I may be the vocal minority here but I truly cannot find Bayonetta viable in any sort of competitive play, and Tamim getting 5th at Glitch was nothing more than a fluke.
I understand some are very anti Bayonetta, and I am very vocal towards my side of the argument, but I want to discuss this nonetheless factually. Although I hold SB to a very high regard so I know y'all won't rip me to shreds.
Bayonetta, as a whole, was so dominant in Smash 4 for obvious reasons. These reasons needed to be nerfed and I have no issues with them:
- Frame 4 Witch Twist that gave you the best followups in the game.
- Fair 1 which, in combination with Witch Twist, made mix-ups into True Combos
- Witch Time, which was outright broken
- Obvious other reasons but these three are the most apparent
Going into Ultimate, all three of these were nerfed heavily. Witch Twist is now frame 6, among some other changes (namely it being more susceptible to DI), Fair 1 has so much lag that your only option is to autocancel into Fair23, and Witch Time is... well I assume you've seen.
The big issue here is that Nintendo went further... and further, and further, and didn't really know when to stop. Smash 4 Bayonetta is quite possibly the most flawed a "broken" character can be because she has definite weaknesses that, while they can be avoided, are still there. Nintendo failed to address her biggest flaws in the process of nerfing her, so now you have a character void of her broken stuff (good), void of what made her outstanding (oh), and her bad jank still unpatched (sad).
The character had several flaws from Smash 4 that still haven't been fixed:
- Multihits: Bayonetta's multihits are possibly the worst connecting ones in the game if it wasn't for, say, Ken. Up tilt doesn't connect properly if you hit them either: at a specific angle, or with enough rage. Utilt is possibly her best combo starter and it is inconsistent. There is a video of Tamim losing a stock to MKLeo's Ike because Utilt did a flawed hit, his opponent recovered before the move was over, and smacked Bayo several cities over. Side Tilt has the same issue likewise, where Ftilt 2 and 3 will not connect. This is especially true if your opponent isn't hit by Ftilt 1, they get hit by 2, and 3 just does it's thing. Witch Twist, despite being much less susceptible to SDI, can still be mashed out of. Hell, the move just sometimes won't carry your opponent into the later hits of the move. Thank you single hit witch twist, very cool. Finally, you have Heel Slide, which can be teched and/ or DI'ed out of. This on its own is poor, but seeing how every multihit in the game seems to work better than in 4 it is just depressing.
- Smash Attacks: I legit didn't know how they could somehow not make them better, but instead worse. Here we are though. All 3 Smash Attacks have a reduced charge multiplier of 1.2x, inside and outside of witch time. They clank with literally everything. EVERYTHING. Fsmash has 2 less frames of startup, but because they didn't fully compensate the move it has an additional frame of end lag vs the previous game. My personal favorite here: Fsmash still has a goddamn blind spot right in front of Bayonetta. And because her smashes are stationary, running into her makes Bayo move backwards but the fist stay in place. You can literally outrun her smashes thanks to the blindspot.
- Landing Lag/ Recovery Frames: They reduced landing lag on 3 of her moves: Uair (10 to 8, which is great), Fair (14 to 12, which still isn't enough), and Bair (12 to 8, which is really really nice). But they didn't do enough in a game where Shulk's Nair is frame 6 for landing. They made Dair 2 frames slower. Downwards Afterburner Kick can no longer autocancel, and it gives her 20 frames of landing lag if you don't do the landing hitbox. Her combos have this much landing lag based on the combination: 19, 25 (-1 from 4), 30, 32, 40, and 42 (-1 from 4). It's such a petty difference that it might as well not exist, where heavyweights can't undergo the amount of lag that Bayonetta receives from touching the ground. Held Nair and Held Uair have 8 and 6 more frames of landing lag, but it makes zero sense as to why. In Smash 4, this would be a noticable nerf, as the slower gameplay and safer options made held Nair a big part of her kit. But in Ultimate, these moves are simply mediocre without the nerf (not to mention their nonexistant knockback and high FAF without landing), and with the nerf are literally unusable. They also added lag to held Fair and Bair for some god forsaken reason.
- Shield Pressure: Bayonetta won't break your shield, she has no way of doing so. Her throws are terrible. You can sit in shield and eat grabs until she can Fthrow you at 165% at the ledge. Side B not crossing up or doing the second hit doesn't help either.
- Bullet Arts: Honestly these might as well be taunts if we aren't counting whiffed jab 1234 and Fsmash.
You have the "**** Bayonetta in particular nerfs"
- Airdodges: Bayonetta is one of two characters in the game to have a "reduced airdodge speed". The other is Little Mac. Thank you Nintendo, very cool. In addition, Bat Within always teleports Bayonetta downwards, meaning offstage this could kill her, and onstage this makes her recovery predictable. Bat Within is overrated: it can teleport you to the blastzone, you still take damage, it is predictable, Pokemon Trainer has a frame 1 dodge that is like 10x better than Bat Within.
- Smash Multiplier: Already stated above, she only has a 1.2X charge. This is only for Bayo, unless you want to count Olimar not being able to charge his smash attacks.
- Bullet Climax: Every charge move in the game, minus BC and Limit, has been buffed to be easier to charge, with lower penalties to charge. Bullet Climax takes longer to charge, you can no longer cancel during charging, and you can only hold it for 5 seconds before it autoreleases. Not a major nerf, but a middle finger to Bayo nonetheless.
You have the massive, seemingly uncalled for nerfs:
- Up Air and Neutral Air cannot kill at 245% center stage. Held Nair and Uair are borderline useless unless you go super offstage with held Uair. It is much harder to ladder people, and now it is impossible to finish them with Uair. The move is a great combo tool, but changing a move from killing at 120% to 200+% is just... wow. Both of these moves should kill at 200%, bare minimum, and they don't even do that.
- Bayonetta's Side B (Heel Slide) is pretty awful. No true combos off it unless you are at like 10%, the second hit sometimes isn't true, you can sometimes tech between hits, you can shield it and punish. The move is 71 frames one hit, 72 frames both hits. The move relies entirely on the second hit to be usable, and the removal of it on shield makes it dead in the water. It is all risk minimal reward.
- Dair kills later (on and offstage), has more FAF, has more landing lag, and still doesn't have consistent air into landing hitbox.
- Bair kills later, has more FAF, and has a worsened sweetspot
- Witch Time: This needed to be nerfed. But it still had issues that weren't fixed. It's now a frame 8 counter, with 60 FAF, that only nets you anything meaty past 90%, you can be outprioritized in your own counter, early percents are useless, more than 3 whiffs are useless, etc. Any other counter does more damage at lower percents, and kills earlier/ more consistently.
- Witch Twist: Can still be SDI'ed out of, DI hurts it more, single hit witch twist is terrible while it was good in 4, the grounded hitbox doesn't hit short characters (Pichu, Pikachu, Jiggly, Kirby), and it doesn't snap the ledge... it a game where nearly everything snaps the ledge at some point.
There is more stuff but I've written this for like 30 minutes and I'm tired. I'm here for a discussion, not a roast. Let's have some fun.
Edit: Formatting, added stuff