Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Aaron1997]

I'm just stopping by to tell you that Pacman is DLC character

 

[meleebrawler]

I was referring to Mario when I made that statement about Up Smash XD Though now that I think about it, their durations are nearly the same on both Smash attacks.

As for G&W, I agree that they focused more on toning down his best stuff from 4 (I.e. USmash, Toot-Toot), while making a lot of his other attacks more useful overall (DSmash, Chef, DTilt, Fire, FTilt, NAir, UAir). I think he might end up in a slightly better spot than his 4 counterpart, assuming patches aren't a factor.

This is true for quite a number of Smash 4 veterans. Bowser loses Showtime, gets more armour on tilts, faster command grab and better landing aerials. Sonic loses easy Spin Dash cancelling, gets a better Homing Attack, appreciably different Spin Charge and normals are more solid overall. Samus loses dash attack combos, gets an even stronger, air-charging Charge Shot, more versatile missiles and bombs... you get the idea.

 

[Rizen]

I'm just stopping by to tell you that Pacman is DLC character

Do you know where I can find hitbubbles to other characters?

 

[Aaron1997]

Do you know where I can find hitbubbles to other characters?

Idk I just stole this out of Sinji's Discord. They are asking the same thing.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Tbf, I can see the purpose of giving UTilt and FSmash large hitboxes: FSmash has a bit of wind-up and UTilt doesn't even hit grounded opponents; yikes, though, that FAir hitbox is just dumb.

FAir is already really silly for Pac-Man; the thing combos into itself effortlessly, can drag people off the stage for early KOs Jigglypuff-style, and it's frame 5 on start-up. And now on top of all that, it has a hitbox that would make Smash 4 Cloud blush. Yeesh, Pac-Man really is starting to look like one of the most buffed characters from Smash 4 to Ultimate.

 

[Nu~]

I'm just stopping by to tell you that Pacman is DLC character

Oh...so THATS why I end up steamrolling brawlers by mashing A in their face

They gave Pac-Man Duplo hitboxes LOL

 

[VenomSnake]

May have had what defined thier metgame and top-tier status in Smash 4 taken away in Ultikate. But they seem to have gotten various other buffs and improvements to compensate for it. They play "differently" for sure but not exactly all THAT worse.

Sonic has beem getting pretty good overall results.

It's funny that you say this, because despite Sonic having not bad tournament results, most of his mains are relentlessly complaining about him, I've seen some people in his discord go as far as to call him Brawl Sonic 2.0. While it is true that most of his, for a lack of a better word, "lame" options are gone, he's still a solid mid-tier-at-minimum character, at least judging from his results. That being said, he requires a ridiculous amount of practice (much more so than virtually any high tier minus maybe ) and match-up knowledge to get those results, which is why he's being complained about so much by his mains. I think Sonix was even going to take a break at one point, but I don't think that's the case anymore? I'm not really sure.
He could use some buffs though, he's definitely not a high tier because of how modest he is, and he has very weirdly long endlag on some of his moves (I keep hearing 74f endlag on a missed HA, which is kind of ridiculous).

 

[Diddy Kong]

I'm just stopping by to tell you that Pacman is DLC character

Still doesn't convince me that Pacman's good tbh. He's still extremely laggy, and predictable.

 

[AxelVDP]

Still doesn't convince me that Pacman's good tbh. He's still extremely laggy, and predictable.

How exactly is Pacman laggy and predictable?
He's, like, the opposite of that.
Fast normals (either in startup or endlag) and crazy mixup possibilities between fruits and hydrant


edit: I've fallen in temptation and made a "bad" (unproductive) post without any real content behind, just as an (unconscious) excuse to get likes - mea culpa

 

[PsySmasher]

I'm just stopping by to tell you that Pacman is DLC character

Whoa... those are pretty big hitboxes.

That’s probably why I get comboed with Fair all the time (doesn’t help that both of my mains are larger characters ).

But he’s still kinda predictable and has quite a few laggy moves, so that just makes him OK overall (IMO).

Not bad, but not great either.

 

[DelugeFGC]

What is the general opinion on the best AND worst recovery in the game? From all factors, including vertical / horizontal gain, how easy it is to challenge / gimp them during it, any endlag the move may have, freefall, etc.

I know people make general statements about how bad Mac and such are in terms of recovery, but in my opinion Mac isn't even in the bottom 3. I'd say the worst goes to Incineroar, due to the obvious reasons.. and because it's a recovery that can potentially kill you in certain situations if any one variable is off. Then behind him are Lucas / Ness. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I find it so laughably easy to stop Ness / Lucas from getting back on stage no matter where they try it from if they use PK Thunder in about 80% of situations. 3rd would probably go to Chrom for simply how exploitable it is in a lot of MU's.

