Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[LuigiBros7]

Have to disagree with anybody placing Mario remotely high, he seems aggressively bad in this game. Losing the utilt combos is a massive deal and I have no idea why some people downplay it, nobody pretends that Fox for example wouldn't be substantially worse if he lost his usmash kill confirm. His mediocre recovery is exacerbated again by the increased viability of edgeguarding, and he's still helpless above his opponent save airdodging. Mario benefited a great deal from his excellent frame data in Smash 4 which is now null and void due to the sheer amount of characters that have improved frame data and who benefit more from the landing lag changes. Swordies wall him out even more than before and swordies breed like rabbits.

I think Mario is low tier at best and in the current patch I'll put my neck on the line and say to not expect seeing Mario in tournament play once these first few months of meta craziness end, not like he's making any strong appearances as is.

 

[TDK]

Yes, PK Freeze is unquestionably really good and the reason I picked up Lucas as well, but that doesn't really save the character right now. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like Lucas lost nearly everything from 4 and got basically nothing in return. My main takeaway from him is that he's not really rewarded on hit very much anymore. All of his combo starters except zair feel nerfed in some way. Down throw is useless now, dtilt only actually confirms into jab and maybe up tilt but I haven't seen that actually work yet, I can't figure out why (or if it's just me) but aerial nair always seems to send them the opposite direction of the way I'm moving, and footstools being techable probably hurts him more than any other character in the game. PK Freeze reads basically sums up most of his advantage state and that's not anywhere near garaunteed. Given that combos are more prevalent in this game, this hurts him a lot more than it would've otherwise, as he doesn't really follow up on anything and has to hit you more than most characters in the game unless he gets a PK Freeze callout.

He still has all his issues with characters with more up close or long range than he does, and PK Fire seems laggier to boot, though that might just be a placebo. All he can really do is try to zone with PK Fire, Zair, and occasionally an aerial until he gets you offstage and hope to land a PK Freeze early kill. At least his kill throws are still in place, otherwise he'd struggle way more.

I don't know, I love playing him but he just feels really bad this time around.

 

[aarchak]

Here are some of my thoughts on Shulk:

He's SO much better in this game. With the landing lag buffs, Shulk can actually control space effectively with nair, fair, and bair. Spaced correctly, his aerials are unpunishable by most of the cast without a hard read on his next move. The new Monado Art system is way better, especially since they kept the old system, which is greatly appreciated.
And while arts last less time, they're still very useful, ESPECIALLY speed. His SHFF in speed art is ridiculously fast along with making his speed top tier, and the ability to go to jump in a fraction of a second greatly enhances his recovery. Shield can now be activated WHILE in hitstun, helping him against combos. He can still kill by switching to smash, and buster at 20-70% is very, very good for racking up damage.
Being able to do dtilt out of a run greatly enhances his poking ability, and utilt is still an amazing antiair. Airdodge nerfs allow Shulk to edgeguard effectively with his big hitboxes and jump art. Back Slash is still a dead move, though, having ridiculous startup and endlag, making sure you can't use it at all without being punished. I still don't know about art switching mid combo, but from what I tried nothing is close to true (I believe it takes 12-15 frames to quick switch arts, way too much to really do anything).
However, his recovery is decent, but not that good. You probably won't have time to switch to jump if you're really low offstage, and you're dead if Air Slash won't reach the ledge, regardless of being able to activate jump or not. He also still can't juggle thanks to uair having no horizontal capability. He also struggles against good projectiles, like Wolf's lasers.
Honestly in the end, he'll probably end up high to high mid tier.

Also, I haven't seen much info on ,,, or. Anyone have thoughts?

 

[Thinkaman]

Incineroar Fun Fact Corner!

Revenge follows some sort of diminishing returns curve.

-At 0.1% damage absorbed, it is 1.5x multiplier to your next single attack.
-At 10% damage absorbed, it is a 2.0x multiplier.
-At ~17% damage absorbed, it is a 2.5x multiplier.
-At 24% damage absorbed, it is a 3.0x multiplier. This is the max.

Incineroar still takes 40% of the incoming damage, but no knockback. He is also invincible to further hitboxes, and emits a low damage pulse as he poses. Attempting to Revenge a multi-hit move will almost certainly absorb only the initial hit as a result.

Revenge lasts 60 seconds. It seems attacking (missing) lowers this, but it does not lower the ratio you have built up. Sorry, no specific numbers here.

You can absorb multiple hits, stacking the ratio to the max off little hits. I believe this also resets the 60 second timer, not sure.

Revenge does not trigger off windboxes.

Revenge lasts for one attack, but will allow you to complete a jab string or cross chop.

So, what are we talking about tripling? You get one of the following: (1v1 values)

• Uair 9.6%
• Utilt or Dtilt - 10.8%
• Jab String - 12%
• Nair or Weak Bair - 13.2%
• Fair/F-throw/-U-throw - 14.4%
• F-tilt/Dash Attack - 15.6%
• B-Throw - 16.8%
• Cross Chop - 18.6%
• Smash ~ 20%
• Side-B - 24%
• Charged Smash ~ 26%

You can also get some pretty solid number out of Lariat, which starts at a formidable 19.2% in front of him and falls off. But of course, the real gem is that juicy 72% side-b. (A 36% jab is nothing to scoff at, though.)

If you stacked Revenge to 3.0x, that means you probably suffered around 10% actual damage. Connecting with a jab means you deal a bonus 24% in return, a good trade. A grab means an extra 33.6%, a better return on investment. A successful side-b means +48% for your 10%, the best deal of all.

Revenge does *not* change knockback, just damage! Knockback does increase, but only slightly. (Otherwise most of Incineroar's moveset would kill at like 25%...) This does mean a 3x damage d-tilt has a VERY wide kill window into fair, since the extra 32.4% it does can bridge the gap between when d-tilt links to fair and when fair kills.

 

[KakuCP9]

Also, I haven't seen much info on ,,, or. Anyone have thoughts?

Basically Ultimate Luigi has pre-patch S4 combos, but with a tether grab that has endlag on par with post-patch S4 Lucas (giving him an OOS option that can work in spite of his traction) and less tornado shenanigans. DDD is less gimped against anyone with a decent projectile game thanks to inhale and gordos harder to smack away letting them be uesful for something other than ledge-trapping(but the Belmonts are going to bully him to death). Dunno about the other two either, but their playerbase seems to be happier with , in this game compared to the last.

 

[Thinkaman]

Fast take because there is too much to test and I can't find an answer: Anyone know the new DDD Gordo reflection threshold?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

A quick correction, Ike is not slower in smash Ultimate. He did, however, get the lowest run speed increase, going from 1.5 to... 1.507. An honestly negligible 0.47% speed increase from Smash 4 to Ultimate, when the average run speed increase across the cast was a 10% buff, leaves him at 66th in run speed. Still not good, but it’s at least not a speed nerf.
Edit: Credit to PushBlock Gaming for the stats, if you haven’t checked their videos then I highly recommend you do.

May have been more accurate to say "he lost speed ranking compared to the rest of the cast". Also seems to me that his Foxtrot/Dance Dash is kinda garbo but I don't have the muscle memory down yet so it could be just something I'm flubbing atm.

Main point is: still sucks trying to get past laser/energy projectiles!

