Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rizen]

Here's the bracket; I got 9th out of 119 people

is good. He has one of the best neutrals in the game with projectiles he can combo off, 6 frames of landing lag on 3 aerials that combo, F8 Dtilt that also combos so he gets around 30% from Soft Nair>Dtilt>Strong Nair then can continue into further damaging chains and chase down airdodges with his F8 DA. Fire arrows are fast and launch up to put opponents in disadvantage; they can out-spam most other projectiles. Nair is one of the best moves in the game. It's F4, like Fox's, tied for the second fastest aerial, the early hit deals 12% and the late soft hit deals 6% so it's great for both starting and ending combos and it only has 6F landing lag. OoS YL can F7 SH Nair or F10 Usmash so it's dangerous to hop on his shield. His only weak point is a F12 tether grab but he gets Dthrow>N/Uair combos at low and mid %s.

YL has one of the better disadvantage states. His recovery goes a good (not great) distance and he can defend himself with angled boomerang, which combos into upB, tether the ledge to get around attacks and upB. When landing YL can Z drop or throw bombs down while drifting and Dair shifts YL's legs so it's hard to contest. Returning boomerangs control space and break chains. All Links' boomerangs are some of the best projectiles in the game.

YL's advantage state is strong. He can angle boomerang up and jump arrows to pop opponents up, throw a bomb upwards then follow the dodge with Uair. Uair doesn't have much horizontal range but beats most attacks from below and lasts a long time. Bombs are a good ledge trap option that forces an action YL can punish.

He has some trouble killing with mostly weak attacks besides Fsmash which is F15. An F15 read isn't terrible. Dsmash launches at low horizontal angles and is quick at F9. It's great vs characters with poor recovery distances. Usmash and Dair kill around 140-160+%, Fair kills around 110% at the edge of the stage. All his kill moves can be comboed into.
YL can gimp well with Nair but his projectile launch up and are only good for damage. There are better offstage gimpers.

From what I've played, here's YL's MU chart:

Slight disadvantage

Even

Slight advantage

Advantage

Strong advantage


It comes down to how well YL can zone the opponent and how hard they can punish him when they break his zoning. Ike for example has a long sword that beats YL's CQC reach and deadly combos that kill early so he's a bad MU. Even MUs might lose slightly to zoning but have good options or in Roy's case do well when they get in. Slight advantageous MUs have tools to combat YL but they're generally weaker. Ridley gets zoned hard but is deadly in advantage and has a fast neutral. Advantage MUs either don't have a good answer to YL's zoning (heavyweights) or lack the survival and punishes to justify their weaker tools (Isabelle etc). Dedede's gordos are a liability vs YL and his mobility's horrible; he'll be in disadvantage for days with no good options. His only real advantage is he lives forever.

 

[N8than]

Here's the bracket; I got 9th out of 119 people

is good. He has one of the best neutrals in the game with projectiles he can combo off, 6 frames of landing lag on 3 aerials that combo, F8 Dtilt that also combos so he gets around 30% from Soft Nair>Dtilt>Strong Nair then can continue into further damaging chains and chase down airdodges with his F8 DA. Fire arrows are fast and launch up to put opponents in disadvantage; they can out-spam most other projectiles. Nair is one of the best moves in the game. It's F4, like Fox's, tied for the second fastest aerial, the early hit deals 12% and the late soft hit deals 6% so it's great for both starting and ending combos and it only has 6F landing lag. OoS YL can F7 SH Nair or F10 Usmash so it's dangerous to hop on his shield. His only weak point is a F12 tether grab but he gets Dthrow>N/Uair combos at low and mid %s.

YL has one of the better disadvantage states. His recovery goes a good (not great) distance and he can defend himself with angled boomerang, which combos into upB, tether the ledge to get around attacks and upB. When landing YL can Z drop or throw bombs down while drifting and Dair shifts YL's legs so it's hard to contest. Returning boomerangs control space and break chains. All Links' boomerangs are some of the best projectiles in the game.

YL's advantage state is strong. He can angle boomerang up and jump arrows to pop opponents up, throw a bomb upwards then follow the dodge with Uair. Uair doesn't have much horizontal range but beats most attacks from below and lasts a long time. Bombs are a good ledge trap option that forces an action YL can punish.

He has some trouble killing with mostly weak attacks besides Fsmash which is F15. An F15 read isn't terrible. Dsmash launches at low horizontal angles and is quick at F9. It's great vs characters with poor recovery distances. Usmash and Dair kill around 140-160+%, Fair kills around 110% at the edge of the stage. All his kill moves can be comboed into.
YL can gimp well with Nair but his projectile launch up and are only good for damage. There are better offstage gimpers.

From what I've played, here's YL's MU chart:

Slight disadvantage

Even

Slight advantage

Advantage

Strong advantage


It comes down to how well YL can zone the opponent and how hard they can punish him when they break his zoning. Ike for example has a long sword that beats YL's CQC reach and deadly combos that kill early so he's a bad MU. Even MUs might lose slightly to zoning but have good options or in Roy's case do well when they get in. Slight advantageous MUs have tools to combat YL but they're generally weaker. Ridley gets zoned hard but is deadly in advantage and has a fast neutral. Advantage MUs either don't have a good answer to YL's zoning (heavyweights) or lack the survival and punishes to justify their weaker tools (Isabelle etc). Dedede's gordos are a liability vs YL and his mobility's horrible; he'll be in disadvantage for days with no good options. His only real advantage is he lives forever.

Why does Young Link lose to Ness? I also think he loses the matchup, but I just want to hear your reasoning, because I got blasted on twitter for saying the same thing.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I’m kind of discouraged maining Diddy in this game... am thinking of playing more Ike and Lucina now honestly cause am doing way better with them.

 

[Rizen]

Why does Young Link lose to Ness? I also think he loses the matchup, but I just want to hear your reasoning, because I got blasted on twitter for saying the same thing.

The main reason is that Ness' kill game is much stronger. Bthrow's strong and he has several other good KO moves. Ness is small, quick and has good disjoint on moves like Fair so he's hard for YL to zone. Ness' OoS game is pretty good with SH Nair and grab so YL can't be reckless with landing aerials. PK thunder is great for harassing and PKT2 kills very early.