Best I would either give to Bayo or Greninja.. but what do you guys think?

 

[Rizen]

's frame data is pretty good. He has a f4 jab, quick tilts, f3 Nair, and his terrible grab from SSB4 is now an average tether grab. IMO he's somewhere in upper mid or lower high tier.

What is the general opinion on the best AND worst recovery in the game? From all factors, including vertical / horizontal gain, how easy it is to challenge / gimp them during it, any endlag the move may have, freefall, etc.

I know people make general statements about how bad Mac and such are in terms of recovery, but in my opinion Mac isn't even in the bottom 3. I'd say the worst goes to Incineroar, due to the obvious reasons.. and because it's a recovery that can potentially kill you in certain situations if any one variable is off. Then behind him are Lucas / Ness. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I find it so laughably easy to stop Ness / Lucas from getting back on stage no matter where they try it from if they use PK Thunder in about 80% of situations. 3rd would probably go to Chrom for simply how exploitable it is in a lot of MU's.

Best I would either give to Bayo or Greninja.. but what do you guys think?

's recovery got buffed in the patch and gets decent distance now. He can side B then upB.

Worst: His recovery is so much worse than the PK kid's. He can't act out of side B and it kills him first, terrible air movement and upB has little range.
Best:

 

[Heracr055]

Incineroar gets side B back if he gets hit after using it offstage. Mac doesn't
Ness mains get a lot of mileage out of the directional air dodge, making them less rekiant on needing PKT to get back

 

[KirbySquad101]

Still doesn't convince me that Pacman's good tbh. He's still extremely laggy, and predictable.

You should go check out both Tea's and Sinji's Pac-Mans to get a better idea of what AxelVDP is saying; as a whole is kind of a wild card to play against. He's got really erratic movement thanks to both his Power Pellet and Fire Hydrant (both the pushback from the water and the small jump he gets from the move), a really strong recovery that can be mixed up as well, a frame 3 NAir that prevents you from going all ham on him, projectiles in the form of Bonus Fruit and Hydrants that all behave and act differently from one another, and he now finally has a tether grab that isn't butt. I think Shaya also made a really long post a while back as to why he's a force to be reckoned with; while I wouldn't consider him top tier or anything, I feel he's a solid contender for high tier.

What is the general opinion on the best AND worst recovery in the game? From all factors, including vertical / horizontal gain, how easy it is to challenge / gimp them during it, any endlag the move may have, freefall, etc.

I know people make general statements about how bad Mac and such are in terms of recovery, but in my opinion Mac isn't even in the bottom 3. I'd say the worst goes to Incineroar, due to the obvious reasons.. and because it's a recovery that can potentially kill you in certain situations if any one variable is off. Then behind him are Lucas / Ness. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I find it so laughably easy to stop Ness / Lucas from getting back on stage no matter where they try it from if they use PK Thunder in about 80% of situations. 3rd would probably go to Chrom for simply how exploitable it is in a lot of MU's.

Best I would either give to Bayo or Greninja.. but what do you guys think?

Worst is probably ; his air movement is somehow worse than Kirby's and side B barely gives him any distance, forcing him to rely on up B, leading to an extremely linear recovery that most can intercept. There's not even any fear of getting hit by side B since it now kills him first, and you can tech his up B to gimp him as well, in a similar fashion to 's up B.

Best is probably ; he's the only character I can think of that can use all of his special moves as a recovery option, and combined with having 5 jumps to boot and an air speed wishes he had, it's much harder to intercept him overall than most other characters. 's a pretty strong contender too thanks to how much distance he can cover with both Pac-Jump and Power Pellet. and are also likely contenders thanks to Quick Attack/Agility giving them extremely quick movement and giving them a lot of distance to cover. Teleport recoveries such as and are solid as well, and 's Fire grants him a lot of height and is very quick overall, making it hard to intercept him.

 

[The_Bookworm]

What is the general opinion on the best AND worst recovery in the game? From all factors, including vertical / horizontal gain, how easy it is to challenge / gimp them during it, any endlag the move may have, freefall, etc.