 

[Browny]

Incineroar Fun Fact Corner!

Revenge follows some sort of diminishing returns curve.

-At 0.1% damage absorbed, it is 1.5x multiplier to your next single attack.
-At 10% damage absorbed, it is a 2.0x multiplier.
-At ~17% damage absorbed, it is a 2.5x multiplier.
-At 24% damage absorbed, it is a 3.0x multiplier. This is the max.

Incineroar still takes 40% of the incoming damage, but no knockback. He is also invincible to further hitboxes, and emits a low damage pulse as he poses. Attempting to Revenge a multi-hit move will almost certainly absorb only the initial hit as a result.

Revenge lasts 60 seconds. It seems attacking (missing) lowers this, but it does not lower the ratio you have built up. Sorry, no specific numbers here.

You can absorb multiple hits, stacking the ratio to the max off little hits. I believe this also resets the 60 second timer, not sure.

Revenge does not trigger off windboxes.

Revenge lasts for one attack, but will allow you to complete a jab string or cross chop.

So, what are we talking about tripling? You get one of the following: (1v1 values)

• Uair 9.6%
• Utilt or Dtilt - 10.8%
• Jab String - 12%
• Nair or Weak Bair - 13.2%
• Fair/F-throw/-U-throw - 14.4%
• F-tilt/Dash Attack - 15.6%
• B-Throw - 16.8%
• Cross Chop - 18.6%
• Smash ~ 20%
• Side-B - 24%
• Charged Smash ~ 26%

You can also get some pretty solid number out of Lariat, which starts at a formidable 19.2% in front of him and falls off. But of course, the real gem is that juicy 72% side-b. (A 36% jab is nothing to scoff at, though.)

If you stacked Revenge to 3.0x, that means you probably suffered around 10% actual damage. Connecting with a jab means you deal a bonus 24% in return, a good trade. A grab means an extra 33.6%, a better return on investment. A successful side-b means +48% for your 10%, the best deal of all.

Revenge does *not* change knockback, just damage! (Otherwise most of Incineroar's moveset would kill at like 25%...) This does mean a 3x damage d-tilt has a VERY wide kill window into fair, since the extra 32.4% it does can bridge the gap between when d-tilt links to fair and when fair kills.

His tipper fsmash does more than that, I got it to do 100.8% in one hit a few days ago, so a charged sweetspot must do 33.6%.

 

[J0eyboi]

Also seems to me that his Foxtrot/Dance Dash is kinda garbo but I don't have the muscle memory down yet so it could be just something I'm flubbing atm.

According to The Spreadsheet (TM), Ike has a bottom 10 foxtrot, so yeah, that sounds accurate.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Also, I haven't seen much info on ,,, or. Anyone have thoughts?

Wario is much better but that's really mainly because Smash 4 itself was very unkind to him. Ultimate's airdodge system and landing lag reduction complements his playstyle. Being in disadvantage against him now is threatening, and he's got actual damage output.

I do think the burst range of his old dash attack is much preferable to his new one, and the way they buffed nair is really boring since it's his best option in a lot of situation now. It's /too/ active now, ironically.

 

[Ffamran]

I heard a pockets of intense initial optimism and then radio silence. I haven't played him much myself. But hey, dair SH ACs, so that's fun?

He was and is being way overhyped by some people. Coney said it best by calling Ultimate Falco a Smash 4 character put into Ultimate: https://youtu.be/hHZbHQ-h7hw?t=10.

Spoiler: Falco BS

Some of his buffs in Ultimate were things that shouldn't have been or should have been in Smash 4 and even in Brawl.

Spoiler: Jab, Fair, Dair, Blaster, Dtilt

Jab should not have been that ****ty of a move in Smash 4. Why they felt that it should have the highest SDI multiplier at x1.2 and the lowest damage at 0.4% before Bayonetta was introduced on its rapid jab hits is beyond me. Frame 2 startup doesn't mean jack when it's a frame 2 move that can lead to your own death. It's one thing to have a move have issues connecting; it's another thing when it seems blatantly and inexplicably done on purpose. By that, I mean like not Samus's jab 1 not connecting into jab 2. That idea can work, but the developers just don't want to commit to the idea of Samus being able to link, not combo, but link her jab 1 into her faster tilts instead of only being able to mixup and sometimes badly into her other moves in general. They were able to do it with Fox's jab 1 and jab 2, Luigi's jab 1, and Marthcina's jab 1 in Smash 4 with how they tuned it, goddammit, but oh no, Samus can't have that.

Fair should not have had 33 landing frames in Brawl or 32 in Smash 4 until 1.0.8. What the hell they thought the move was going to do is beyond me, especially with Brawl Fair having issues connecting and not having any real knockback. Smash 4 Fair should not have had doubled startup compared to Brawl Fair just because the stupid thing worked and that they figured out how to make autolink angles and multi-hit moves function better. It also should not have had a dumbass and extreme disjoint for its landing hit that was frame 1. Ultimate Fair with 1.0.8 Smash 4 Fair's 25 landing lag was what Fair should have been at the start of Smash 4.

Dair being a defining move for Falco being turned into a generic, slow, spike Dair in Smash 4 is just sad. Most Dair spikes being like that was sad. Spikes shouldn't be thrown out all willy-nilly, but they're such fun moves to see happen. In Falco's case where his was broken in Melee and arguably Brawl with it still being frame 5 in that game, Dair should have been balanced in such a way it was still a signature move for Falco in Smash 4 which Ultimate successfully did. It's not super fast and it's not super strong, but it's fast enough and strong enough for Falco to be able to use it frequently.

Blaster should not have been that bad of a projectile and ignored while other projectiles were improved in Smash 4. They know how much total frames this stupid thing had when they decreased the startup on it in Brawl, but kept its total frames largely the same and they know why this move was so oppressive through it ability to auto-cancel from a hop and they removed the ability for projectiles to auto-cancel in Smash 4. What baffles me is why they didn't even attempt to address why its recovery was so absurd. Most projectiles in general were treated like blasphemous objects in Smash 4 where the few that weren't treated as such definitely showed how good they were in Smash 4.

And then there's this mixed bag of should have not been and now it should not be like. Dtilt should not have had that disjointed range in Smash 4. That was disgusting and in my opinion, blatantly and inexplicably broken. Falco's Dtilt is a natural disjoint that uses his tail letting it function like sword user's Dtilt where in Falco's case, it was frame 7 on startup, had 19 recovery frames, launches, and can possibly kill if you sweetspot it with the hitbox closest to his hilt. The disjointed tipper hitbox changes everything by making its maximum range invisible. You know how far the Dtilts of Ike, Link, Lucina, Marth, Roy, Shulk, and Toon Link hit because you can actually see how far they reach, but you can't without experience against Falco. That **** was busted. Ultimate removed it [the disjoint], but increased its startup to frame 10. Okay, why? This move was balanced by its short range prior to Smash 4's shenanigans and being on a character who isn't that mobile on the ground so that he could have a fairly fast on startup and recovery sweep with high damage and utility where it functions as a launcher, poke, and kill move. In the one game where Falco would been able to abuse Dtilt easily through Ultimate's dash and run cancel mechanic, it's the one game where Dtilt had its startup increased. Still a good move.

The developers also have a habit of giving him things from other characters without considering why it works on them, but not on him.