YL does zone better and despite being fire, arrows can't be magneted. It's not a terrible MU; YL can also harass with projectiles and combo hard. Boomerang can safely stop PKT recoveries and limit PKT2's distance. Arrows and bombs can stop Ness's PKT advantage.

Although YL does slightly better in neutral, Ness just has to land one grab to kill early. Ness isn't burdened by a tether grab like YL either. It's an endurance match that Ness wins. Both characters have strong points but Ness will live to at least 130% and can potentially kill at 80%ish with PKT2.

 

[TimG57867]

A lot of these comments are tough to read.


First and foremost, I literally see no reason to compare Kirby to . That comparison is about as useful as comparing Lucas to Ness. They are both light and har multiple jumps. That’s....basically all they have in common. The 2 couldn’t play more differently from each other. Yes Jigglypuff has better horizontal recovery, quicker aerials overall, and a way better air speed, but this comes at the cost having literally no ground speed, literally no weight at all, no vertical recovery move to get herself up if her jumps run out, a non existent grab game, a pretty bad ground game in general, and overall worse range. You’d be shocked by the reach a lot of Kirby’s ground moves can have thanks to his feet. F Tilt in particular almost matches the length of many sword attacks and does a lovely job of clanking them and helping Kirby poke his way in. And Up Tilt when pivoted our of Dash catches lots of short hops. And all his Tilts are super spammable and top tier in startup. This helped further by Kirby having passable ground speed and an actual Throw game to capitalize on shielding. These are qualities Jigglypuff doesn’t have at all. Because of her bad run speed and lack of any Throw conversions or a practical kill Throw, shielding can be annoying for her, and since her Tilts are mediocre and her run speed is bottom tier, she has to rely on aerials to approach and open up the opponent which can be an utter liability when trying to deal with any character with far greater range in the aerials or better all round air game. Ground moves can clank. Aerials cannot and a Jigglypuff trading is a losing Jigglypuff particularly with that weight. And since she’s in the air all the time and has bad Tilts she can’t abuse her crouch nearly as well Kirby can who I might add has a D Tilt safe from all the game’s shield grabs at -9.

Make no mistake Puff has a number of advantages over Kirby like being able to edgeguard more comfortably and being able to weave around projectiles better (many of which Kirby can stuff with N-Air or dodge with crouch I might add) but the 2 play in completely different ways. Puff weaves in and out to find chances to knock foes offstage or find a rest confirm while Kirby plays a grounded bait and punish style that uses his small size and speedy Tilts to punish whiffs well and set up combos. The 2 are not similar at all.

Moving on, we have the matter of kill setups. While it would be great if Kirby could kill more easily, it’s not like he’s devoid of setups as is. And certainly not to the point where I say Puff has him notably beat. His F-Air 1 is -5 on shield with 7 frames of landing lag which makes it a super safe poke to throw out in neutral. And if ya hit the sky’s the limit with what ya can get off it. F Smash is the bonafide finisher off it and from midstage will dispatch of most of the cast from midstage below 90 if not staled. Dash Up Smash also works off it when you’re on the wrong side. And you also have RAR B-Air and Dash Attack as options that aren’t as powerful but easier to land. Then you have Autocancel D-Air which confirms D Smash and often Up Smash as well. And this can be gotten off a Weak Up Tilt which is perfectly feasible to land, especially with how good Spot dodge is and dash Tilts existing. And you can get that Up Tilt in turn off a F-Air 1! (I hope you all are starting to see his F-Air is kinda huge for him now). Beyond that you also have cute tricks like soft N-Air to RAR B-Air or D Tilt (no trip) at high percent to RAR B-Air but these are trickier. And in a pinch you have D-Air and F-Air to get you kills with F Tilt on ledge or Grab into Up Throw. Up Throw could be stronger but it’s servicable for those annoying stocks. And I consider most of these much safer to use than most Rest Confirms provided you didn’t get a Sing read first. Sure Rest will kill a bit earlier than a lot of these but with its lag and Puff’s weight, a miss will almost always be your stock.

And then there’s the matter of damage racking. I read Kirby struggles to rack up damage. This is true...partly. Namely, Kirby struggles to get. A big conversion when the foe is at that super low 0-20% zone because Up Tilt’s loser frame advantage means Kirby can’t open a big conversion off it consistently at 0 anymore and it was by far his safest way to do so. But even without that, N-Air to Grab, B-Air, Grab, Up Air, and D-Air all can lead to respectable 30-42% conversions with the right hit and positioning (heck grab in particular could nab you tremendous damage depending on foe with the right positioning l). His low percent combo game is a good bit messier now with Up Tilt having poor hit advantage at low percent and F Throw having that platform issue but it’s still workable if look for the right hits.

But once you get to mid percent it’s a whole another story. In the 30-70% window, the potential for massive damage is way higher. For one thing, F Tilt forces tech situations at these percents and a tech chase or Jab can easily net you 40+. Beyond that Up Tilt finally gets good advantage and depending on the percent can confirm into D-Air. The weak hit can be particularly nasty with this. Falling Up Air does a similar thing with even more advantage and you can possibly get a mini vortex going with Up Air D-Air to Up Tilt AC D-Air that ends in something juicy like D Smash for 50+ percent. Kirby’s mid percent game offers a lot of potential and is Kirbies are only beginning to crack into to it.

Now I won’t lie and say Kirby ain’t underpowered. He certainly is and will need buffs to make his advantage state more cohesive and neutral more feasible against foes with powerful zoning tools and air games. There’s many ways you could make him better. But the list of absolute essential fixes is much smaller than you’d think. Honestly if they just did these 4 things:

1. Fix Inhale, is central quirk (Make Inhaling Projectiles less Punishable and Fix Copy Loss)
2. Decreased D-Air’s landing lag by 4+ frames to bolster its award (this ensures at least +6 on hit for everyone now that the landing hit doesn’t scale with rage anymore)
3. Cut Up Tilt’s lay by a 3-4 frames (this would make Up Tilt pivoting viable again and massively improve Kirby’s damage racking)
4. Cut F Throw’s lag by like 5 frames (this would let Kirby dodge the platforms as needed and greatly enhance its follow up potential)

You’d already have a fully functional character on your hands who could consistently rack up massive damage in a wide variety of ways and have a unique tool to handle projectiles better or even turn the tables on his opponents completely. His Copy abiltiies due incredible things as is but the loss makes them inconsistent to rely on. Give him these combo tuneups and make Inhale actually work the way it should and you have a tiny bait and punish character that may struggle to get in but appropriately rewards the player for doing so.

