has weird hitbox placements on a lot of his attacks, which combined with his tricky mobility, can make landing things with him an issue, and the window for performing combos is much more strict because of Up Air and Down Throw changes.

From what I've seen, dash-dancing's gonna be a really huge thing with him, as is baiting attacks and mixing up his neutral game with Raptor Boost, 1st hit N-Air, and dash grab. I think Captain Falcon still has a lot of things going for him; he's got an explosive combo game, which combined with his speed, makes punishing opponent's mistakes very rewarding, and he's got good KO set-ups in the form of NAir/DAir into Knee/Falcon Dive.

He does look like a character who's less focused around a few overcentralizing/really strong tools, and more focused who's got a more balanced toolkit. In that regard, I can see why people are having a rough time with him in this game currently, but I think he may do better once he is figured out. The good thing about his staying power is that he'll always have a really strong rep behind him in the form of Fatality. Overall, I think he's pretty eh atm, but I do feel he'll get better with time.

I could be just taking a lot of hooplah too, since most of my information about him is based off of Fatality's gameplay videos and what he said about Falcon lul
 
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Planty

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So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
 

The_Bookworm

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View attachment 193531
So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
Considering how lowly people in general view Rosa nowadays, this is a pretty optimistic matchup spread. I am also curious why they label Dedede and Charizard as slight advantages over the rest of the super heavies, who are in strong advantage.

Rosa is a character that I kind of think kind of underrated, mostly when Attack Canceling was discovered. It is interesting to see if her learning curve passed will lead into results. Her best player from SSB4 not playing as her (at least in major tournies) does harm her though.

Also, they had to pencil in the years of research meme at the end. Nice taste I see here...

To elaborate on what MG said, from what I heard, CF is another case of ZSS or other Smash 4 top/high tiers where his gameplan is much less linear than previously; essentially his dash grab is worse in this game, back air is weaker, and up air isn't as ideal for follow-ups, so trying the same stuff that CF mains did with him in Smash 4 isn't gonna fly in Ultimate. He also has weird hitbox placements on a lot of his attacks, which combined with his tricky mobility, can make landing things with him an issue, and the window for performing combos is much more strict because of Up Air and Down Throw changes. He also has trouble with characters with good coverage as his range is really wonky, and Raptor Boost whiffing sometimes is also a pretty big problem.

From what I've seen, dash-dancing's gonna be a really huge thing with him, as is baiting attacks and mixing up his neutral game with Raptor Boost, 1st hit N-Air, and dash grab. I think Captain Falcon still has a lot of things going for him; he's got an explosive combo game, which combined with his speed, makes punishing opponent's mistakes very rewarding, and he's got good KO set-ups in the form of NAir/DAir into Knee/Falcon Dive.

He does look like a character who's less focused around a few overcentralizing/really strong tools, and more focused who's got a more balanced toolkit. In that regard, I can see why people are having a rough time with him in this game currently, but I think he may do better once he is figured out. The good thing about his staying power is that he'll always have a really strong rep behind him in the form of Fatality. Overall, I think he's pretty eh atm, but I do feel he'll get better with time.

I could be just taking a lot of hooplah too, since most of my information about him is based off of Fatality's gameplay videos and what he said about Falcon lul
I kind of gathered the same thing as well. Falcon has some crazy stuff behind his technical learning curve.

Funny, but also potentially important to note: Fatality believes that Falcon may potentially be high tier, or even borderline top tier if mastered to the fullest. However, he also notes how little Japan views Falcon (remember Komo's tier list where he put him in bottom tier?). He thinks that this may singlehandely encourage Nintendo to give Falcon a bunch of buffs which may boost Falcon even further than he currently views him in.
 
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Planty

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Considering how lowly people in general view Rosa nowadays, this is a pretty optimistic matchup spread. I am also curious why they label Dedede and Charizard as slight advantages over the rest of the super heavies, who are in strong advantage.

Rosa is a character that I kind of think kind of underrated, mostly when Attack Canceling was discovered. It is interesting to see if her learning curve passed will lead into results. Her best player from SSB4 not playing as her (at least in major tournies) does harm her though.