Spoiler: Uair, Uair, Up Smash, Side Smash

In Smash 4, it was 1.0.8 Uair where they tried to give him a juggle Uair like that of Captain Falcon, Mario, and ZSS, but they forgot that Falco's Uair is a frontflip and not a backflip, so it's going to be slower than theirs unless they dropped its startup to that of Pikachu's frame 4 Uair. The only real issue with Falco's Uair prior to 1.0.8 was the body sourspot. Even at frame 10 on startup, it was fine and the best thing about his old Uair was that it comboed and killed. Now it only combos. Ultimate then proceeds to lower its damage to 9% from 1.0.8's 11% to 10% damage reduction because it was such an oppressive move in Smash 4.

In Ultimate? Utilt. They reduced its total frames from 36 in Smash 4 to 29. It's kind of like a Mario Utilt now, but in Ultimate. In Smash 4, it probably would have been really good, but in Ultimate, all I see is a Utilt with lower recovery, but lower damage and knockback. Its "high" knockback works when Falco's jump is so damn high. Now there are points at low to low-mid percents where it sends the opponent too high for it to chain into itself or too low and with too little knockback for Falco to follow up with an aerial, so if you miss doing Utilt at low percents, then Falco loses out on being able to do damage by chaining them or going for a regular aerial followup. Smash 4 Utilt couldn't chain into itself easily, but it sure was a good setup move as a launcher. All they needed to do was lower it recovery not lower its recovery, damage, and possibly knockback.

Up Smash is both it worked it really well for him and it's not looking too well. Smash 4 Falco was given Charlie Nash's Somersault Shell, a backwards frontflip that hits two times where after it was tuned up and given leg invincibility in 1.1.4, it became an awesome anti-air, land trap, and ledge coverage option due to its high active frames for its hits and leg invincibility and its horizontal range since it reached in front and behind Falco. It had a shaky start, but it ended up being a really good new move for Falco. For Ultimate, they decided that Falco should be given another intricately animated Up Smash because why not. It's now a version of Rugal Bernstein's Genocide Cutter which is a jumping high tornado kick followed by a high roundhouse kick. You might have seen this before on Captain Falcon with his Up Smash and yes, they're the same move, but Captain Falcon's faces towards his opponent while Falco, Nash, Rugal, and Vergil face towards the screen or the background if they're on the second player side. It still has leg invincibility and it's still a good anti-air, but now the hitboxes are more focused on hitting above him than around him. The loss in horizontal range means it's not as good of a ledge coverage option -- it can't cover ledge rolls as easily -- and it makes it harder for Falco to land it considering he doesn't move that fast. Wolf returning for Ultimate with a similar Up Smash means his sort of takes Smash 4 Falco's Up Smash's place. For all intents and purposes, Smash 4 Falco's Up Smash was basically Wolf's. Anyway, Wolf's has good horizontal range and can cover behind him. The only difference and I wished this wasn't the case is that Wolf doesn't have any invincibility during Up Smash. As for Fox, I'm pretty sure his has more horizontal range than Falco's now and even if it didn't, Fox can just run up and Up Smash you to oblivion.

Speaking of animation changes, Side Smash has Falco hitting closer to his body and not moving forward as much like in Brawl and Smash 4. You know what that means? Yep, Falco's Side Smash still sucks. All three of the Star Fox characters had their Side Smashes shortened in range where Fox no longer travels as far and Wolf's was changed from a lunging palm strike to a stationary palm strike. Fox's is still good considering its 13 frame startup and that it arcs around him and once again, Fox being fast on the ground. Wolf's was changed to a slower, stronger Side Smash that resembles Meta Knight where it has low recovery at 19 frames for its 20 frame startup. Except for the unknown knockback values, Falco's simply has shorter range. It's still frame 17, still has 48 total frames, does the same damage, and still has its crappy late hit. I need this to be confirmed, but I think Wolf's Side Smash is stronger than Falco's and Falco's advantage of having an arcing hitbox isn't really much when Fox's has that too, but with significantly faster startup. And then there's the Marthings with their Side Smashes. Lucina is Side Smash the Character for a reason in Smash 4. Side Smash spamming isn't something the developers want, but it wouldn't have killed the game if Falco's was borderline good like Lucina's. Strongest Side Smash of the Star Fox characters my foot. Fox and Wolf actually have a strong and useful Up Smash and Down Smash, respectively. Ultimate Wolf's Down Smash became slower at frame 14 from Brawl's frame 8, but it's still faster than Falco's Side Smash and hits way harder.

Bair. One of the dumbest moves in Smash 4. A frame 4 aerial that did 13% and had 130 knockback growth was simply stupid, but it was contained enough through the move itself, its short range and 2 active frames for the clean hit, that it wasn't too stupid. Falco having low air speed and horizontal mobility in general contained it further. Despite the universal frame 3 jump, I think Smash 4 Bair wouldn't have been that crazy in Ultimate. On anyone else, however, Smash 4, Ultimate, or otherwise, this move would be busted. Could you imagine Wolf with this Bair? He'd lose range, but his air speed more than make up for that. Anyway, Ultimate increased its startup to frame 9 and now it's a pretty average move. Wolf's Bair was increased in startup from 6 to 13, but it also gained kill power and damage. Falco's simply had its startup increased for some range. For all intents and purposes, Ultimate Falco's Bair is Fox's or ZSS's Bair, but with a late hit and on a character who is significantly slower moving. Maybe frame 6 or 7 instead of 9 and only have it be a 2 active frame aerial with no late hit? Or make it so other Bairs are stronger so that while Falco's is still ridiculous in its speed to power ratio, it's more grounded by other, slower Bairs being stronger or strong enough.

Everyone's faster. Sort of. So, the average of 10% ground speed and 5% air speed increase does help everyone; everyone becomes more mobile and their movement is more flexible. The problem is that for some characters, it didn't actually address their movement issues which can become a notable problem if they don't have something to counter it well like Ike who has Ragnell. Falco in particular used to have average running speed in Melee, but since Brawl, he's had below-average running speed. Falco having average running speed which in this case would be 1.76, Mario's running speed which was increased by 10% from Smash 4, wouldn't kill people nor would it make him that much better, but it would be better than being 10% faster because everyone else did. It's particularly useful for Falco when Fox is a speed demon on the ground, but still has higher air speed and similar air acceleration to Falco or Wolf who Falco is barely faster than on the ground, but because of Wolf's high air speed, Wolf's overall horizontal mobility is very high. Wolf has an air speed of 1.281, a run speed of 1.54, and a walk speed of 1.208. The average which is probably not accurate at all is 1.343. Wolf's mobility in general is high considering his high fall speed too of 1.8. His only issue is his low jump which acts as a double-edged sword since he can use aerials lower to the ground, but it makes it harder for juggling high in the air and recovering. All Falco has is a high jump where even then because his fall speed nor is his gravity the highest and he doesn't have a different fast fall speed modifier like Link, Fox has faster downward vertical movement and Greninja who has the second highest jump, is slightly faster than Falco when moving downward.