Anything they do on top of this would be icing on the cake really and help to push him from “ok” to great. And it’s not like he’s fully unsalvageable as is. Reminder that one of his players got Top 96 at a 1200+ man tourney and nearly upset Void of all people. I’d love to see the Solo Puff, K Rool, or Sheik etc. that has done that. Speaking of Puff didn’t Hungrybox demote her to a secondary after getting 193rd at the same tourney?

 

[Game7a1]

Speaking of Puff didn’t Hungrybox demote her to a secondary after getting 193rd at the same tourney?

Pet peeve of mine: I wish people stopped only looking at HBox's results as the end-all for Puff results when players like Speclar, HLB, and Arika have done work with the character. Granted, none of them attended a tournament of Frostbite's magnitude, but that's not to say she's only carried by one player.

I'd add more onto the Kirby-Puff comparison, but I have to gather my thoughts first on what to write.

 

[N8than]

The main reason is that Ness' kill game is much stronger. Bthrow's strong and he has several other good KO moves. Ness is small, quick and has good disjoint on moves like Fair so he's hard for YL to zone. Ness' OoS game is pretty good with SH Nair and grab so YL can't be reckless with landing aerials. PK thunder is great for harassing and PKT2 kills very early.

YL does zone better and despite being fire, arrows can't be magneted. It's not a terrible MU; YL can also harass with projectiles and combo hard. Boomerang can safely stop PKT recoveries and limit PKT2's distance. Arrows and bombs can stop Ness's PKT advantage.

Although YL does slightly better in neutral, Ness just has to land one grab to kill early. Ness isn't burdened by a tether grab like YL either. It's an endurance match that Ness wins. Both characters have strong points but Ness will live to at least 130% and can potentially kill at 80%ish with PKT2.

I also found that Ness can also use the hitbox of PSI Magnet to cancel the boomerang's movement. Totally agree with the points you brought up though.

 

[TimG57867]

Pet peeve of mine: I wish people stopped only looking at HBox's results as the end-all for Puff results when players like Speclar, HLB, and Arika have done work with the character. Granted, none of them attended a tournament of Frostbite's magnitude, but that's not to say she's only carried by one player.

I'd add more onto the Kirby-Puff comparison, but I have to gather my thoughts first on what to write.

Oh I know Puff has more than HBox and that she doesn’t ride or die on him. I wasn’t trying to give that idea. Sorry if ya got the impression. But still losing him doesn’t do her result potential any favors. Not that it’s something other Puffs couldn’t make up for over time but still.

But really my peeve is when people act like Puff and Kirby are miles apart when both have their achievements. And I am even more peeved when people keep comparing 2 characters with drastically different playstyles all over superficial similarities.

 

[bc1910]

Friendly reminder that VoiD SD’d like 3 times during the set with Komota so the near-upset doesn’t say much.

Good post nonetheless and I agree that the Kirby and Jiggs comparisons are laughable. Kirby’s one of the weaker characters but his CQC is suitably effective, and he can be tricky to fight.

I feel like there was a misunderstanding here, then. No worries.

I meant that I believe that the "difficulty factor" keeping certain characters from ever having tons of results is being overstated, if they have these results three months into the game. To me, it's pretty easy to believe that we will see even more results from difficult characters as time goes on.

Greninja is still difficult, but if players are having results 3 months into the game, it's pretty reasonable to assume that the difficulty isn't going to keep players from getting results. This is especially true for pros with years and years of experience with fundamentals, speeding up their transition to a new character if they chose to main swap to a difficult one.

I get the “difficulty factor” thing (and I agree with you) but the whole 3 months in thing just doesn’t make sense to me. We’re still talking about players who dedicated years to the character, who really isn’t that different between games, and adapted to the changes in Ultimate’s engine the same way many others did. Greninja’s current placements really don’t say anything about the ability of new players to place with him, the whole difficulty argument is undermined by the S4 investment from the players.

Again I’m not saying Greninja is actually that hard, he’s certainly easier in Ultimate, I just don’t think his early results from seasoned pros are what should be used to argue that.

 

[Foie]

Oh I know Puff has more than HBox and that she doesn’t ride or die on him. I wasn’t trying to give that idea. Sorry if ya got the impression. But still losing him doesn’t do her result potential any favors. Not that it’s something other Puffs couldn’t make up for over time but still.

But really my peeve is when people act like Puff and Kirby are miles apart when both have their achievements. And I am even more peeved when people keep comparing 2 characters with drastically different playstyles all over superficial similarities.

Do people act like they're miles apart? I haven't really seen it... Seems like most people put them both in low tier, or mid-low at best. I do agree that direct comparisons are rather silly.

 

[The_Bookworm]

ZeRo's mid tier list is here. As expected, is it filled to the brim of questionable character placements and interesting logic. Have fun!

 

[Planty]

In Zero's tier list he talks about how Ultimate has a rushdown meta and seems to base his opinions around that. I can't see how that's true when you have totally viable characters like Wolf, Ike, Lucina, Olimar, Snake, and more.

Here's the bracket; I got 9th out of 119 people

is good. He has one of the best neutrals in the game with projectiles he can combo off, 6 frames of landing lag on 3 aerials that combo, F8 Dtilt that also combos so he gets around 30% from Soft Nair>Dtilt>Strong Nair then can continue into further damaging chains and chase down airdodges with his F8 DA. Fire arrows are fast and launch up to put opponents in disadvantage; they can out-spam most other projectiles. Nair is one of the best moves in the game. It's F4, like Fox's, tied for the second fastest aerial, the early hit deals 12% and the late soft hit deals 6% so it's great for both starting and ending combos and it only has 6F landing lag. OoS YL can F7 SH Nair or F10 Usmash so it's dangerous to hop on his shield. His only weak point is a F12 tether grab but he gets Dthrow>N/Uair combos at low and mid %s.

YL has one of the better disadvantage states. His recovery goes a good (not great) distance and he can defend himself with angled boomerang, which combos into upB, tether the ledge to get around attacks and upB. When landing YL can Z drop or throw bombs down while drifting and Dair shifts YL's legs so it's hard to contest. Returning boomerangs control space and break chains. All Links' boomerangs are some of the best projectiles in the game.

