Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Ziodyne 21]

In what way? As in, "the hype for them has settled" or "They aren't as great as initially perceived and are going down the tier lists"?

If the latter, Inkling I've heard grumblings - nothing substatial, but I've heard nothing on Palu...

Palu seems to just continually rise up the tier rankings each time with very little discussion or fanfare.

Also there were more Palu users (6) in the top 48 of Frostbite than of any other character. She is one of the characters in the "maybe top 10" but seriousy I think its amoot point to classify tiers as "top 10" or "top 15-20". This was also Yoshi's best major tournament showing so far as well.

 

[bc1910]

Whoa! How punishable is substitute on shield when used against a projectile like that?
One other minor Greninja nit, his grab is kind of slow at 10 frames. It's not as bad as most tether grabs, but it still feels awkward given how fast his normal kit is, coming from other fast characters who dash in/empty hop and 6f grab for example, for me at least.

Depends how you angle it. It’s -30ish but he launches really far away. Straight down or sideways, most characters can punish. Diagonally down depends on the character. Any other angle you’re probably fine, including sideways and very slightly up so Gren doesn’t land. Upward you are almost definitely fine against anyone but the thunder rats (who can Thunder it), leaves you in a really bad position though.

His slow grab is definitely a weakness, though at 10f it’s not appalling. Its range is really good whilst being slightly disjointed and it at least recovers at the speed of a normal grab with a fairly average FAF of 39. Dashgrab at f13 hurts (especially considering it was f9 in S4) but also isn’t terrible considering how far forward he launches when he does it, meaning if you activate it at the right time it’s about as serviceable as a normal f9/10 dash grab. The character has other good options against shield such as safe aerials, spaced Dtilt and simply moving around them, so I don’t see his grabs as a major issue in the same way as his OOS or slow aerials. In a perfect world I’d give him a normal grab (better frame data, worse range) but I probably shouldn’t be talking about Greninja buffs right now lol.

 

[Fatmanonice]

In what way? As in, "the hype for them has settled" or "They aren't as great as initially perceived and are going down the tier lists"?

If the latter, Inkling I've heard grumblings - nothing substatial, but I've heard nothing on Palu...

Palu seems to just continually rise up the tier rankings each time with very little discussion or fanfare.

I think people are realising that Inkling is balanced to a fault. Granted, it's not to an extreme fault like how Pit has basically been the Jon Arbuckle of Smash for the last two games but they don't really have a major strength that puts them over the top. Amazing movement but, as Pikachu in Brawl and Smash 4 showed, that doesn't necessarily mean much unless you have a decent arsenal of reliable kill options including kills from grabs. I look at Inkling and I kind of see Smash 4 Ryu and they're probably not going to be walking away with majors anytime soon. They're work and, like other characters with higher learning curves, they stall and sputter when they get into unfamiliar situations.

 

[Augi]

I think people are realising that Inkling is balanced to a fault. Granted, it's not to an extreme fault like how Pit has basically been the Jon Arbuckle of Smash for the last two games but they don't really have a major strength that puts them over the top. Amazing movement but, as Pikachu in Brawl and Smash 4 showed, that doesn't necessarily mean much unless you have a decent arsenal of reliable kill options including kills from grabs. I look at Inkling and I kind of see Smash 4 Ryu and they're probably not going to be walking away with majors anytime soon. They're work and, like other characters with higher learning curves, they stall and sputter when they get into unfamiliar situations.

Right, which are some of the grumblings I've heard concerning Inkling.

But Palu was also attached to the comment and I'm curious why because I've heard nothing but good things.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Also Peach/Dasiy aint dropping nowhere at the moment. Yeah she did not make top8 at frostbite but she was in top 8 at just about every major tourament so far. Pichu also was not in top 8 and no one briging that against her. Plus I would not count out characters Yoshi, or R.O.B out just yet. Like what i predict is going to happen with Greninja they may sort of fly under the rader when the 3.0.0 balance patch comes, either being left alone or even getting some buffs while top tiers get nerfed.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the way Ultimate is shaping. There are many characters that can become top-tier monsters just given the right circumstances

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Yea let's complain about those pesky zoner characters that make the game worse, only honest and super technicals characters like ike, lucina, wolf can be in top 8, all of this because there was one extra olimar in top 8, I imagine how the narrative would change if Ryuga was the one that advanced to top 8 and shuton, probably more Nair memes.