Falco used to have the third fastest dash not run, but dash in Smash 4. While Ultimate made dashes significantly faster, character who had fast dashes didn't receive as much of an increase as those who didn't. Dash speeds in this game might not be that useful since dashes aren't sustained movement and they usually don't travel far where I remember someone saying traction values are much higher than in the previous games and dashes might be affected by that. Anyway, it would still have been useful for Falco to have had, say, a dash speed of 2.3-something instead of 2.035 from his Smash 4 and Brawl dash speed of 1.9. Or they could have went even further and given him a dash speed of 2.5, 2.7, or something stupid where Falco's running, sustained movement is noticeably lacking, but his burst movement through dashing is good.

TL;DR: Ultimate Falco can do stuff he should have been able to do in Smash 4. He's also doing things he's been doing since like forever such as his combos and strings, so people are being awestruck over nothing. Also some nerfs.

Some of the players who played Falco in Smash 4 did so because he had a Wolf-esque Bair which in my opinion, they would have been better off playing DK for his Bair or Fox because Fox is an actual character who happens to be a spacie. Wolf returned for Ultimate and many people are flocking towards him. I mean, why not? Dude's badass, handsome, and has some sweet duds. The newcomers and other characters who received nifty changes adds to their options as well. That is not to say there weren't any people who genuinely like Falco as a character or fighter and play him because of that. I for one like him because I really do like his moveset however flawed it was in Smash 4 or broken in Melee and Brawl. That, and his Bair was fraudulent, so...

The only Falco player I know of who is sticking with him is Anragon and he's currently fiending for some Phazon through Dark Samus. Larry seems to be only playing him because he got caught up in Leffen's idea of Falco being high tier. DEHF died with Brawl, so let it be, man. Daybreak switched to Wolf and I think so did Osiris and Keitaro is probably going to pick someone who can annoy the hell out of his opponent and that sure ain't Falco when he doesn't have his wall of lasers like he did in Brawl.

Wild, edgy opinion: I think Falco is dog**** in this game. Not the kind of dog**** that would be considered nonviable for any kind of use like fertilizing stuff to grow your own plants*, but dog**** in a sense of there's better and more appealing options.

* Can you even fertilize stuff with dog poop?

 

[Ajani]

Hey guys, not sure where to ask this but if I wanted to look into frame data, do I simply use the slow down option to frame in training mode and count the frames after each Z flick?

 

[Pyr]

Revenge does *not* change knockback, just damage! (Otherwise most of Incineroar's moveset would kill at like 25%...) This does mean a 3x damage d-tilt has a VERY wide kill window into fair, since the extra 32.4% it does can bridge the gap between when d-tilt links to fair and when fair kills.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding. I can confirm the knockback does change, just not in a normal way.

Spoiler: Starting Position

Spoiler: Normal B-Throw

Spoiler: 5x Luigi Fireball B-Throw

There are definitely different knockback calculations in effect and some things will kill earlier if you have Revenge active. It's just something different going on with the knockback formula.

Here's a few more examples with fully charged F-Smash. Since B-Throw hits twice, it screws up the KB lines.

Spoiler: No Revenge S-Smash

Spoiler: 5x Fireball F-Smash

I'd also like to confirm that taking damage lowers the remaining Revenge timer. Luigi's fireball lowers it by around 10 seconds per fireball. 2 Luigi Fully Charged F-Smashes also completely eliminate it. I'm in the process of testing on a per-attack basis.

 

[Thinkaman]

Falco

Falco is a character I don't know much about, but I always felt that Falco in Smash 4 had some nice chains that were just too narrow in application, and suspected that if he had a liiiiiittle more movespeed or a couple extra extra to work with, he could dish out some respectable reward on much of the cast. When I heard that initial Falco optimism, I assumed that this was the case.

Bair is still a stupidly "overtuned" move in a vacuum, I agree. Dair also seems a ton better now.

Hey guys, not sure where to ask this but if I wanted to look into frame data, do I simply use the slow down option to frame in training mode and count the frames after each Z flick?

Yup!

I hope I'm not misunderstanding. I can confirm the knockback does change, just not in a normal way

Interesting, thanks!

 

[Rizen]

* Can you even fertilize stuff with dog poop?

No, it's actually really bad for the environment. Clean up after your dog(s)!


Gee, I wish I had something relevant to say... Wolf feels like a one trick pony. Take away blaster and he's kind of sluggish and undertuned. There's a strong possibility I'm not playing him properly. He seems to be more of a grounded fighter with CQC things like Ftilt being his damage dealer and Fair/Uair juggle well but what's the game plan to transition? The problem with his air game is Bair's his only kill move (-spiking offstage) and it goes one direction which makes him limited to fishing for it. TBH I just can't make him work well. I shouldn't post when I'm tired, lol.

 

[Nobie]

Falco is a character I don't know much about, but I always felt that Falco in Smash 4 had some nice chains that were just too narrow in application, and suspected that if he had a liiiiiittle more movespeed or a couple extra extra to work with, he could dish out some respectable reward on much of the cast. When I heard that initial Falco optimism, I assumed that this was the case.

Bair is still a stupidly "overtuned" move in a vacuum, I agree. Dair also seems a ton better now.

One thing I love about Ultimate in these early days is the way it has brought Melee and Smash 4 players together (at least temporarily), which means very different philosophies mingling. You can practically taste the Melee-ness with which Leffen evaluates the game. In his current view, it doesn't matter too much that Falco doesn't have miracle lasers because his combo tree is so robust that it leaves endless room for optimization. To generalize, it feels like Smash 4 players love bread and butter basics, while Melee players love free-flowing chains.

Speaking of Spacies, nerfing Fox's weight might have been the smartest decision the balance team ever made. If Fox retained his Smash 4 weight going into Ultimate, the character would have been downright oppressive. Now, if you can get him off stage, one strong aerial can end his stock instantly.

 

[Ffamran]

Falco is a character I don't know much about, but I always felt that Falco in Smash 4 had some nice chains that were just too narrow in application, and suspected that if he had a liiiiiittle more movespeed or a couple extra extra to work with, he could dish out some respectable reward on much of the cast. When I heard that initial Falco optimism, I assumed that this was the case.

That reminds me. I forgot to mention this, but Falco's Nair loop hits seems like they don't have autolink angles anymore, so that's another nerf since he was able to chain Nairs by having the opponent move with him in addition to Nair connecting better. The back hits can drop people and moving too much also drops people which didn't happen with 1.0.8's changes to Nair in Smash 4.

One of Falco's strength is that he can string together various moves together, basically freestyling on people, in addition to having combos here and there depending on the game and percent. They're not combos which I feel like people forget or don't realize and that ends up getting him hyped as this crazy character when in reality, whoever is playing him knew enough about how his moves work and was able to follow their opponent. His versatile moveset is what makes him dangerous and where I feel like if they overtuned him too much, then he becomes a monster which already happened with Melee and to a lesser extent, Brawl. In those cases, it was him having the tools to easily approach not movement speed. Movement speed at least isn't backed up by a wall of lasers, so Ultimate Falco with Wii Fit Trainer's running speed of 1.866 to Diddy Kong's 2.006 or the air speed of Sheik's 1.155 to ZSS's 1.26 might not be as crazy as Melee or Brawl Falco. Or he might be.