YL's advantage state is strong. He can angle boomerang up and jump arrows to pop opponents up, throw a bomb upwards then follow the dodge with Uair. Uair doesn't have much horizontal range but beats most attacks from below and lasts a long time. Bombs are a good ledge trap option that forces an action YL can punish.

He has some trouble killing with mostly weak attacks besides Fsmash which is F15. An F15 read isn't terrible. Dsmash launches at low horizontal angles and is quick at F9. It's great vs characters with poor recovery distances. Usmash and Dair kill around 140-160+%, Fair kills around 110% at the edge of the stage. All his kill moves can be comboed into.
YL can gimp well with Nair but his projectile launch up and are only good for damage. There are better offstage gimpers.

From what I've played, here's YL's MU chart:

Slight disadvantage

Even

Slight advantage

Advantage

Strong advantage


It comes down to how well YL can zone the opponent and how hard they can punish him when they break his zoning. Ike for example has a long sword that beats YL's CQC reach and deadly combos that kill early so he's a bad MU. Even MUs might lose slightly to zoning but have good options or in Roy's case do well when they get in. Slight advantageous MUs have tools to combat YL but they're generally weaker. Ridley gets zoned hard but is deadly in advantage and has a fast neutral. Advantage MUs either don't have a good answer to YL's zoning (heavyweights) or lack the survival and punishes to justify their weaker tools (Isabelle etc). Dedede's gordos are a liability vs YL and his mobility's horrible; he'll be in disadvantage for days with no good options. His only real advantage is he lives forever.

How do you think YL does against Rosalina?

 

[Rizen]

How do you think YL does against Rosalina?

TBH I've only played one game vs Rosa, didn't know what I was doing and got gimped early. That's the thing about YL, you need to get a feel for the spacing in MUs. I don't really have enough experience to say how that goes. :/

 

[G. Stache]

I’m kind of discouraged maining Diddy in this game... am thinking of playing more Ike and Lucina now honestly cause am doing way better with them.

Never feel as if you need to be chained down to a certain character, my man. Personally, I switched from Luigi to Bowser pretty early on because I felt that if I were to use Luigi in this game, I’d just be constantly frustrated by what the character had lost in his transition to ultimate. I wouldn’t be motivated to play a game where I was more frustrated with my character than happy to play such an incredible game. This is coming from someone who absolutely loves Luigi as a character in every video game he’s in. He is still, in fact, possibly my favorite video game character of all time. That being said, that sentimental value to my character didn’t stop me from changing my main. And that decision made me MUCH happier in the long run. Real talk: when you’re constantly frustrated with the character you chose to use, then how on Earth are you gonna find consistent enjoyment in playing this game at a competitive standard? Don’t let emotional attachments to certain characters get in your way of being happy while playing this game, man. Find another character that really suits your play style and doesn’t frustrate you on a daily basis. When you find that sort of character that you feel is both good and just sorta “clicks” with you, the game just gets so much better. It doesn’t even need to be a top tier. Just someone who can give you a bit of fresh air as you move on from maining Diddy. It’s a brand new game, so never be afraid to change with the game. I’m not saying to stop playing Diddy altogether (although that’s an option to consider if you think it best). But be willing to find a character that you can win with. Using a character that clicks with you can be a lot of fun. However; WINNING with a character that you like is ALWAYS fun. I wish you the absolute best in finding a character in this game, dude

 

[J0eyboi]

I didn't mean to post this yet whoops

 

[N8than]

ZeRo's mid tier list is here. As expected, is it filled to the brim of questionable character placements and interesting logic. Have fun!

As long as he puts Ness in high tier you won't hear me complaining (which is confirmed through process of elimination). Regardless, I agree with most of the opinions he presents in the video, and I really don't think he should be the object of ridicule when Leffen's most recent ultimate tier list exists.

 

[blackghost]

.

As .
On another topic, what's the general consensus on the Smash4 DLC gang in Ultimate?, who would you say is currently the best and the worst?

smash 4 dlc
1. roy dont think i need to explain this.
2. cloud still viable but no reason to play him with roy always having LCS
LARGE GAP
2. mewtwo ok but different doesnt have the issues the bottom 3 have

3. ryu/ken still can be scary just the fact their combos arent reliable hurts. still have great frame data and shoyuken still hurts a lot and focus is great in some MUs. the turn around mechanic seems to be hurting the characters. i think ken is betetr due to his upair being better but ken's focus can have some weird misses on the hitbox.

4. corrin i dont know enough to place why but the character has vanished and ive seen little from her since i know she was nerfed but i do not know to what extent.

5. bayonetta. unlike corrin, i do know the extent of her nerfs and its brutal. inconsistent combos, one functioning kill option, most of her combo gma eis fake and will not work on players that di at even a basic level, her normals are slow, her normals dont combo as they should like dtilt, uptilt, and ftilt. landing lag is too severe often leading to getting punished for landing a combo, and her neutral is still bayo neutral. witch time is awful unless you are fighting ROB. witch time due to recovery frames and bayo having no invincibility on success is not safe on a landed witch time. she honestly feels like she was nuked not just nerfed every tool in her kit is worse by a large margin.

 

[NotLiquid]

Armada's Inkling play against ZD during the Smash Summit crew battle is exactly what I can't wait to see more of with this character. People need to stop being afraid of going in deep with the Squids. You have some of the best aerials in the game and arguably one of the best recoveries in the game. Keep your opponent off stage.

Also some immaculate Splat Bomb sniping.

 

[Game7a1]

Do people act like they're miles apart? I haven't really seen it... Seems like most people put them both in low tier, or mid-low at best. I do agree that direct comparisons are rather silly.

So, looking at OrionStats, Puff has 11 points to Kirby's 3 points. Neither are stellar, but Puff has some lead over Kirby. But yeah, there's no reason to conclude either has vastly better results than the other, and while I only cited one source, I imagine other tournament trackers would be about the same.

On another note, the only real thing I can add onto the Puff-Kirby comparison is that they both like to bait-and-punish. But they both go about very differently as Tim put it. But there are other bait-and-punish characters in the game, and if we were to do a comparison, it wouldn't be how similar the characters are but how effective each characters' general style is.