 

[ARISTOS]

It's like -33, possibly worse if you bounce. You should be getting punished for a blocked Substitute every time.

As always, I'm pretty sure Thinkaman has already made a more comprehensive post on the subject, but Pit's biggest problem by far is that there's barely any reason to play him. Wolf is an easier character with the same fundamentals-heavy shtick who also happens to be much better in general and have a lot more dumb bull**** to attract people to him. If you like Kid Icarus, Palutena is a better character who also seems to be very popular with people who've played the game. If you like his edgeguarding, most of the other multijump characters can do the same stuff but better.

In short, no matter how you like playing, there is probably a character who you will enjoy more and/or perform better with than Pit, which sucks because I don't think he's bad. The buffs to his poking game, damage output, and kill power alleviated basically all of his major problems from Smash 4, leaving an extremely solid character. He just never gets a chance to prove it because there's so little reason to play him.

Main issues I see with are the lack of safe aerials that can be thrown out/ the pretty linear hitboxes on some of the moves. The strongest characters in the game get to throw out aerials pretty safely, and while Pit's aren't bad they're generally best as an air-to-air. If you can't do that, your main options are to try and anti-air with USmash/punish the landing. You have to play a very ~honest~ gameplan of pressuring people to jump and capitalizing, unlike Wolf who generally gets to dictate tempo. Pit has to adjust on a MU to MU basis. There are no go-to buttons in his kit.

Like every game they're in, Peach, ROB, and Yoshi will get noticeably worse as more people get used to them.

Don't really see the issue with ? They're still highly prominent though I can see them declining slightly as people become more willing to play the patient game and do their best not to be baited. They're still high DPS monster and as Peach players get more comfortable in MUs I can see them improving as float heights and movement changes on a MU to MU basis (though fighting heavies you can kind of do the same things and get away with it)

-Wolf is the new Cloud and, honestly, with bigger strengths and fewer meaningful weaknesses. Pichu's not too terribly far off if we're totally honest because it overwhelms a significant portion of the cast despite being a featherweight.

Pichu is strong but watching Shoyo James I think every character can enact James gameplan, which is push Pichu into a bad/risky situation 1-2 times and capitalize. Once Pichu hits 40-50% you can pretty much start swinging haymakers at the character which is huge-no one else apart from Squirtle suffers like this, and Squirtle can always switch. James got so many kills from tech-chase F-Smash and honestly just pushing Pichu to the ledge and fishing for kills. While not everyone has the power/safety of F-Smash you could probably do the same with at least a couple moves in your kit.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Right, which are some of the grumblings I've heard concerning Inkling.

But Palu was also attached to the comment and I'm curious why because I've heard nothing but good things.

I see Palutena like Smash 4 Mario or Sonic, a character that's undoubtedly good but it'll be constantly debated just how good they actually are. I feel like Frostbite helped highlight that, even for some of the most prominent players in the game, trying to solo main Palutena is more of a liability than not. I think when a lot of people first saw her they saw her as a character that could fully carry herself and that's not really the case now. I think she's always going to be relevant though unless DLC and future patches destroy her for whatever reason. High tier without a doubt but not top unless someone figures out really cheeky shenanigans with them later down the road.

 

[Lore]

Yea let's complain about those pesky zoner characters that make the game worse, only honest and super technicals characters like ike, lucina, wolf can be in top 8, all of this because there was one extra olimar in top 8, I imagine how the narrative would change if Ryuga was the one that advanced to top 8 and shuton, probably more Nair memes.

For me it's less that Olimar is an annoying zoner, more that his damage is a bit overtuned. His smashes are also incredibly powerful.

A couple tiny tweaks would be welcome. It wouldn't have to be all that much, either.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

I think people are realising that Inkling is balanced to a fault. Granted, it's not to an extreme fault like how Pit has basically been the Jon Arbuckle of Smash for the last two games but they don't really have a major strength that puts them over the top. Amazing movement but, as Pikachu in Brawl and Smash 4 showed, that doesn't necessarily mean much unless you have a decent arsenal of reliable kill options including kills from grabs. I look at Inkling and I kind of see Smash 4 Ryu and they're probably not going to be walking away with majors anytime soon. They're work and, like other characters with higher learning curves, they stall and sputter when they get into unfamiliar situations.

Can someone elaborate on this some more? I'm not super familiar with Inkling so I don't know what makes them more difficult than other top tier characters, from a surface level look over. What are some of the bigger shortcomings and what makes them more difficult to play?