The Falco optimism I believe was purely hype, people not knowing or even remembering Falco, and people misleading themselves. Clickbait or not, people saw Falco's frame 10 Dair in Ultimate and proclaimed it as him getting his Melee Dair back when Melee Dair was frame 5 and except in the PAL version, its clean and late hits spiked which is absurd. Calling it a Brawl Dair is still a far cry when it's twice as slow as Brawl's and Brawl's has lower landing lag at 12 frames and apparently auto-canceled before frame 5 and after frame 26 which is better than Melee's and Ultimate's auto-cancel windows. People saw him comboing and stringing stuff together on day one or pre-release and thought this was new. No, it wasn't. This is the exact same **** he's been doing since Melee, but closer to Smash 4.

Gee, I wish I had something relevant to say... Wolf feels like a one trick pony. Take away blaster and he's kind of sluggish and undertuned. There's a strong possibility I'm not playing him properly. He seems to be more of a grounded fighter with CQC things like Ftilt being his damage dealer and Fair/Uair juggle well but what's the game plan to transition? The problem with his air game is Bair's his only kill move (-spiking offstage) and it goes one direction which makes him limited to fishing for it. TBH I just can't make him work well. I shouldn't post when I'm tired, lol.

Smash 4 Falco existed. That's what Wolf without his Blaster would have been.

Wolf's Blaster is really helpful in allowing him to zone, to control space. Without it, well, Smash 4 Falco. Anyway, it makes him a well-rounded character sort of like Ryu in Street Fighter or Iori in The King of Fighters where he has good enough close-range game and can contest at long-range with Blaster. The difference, however, is that projectiles work differently in Smash compared to in other 2D fighting games.

Combos are where I don't know nor do I think people this early know enough about Wolf. What I do sort of remember from watching Brawl Wolf gameplay is that Wolf didn't seem like he had a lot of combos or strings. What he was good at was controlling the pace of the battle and racking up damage through safe hits either because the move was that good such as Bair or he was able to create or force openings and bad approaches which is where Blaster comes in. Ultimate changes up things by changing his Side Smash to resemble Meta Knight's where it's slow and you can probably get caught if you use it too recklessly and predictably, but the ability to mixup and smack a shield with a move that has such low recovery is pretty nifty.

Wolf's obvious weakness is his jump in that if he had a higher jump, I could see Uair being a stronger kill move since he'd be able to hit it closer to the top of the blast zone and he'd be able to go a bit further off-stage to edgeguard with Fair, Nair, or even Bair. At the same time and as I noted in my other post, this could impact his aerials if his hop becomes too high for him to use aerials low to the ground.

When it comes to being undertuned, I do agree he could have been stronger in areas that I feel like the developers seem too hesitant about and this goes for almost every character in general. One thing that people might not care about is that I wished Wolf's walk speed was closer in speed to his run speed. As stupid as it would be for Wolf to have a 1.4-something walk speed and a 1.54 run speed, it would give him a very unique movement which he had in Brawl and which Falco had in Melee. Instead, they lowered his walk speed from Brawl so his run speed could be slightly faster than in Brawl.

 

[S_B]

Also, I haven't seen much info on ,,, or. Anyone have thoughts?

Still has most of his SSB4 tricks, plus some new ones. For starters, he has a Zair now, which not only lingers but actually turns into a projectile and falls with a brief hitbox afterwards. His tether grab is fairly difficult to punish as well. Wouldn't be surprised to see more crazy Weegee mains creep out of the woodwork and start taking tournaments.

Is in a weird place: his bike was nerfed horribly due to just how long the CD is on it, but at the same time, Wario now heals off of eating pretty much every non-explosive projectile (pending testing) and heals from chewing on opponents as well. I guess bike was never that good of an option in neutral anyway so you're basically just going to want to hang onto it for recovery purposes (especially since edge guarding is so much more potent of an option this time), but he used to be able to summon a new one the moment the old one hit the blast zone with no real cooldown.

 

[Yonder]

Still has most of his SSB4 tricks, plus some new ones. For starters, he has a Zair now, which not only lingers but actually turns into a projectile and falls with a brief hitbox afterwards. His tether grab is fairly difficult to punish as well. Wouldn't be surprised to see more crazy Weegee mains creep out of the woodwork and start taking tournaments.

Is in a weird place: his bike was nerfed horribly due to just how long the CD is on it, but at the same time, Wario now heals off of eating pretty much every non-explosive projectile (pending testing) and heals from chewing on opponents as well. I guess bike was never that good of an option in neutral anyway so you're basically just going to want to hang onto it for recovery purposes (especially since edge guarding is so much more potent of an option this time), but he used to be able to summon a new one the moment the old one hit the blast zone with no real cooldown.

Luigi has some crazy onstage combos,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d6r1zHveQsY

Check out 10:00 of this video of elegant vs tatonator, he kills him at 0...off a grab. Dair-nair-dair-nair-spike dair-up b didn't exactly look escapable, idk how much di/quicker frame move inkling could have executed.

That being said...

Im having a very hard time adjusting to Luigi sadly, and that recovery is insanely vulnerable and lost a lot of distance. Side b is still the same, unsafe and only good for misfires. Zair is kind of mediocre and could be better, but auto cancels into a quick grab. There is NO excuse for his Zair to be the only one that doesn't grapple to the ledge. He should get that patched it...it's a plunger!!!

Grab doesn't bother me too much...it still combos great and b throw is in the top 5 KB in rhe game now, huge with a teather! It's 1% weaker than Ness'...really strong.

Tornado distance nerf was really unnecessary...doc can mash with it better now, come on. I get the Spike nerf of course but yeah. It has intangibility now on the first few frames, nice so better for landing but not perfect. It's not really good for zipping across the stage either now. But...it still kills and Luigi mains are figuring out some setups to kill early.

Overall, I'm still having troubles adjusting and i find myself doing better with other characters (Bowser...). He's still usable, Elegant will push his meta game and thinks hes top tier. To each their own.

...


Oh, Wario is really good but the bike cooldown has gotten me killed too many times to count. He'd be insane if his cooldown was reduced.

 

[Mister M]

Yes, PK Freeze is unquestionably really good and the reason I picked up Lucas as well, but that doesn't really save the character right now.

I never had the pleasure of playing smash 4 Lucas because he was so different from brawl. He became a footstool grappler at the expense of meat where I liked it. I was never good at footstool combos so I dropped him.

I feel like they stole from you and gave it all back to me.

He seems a lot more like a horizontal zoner/waller now. His most consistent moves aim to put you bury you far to his left or right. Fair, jabs, f-tilt and pk fire work together to achieve this and d-tilt supports them too. Even psi magnet plays into it. Nair allows you to build damage, chase and cross up. Then you end your strings with any one of the moves that place your opponent in the horizontal deep.

His grabs don't kill as well as they used to, but they put people in the exact same scenario; The Horizontal Deep.

On the other hand, he is unable to control vertical consistently. The moves that cover up and down either have a long start up (bair and u-smash) or are quite undertuned (Up air comes to mind). Up tilt is a solid quick move and functions as a reliable anti air, but your best follow up from this will be one of your horizontal moves or Nair.

Up throw and down throw even appear to me to be his least valuable throws.

I've seen some interesting interactions with dair and zair confirming into fair and f-smash but i feel they are too inconsistent for main stream use.

All that said: pk fire is predictable in the neutral, fair is a little stubby and needs good spacing, same with f-tilt, same with zair, same with his grab range.