 

[ASAP_Smash]

Honestly, I feel bad for Luigi mains. They really go it hard this game,

 

[Rizen]

People need to stop being afraid of going in deep with the Squids. You have some of the best aerials in the game and arguably one of the best recoveries in the game. Keep your opponent off stage.

I've said this before, players need to jump offstage and go deep for edge guards. It's character dependent and the opponent must be launched far enough offstage of course. When near the ledge recovering characters have much better options to not get gimped: airdodge, upB, footstool, tech the stage and possibly aerials. Run off Nair to intercept is risky. But if the opponent's farther away they can't dodge or upB. It's safer to go deep for edge guards.

 

[Lavani]

It'd stuck out to me as odd before that Corrin fsmash wasn't safe on shield when the animation wasn't changed from 4. Apparently there's a difference in mechanics in Ultimate's engine:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

The sorts of moves this would apply to are things like Corrin fsmash/sideB and Bayo smashes, and probably very little else (not entirely sure how things like Olimar's aerials or Belmont whips work in this game in that regard, they're the only other potential suspects that come to mind). But basically all those sorts of moves have something like 5 less frames of shield safety than you would expect as a result of this.

EDIT: reply to the tweet also mentions this applying to Ness yoyo, Wario bike while riding, and Inkling roller.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

It'd stuck out to me as odd before that Corrin fsmash wasn't safe on shield when the animation wasn't changed from 4. Apparently there's a difference in mechanics in Ultimate's engine:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

The sorts of moves this would apply to are things like Corrin fsmash/sideB and Bayo smashes, and probably very little else (not entirely sure how things like Olimar's aerials or Belmont whips work in this game in that regard, they're the only other potential suspects that come to mind). But basically all those sorts of moves have something like 5 less frames of shield safety than you would expect as a result of this.

EDIT: reply to the tweet also mentions this applying to Ness yoyo, Wario bike while riding, and Inkling roller.

Man, that sucks! I hope they fix this in 3.0. That said, I can hear the workers in the salt mines preparing for the roller people..

I found this on greninja discord, didn’t realize his standing hurt box was so low:

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/jz6O1Gs

 

[N8than]

A player named "Supahsemmie" won Elysium:Yggdrasil (a 220 entrant tournament) a few hours ago. https://smash.gg/tournament/elysium-yggdrasil/events/ultimate-singles/brackets/496389/860152

 

[bc1910]

Greninja’s hurtbox is good due to his low profile in a lot of animations including standing, dashing and most of his attacks on the ground (particularly dash attack and Dtilt). He’s actually pretty tall though and his hurtbox extends a lot when jumping and getting hit. Annoyingly he has a hurtbox on the base of his tongue which makes his crouch pretty useless. It’s no Mewtwo tailbox though.

A lot of people seem to be waking up to how good YL is. He has a lot of what you want in a strong character. His only real weaknesses seem to be slow-ish frame data, light weight + meh recovery (it’s not bad but not top tier) and requiring thought and planning to get kills. He’s certainly able to get the kill, he just doesn’t have easy buttons to press or good kill throws.

Incidentally it seems to me like Mii Sword is pretty good for similar reasons. They have similar zoning styles with Young Link having more versatility. YL also beats him out in recovery, frame data and kill confirms while Mii Sword has more raw kill power and a better grab game (or better throws at least). I think YL is better overall but their strengths are comparable.

EDIT: Rizen Do you have any thoughts on how Young Link does against Snake, Ike and Mega Man? These seem like top of high/bottom of top tier characters who are around his power level right now.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Greninja’s hurtbox is good due to his low profile in a lot of animations including standing, dashing and most of his attacks on the ground (particularly dash attack and Dtilt). He’s actually pretty tall though and his hurtbox extends a lot when jumping and getting hit. Annoyingly he has a hurtbox on the base of his tongue which makes his crouch pretty useless. It’s no Mewtwo tailbox though.

A lot of people seem to be waking up to how good YL is. He has a lot of what you want in a strong character. His only real weaknesses seem to be slow-ish frame data, light weight + meh recovery (it’s not bad but not top tier) and requiring thought and planning to get kills. He’s certainly able to get the kill, he just doesn’t have easy buttons to press or good kill throws.

Incidentally it seems to me like Mii Sword is pretty good for similar reasons. They have similar zoning styles with Young Link having more versatility. YL also beats him out in recovery, frame data and kill confirms while Mii Sword has more raw kill power and a better grab game (or better throws at least). I think YL is better overall but their strengths are comparable.

I'm really surprised more people don't play ylink I'm not sure if it's because they think he's going to get nerfed but the character is legit stupid. If any of these top players that are having character crisis decides to play him we'll start to see his potential. But is pretty awesome to see him win something maybe this will start to see him get some exposure. But ylink has the frame data and the mobility he just needs a pilot. Seems like we're getting to the point where some of the characters who needed more work are starting to get results first it was greninja now it's ylink. Nothing has really changed but it does reaffirm the characters potential. Maybe shulk will have his coming out party soon.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

I'm really surprised more people don't play ylink I'm not sure if it's because they think he's going to get nerfed but the character is legit stupid. If any of these top players that are having character crisis decides to play him we'll start to see his potential. But is pretty awesome to see him win something maybe this will start to see him get some exposure. But ylink has the frame data and the mobility he just needs a pilot. Seems like we're getting to the point where some of the characters who needed more work are starting to get results first it was greninja now it's ylink. Nothing has really changed but it does reaffirm the characters potential. Maybe shulk will have his coming out party soon.

Top players will ignore the character until he shows in big tournament on stream, like wolf, greninja and olimar and saying that they know that he was good all this time.

 

[N8than]

Greninja’s hurtbox is good due to his low profile in a lot of animations including standing, dashing and most of his attacks on the ground (particularly dash attack and Dtilt). He’s actually pretty tall though and his hurtbox extends a lot when jumping and getting hit. Annoyingly he has a hurtbox on the base of his tongue which makes his crouch pretty useless. It’s no Mewtwo tailbox though.

A lot of people seem to be waking up to how good YL is. He has a lot of what you want in a strong character. His only real weaknesses seem to be slow-ish frame data, light weight + meh recovery (it’s not bad but not top tier) and requiring thought and planning to get kills. He’s certainly able to get the kill, he just doesn’t have easy buttons to press or good kill throws.