 

[Augi]

I feel like Frostbite helped highlight that, even for some of the most prominent players in the game, trying to solo main Palutena is more of a liability than not. I think when a lot of people first saw her they saw her as a character that could fully carry herself and that's not really the case now.

Palu was regarded as low tier in the beginning. Definitely not someone who could do it all. It wasn't until around the new year I think that people stopped looking at her through Smash 4 goggles (Zelda still suffers from this) and acknowledged her changes and potential and then threw her into the middle tier pack with everyone else who was "Undecided" at that point.

It took some Pro's showing what she could do for people to finally place her in the High/Top tier section. She's fought for that current standing.

But people have always doubted her final placement. Lately it's been seeing just how far she can actually go since she's had such a dramatic shift in tier placement between games. She may be like most characters who need a pocket supporter. We'll see how far her new abilities take her.

Can someone elaborate on this some more? I'm not super familiar with Inkling so I don't know what makes them more difficult than other top tier characters, from a surface level look over. What are some of the bigger shortcomings and what makes them more difficult to play?

Inkling has had poor showings at tournaments with their biggest difficulty being closing out stocks. The combo game is superb but if you can't land the kill....

 

[Today's Tom Sawyer]

Snake is the most boring character to watch in this game, to play as and to play against.

His optimal playstyle is nothing but pressing b over and over and over again with the CRAZY mixup of dash attack, then ezbake nikita for edgeguard kills. I played against snake plenty in brawl and I don't recall it ever being this obnoxious. I have a feeling if the snakes of today played brawl, the same way they do here (as in a much stronger reliance on grenades and less on ftilt) then snake would have dominated just as bad as MK. Perhaps the over-reliance on ftilt actually made snake worse in brawl.

Top level snakes out here winning matches without even needing to land a single ftilt or utilt. Kinda says a lot. IDK how other people find it 'hype' to watch, one person is playing bullet hell and one person is pressing b. Give me literally any other character on stream.

Replace "Snake," "dash attack," and "grenade" with "Olimar," "smash attack," and "Pikmin throw," and you have described my thoughts succinctly.

I can grasp that these characters have demanding macro, but, as a Melee player at heart, I play and watch this game for the hype characters.

Although, that is to be said, fast =/= hype/complex/nuanced. Played some Fox at local pools the other day and found him depressingly linear. Neutral = jab and nair, start juggles with dash attack, utilt if you land a nair, uair if you land a dash attack and they DI poorly, fish for nair ---> usmash at high percents. That's pretty much the extent of the character.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Inkling has had poor showings at tournaments with their biggest difficulty being closing out stocks. The combo game is superb but it you can't land the kill....

Isn't roller pretty hard to punish, tho? And have they really had poor showings in tourneys? Cosmos was the only person iirc that took Tweek to game 5, and they do well in the overall results sheets.


Relatedly, which meta characters have safe or safe-ish confirms into kill moves? Or just an easy time killing in general due to ___?

Ike's nair->uair chains is one example to start with.

 

[SwagGuy99]

IN CASE if you MISS the FROSTBITE 2019, Here were the RESULTS:

Spoiler: Results!

33rd: Lui$

A player in Top 33 gives me some hope for this character. The pre-release hype for him ended almost immediately ended once the game came out and everyone just kind of assumed that he's mid or low tier because his vertical recovery is trash and because his ground speed is slow. I actually think that he's being underrated and he is comparable to a combination of and .

He has attack power comparable to and their aerials and dash attack all share similar uses (with tending to be faster but weaker than which helps with combos at low %'s). However, his grounded moves and specials share more similarities to . I also think that, just because his recovery and speed are overall poor, doesn't mean he can't be viable. His Melee variant () shared similar issues of having pretty average speed and poor range and recovery but is still (arguably) viable. I personally think that he's a low high tier but we'll have to see how good he keeps doing throughout the coming months.

 

[NotLiquid]

Incidentally, here's a fun statistic: out of the two S-tier tournaments we've had so far, only three players have managed to reach Top 8 in both.
MKLeo , Cosmos , and Light .

Does it mean anything?