The rewards from his old game plan are gone so I empathise with some of the things you were saying. Reminds me of my thoughts on mewtwo

 

[williamsga555]

Early impressions of D3, heavily limited experience thus far but going off of general feel compared to all the time spent with him in 4, so take this all with a generous pinch of salt.

He's prolly still bad, but he's more well-rounded than the previous game. He benefits a lot from the general engine changes (especially nair OOS and up tilt out of dash yes please don't sleep on this move), the improved potency of off-stage edgeguarding, and some quality-of-life buffs to some of his defenses (particularly, again, nair OOS being something, and the significantly improved inhale).

Changes to gordo are...hard to qualify right now. It seems like they wanted to move it away from being a finnicky ball of chaos into a more consistent ball of chaos. Knockback direction now works like gyro (i.e. it always hits in the direction it was launched) instead of being based on where it hit, which is a mixed bag; on one hand, it loses a lot of guaranteed confirms (rip trig combos) and slightly worsens edgesticking (since it doesn't pop the opponent as high as it did previously), buuut it sticks more reliably, appears to have a more consistent hitbox (though this might be placebo), and works better as a stage control tool with the inhale mechanic (though it's still not something you can just throw out, of course). Iunno, gordo has to be treated differently from before now but exactly how that is is still a mystery to me. Should be fun to lab out.

Jab linking better is a godsend, as it already quietly did great damage and knockback for a jab. Ftilt out of dash is a great spacing tool (but it's still not safe on shield unless max spaced lol), up smash feels like something you could actually use now (though I still prolly wouldn't tbh)...but the big winner is up tilt. While still not quite as potent as Brawl's incarnation, up tilt is still meaty, disjointed, and hard to beat out. Now that he can do it out of a dash, he should be really damn good at anti-airing and platform pressuring now, which he was quite mediocre at in 4 (the inhale buff now gives a good mixup to platform shielding as well, which is nice-nice).

All that being said, the King still has a real problem closing stocks for someone at his weight class. Smashes are still juuuust too slow, he still has nothing resembling a kill throw, and bair is still his go-to finisher. Granted, the increased potency of offstage play helps him a lot (maybe enough to make fair a decent move, even though it's still pretty bad on-stage???) in this department, but with his hideous aerial mobility, he has to commit to an area to intercept pretty early. Characters with well-protected and/or flexible recoveries can probably bypass a lot of his harassment, so gordo ledgetrapping would probably still be his best option (even though ledgetrapping as a whole is far worse than 4, it still can be done).

-----

So yeah, TL;DR is that I think he's still really underwhelming but a lot of his biggest headaches have been at least partially addressed through direct buffs and the general engine changes. Overall D3 feels like a more consistent fighter than he was in 4, which is probably the biggest boon he could have received between titles. He's gonna be a character with a lot of 50-50s and few true winning matches. Probably still gets bodied by nimble zoners (Mega Man, Young Link, Toon Link) and whoever ends up being the best rushdown a-la Fox in 4.


Oh, and I'll see if I can't lab/research the reflection threshold for inhale shortly.

 

[DavemanCozy]

So hey here's a Snake thing that I just noticed about Side-B while derping around in training mode. As soon as Snake fires the missile, he is invulnerable for the first 4 frames. So you can punish him before he fires it and after he fires it if he doesn't cancel the missile, but right when he fires it you can't do squat.

I don't know how useful that'll be but now everyone knows edit; only tested the grounded version, dunno if the aerial one is the same.

I'm surprised by how scarce discussion about Palutena is here (only a handful of posts mention her, never mind discussing how potent she may be). In Smash 4 her cons were her light weight, easily punishable normals (her excellent jab allowed her to not need them so bad), unreliable Smash attacks and a poor projectile. Everything else about her was solid to excellent (especially her partially invincible dash attack & bair, spammable fair and her absolutely frightening uair). Now she's back with a buffed Autoreticle in terms of success rate & lower cooldown, a potent punish tool/"do something" special in Explosive Flame, and a counter that serves as a reflector & counter (I believe this to be a buff but I could be wrong). And she lost...nothing, as far as I know. Did her Smash attacks become more reliable as well?
I see her ripping holes in heavies and light keepaway chatacters. Her mobility denies heavies their ideal range, and her killpower is able to eliminate their rage factor. Light keepaway characters are caught by her projectiles, she can actually keep up with them speedwise, and she can net the stock with ease. Easy high tier at worst imo.

Her down special getting the reflective barrier and counter in one is kind of a buff, though it also means she can't put up the barrier on command to push opponents away and mess with their spacing. So it's got a drawback there too. Another nerf was to B-air with slower startup on the intangible hitbox (frame 2 -> frame 7 now).

But yes, she's mostly gotten buffs in her transition to Smash4. All her smash attacks are faster as well, both on startup and ending lag. Her grabs are slower, but universally all grabs got slower too. This hurts her a bit more because her grab game was pivotal in Smash4, but she's gotten so many speed buffs on her neutral that it hardly seems to make a difference.

In terms of notable players, Toronto's "Homecoming: Ontario Smash Ultimate Kickoff" was their first big tourney for Ultimate with over 190 entrants, and it was won by Karina (i.e. IceNinja, also a prime Palutena player in Smash4). Didn't drop a single set and only lost one game in arguably one of the most stacked tournaments in Canada.

I don't think you're wrong. She's being slept on right now.

 

[Diddy Kong]

News on Diddy Kong: the lack of air speed is really a big issue in this game. I still think he’s crazy good, but he’ll suffer a bit for not being sped up like most of the cast, therefore appearing slower in general.

Kill options are still a thing. D Tilt to U Smash doesn’t really work and the high ceiling plus overall buffs to F Smash also should make you prefer using F Smash as the main kill move.

He cannot edgeguard well. This is also a downside. If you edgeguard, you take a lot of risks. Only charged up Up B can safe you now, or Monkey Flip.

Speaking of Up B, it’s wayyyyy easier to make the Rocketbarrel explode now! It’ll lead to interesting things and surprise kills for sure. Kamikaze Kong will probably work to mix things up with the more predictable kill options now. Monkey Flip Kick is stronger than Smash 4, but not as strong as the initial Smash 4 attack.

Pummel is fast now, so it’s advised to go for that at higher %s. F and B Throw can kill near ledges still, D Throw allows for aerial follow ups and U Throw as well. Haven’t yet figured out which to use in which situation. But D Throw seems more consistent. U Air is a little stronger than the final patched Smash 4 version, but the higher ceiling makes it harder to kill with unless it’s a very light or floaty character.

Matchups wise? He’s probably fine. He beats Sheik now, still goes even with Mario I think, good against Bayonetta, and fares well against the Fire Emblem Sword Lords. Inkling am not sure about, I hate fighting them. He does well against all other newcomers, though K.Rool’s armor and strong ground game is a bit challenging to deal with as Diddy never got challenged much on the ground before. Cloud is way easier to deal with now due to range nerfs.

I still think Diddy is probably Top Tier. But he’s not the best, which I thought before. He got good relevant matchups, so that will make him interesting for top players still.

 

[REV3L]

To those talking about snake... Watch Ally vs Holy. Nuff said

 

[bc1910]

Zero informed opinion, based on my time playing him. He feels the same???