Incidentally it seems to me like Mii Sword is pretty good for similar reasons. They have similar zoning styles with Young Link having more versatility. YL also beats him out in recovery, frame data and kill confirms while Mii Sword has more raw kill power and a better grab game (or better throws at least). I think YL is better overall but their strengths are comparable.

EDIT: Rizen Do you have any thoughts on how Young Link does against Snake, Ike and Mega Man? These seem like top of high/bottom of top tier characters who are around his power level right now.

Not trying to call you out, but no one said this when I posted about Ness winning Phantom 2019 (a 231 entrant tournament) in Australia last week. Regardless, I agree that Young Link is currently pretty underrated.

 

[Rizen]

YL's more overshadowed. He's gotten placings on this level before every so often. Although he is good it's just easier to win with Wolf but to be fair, who doesn't Wolf overshadow, lol? Like I said early on: YL has a lot of room to grow. As combos get more efficient and spacing gets tighter YL's weaknesses seem less prevalent. Pokemon Trainer's popularity helps him too as YL has a solid advantage in that MU.
That said, he's not a good secondary or CP character since he's highly technical and requires MU knowledge. I lost to Ganons at first until I learned the MU. YL's not really Flavor of the Month material.

Speaking of which, what happened to everyone picking up Wario? Did they forget him when Greninja popped up?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is an update on the main singles bracket of pools:

Pools A1
Round 1
VoiD 3-0 Armada
Samsora 3-0 Mew2King
Dabuz 3-0 ZD
Cosmos 3-0 Leffen


Round 2
Samsora 3-1 Dabuz
Cosmos 3-2 VoiD
Mew2King 3-1 ZD
Leffen 3-2 Armada


Round 3
Samsora 3-0 Cosmos
Armada 3-1 ZD
VoiD 3-0 Mew2King
Dabuz 3-0 Leffen


Pools B1
Round 1
MkLeo 3-0 Mang0
zackray 3-0 Plup
Light 3-1 ZeRo
Nairo 3-0 Glutonny


Round 2
zackray 3-1 Light
Nairo 3-1 MkLeo
ZeRo 3-1 Plup
Glutonny 3-0 Mang0


Round 3
zackray 3-2 Nairo
Plup 3-0 Mang0
MkLeo 3-2 ZeRo
Glutonny 3-0 Light


Mang0 got washed up pretty quickly. Also, Leffen confuses me: he said that he is going Roy for now on, but he played quite a few matches with PT. The commentators noted that themselves. His mentality honestly confuses me sometimes. lol

 

[Corra]

When did we start talking about Ness again? Please no more Ness. This is a bit of a random and weird comparison, maybe I'm missing the context

PT is good but hard carried by Ivysaur. To the point where some players switch to Charizard at high percent just to get death over with so they don't have to waste their invincibility switching Pokemon. PT is hurt due Charizard's mere existence.

Nah PT wants to use Squirtle on point most of the time; Ivysaur is like his stand. Swap to Ivy for advantaged state, Zard at least helps extend recovery and leads/clean stocks. Zard is very potent out of shield, an area where the other two are a little lacking. Flamethrower is free damage, especially at ledge. Everyone knows what Ivy can do, she's a beast when she lands her good starters, and she can shred a bunch of mid tiers for free with Razor Leaf alone lol. But Squirtle can tango with high and top tiers much better. You've probably heard of people calling him a "frame data gremlin".

If nothing else, he's small, his frame data claps, and water gun is secretly busted as heck. When I think about playing against PT as pretty much all the characters I'm familiar with, I'm far more comfortable playing neutral when when the turtle is away. Don't sleep. Lots of people are playing this character wrong because they think Ivysaur is the character.

 

[Centicerise]

Here is an update on the main singles bracket of pools:

Pools A1
Round 1
VoiD 3-0 Armada
Samsora 3-0 Mew2King
Dabuz 3-0 ZD
Cosmos 3-0 Leffen


Round 2
Samsora 3-1 Dabuz
Cosmos 3-2 VoiD
Mew2King 3-1 ZD
Leffen 3-2 Armada


Round 3
Samsora 3-0 Cosmos
Armada 3-1 ZD
VoiD 3-0 Mew2King
Dabuz 3-0 Leffen


Pools B1
Round 1
MkLeo 3-0 Mang0
zackray 3-0 Plup
Light 3-1 ZeRo
Nairo 3-0 Glutonny


Round 2
zackray 3-1 Light
Nairo 3-1 MkLeo
ZeRo 3-1 Plup
Glutonny 3-0 Mang0


Round 3
zackray 3-2 Nairo
Plup 3-0 Mang0
MkLeo 3-2 ZeRo
Glutonny 3-0 Light


Mang0 got washed up pretty quickly. Also, Leffen confuses me: he said that he is going Roy for now on, but he played quite a few matches with PT. The commentators noted that themselves. His mentality honestly confuses me sometimes. lol

He did state that it was because he didn't like the Roy/Inkling MU as much as the PT/Inkling MU. That being said, I don't think the PT/Inkling matchup looks too hot either. Inkling has the frame data to stand toe to toe with Squirtle's, but also has more range than Squirtle's stubby little limbs. Her speed and mobility lets her break into Ivy's zoning easily, and charizard basically spends 95% of the time in disadvantage against her. Inkling's low profile while dashing also makes SH razor leaf very ineffective. Grounded razor leafs are hardly the answer, since Inkling has the mobility specs to easily jump in. We saw Cosmos playing a very grounded inkling to exploit this which worked extremely well compared to Armada, who took to the air much more often.

Overall, we saw Ivysaur's awful disadvantage being exploited heavily in those sets. Ivy's landing options are abysmal, and their oos options are just as bad. Leffen tried to use bullet seed oos once, only to be punished with a forward smash after cosmos got hit and just fell out of it. Ivy's ledge options also don't look too hot. Leff tried to go for some drop down vine whip sharking on the ledge, but though it might've worked before, seems people have wizened up and are punishing it quite hard.

I think he said it best when he called down b ivy's best disadvantage option, which switches you to charizard... a character with a disadvantage state that is hardly better.

 

[Sean²]

who doesn't Wolf overshadow, lol?