... Probably not. Only one of those have won a major. We're barely scratching three months into Ultimate's competitive shelf life, and right now the most pervading sentiment among several top competitors that were making the jump from Smash 4 is an innate character crisis in part because there's extremely few characters on the roster this time around that can hold the distinction of "easy to learn, and also a solid matchup spread". The closest character we have right now in the game is unsurprisingly Wolf, but even top players like Leffen and ZeRo have been hesitant to pick him up. Anti was dabbling with the character but is still in total meltdown mode. Tweek used the character during this tournament, but ended up sticking to Wario for most of it. For a while it seemed to me like Lucina could be that character multiple people were looking for but MKLeo and Nairo both have only utilized her in a pocket fashion for the final stretch.

So on the real, it is waaaay too early to make any sweeping assumptions about who and what can't win a major. Everyone is bogged down right now by the simple fact that top tiers in Ultimate just have way too many notable issues (by design no less) to counteract the things they excel. Since we were talking about Inkling, it's extremely silly to say they don't exhibit any major advantages when they have one of the most uncontested mobility plans in a game that's so far done nothing but reward mobility, an edgeguarding and ledgetrapping game that's second to none, some of the safest aerials in the entire game, and an extreme capacity for equalizing damage. While Leffen has seemingly dropped his plans for maining her, he's convinced no one is playing this character at maximum potential yet, though I reckon Cosmos has really taken the advice of going deep off stage for kills to heart with most of his sets at Frostbite - having any better kill moves than she has right now would quite frankly be kind of insane (even if I'd like to see it out of morbid curiosity). If anything right now she reminds me of Smash 4 Diddy Kong without having the DTilt kill confirm - funnily that too was a character that you could argue was being carried by ZeRo in a post-patch world.

And a lot of these bonkers traits sorta extends to many of the other "top tiers" people like to throw around. Ike's game plan is horrendously linear. Logically he should go down to bait-and-punish tactics, but with Leo at the wheel Ike's constant aerial pressure feel like Tabuu's off waves. Fox, one of the most oppressive and explosive characters in the game who feels extremely intimidating and unassailable, dies after like, five hits - and has a sus disadvantage (this was the character ZeRo considered maining for a hot minute before realizing he's still really flawed). Pichu? Same story, different wrapper. Even Greninja - the character with one of the few safest Smash 4 type kill confirms in the game - has a litany of its own issues to get over, but watching Lea at Frostbite you'd be forgiven for thinking they don't exist.

At the end of the day if it feels like any character may be losing favor a lot of it is going to come down to the hyperbolizing the community remains ever so susceptible for, particularly in a post-Smash 4 world where multiple "OP" characters were often the rule rather than exception - a mentality that transitioned pretty fruitlessly into Smash Ultimate once wi-fi strats and characters like K. Rool, Chrom and Inkling were essentially flavor-of-the-month characters that were stigmatized early on. When people refer to having a character crisis, some of the recent volatility in regards to character representation is going to be a reflection of that finally becoming a bit more evident, hence why some placings and upsets can happen surprisingly frequently. Considering a tournament was just won by a character with extremely questionable range problems and a reliance on some gimmickry when it comes to stealing stocks who is by no means an easy character to get used to, it's going to take a while to comfortably saddle into what one may think is a major-worthy character.

Except Olimar, he gets exempt from all that because, well, y'know.

Can someone elaborate on this some more? I'm not super familiar with Inkling so I don't know what makes them more difficult than other top tier characters, from a surface level look over. What are some of the bigger shortcomings and what makes them more difficult to play?

If we're strictly talking the capacity to play Inkling at a top competitive level, the hard part once you get into the mindset of Inkling is having the capacity to seal stocks which is often read/punish based or requires some aggressive edgeguarding. Out of all the top-tiers (or hell, even most characters in the game in general) Inkling is arguably up there with Wario as having some fairly unsafe Smash attacks outside of occasionally Down Smash. Beyond that, Inkling requires you to get really good at dash dancing and ledgetrapping. For having a fairly modest range, she can't box on the same level as characters like Fox and Yoshi, so you have to be exceptionally good at spacing to perform well at a high level (no surprise Cosmos does so well with her given how he was a Corrin main in Smash 4). Granted, Inkling makes up for her questionable cqc with things like her jab having actually good range, being frame 3 and also inking opponents, and she has some of the lowest landing lag on aerials out of any character in the game.

Inkling has had poor showings at tournaments with their biggest difficulty being closing out stocks. The combo game is superb but if you can't land the kill....