I know people make general statements about how bad Mac and such are in terms of recovery, but in my opinion Mac isn't even in the bottom 3. I'd say the worst goes to Incineroar, due to the obvious reasons.. and because it's a recovery that can potentially kill you in certain situations if any one variable is off. Then behind him are Lucas / Ness. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I find it so laughably easy to stop Ness / Lucas from getting back on stage no matter where they try it from if they use PK Thunder in about 80% of situations. 3rd would probably go to Chrom for simply how exploitable it is in a lot of MU's.

Best I would either give to Bayo or Greninja.. but what do you guys think?

Best:
Worst: by a noticeable margin. are also pretty bad, but not as worse as Mac's.

 

[|RK|]

Bayo is bad, but her recovery is still among the best in the game imo

 

[DelugeFGC]

You should go check out both Tea's and Sinji's Pac-Mans to get a better idea of what AxelVDP is saying; as a whole is kind of a wild card to play against. He's got really erratic movement thanks to both his Power Pellet and Fire Hydrant (both the pushback from the water and the small jump he gets from the move), a really strong recovery that can be mixed up as well, a frame 3 NAir that prevents you from going all ham on him, projectiles in the form of Bonus Fruit and Hydrants that all behave and act differently from one another, and he now finally has a tether grab that isn't butt. I think Shaya also made a really long post a while back as to why he's a force to be reckoned with; while I wouldn't consider him top tier or anything, I feel he's a solid contender for high tier.




Worst is probably ; his air movement is somehow worse than Kirby's and side B barely gives him any distance, forcing him to rely on up B, leading to an extremely linear recovery that most can intercept. There's not even any fear of getting hit by side B since it now kills him first, and you can tech his up B to gimp him as well, in a similar fashion to 's up B.

Best is probably ; he's the only character I can think of that can use all of his special moves as a recovery option, and combined with having 5 jumps to boot and an air speed wishes he had, it's much harder to intercept him overall than most other characters. 's a pretty strong contender too thanks to how much distance he can cover with both Pac-Jump and Power Pellet. and are also likely contenders thanks to Quick Attack/Agility giving them extremely quick movement and giving them a lot of distance to cover. Teleport recoveries such as and are solid as well, and 's Fire grants him a lot of height and is very quick overall, making it hard to intercept him.

Ganon is hurt quite a lot by rockcrocking I know, but I can actually make it back as Falcon at lower percents if RC'd, never with Ganon though. MK definitely belongs in the top, and G&W has all had a solid recovery that doubled as a way of taking money at locals with the tried and true Up B out of shield my dudes method, along with Bowser. So he's in a good place recovery wise too.

I still see Roar and Lucas/Ness in VERY bad positions, though. Mac obviously has an awful one, as does Simon / Richter as the whip tether isn't anywhere near as useful as a lot of people seem to think it is. I personally feel Pika / Pichu's recovery is very good BUT not perfect, as I've been able to hit them out of it / 2 frame them on several occasions. A character I very rarely accomplish this with is Greninja, I usually end up having to challenge him offstage directly if I want any results on that end, not on the ledge.

 

[Idon]

Bayo is bad, but her recovery is still among the best in the game imo

I dunno. Ledge snapping is pretty damn hard with it.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I dunno. Ledge snapping is pretty damn hard with it.

It's not as bad as something like sweetspotting Falcon's up-B in Melee imo, and the main reason I see it as so good is because of the sheer amount of distance it covers. If you can manage to not get gimped, even the lowest BZ meteors can be survived.. it does have issues though.

 

[PsySmasher]

What is the general opinion on the best AND worst recovery in the game? From all factors, including vertical / horizontal gain, how easy it is to challenge / gimp them during it, any endlag the move may have, freefall, etc.

I know people make general statements about how bad Mac and such are in terms of recovery, but in my opinion Mac isn't even in the bottom 3. I'd say the worst goes to Incineroar, due to the obvious reasons.. and because it's a recovery that can potentially kill you in certain situations if any one variable is off. Then behind him are Lucas / Ness. Maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but I find it so laughably easy to stop Ness / Lucas from getting back on stage no matter where they try it from if they use PK Thunder in about 80% of situations. 3rd would probably go to Chrom for simply how exploitable it is in a lot of MU's.

Best I would either give to Bayo or Greninja.. but what do you guys think?

Worst: Obviously . (w/o Limit) are definitely down there.

Best: Little bit difficult to say, but I’ll say b/c he has so many recovery options on top of 6 jumps (5 midair jumps)

all have great recoveries as well.

all have good distance, but they can be predictable.

Edit: I guess would also work since you can get good mileage out of it.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Worst: Obviously . are definitely down there.