I'm not trying to take the spotlight off Young Link (but I mean is the spotlight still even on him? still a heavy sleeper character imo), but I have a lot of opinions on this (slightly facetious?) statement.

A lot of people just kind of see it as me being a bad player, or downplaying my own character. Which can be super annoying. But long run potential, barring major gameplay changes in patches, I think there are 5-6 or so characters that will begin outshining him as the meta develops more and people get better at the other highly ranked characters. Those characters are Pikachu, Olimar, Peach, Greninja, and Inkling. I know Pichu is a hard counter for Wolf, but I kind of rank him similarly to Wolf. Easy to play, crazy damage, annoying af projectile, great combo ability...but both are super squishy in high level play and can just die seemingly out of nowhere sometimes. For Wolf, it's a matter of being offstage at the wrong time, for Pichu it's generally stray hits coming through when he's at like 70%. I also used to rank Fox here - as he is a bit more well rounded - but seeing how his recovery actually seems easier to edgeguard than Wolf's, it's hard to say. I just leave him out for now.

Pikachu is also a hard counter for Wolf, but is still just kind of being outshined by Pichu right now. Truthfully, considering I'm occasionally getting lightning looped online now, I think Pichu is going to get nerfed. Whether that's just something like making his back air's hits connect more consistently to stop the drag down shenanigans, I don't really know. But most people are still in the mindset of "why play Pika when you can play Pichu?", so we'll see how that goes. Barring patch changes though, see my previous paragraph for thoughts on that. Pikachu is a more well-rounded version of Pichu. Pikachu is still being carried by ESAM, but I'm thinking more people will start picking him up - especially current Pichu mains.

Olimar is Olimar. Hard to comment on this character, besides he just makes everyone's lives terrible if the player is really good. I dread what will happen if he gets his smashes fixed.

Peach is a technical character that I think could end up with a better matchup spread when more people learn to play her optimally. As I've already discussed though, the general population doesn't want to play heavily technical characters right now.

Greninja is a tough call, considering people are mostly just now noticing him. But I think he will fall similarly to Peach. Technical character that will have a better matchup spread as the meta develops.

Inkling...I kind of agree with Leffen on this character. I think the hit and run, nickel and diming playstyle are the main reason why people are starting to downplay this character. I still think they are very much top tier, but may need a bit more development. I think they have the potential of being the campiest top tier next to Olimar (who is arguably a better rushdown character than he is a campy character), maybe rivaling S4 Sonic, but with a ridiculous damage multiplier tool.

 

[PK Bash]

A character being technical doesn't automatically make them hard to win with... Peach might need all these nutty demanding strings to compete at top level, but at mid and probably even high level, you can play a very basic Peach and still win if your fundamentals are good enough because the character hits a basic baseline of what makes a good character, a good character.

I use Peach as the example, but this also applies to Shulk, Greninja, Olimar, Pichu and Young Link. You don't need to know float cancel bairs or art/pikmin management or lightning loops to succeed with these characters at the levels of play most of us are playing at, because they are just good enough anyway. Their technical threshold is not what makes them good. It's their tools at a fundamental level that makes them good. Some of you may remember Borp, a top Melee player that didn't know how to wavedash or anything even vaguely technical yet still beat very strong players regularly. Melee Sheik (and Borp) was just that good at a basic level. Same applies here.

If you need an example of a technically demanding character that is not fundamentally good, look no further than the Ice Climbers. ICs will rely completely on their ability to desync combo to 80% because they have literally nothing else. Their neutral is weak, with little potential to create situations to guarantee a grab due to their poor reach, speed and option coverage. Their disadvantage is devastatingly terrible. Their advantage is nothing without Nana and is nothing to write home about with a strong (and demanding) desync combo. They are, without a doubt, one of the worst characters in the game despite technical "potential" and they will need a miracle patch (or an infinite) to ever be relevant.

But the characters I listed above don't have these problems. They have good neutral tools to create openings. Consistent strong BnBs and safe, effective edgeguards. Generally decent disadvantage states with good hitboxes, good airspeed, etc to use. These are characters with a lot of sound fundamental options to rely on.

Young Link may have a lot of setups that top players need to know, but at my pretty low level I seem to get away with throwing bombs at shields and covering the oos options with fair, dair or an arrow to take stocks and win in tournament settings. I feel like the character is not that hard to play successfully if you're not trying to win a 230-man tournament. He's just a good character.

Same with a lot of these technical characters that do well. Top players aren't drawn to them for their skill ceiling. They're drawn to them because the character is just fundamentally good anyway.

Long may Borp's legacy live.

 

[bc1910]

Not trying to call you out, but no one said this when I posted about Ness winning Phantom 2019 (a 231 entrant tournament) in Australia last week. Regardless, I agree that Young Link is currently pretty underrated.

I wasn’t going to respond to this (it’s obvious that no-one said anything because we’re sick to death of Ness chat) but thought it worth pointing out that we’re only sick of Ness chat due indignant posts like these. Usually when you guys bring him up you’re either trying to force the issue of how good you think he is or complaining because someone forgot to mention him when talking about high tiers or results (case in point). I don’t feel there’s anything interesting to discuss any more if you’re sticking to that attitude.

I'm not trying to take the spotlight off Young Link (but I mean is the spotlight still even on him? still a heavy sleeper character imo), but I have a lot of opinions on this (slightly facetious?) statement.

A lot of people just kind of see it as me being a bad player, or downplaying my own character. Which can be super annoying. But long run potential, barring major gameplay changes in patches, I think there are 5-6 or so characters that will begin outshining him as the meta develops more and people get better at the other highly ranked characters. Those characters are Pikachu, Olimar, Peach, Greninja, and Inkling. I know Pichu is a hard counter for Wolf, but I kind of rank him similarly to Wolf. Easy to play, crazy damage, annoying af projectile, great combo ability...but both are super squishy in high level play and can just die seemingly out of nowhere sometimes. For Wolf, it's a matter of being offstage at the wrong time, for Pichu it's generally stray hits coming through when he's at like 70%. I also used to rank Fox here - as he is a bit more well rounded - but seeing how his recovery actually seems easier to edgeguard than Wolf's, it's hard to say. I just leave him out for now.