Inkling may not be winning as many tournaments as they did early on but to say they've had poor showings is a bit of an exaggeration. The Tournament Results thread shows there's still a very healthy above average chunk of Inkling players that are placing in locals, and when you have arguably a top 5 player in the world repping her, the lack of immediate number 1 results only really looks poor in a vacuum.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Isn't roller pretty hard to punish, tho? And have they really had poor showings in tourneys? Cosmos was the only person iirc that took Tweek to game 5, and they do well in the overall results sheets.


Relatedly, which meta characters have safe or safe-ish confirms into kill moves? Or just an easy time killing in general due to ___?

Ike's nair->uair chains is one example to start with.

Roller's hitbox was moved back with the last patch so it's significantly easier to clash with now. For example, Ridley's and Isabelle's Fsmash now hit first after the patch. This also means that Inkling now has to pretty much be right on top of their opponent to bury them now.

Safe kill moves? Palutena, Pichu, Snake, and Olimar technically have both kill and set up throws. All the meta relevant FE characters pretty have set up or placement throws. Wolf and Peach have set up throws. Wario technically has a kill command grab. Hoo boy, listing all the reliable kill moves and set ups of all these characters would definitely take awhile. With characters like Ike, Chrom, Snake, Olimar, Pichu, and Wolf, it's almost like "what doesn't kill?"

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Isn't roller pretty hard to punish, tho? And have they really had poor showings in tourneys? Cosmos was the only person iirc that took Tweek to game 5, and they do well in the overall results sheets.


Relatedly, which meta characters have safe or safe-ish confirms into kill moves? Or just an easy time killing in general due to ___?

Ike's nair->uair chains is one example to start with.

Well "Easy" is a relative term for these characters but.

Fox's falling nair- into up-smash, and up-air juggles

Snake's Nikita edgeguards and garunteed throw to up-tilt kill confirm

Wario's waft confirms

Wolf just plain having a myraid of kill moves you need to respect in general

Pichu's f-tilt abs confirms into thunder
Olimar...his damage output, his ridiculously safe up-smash, rock pikmin...blue pikmin grabs...oh the humanity

 

[Augi]

Inkling may not be winning as many tournaments as they did early on but to say they've had poor showings is a bit of an exaggeration. The Tournament Results thread shows there's still a very healthy above average chunk of Inkling players that are placing in locals, and when you have arguably a top 5 player in the world repping her, the lack of immediate number 1 results only really looks poor in a vacuum.

Thank you for adding greater context around it. A majority of what I'd heard, and was repeating, was before the most recent tournaments. "Poor showings" may have been a bit crass of a term for me to toss out so casually.

To put it more thoughtfully, Inkling has the potential and presence of a high/top tier character and is in no danger of going anywhere, but she also needs more time to fully develop.

 

[Rizen]

Isn't roller pretty hard to punish, tho? And have they really had poor showings in tourneys? Cosmos was the only person iirc that took Tweek to game 5, and they do well in the overall results sheets.


Relatedly, which meta characters have safe or safe-ish confirms into kill moves? Or just an easy time killing in general due to ___?

Ike's nair->uair chains is one example to start with.

YL's boomerang and bombs into F/Dair are very safe. I need to fish for boomerang setups more at kill %s.

Tweek and Leo are looking like the top 2 players in the world. Who else equals them? Players like Debuz and Nairo are great but a little short.

 

[NotLiquid]

Tweek and Leo are looking like the top 2 players in the world. Who else equals them? Players like Debuz and Nairo are great but a little short.

Anti has some opinions as far as that's concerned

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Today's Tom Sawyer]

YL's boomerang and bombs into F/Dair are very safe. I need to fish for boomerang setups more at kill %s.

Tweek and Leo are looking like the top 2 players in the world. Who else equals them? Players like Debuz and Nairo are great but a little short.

Young Twink has so many kill setups between arrow, boomerang, bomb, fair 1, bair 1, nair, and dtilt, the issue is knowing which one to use in a given situation.

As far as really elite players, Cosmos is looking close to that title. Light as well. Then again, it's still super early.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

A player in Top 33 gives me some hope for this character. The pre-release hype for him ended almost immediately ended once the game came out and everyone just kind of assumed that he's mid or low tier because his vertical recovery is trash and because his ground speed is slow. I actually think that he's being underrated and he is comparable to a combination of and .

He has attack power comparable to and their aerials and dash attack all share similar uses (with tending to be faster but weaker than which helps with combos at low %'s). However, his grounded moves and specials share more similarities to . I also think that, just because his recovery and speed are overall poor, doesn't mean he can't be viable. His Melee variant () shared similar issues of having pretty average speed and poor range and recovery but is still (arguably) viable. I personally think that he's a low high tier but we'll have to see how good he keeps doing throughout the coming months.