Fundamentally his gameplan is similar except his offence is rewarded more in Ultimate. Most of his previous strings and 50/50s are now true combos which can only be escaped with DI, due in part to the faster engine and in part to some minor frame data buffs which make a surprising amount of difference; Dtilt has 4 frames of endlag shaved off and dash attack has 2. He has some usable tools in neutral which are consistently more rewarding than in Sm4sh, where you were usually better off disengaging in neutral and firing shurikens to search for openings.

I've been back and forth on this character. Whilst he has better BnBs and more kill power, his buttons still aren't good and his slow aerial frame data is stuffed by all the fast SH aerials. A lot of characters can abuse this weakness now where in Sm4sh only Sheik and Fox were consistently good at it. Shuriken camping is much worse due to the general movement speed increase plus they seem to have less hitstun. Notably though, even uncharged shurikens can clank with the Belmonts' crosses and some other powerful projectiles. Greninja's weak defence against rushdown characters could be detrimental to his viability; he feels particularly helpless when swordies are jumping at him. This was also true in Sm4sh but opponents were slower and fadeback shurikens were better.

Then again I watch matches like this and think he can at least maintain a niche against zoners due to his ability to contest their zoning along with having more rewarding CQC - shoutout to this character likely having the best remaining Uair ladders. I've seen iStudying do well against Armada's Chrom so perhaps swordie matchups are harder but not viability killers (fwiw I think Greninja's range makes him serviceable against non-sword rushdown despite the poor aerial frame data). I need to experiment with Bair more since at f5 it can actually contest other aerials. Nair also feels like a decent button with only 7 frames of landing lag, I don't know the exact data but even approaching Nair seems safe on shield which was not the case before. His results have been pretty good at big tournaments; Lea got 5th at Umebura SP and Boba got 17th at Don't Park on the Grass. Tier-wise I see him anywhere from high to low mid. He's definitely not as weak as many top players are making out but I don't think he's as strong as I initially thought (I honestly thought he was making moves toward top tier). He struggles in the upper echelons with such poor aerial frame data, at least in the current meta. His advantage state is probably top tier though.

Great write-ups in general by the way.

 

[williamsga555]

Fast take because there is too much to test and I can't find an answer: Anyone know the new DDD Gordo reflection threshold?

As far as I can tell through training, it's still about 2% (Fresh Mega Man pellets do 2.4% and still reflect).

However, I misunderstood your question and thought you were asking about Inhale's new reflection properties. And so I went and tested Inhale against every projectile I could imagine in the cast.

I'll link the post here, but the TL;DR is that some things behave strangely when reflected through inhale, and there are some projectiles/items that cannot be inhaled/reflected (most notably, banana peels cannot be inhaled while they're on the ground for some reason)

 

[Lord Dio]

oh, hey, an impressions thread
it's been.......months since I've posted (spent that time lurking the 4's competitive thread)
I'll give some thoughts n stuff:

Lucas: mostly terrible, but gets completely carried by PK Freeze. This move kills heavyweight characters sub-90. seriously. why. Aside from that, generally seems to have lost stuff.

K Rool: People say that Ridley or ganon are going to be the heavyweight combo video fodder. Imo, it's gonna be K Rool. Sure, the nair armor could interrupt, but reading that means you could just extend the combo more, or even break the armor and get a gify-kill/combo. Generally doesn't seem too hard to deal with depending on the character.

Palutena: Legitimately SO much better than in 4. Her kit generally works now, top players are showing active interest in her, she can deal with generally any situation. Generally a very, very good character. Easy high tier imo, could def win a tournament in the right hands and with the right bracket. Weaknesses being lack of amazing ground pokes, projectiles are a tad laggy, can't grab small characters (inkling, pichu), and genereally struggles with fast rushdown characters. Not top tier, but still so much better.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

Another question related to her: how does she deal with both sides of parrying? Does she have any way to deal with her moves being parried/is she able to take advantage of parries that aren't point blank?

 

[Thinkaman]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

Another question related to her: how does she deal with both sides of parrying? Does she have any way to deal with her moves being parried/is she able to take advantage of parries that aren't point blank?

Not a Palutena expert, but my take on her is that she has good buttons now, which is a very deep change to a character. Nair is now very broadly applicable, and her tilts are suddenly moves?!? She feels far less like a bunch of fun tricks attached to a poor skeleton.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

Another question related to her: how does she deal with both sides of parrying? Does she have any way to deal with her moves being parried/is she able to take advantage of parries that aren't point blank?

My current impression of Palutena is that she's actually complete now. She was pretty much built around the idea of mix-and-match specials in 4, but with customs banned she was sort of gutted. AFAIK her game plan boiled down to "abuse the handful of not-awful moves available" which was...jab, dthrow, dash attack, and aerials minus dair? Not a fantastic foundation for a character.

In Ultimate, her tilts actually exist for starters, which is nice by itself, and she effectively gained a special move with no penalty now that they merged her counter and reflect into one and gave her one of her old customs as a new side special. IDK if she'll end up being good per se, but she's functional, which is a massive improvement by itself.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

Another question related to her: how does she deal with both sides of parrying? Does she have any way to deal with her moves being parried/is she able to take advantage of parries that aren't point blank?

Since others have covered most of her improvements, I'll answer your specific questions regarding parrying. Most people have trouble parrying nair because they're not sure how long it lasts. You can hold down jab so even if they parry part of it you can still poke them with the last hit. I haven't gotten too many parries but you can act out of it with SH fair/nair, and ftilt has decent range as well.

 

[Y2Kay]

Fundamentally his gameplan is similar except his offence is rewarded more in Ultimate. Most of his previous strings and 50/50s are now true combos which can only be escaped with DI, due in part to the faster engine and in part to some minor frame data buffs which make a surprising amount of difference; Dtilt has 4 frames of endlag shaved off and dash attack has 2. He has some usable tools in neutral which are consistently more rewarding than in Sm4sh, where you were usually better off disengaging in neutral and firing shurikens to search for openings.

I've been back and forth on this character. Whilst he has better BnBs and more kill power, his buttons still aren't good and his slow aerial frame data is stuffed by all the fast SH aerials. A lot of characters can abuse this weakness now where in Sm4sh only Sheik and Fox were consistently good at it. Shuriken camping is much worse due to the general movement speed increase plus they seem to have less hitstun. Notably though, even uncharged shurikens can clank with the Belmonts' crosses and some other powerful projectiles. Greninja's weak defence against rushdown characters could be detrimental to his viability; he feels particularly helpless when swordies are jumping at him. This was also true in Sm4sh but opponents were slower and fadeback shurikens were better.

Then again I watch matches like this and think he can at least maintain a niche against zoners due to his ability to contest their zoning along with having more rewarding CQC - shoutout to this character likely having the best remaining Uair ladders. I've seen iStudying do well against Armada's Chrom so perhaps swordie matchups are harder but not viability killers (fwiw I think Greninja's range makes him serviceable against non-sword rushdown despite the poor aerial frame data). I need to experiment with Bair more since at f5 it can actually contest other aerials. Nair also feels like a decent button with only 7 frames of landing lag, I don't know the exact data but even approaching Nair seems safe on shield which was not the case before. His results have been pretty good at big tournaments; Lea got 5th at Umebura SP and Boba got 17th at Don't Park on the Grass. Tier-wise I see him anywhere from high to low mid. He's definitely not as weak as many top players are making out but I don't think he's as strong as I initially thought (I honestly thought he was making moves toward top tier). He struggles in the upper echelons with such poor aerial frame data, at least in the current meta. His advantage state is probably top tier though.