Best: Little bit difficult to say, but I’ll say b/c he has so many recovery options on top of 6 jumps (5 midair jumps)

all have great recoveries as well.

all have good distance, but they can be predictable.

Add Bayo into the list of 'greats' and I'd generally agree with that listing. I know it's a bit predictable, but the absurd amount of distance it travels does count for something in my eyes. That said, I do catch a lot of Bayo's with DAir (again) after they survive a low % DAir meteor offstage with Falcon.. so maybe I'm giving it too much credit. I think K-Rool and PP have a generally bad recovery because of how easy it is to interrupt and the awkward freefall they'll wind up in if they don't ledge snap, but both have such good distance I couldn't TRULY consider them bad.

-----
Also, the longer I've stuck with the better the results I get. I know sticking by any character and improving, learning MU's and such is going to yield results.. but it's a bit beyond that. He has some issues, raptor boost needs its hitbox fixed, rockcrocking is a thing and I do hope his dash is tweaked.. but I still think he's a viable contender for the lower end of high-tier. He's quite mechanically and timing intensive and you'll also have to do a lot of DI reading, conditioning and such.. but once you're comfortable with Falcon you can get some explosive results out of him. I think people (myself included) were too hard on him earlier on, I'm feeling quite happy with him atm despite his issues. You just have to play Ultimate Falcon like Ultimate Falcon, not Sm4sh Falcon, Melee Falcon or etc.. He feels like a mix of 64 & Melee Falcon with some PM & Sm4sh Falcon baked in as well to me personally, so he's definitely going to take getting comfortable with again even for long time mains.. but he's still a fire character imo.

 

[Jotun873]

Worst: Obviously . are definitely down there.

Best: Little bit difficult to say, but I’ll say b/c he has so many recovery options on top of 6 jumps (5 midair jumps)

all have great recoveries as well.

all have good distance, but they can be predictable.

I am really surprised you didnt mention for bad recovery as his is very dependant on momentum and having his second jump...

 

[PsySmasher]

Add Bayo into the list of 'greats' and I'd generally agree with that listing. I know it's a bit predictable, but the absurd amount of distance it travels does count for something in my eyes. That said, I do catch a lot of Bayo's with DAir (again) after they survive a low % DAir meteor offstage with Falcon.. so maybe I'm giving it too much credit. I think K-Rool and PP have a generally bad recovery because of how easy it is to interrupt and the awkward freefall they'll wind up in if they don't ledge snap, but both have such good distance I couldn't TRULY consider them bad.

Completely forgot about for a moment. She'd probably fall somewhere between the 2 categories I put for best recovery. It is a bit predictable, but I find it harder to punish than something like 's recovery.

I am really surprised you didnt mention for bad recovery as his is very dependant on momentum and having his second jump...

I thought about a lot, but I decided not to add him to either list b/c while his is heavily dependent on the 2nd jump, he also gets great height from it and has amazing air speed/mobility to compensate.

So I'm not sure he'd necessarily fit in either category.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Worst: Obviously . are definitely down there.

Best: Little bit difficult to say, but I’ll say b/c he has so many recovery options on top of 6 jumps (5 midair jumps)

all have great recoveries as well.

all have good distance, but they can be predictable.

Edit: I guess would also work since you can get good mileage out of it.

Without Limit also can be considered among the worst. It makes his 15 second Limit duration now something Cloud users need to watch

 

[DelugeFGC]

Completely forgot about for a moment. She'd probably fall somewhere between the 2 categories I put for best recovery. It is a bit predictable, but I find it harder to punish than something like 's recovery.

Yeah she's one of the more polarizing instances of a character's recovery being good on paper, but still problematic enough to cause the player issues in games. I think as the meta develops and offstage play gets more and more consistently explored and people get more comfortable going deep, her recovery won't be doing her any favors in its current state and could fall out of favor. I still wouldn't ever call it bad, that all said.

 

[PsySmasher]

Izj



Without Limit also can be considered among the worst. It makes his 15 second Limit duration now something Cloud users always need micromanage in thier head

Oh yeah... Cloud literally gets very little vertical distance and extremely little, if any horizontal distance (I don't recall off the top of my head).