Nice to see Doc make some good standings at a major, although this isn't too unexpected in the early meta.
His low %'s are surprisingly limited due to how the knockback works on his combos moves as they either have too much knockback from him to follow up on when the opponent takes any real damage or too little hitstun making them unsafe on hit. (So basically all of his aerials, Up-Smash & Up-B)

IMAO, Doc is literally one good buff away from being High Tier.
A nice increase mobility will go a long way since most zoners can just camp him out with little he can do able it.
Although I wouldn't say no to a boost to Ganon levels of power for him.

 

[FLGibsonIII]

How many big tournaments has Olimar won? Genuinely wondering, because from what I have seen he is a character that can get into top 64's and top 8's a lot, but fails to actually clinch a tourney. I don't know how Leffen justifies placing him as low as he does on his tier list though.

On a semi-related thought, I don't really sympathize with the anti-zoning sentiment. Pure rushdown 24/7 gets boring for me like it did in DBFZ and zoning adds character playstyle variety. Too much zoning is obviously bad, but it honestly seems people don't want zoners to be good at all or to place in top 8's at all.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

How many big tournaments has Olimar won? Genuinely wondering, because from what I have seen he is a character that can get into top 64's and top 8's a lot, but fails to actually clinch a tourney. I don't know how Leffen justifies placing him as low as he does on his tier list though.

On a semi-related thought, I don't really sympathize with the anti-zoning sentiment. Pure rushdown 24/7 gets boring for me like it did in DBFZ and zoning adds character playstyle variety. Too much zoning is obviously bad, but it honestly seems people don't want zoners to be good at all or to place in top 8's at all.

There's literally a tournament results thread in this forum. Check it out.

 

[Augi]

How many big tournaments has Olimar won? Genuinely wondering, because from what I have seen he is a character that can get into top 64's and top 8's a lot, but fails to actually clinch a tourney. I don't know how Leffen justifies placing him as low as he does on his tier list though.

On a semi-related thought, I don't really sympathize with the anti-zoning sentiment. Pure rushdown 24/7 gets boring for me like it did in DBFZ and zoning adds character playstyle variety. Too much zoning is obviously bad, but it honestly seems people don't want zoners to be good at all or to place in top 8's at all.

I'll let more informed minds discuss Olimar, but...

Peeps don't like zoners for basically the exact reason you stated. "If all my opponents have the same playstyle, then I only have to learn one way to play."

Most of the characters at the top are rush down and get in your face... usually. Introducing a wrench into it makes some people unhinged.

 

[FLGibsonIII]

There's literally a tournament results thread in this forum. Check it out.

Thanks, I didn't know about that.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

While Leffen has seemingly dropped his plans for maining her, he's convinced no one is playing this character at maximum potential yet

I think that he has mentioned that inkling, peach, wario and maybe more are a character he might adopt after 3.0 if they don’t get nerfed. For now, he is exploring Roy and keeping PT and Wolf as secondaries. He seems shy of investing in characters too much before April, although he said that other top players who played smash 4 have told him to just play a top tier since the nerfs are not as brutal as other fighting games.


Anyways, really thoughtful post! To be honest, I was turned off by some of the early FUD around inkling and am kind of interested again now that it’s not so noisy (which is probably a character flaw that does me no good..)

 

[The_Bookworm]

I think that he has mentioned that inkling, peach, wario and maybe more are a character he might adopt after 3.0 if they don’t get nerfed. For now, he is exploring Roy and keeping PT and Wolf as secondaries. He seems shy of investing in characters too much before April, although he said that other top players who played smash 4 have told him to just play a top tier since the nerfs are not as brutal as other fighting games.


Anyways, really thoughtful post! To be honest, I was turned off by some of the early FUD around inkling and am kind of interested again now that it’s not so noisy (which is probably a character flaw that does me no good..)

Judging from what I saw in highlight videos, I thought he is exploring Young Link.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Although I wouldn't say no to a boost to Ganon levels of power for him.

They wouldn't have to buff him very much to get him to that point.

 

[Mister M]

I believe people consider Olimar anti hype because his moves generally look samey and dull. It's the same reason he's not a popular pick in general. Zoning is becoming the scapegoat of choice.