Also, they had to pencil in the years of research meme at the end. Nice taste I see here...
.
You can definitely make an argument for charizard belonging in the strong advantage section. He's sort of in between the two tiers. The main things that he has over the other heavies is that his recovery is much harder to intercept and the threat of flare blitz keeps Rosa grounded and defensive at high percent. Definitely still a bad matchup for Zard.
Dedede is definitely harder for Rosa than the other superheavies though. As with Zard, his recovery can be difficult to intercept (Rosalina loves edgeguarding), but the main thing is his gordos and disjoints that make him more difficult to fight. Gordos are very difficult to reflect without Luma getting knocked away, so it's much harder to deal with those than it should be. On top of that, his disjoints combined with multiple jumps can be somewhat difficult to deal with because he can "float" in the air and drop down with aerials (and Rosalina can have some trouble with disjoints) or retreat with gordos or whatnot. Still a bad matchup for Dedede, but he's better off than the other superheavies for sure.

If you're interested in attack cancelling/lunar jump techs you should watch gameplay with Jan. He makes great use of it and is probably the most technical Rosa player.
https://youtu.be/bbxGwzXhvnQ
This whole set is a sort of proof of concept of a lot of Smash Ultimate Rosa techniques, showing that they're viable and not just gimmicky things.
 

Envoy of Chaos

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View attachment 193531
So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
While I don't think Rosa is a bad as people have made her out to be this is overly optimistic and a character that's commonly seen as a middle of the pack character does not beat 47 out of the 77 characters in this game. This reads like a top tier gatekeeper seeing as that's all she loses to.
 

Tizio Random

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View attachment 193531
So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
Hey, I'm from the Rosa Discord and I was there during the discussion lol
I lurk a lot in this thread and I noticed it was posted. I think it's reeeeeally optimistic too, I'll give my opinions and my personal mu chart later for comparison, I have a lot to talk about.
 

NotLiquid

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View attachment 193531
So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
Rosalina Discord needs to share some of that dank space ganja so we too can see why she apparently has the MU spread of a Top 10 character.
 

Diddy Kong

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Tier List wthtout necessary explanation
Made a Tier List, of sorts. I probably made a few mistakes here and there, but am confident I got at least 65% right.

 

Heracr055

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Pretty sure this is not a thread that allow personal tier lists, otherwise things would get out of hand quickly.
On the subject of Rosaluma, she was a high investment, very high reward character in 4 whose mastery just straight up invalidated a majority of the cast. In this game, however, that reward has come down quite a bit, while still retaining the high investment that a puppeteer character demands. I imagine this simple reasoning of rvr is why top players have passed on her this release (was going to say people but even then Rosaluma was a rare pick in 4).
 
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Untouch

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MU charts are the new hotness it seems.
Here's puffs, according to hbox.

I don't agree at all on where WFT is.
I just cannot imagine a way for Jiggs to deal with WFT's camping, especially where WFT kills at 60% with deep breathing.
 

bc1910

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So Akashic recently posted some of his thoughts on froggo.


The rest of his thoughts are on the twitter thread if anyone wants to read them, he concludes that Greninja is high tier but not viable as a solo main and benefits from a sword secondary. Venia then gave a slew of responses basically debunking all the bad MUs Akashic had mentioned.

I can see where Akashic is coming from. My concern for Greninja is that whilst he has a lot of buffed tools for offense/pressure, he’s still not throwing massive safe hitboxes which the opponent is forced to respect. This results in him relying on bait and punish strats, which are fine, except he doesn’t have the range to consistently punish stupidly safe buttons like Ike/ROB/Ridley Nair without overcommitting, leading to him having to respect to the opponent’s buttons in several MUs more than the top tiers who can throw equally stupid buttons themselves.

More importantly, bait and punish relies on the opponent messing up. This is huge, and gets more and more important the higher the level of play. This is why even S4 Greninja was able to body bad players(/characters) like a top tier yet faltered at high level.