Pikachu is also a hard counter for Wolf, but is still just kind of being outshined by Pichu right now. Truthfully, considering I'm occasionally getting lightning looped online now, I think Pichu is going to get nerfed. Whether that's just something like making his back air's hits connect more consistently to stop the drag down shenanigans, I don't really know. But most people are still in the mindset of "why play Pika when you can play Pichu?", so we'll see how that goes. Barring patch changes though, see my previous paragraph for thoughts on that. Pikachu is a more well-rounded version of Pichu. Pikachu is still being carried by ESAM, but I'm thinking more people will start picking him up - especially current Pichu mains.

Olimar is Olimar. Hard to comment on this character, besides he just makes everyone's lives terrible if the player is really good. I dread what will happen if he gets his smashes fixed.

Peach is a technical character that I think could end up with a better matchup spread when more people learn to play her optimally. As I've already discussed though, the general population doesn't want to play heavily technical characters right now.

Greninja is a tough call, considering people are mostly just now noticing him. But I think he will fall similarly to Peach. Technical character that will have a better matchup spread as the meta develops.

Inkling...I kind of agree with Leffen on this character. I think the hit and run, nickel and diming playstyle are the main reason why people are starting to downplay this character. I still think they are very much top tier, but may need a bit more development. I think they have the potential of being the campiest top tier next to Olimar (who is arguably a better rushdown character than he is a campy character), maybe rivaling S4 Sonic, but with a ridiculous damage multiplier tool.

There are more technical characters than Wolf, but his fundamental strengths are so good that I can’t ever see him being out of the running for best character in his current state. The exact order of the top tiers isn’t hugely important at this point though.

It’s also difficult to consider long term meta development when we know for a fact that the game will change significantly with patches, be it through nerfs, buffs or the inclusion of new characters (does anyone think Joker won’t be really good?).

 

[ZephyrZ]

I'm glad to see people start to really acknowledge that Ivysaur has an awful disadvantage and a neutral that, while usually oppressive, is also linear to a fault with little in terms of mix up. She's still very strong when played to her strengths but definitely not a high tier her own. Solo-Ivy is high mid at best, in my opinion, and she needs her partners to be fully functional. On her own I'd say she'd be more of a gatekeeper then a true high tier herself.

Of course I think most of us are already in agreement that you need at least a good core to play PT to their fullest anyway, but being the crazy loyalist I am I'll probably never stop advocating for some as well.

Nah PT wants to use Squirtle on point most of the time; Ivysaur is like his stand. Swap to Ivy for advantaged state, Zard at least helps extend recovery and leads/clean stocks. Zard is very potent out of shield, an area where the other two are a little lacking. Flamethrower is free damage, especially at ledge. Everyone knows what Ivy can do, she's a beast when she lands her good starters, and she can shred a bunch of mid tiers for free with Razor Leaf alone lol. But Squirtle can tango with high and top tiers much better. You've probably heard of people calling him a "frame data gremlin".

If nothing else, he's small, his frame data claps, and water gun is secretly busted as heck. When I think about playing against PT as pretty much all the characters I'm familiar with, I'm far more comfortable playing neutral when when the turtle is away. Don't sleep. Lots of people are playing this character wrong because they think Ivysaur is the character.

I'd say Squirtle has a pretty strong OoS himself. Good aerial acceleration combined with frame data means that he can reach opponents with a quick Bair or Fair pretty easily, or he can throw out a Nair as a quick "get off me" option. Charizard's Up Smash is deadly and fast, but lacks horizontal range, so he's better at dealing with poorly spaced attacks and getting kills OoS while Squirtle can punish moves with better spacing. They both have very good OoS options imo, just in different ways.

But yeah, I agree that Squirtle's neutral is really underrated. He may not be as "braindead" as Ivysaur but he has a kajillion good combo starters to use in a variety of situations as well as good enough mobility to back it up. Attack from a good angle with Fair and get an awesome combo, or use it to snuff out a slower attack. Your opponent shields? Well he also has a very fast grab, which you can use from a dash or a tomahawk and leads into an awesome combo. Do they like to jump a lot? He can snuff it out or catch the landing with Dash Attack or pivot boosted F-tilt, both of which - you guessed it - can lead into a rewarding combo. I'd say the only thing missing is a projectile to help Squirt to help him deal with his poor range, but often times a surprise Withdraw does just fine. If you leave an opening of any kind, Squirtle has a quick way to slip into it.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Bracket for tomorrow:

Winner's
Samsora vs MkLeo
Nairo vs VoiD
zackray vs Dabuz
Cosmos vs Glutonny


Loser's
ZeRo vs Armada
Mew2King vs Mang0
Leffen vs Plup
Light vs ZD

 

[N8than]

I wasn’t going to respond to this (it’s obvious that no-one said anything because we’re sick to death of Ness chat) but thought it worth pointing out that we’re only sick of Ness chat due indignant posts like these. Usually when you guys bring him up you’re either trying to force the issue of how good you think he is or complaining because someone forgot to mention him when talking about high tiers or results (case in point). I don’t feel there’s anything interesting to discuss any more if you’re sticking to that attitude.

I understand where you're coming from, and will try to be less aggressive concerning this issue (as long as no one forces the issue). However, I would still like it if whenever ness was brought up, you guys wouldn't take the "let's stop talking about Ness!" approach and actually allow for insightful discussion regarding the character instead of being super dismissive.

 

[Heracr055]

Ness discussion in Ultimate is the equivalent of Pikachu discussion in Smash 4 in that nobody wants to have a tier argument for that character (I actually think it's worse because people seem to take personal offense when they think Ness is being underrated, and that can get pretty ugly). It's a contentious topic that nobody wants to touch with a 39-and-a-half foot pole as a result.
I didn't see the game but am surprised that M2K was able to triumph over ZD (who seems to be having a rough ride at Summit despite performing so well as of late).

 

[N8than]

Ness discussion in Ultimate is the equivalent of Pikachu discussion in Smash 4 in that nobody wants to have a tier argument for that character (I actually think it's worse because people seem to take personal offense when they think Ness is being underrated, and that can get pretty ugly). It's a contentious topic that nobody wants to touch with a 39-and-a-half foot pole as a result.

As I said before; I get what you're saying, but I still think it's possible to have a respectful discussion about ness, and I am willing to put my loyalty to the character aside so this can happen.