Sonic was the same in smash 4. Only the scape goat back then was 'he's too campy'. Spin dash was lame to deal with but he wasn't the only one thriving off camping/stalling tactics and top players could cope against it in the long run. Spectators and lower players just didn't like looking at sonic rolled in a ball 24/7.

If Olimar's zoning looked a little more like mvc strobe lighting then suddenly he'd be hype.

I personally am concerned about his damage output but with so many of his moves being classed as projectiles, he's got too much counter play baked in against him to be truly dominant.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Judging from what I saw in highlight videos, I thought he is exploring Young Link.

He was, but I think he cooled off on him after playing the first day of the boot camp; he hadn't had a chance to play the character offline with other strong players instead of random people online playing bowser jr or whatever. I might get this wrong, but I believe that he thinks that young link might be a lot of work for what you get, somewhat inconsistent with bomb confirms, tight confirms in general, up-b not being as consistent a kill option as he originally thought, and link's recovery being abusable by some characters. He was playing against Gluttony's Wario and Meru's Peach mostly on that first day, maybe Armada's Inkling, too. I don't think he has completely ruled out Young Link either but doesn't want to invest a heavy amount of time in the character yet, at least before Summit and 3.0.

He actually was watching someone play Roy in the invitational he hosted on stream, started playing Roy in the bootcamp, and it seemed to click with him as a character with potential and also not too heavy an investment in character specific tech, leading up to Summit.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Personally I don't see any problem with the top tiers of this game there isn't any indication that they are too overwhelming to the rest of the roster aside from a few weak characters, this could chance on the future, but I hope that the smash community starts to talk more about players, playstyle, stage choices, strategies, mentality between matches, etc. and not memes about how top tier characters....well has overturned tools that we know since the first month, because we have do that since the first mayor.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

I believe people consider Olimar anti hype because his moves generally look samey and dull. It's the same reason he's not a popular pick in general. Zoning is becoming the scapegoat of choice.

Sonic was the same in smash 4. Only the scape goat back then was 'he's too campy'. Spin dash was lame to deal with but he wasn't the only one thriving off camping/stalling tactics and top players could cope against it in the long run. Spectators and lower players just didn't like looking at sonic rolled in a ball 24/7.

If Olimar's zoning looked a little more like mvc strobe lighting then suddenly he'd be hype.

I personally am concerned about his damage output but with so many of his moves being classed as projectiles, he's got too much counter play baked in against him to be truly dominant.

It's more difficult to understand Olimar (or Snake's) game plan from a naive perspective than many other characters. I have a theory that if Richter were top tier, he would be less antagonized because he's easier to understand without effort.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Nah the Belmonts would still get drilled as lame and boring if they were better they do now. The only reason everyone was so excited to see Shuton's Richter because it wasn't an Olimar ditto they were prepared to see (and he did plenty of flashy stuff). It's not so much a skill level thing, people of all levels have always shown distain from watching projectile heavy gameplay in a fighting game. The idea that in a fighting game you should be always be up close and personal has persisted since the first fireball.

Obviously some people will enjoy zoning heavy gameplay, more particularly higher level players who understand what's going on and zoner players themselves but I wouldn't say it's just a lower level and non player thing. Me personally I don't play SF but I don't mind watching 30 Sonic Boom being chucked at each other a game.


I think the only character that can get away with projectile heavy gameplay is Snake and even then he still gets ire occasionally. Mostly because it's flashy and requires thinking but also because it's Solid Snake.

 

[NotLiquid]

Snake comes across as often exempt from most of the standard ire against zoning characters because most of his setplay is often times a double-edged sword for him, particularly when grenades can work against him and C4 does require him to be in an advantageous spot to not backfire. Throwing a whistle as Olimar mid-combo? Yeah okay, pray I don't land too late and get stuffed by an up smash or any other ones of Olimar's stupidly overtuned moves - especially if he has the right Pikmin on board. The dude may as well basically have a portable witch time with how much damage he forces opponents to eat. Pull out a grenade-pin mid-combo with Snake on the other hand? At worst, you get a trade and reset back into neutral.

The fun thing about Snake to me at least is that most of his game plan is like watching an explosive Rube Goldberg machine unfold. Being a good Snake requires you to be on some 5D chess, it requires the player know what they're doing lest they get caught up in the crossfires. And if you manage to be that spanner in the works that undoes his elaborate plan? Total chaos. I honestly love playing against Snake and playing as him. There's just so much that can go wrong, but when things go right it just feels so good. About as good as beating the MGS games with a Big Boss rank, in fact.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I understand why people complain about characters like Olimar, but it's still kind of tiresome.