Definitely not good.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Without Limit definitely doesn't have a great recovery, but considering he has a wall jump, aerial disjoints the size of a developing nation to put you off of trying to gimp him and Limit turns it into one of the best in the game.. I'd say OVERALL he's in the upper-bottom / lower-middle spectrum of recoveries in Ult. As long as he has his jump, he can make it back most of the time. On some stages, his wall jump can go even further to help this.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Also has really good recovery. Great jump height and distance plus wall jump. Can recover with side-b, up-b and even a tether recovery all adds up to making her very hard to edgeuard unless you can predict what options the player does beforehand

 

[DelugeFGC]

I've been able to edgeguard and 2-frame ZSS pretty alright thus far, though she does get some damned good distance out of the recovery. I'm not sure where I'd place her recovery personally.. I'm not even really sure where I'd place her character overall as I've only ever really fought against her and her nerfs do seem pretty impactful in Ult.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I've been able to edgeguard and 2-frame ZSS pretty alright thus far, though she does get some damned good distance out of the recovery. I'm not sure where I'd place her recovery personally.. I'm not even really sure where I'd place her character overall as I've only ever really fought against her and her nerfs do seem pretty impactful in Ult.

Have you been wacthing Marss in touraments the past 2 weeks. He can show you what ZSS is still capable of in Ultimate. Many people consider her high-tier at least

 

[DelugeFGC]

Have you been wacthing Marss in touraments the past 2 weeks. He can show you what ZSS is still capable of in Ultimate

I feel like she definitely has potential, I just couldn't personally place her. I don't know enough about her and have barely played her, outside of knowing the ZZS / Falcon, ZSS / Cloud and ZZ / Young Link MU's I really don't know much at all about her other than the fact she got nerfed going into Ult (I didn't play Sm4sh competitively or even much casually) but I've never personally had a bad time in that MU with my main. She does seem like she could turn into a threat if used properly, especially with the right buffs, though. She's gotten decent results so far I suppose, but nothing that blows your hair back, but I don't put too much stock into that this early on into the meta yet.

 

[Y2Kay]

Not being able to destroy hydrant with SH aerials and having an frame 3 Nair OOS to relieve pressure is such a huge deal for PacMan.

High tier character imo. Sinji waxes me at locals so I may be biased tho lol.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I'd say Pac-Man is definitely somewhere on either the lower end of high-tier or the high end of mid-tier. I didn't really get into Sm4sh, but he seems leagues and miles better than he was there. Pacman players always tend to make galaxy brain plays too.

 

[Wintermelon43]

So by the sounds of it, Game and Watch is a counterpick low mid tier again, just like in smash 4.

Is the Pikachu matchup still good for him? I remember that matchup being considered good for Game and Watch in smash 4.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I personally think G&W is bottom 5, his problems hurt him severely and the new FAir is just nonsensical. His roll is so bad he can't even use the frame 1 invincible roll (you get it when shield DIing inward during a multijab which then turns into the buffered frame 1 invincible roll after the 10th hit your shield) to punish the opponent during a multijab OR even escape it as he still gets hit. He has so many polarizing MU's.. I think he is in desperate need of buffs. I used to love using him as my 'bad' character of choice counterpick in friendlies, but now he feels nearly unusable. I miss the box flip FAir so badly..

 

[SwagGuy99]

Still doesn't convince me that Pacman's good tbh. He's still extremely laggy, and predictable.

Laggy? His frame data is actually pretty good. Not or or good but still pretty good.

 

[Crooked Crow]

Still doesn't convince me that Pacman's good tbh. He's still extremely laggy, and predictable.

You know deep down inside this isn't true, don't you? This is an important thread. Don't spread misinformation.

 

[Rizen]

Q for the thread: who do you consider low tier? Granted IDK very much about these characters, because they're never used, but I'd loosely say:
and maybe ?
The more I look at this list the more I realize a lot of it is guesswork based on lack of evidence that they're good so feel free to correct me.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Q for the thread: who do you consider low tier? Granted IDK very much about these characters, because they're never used, but I'd loosely say:
and maybe ?
The more I look at this list the more I realize a lot of it is guesswork based on lack of evidence that they're good so feel free to correct me.

Honestly I say are mid-tier at the very least. They buffed charge shot is something that really helps them this game despite still having some of the same issues from Smash 4

I think is not bad at all really, It just no one uses her at all so we cant really tell. Deep Breathing essentially is a pesudo-limit break and that up-tilt is nutty. Honestly WFT was not THAT bad in Smash 4 either (post buffs) I think she was actullay started to get some semblance of results late in the games time

Is..well I dunno. He really does not seem that good but he gets pretty decent results. I would say either at the top-end of low tier, or haning around the bottom of mid-tier

 

[|RK|]

I feel like much of the cast has 0 play time by high or top level players, and as a result, it's not possible to tell how good they are.

I think Doc could be real, but no one really plays him, for example.