Great write-ups in general by the way.

I kinda disagree? While the cast has improved frame data most of it was landing lag wise and not startup wise. I feel like Greninja, when played optimally, should be more grounded than he was in smash 4. I feel that even with the cast wide mobility boosts, Greninja still has the advantage over most of the cast and he still has overall one of the best raw mobility stats in the game. Greninja strengths IMO caters very well to the meta and plays very well into the engine.
Limited air dodges makes his incredible anti air and juggling attacks increase in potency. Moves such as shadow sneak and fully charged shuriken are very scary edge-guarding tools now that air dodging offstage is riskier.
Alongside his edgeguarding and juggling still being strong (and arguably stronger) in this game, Greninja's ledge-trapping went from passable to actually threatening. Forward throw and Forward Tilt work more like Pit(too) and are pretty good at the ledge. Even w/o those, hard reading someone's getup option with the buffed Fair is more rewarding.
Greninja's ground game in smash 4 was very limited, but Greninja's fox trot is extremely good. Dash attack and forward tilt are very good at whiff punishing, even against swordsmen. Jab, dash attack, forward tilt, down tilt, shuriken, and grounded hydro pump gives Greninja a really competent ground game.
I don't think his disadvantage has changed much. I still think it's surprisingly good for a fast faller, as shuriken, shadow sneak and hydro pump gives him good mix ups.

I think Greninja is very strong in this meta, especially when characters with iffy disadvantage states ()
are seeing a lot of play.

 

[Rizen]

How exactly does Palutena's flame work? Is it a set distance or an invisible projectile that will travel out and explode but can hit characters closer?
Palutena is definitely better but how she measures against the cast I'm not sure of.

How good are each character's Zair? For recoveries they all seem long but losing the ability to use them out of airdodge really killed their mix up potential. Tethering the ledge and swinging down has a different trajectory than going strait for it with upB so they're still useful.

YL's Zair is disappointing. It doesn't fall with him and is harder to hit grounded opponents with. The only useful applications are quickly poking BF level low platforms when you're too far to the side to do anything else and hitting aerial opponents who line up horizontally. It doesn't have any combo potential and deals a measly 4ish damage. Link losing his Zair is less of an issue in SSBU than it would have been in SSB4 due to these nerfs.

 

[Thinkaman]

How exactly does Palutena's flame work? Is it a set distance or an invisible projectile that will travel out and explode but can hit characters closer?

My understanding is that there are 3 distances, determined by duration the control stick was held prior to pressing special. (Not unlike Samus Super Missiles or such)

 

[Repli.Cant]

How exactly does Palutena's flame work? Is it a set distance or an invisible projectile that will travel out and explode but can hit characters closer?
Palutena is definitely better but how she measures against the cast I'm not sure of.

It's similar to tilt and smashing. 3 set distances, depending on the tilt you get 2 close ranged ones, smash gives you the max range one. It has a gap right in front of her where the opponent won't get hit though.

 

[Lord Dio]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

Another question related to her: how does she deal with both sides of parrying? Does she have any way to deal with her moves being parried/is she able to take advantage of parries that aren't point blank?

the game plan seems to generally be a mix of beign all around good at any situation by oppressing the opponent either with her godly (heh) erials, or by zonign them out with projectiles, and using that kit to also bait and punish in order to get combos started.
part of the problem with her ssb4 gameplan was, well, she just didn't really have the frame data, or the good moves to do it. Autoreticle in 4 sucks and isn't very good for zoning, explosive flame allows for better zoning as well as the improved autoreticle, and her general frame data has been sped up.

The general impression you get playing her, is that you can basically oppress from anywhere on stage as the situation demands it. Edgeguarding, zoning, cqc, footsies, she has tools for all of those that are decent at worst and amazing at best.

 

[KakuCP9]

Bold prediction. Luigi is going to turn out like his Smash 4 counterpart where he may/ may not be top tier, but his combos and damage output will be obnoxious enough to warrant being nerfed by patches. Also I think his new grab is like Bayo's old witch time where it is "punishable", but deceptively difficult to do so while the reward infinity outweighs the risk which why some Luigi players are prone to spamming his grab in neutral (granted he doesn't have Bayo disadvantge state, but having something akin to a reversal in down-b is a feather in his cap).

 

[J0eyboi]

Palutena people: do you mind running through a bit more in depth what has changed between SSB4 and SSBU for her? Because I remember back in SSB4 for a while it looked like she was picking up steam and that she was decent, then all of her mains hit the brick wall of "people figuring her out" and then she fell apart. Like has her actual gameplan itself changed, or is it "more of the same but with better framedata"? If its the later I would be a bit concerned about what happened in SSB4 repeating itself because well... almost every character got better and the gameplan itself back in SSB4 was part of the problem.

IMO, Palu in Smash 4 didn't really have much of a gameplan. She couldn't play rushdown well, as her frame data made her pressure pretty lackluster, she had poor burst options, and her reward was virtually nonexistant. As a zoner, she lacked good ways to force an approach, and any form of sustained keepaway would require a lot of good guesses on her part which, once again, she was not sufficiently rewarded for. No matter what she tried to do, there were massive flaws just waiting to be exploited. Her neutral basically consisted of "gee, I sure hope you don't know how to deal with this!" in most matchups, and her damage output/advantage state was nowhere near strong enough to make that strategy sustainable.

Now, the million dollar question: was this actually fixed in Ultimate, or have people just not figured her out yet? Maybe. Her damage output certainly seems better, and she definitely benefits from weaker shield thanks to the inexplicable shield damage bonuses she has on ****ing everything, but I'm not sure her neutral is any less flawed. I've yet to really play or watch much Palu in Ultimate, though, so I'll withhold judgement until I do.

 

[Repli.Cant]

Palu is just a complete character this time around. Autoreticle is a great tool with lots of range that now locks on and fires almost instantly, Explosive Flare is a great tool used for area denial, edgeguarding, and stuffing landings now that airdodges are nerfed. She has great anti-zoning thanks to Reflect-Counter. Nair is a fantastic button this time around.

I didn't play a whole lot of Palu in 4 because playing her made me sad, but overall I'd say her neutral is zoning/keepaway, bait and punish with grab and jab and keep up the zoning.

Some issues for her will be fast and small characters. That can weave around her ranged options and force her to play closer and not commit to a lot of buttons otherwise she'll get punished. Her CQC isn't all that either, as Counter can be baited and her jab isn't the fastest, being f8. Shield grabs are worse in this game too, meaning if something can't get punished by that, she'll have to nair oos or desperately attempt to find herself farther away from the opponent.

These are all my personal observations and experiences though, what I've encountered may be different than what other Palus have. If someone else has anything to add or correct me on, please do.

 

[Thinkaman]

I mean, the numerical change is pretty stark. You can compare KuroganeHammer 's numbers for Palu in Smash4 and Ultimate.

Notably, f-tilt and u-tilt do more damage and have way safer frame data. Autoreticle takes just as long, but the projectile come out meaningfully faster. (And tracks better) The net result is a pretty stark difference in spaced ground options, before even taking into account explosive flame.