Like, imagine all you have to defend yourself is a slingshot, and you're being chased by a guy with a machete. Does any sane person run towards him and go, "LET'S DO THIS, HOMBRE"?

Emblem Lord fears nothing.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Come on man, you've been around for a while. You know mains of top characters always undersell the MUs. We had a joke about it what, last page in this topic? Its like how Zero kept trying to undersell Diddy, Bayo mains underselling Bayo in SSB4, and MK mains back in Brawl underselling their character. I can list more examples.

Always happens. Basically if a character is in consideration for top tier.... gotta ignore their best players' MU charts because they will be underselling hard.

Also, there is nothing to base the idea that Shulk is remotely top 10. Like... the idea should be dead. Shulk just repeatedly falls flat on his face and there's a high chance that one of his mains is going to Joker because they're a P5 fanboy. Time to let it go. Its the exact same song and dance from SSB4 that never panned out. Potential is meaningless if nobody can successfully tap into it.

Also I think Tweek just proved my point about Wario earlier quite well.

The problem that Shulk mainly has and was a major problem in Smash 4 too that no one seems to bring up is the simple fact that all of his aerials have start-up. Having a lot of start-up on a lot of his moves means quick characters with quick buttons can simply hit him before his moves comes out (Saw this especially when it was Shulk vs Pichu in a SoCal tourney) where Pichu was able to hit Shulk before his nair was active at mid-range.) Ike also has this problem too which is why you didn't see MkLeo go Ike vs Light anymore after he got blown up by him at Glitch. He also went Lucina at Genesis when he had to fight Void in Grand Finals.

 

[Rehnquist]

That being said, rejoice Belmont fans - you're looking like a hard counter to a top tier, even setting aside a few uncharacteristic flubs by Shuton. Every single time I feel we've seen the last of the Belmonts they come back to kick some hide, as if they caught a whiff of Dracula's resurrection. I still think these are some potential high tier candidates that are being slept on, even overlooking some of their dismal flaws. Both Whoophee and Shuton have been putting in the work with them.

I'm not well versed in the Belmonts Mu spread, what top/high tier do the Belmonts hard counter? (olimar?)

 

[Today's Tom Sawyer]

I'm not well versed in the Belmonts Mu spread, what top/high tier do the Belmonts hard counter?

This is referring to Frostbite last night, when Shuton (Olimar main) pulled out Richter against Myran's Olimar in top 8 after Myran had beaten him in the ditto earlier, and pretty much outplayed Myran for most of the set.

Belmonts outrange Olimar and have no issues trading with Pikmin throw. Also, Olimar doesn't have the offstage edgeguarding game to exploit Belmonts' recovery too much other than ledge hop dair two-frame which is not exactly the most reliable strategy.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

The problem that Shulk mainly has and was a major problem in Smash 4 too that no one seems to bring up is the simple fact that all of his aerials have start-up. Having a lot of start-up on a lot of his moves means quick characters with quick buttons can simply hit him before his moves comes out (Saw this especially when it was Shulk vs Pichu in a SoCal tourney) where Pichu was able to hit Shulk before his nair was active at mid-range.) Ike also has this problem too which is why you didn't see MkLeo go Ike vs Light anymore after he got blown up by him at Glitch. He also went Lucina at Genesis when he had to fight Void in Grand Finals.

Good catch and great point about slow start-up moves and Ike. If you watch Tweek's Wario vs. MKLeo's Ike you can see that Tweek's goal is to suffocate Ike and not allow him to control the space that he wants with Nair shenanigans. If your character has the speed and buttons to back it up, it is definitely a viable strategy against characters like Ike and Shulk. It's great to see the metagame developing as players utilize parries more effectively and make small adjustments like the one I just mentioned.

All in all, another amazing tournament with a pretty diverse top 8. People had talked about the necessity of having a secondary but it seems like solo-maining can still get you quite far in this game. Lucina seems to be a solid pocket character (I would argue she's MKLeo's main) but most of the top players relied on and found the most success with the character that they knew best. Light's Fox, Nairo's Palutena, Cosmos' Inkling, Myran's Olimar, and especially Tweek's Wario support this. It'll be interesting to see how counter-play develops from here on out. Will people search for hard-counters like Richter for Olimar? Or will they continue to optimize their mains? It's an exciting time.