The most direct comparison I can make to Greninja’s play style is Smash 4 ZSS, who could throw good hitboxes and punish opponents hard but really wasn’t an oppressor. Greninja’s Fair for example has a similar front hitbox, similar frame data and operates in almost exactly the same way as S4 ZSS Nair (right down to comboing at low percent and killing at high percent; ZSS had to combo Nair to flip kick and Gren Fair kills by itself but w/e).

Greninja may very well be the best bait and punish character in the game. Actually, with Sonic nerfed, he almost certainly is. No other b&p character is as fast or clinical with such a diverse (true) combo tree, high damage output, decent kill power and ruthless edgeguarding. The question is - does this playstyle cut the mustard at top level Ultimate?

Right now, I’m skeptical. As others have been discussing lately, Ultimate’s neutral favours characters who are able to throw out massive lagless hitboxes (usually aerials) and oppress the opponent to death. Who out of the top tiers doesn’t fit this description? This of course encompasses swordies with good frame data but also includes characters like Wolf (Nair, Bair) Inkling (Fair) and Peach (-insertletterofyourchoice-air) who have incredibly good buttons with great range in the context of not having swords. The thunder rats have bad range but their attack safety and mobility allows them to oppress in the same way.

Greninja can be oppressive against mid tiers and below (save for random anomalies like Ridley and Sheik who can still outbutton him but they still lose solidly to his b&p style overall) hence I can see him acting as a gatekeeper of sorts, however I fear that he’s forced onto the back foot against the top tiers capable of pressuring him to death and essentially ignoring his pressure options whilst remaining safe enough to avoid his punishes. Going back to Akashic’s tweet and in terms of MU specifics, Pichu and Shulk are great examples of characters that can do this, albeit in slightly different ways. A lot of the top tiers can abuse Greninja’s lack of oppressive tools.

Enter Venia. He’s getting a little ESAM-y with his comments regarding the character’s MUs and he doesn’t have strong national level results to back up his claims.

However.

This guy pretty much singlehandedly debunks everything I’ve just written by continuing to play button-vs-button with top tiers when he is able to, and seamlessly transitioning into a more defensive playstyle when required. It’s honestly amazing to watch and similar to what Leffen does with Melee Fox. Not to say Venia is as good as Leffen, but he emulates a playstyle which has proved incredibly effective. Retaining the ability to rush down the best characters whilst being able to disengage and “fall back” on his natural bait and punish status is, I believe, what Greninja needs to do to succeed at top level. Venia’s Greninja playstyle is certainly not easy, but it’s gonna be the way forward if this character is gonna crack the top tiers.

So yeah. Greninja’s solid. He gets outbuttoned but needs to mix pressure with b&p to succeed, which the top tiers can stop him from doing. His ability to get over this hurdle and continue to play his game against the top tiers, as Venia has shown might be possible, is what will ultimately define his viability in my opinion.
 
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The_Bookworm

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View attachment 193531
So the Rosalina Discord made a match up chart. It's a bit rough (Olimar is probably not a good matchup for instance) but it gives you a pretty solid idea of how the character stands. Some notable matchups include a winning/even matchup with Inkling, Snake, Pichu, and Pikachu. On top of that, Rosalina doesn't really have any super bad matchups. They're all doable.

She's still not really a character that you'd pick up if you're looking for quick tournament wins (She has losing matchups with many top tiers and she's actually ridiculously difficult to play in this game because of tech like lunar jumping) but this is a far cry from a character many people are calling worthless and bottom tier.
Speaking of RosaLuma, Dabuz just made a video on his impressions on 2.0.0 RosaLuma.

 

Lore

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bc1910 bc1910 I agree on the Greninja impressions. He really strikes me as a character who will only rank higher as players learn how to use him.

His varied toolset is a huge strength, and he's able to seamlessly swap playstyles mid-match. He's tricky to use, but I firmly believe he is high tier.

Personally? I feel like Wifi use is partially to blame for players ranking him lower. His follow ups are more than a bit tricky to do when a tiny bit of lag is introduced, which hurts. It says something that the players ranking him higher are more active in irl events than online.
 
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