Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Envoy of Chaos]

Bowser Jr. has had something like this since 4 on his dair that lets him cancel the landing hit sooner if it connects, and a chunk of Incineroar's moveset is programmed to have him act differently on hit or whiff/block, even if purely aesthetic.

Maybe parries need to be more like Guard Impacts from Soulcalibur where they cause an actual disruption to the opponent's offence. Like ground moves get clanked and air moves cause the attacker to flinch.

I didn't know that about Jr.'s dair that's interesting. I do like SC's system. Parrying in this game definitely needs some kind of adjustment. I hardly ever feel like it's worth the risk. If I'm at mid percentages and I shield an incoming Lucina Fair I don't want to risk mistiming the shield drop because I'll be knocked off stage in a bad position if I do while if I successfully parry the punish I'll get is very minimal due to the space between us still if I even get one at all. Atleast with power shielding you'd still block the attack if you didn't time it right. You may not be able to punish but at the very least attempting the technique wasn't a big risk.

I recall their being something on the damage or knockback of the parried move determining how long your stuck in freeze when you've been parried before the game came out. Parrying would be a lot more rewarding if you could actually punish those bigger and safer buttons which also tend to be strong moves with an stronger and slower attack if parried successfully.

You're sort of thinking of Rest. If Rest hits something, then Puff can cancel the waking up animation sooner than if she whiffs the move.
Although. I think this condition (which is different from what you're suggesting) would only work on moves with tons of endlag.

I thought I saw a Kurogane tweet about the mechanic when the game was leaked but thank you for clarifying. What I had in mind was say Ike Nair's your shield. Typically he's safe if he timed it right. If you dash back to avoid it if still timed it right he's going to be safe against slower opponents and usually only eat a small punish against faster ones, a punish well worth the risk of the reward he would had gotten off a landed Nair. If a few frames of lag were added to that Nair if the move doesn't connect with a hurtbox or shield. Moving around the move gives you the opportunity for a bigger punish and it makes Ike think twice before throwing out his safe large buttons so freely. This gives the defender a few more options to punish poor spacing and reckless buttons without harming the aggression too much since the reward for landing that Nair is still there and the shield pressure is still present because the increased lag only occurs if the move whiffs.

When I think more deeply about it, it sounds like it could backfire but I did want to mention it since it was on my mind.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think it should be important, when considering the current metagame, which characters will rise above the others. At this point in time, we are seeing certain heavies/superheavies fall behind based on sheer frame data putting them at a disadvantage. Such examples include ,,, and . Now, there are exceptions to this, as there are with practically anything. is a beast of a character all to himself and may be a top tier. has combos yet to be explored. And I don't think that we can fairly judge yet.
However, I have always been wondering, when are the so-called "underrated characters" going to rise up? I think has OUTSTANDING combo potential, but I have yet to seen a player finish at a high spot using them. If can shock Frostbite, why can't some other "underrated" character do so?
Discussing the future, here are some movements we may see in the (far) future.
Most of these decisions made are based on how tier lists have changed over the history of previous Smash games, as well as lab training clips, which are quite complex, but may be utilized in the future. Furthermore, there are many characters that top players are utilizing more now than in the past, especially online, which may lead to pockets or mains in the next coming months. Most of these characters will likely be used as pockets.
Going up:
Going down:
Now, I know that is really good at this point. However, people will eventually learn how to space around nair, and parrying will be easier. I'm not predicting a super big fall, but he might not be considered top tier in the future, and will most likely hang around the lower end of high tier.
I feel the most confident regarding. In my opinion, people will likely start utilizing icees against sword characters, since it would require VERY careful spacing to avoid the one-touch-and-you-die scenario.

All that being said, most of these opinions are most likely garbage since the patch coming tonight (or 3.0.0) will likely give a lot of the heavies mentioned kill combos like in Smash 4. A similar thing happened, in that and were LAUGHABLY bad before they got kill combos. But all the speculation I am doing is in reference to how things might be if they stay how it is now.

Underrated post!

Also am agreeing a lot with you which characters are going up, and which are going down. Pokemon Trainer is kind of overrated honestly. I also don't think Inkling and Palutena are gonna remain that good forever.

I'm also glad that Diddy has seemingly gotten a few buffs this update! His recovery is better, F Air duration seems longer and Side B does more damage. That's already a great headstart!

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I'm also glad that Diddy has seemingly gotten a few buffs this update! His recovery is better, F Air duration seems longer and Side B does more damage. That's already a great headstart!

Wait, in 2.0.2? I thought there were no character changes. Is there a change list somewhere?

 

[Diddy Kong]

Wait, in 2.0.2? I thought there were no character changes. Is there a change list somewhere?

No not yet. I've been searching all around for one though.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

No not yet. I've been searching all around for one though.

I don't think there were any changes to characters in 2.0.2. If there were, replay data wouldn't work, and it seems to still play back matches with Diddy in them.

 

[IsmaR]

There was literally no character changes, only future release amiibo compatibility was added.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Is there a place where I can view these online without having to mod my switch?

Your best bet is going to be to visit a character discord and wait until a member uploads a video or pictures of the hitboxes. I doubt someone will go through the effort of making a video or an album showing all of the hitboxes for every character, since I have not seen that in any of the Smash 4 servers, resource pages. There was an attempt with that smash 4 hitbox viewer website, but it never got finished.

You can be the one to do it if you'd like. I know that if I decide to get this mod that I will keep a personal doc of all the hitboxes that I want to have a constant reminder on; there probably are a few players who keep a doc of all the hitboxes or the one's that they care about, but it's in their personal notes and not for the public discord. I just remembered, you can also wait for a public version of SmashForge Ultimate version (if someone decides to make one/or it's already made and I have not found it yet; dabuz used this in his hitbox viewing videos for S4), or just mod your switch and do it yourself using the tool made for S4 and apply the hitboxes to it.

 

[NairWizard]

I think Lucina and Chrom are the most emblematic

How you gonna make a pun like this without calling it out explicitly

 

[KakuCP9]

I find that brand of modesty refreshing since alot of the time when people go out of their to point out their puns, they come off like a giant tosser.

 

[blackghost]

Bowser Jr. has had something like this since 4 on his dair that lets him cancel the landing hit sooner if it connects, and a chunk of Incineroar's moveset is programmed to have him act differently on hit or whiff/block, even if purely aesthetic.

Maybe parries need to be more like Guard Impacts from Soulcalibur where they cause an actual disruption to the opponent's offence. Like ground moves get clanked and air moves cause the attacker to flinch.

i dont think parries need a rework i think you need to be more plus. i can use bayo as an example her normals are so slow that she can only get an uptilt off a parry. there isnt enough reward to them for slower characters. if you are somone like foz you benefit greatly as they are but everyone else gets little to nothing garanteed.
there are offensively oriented fighting games: killer instinct, marvel vs series and dbfz (which is basically just diet marvel anyway). its why these games are heavily viewed and so loved.
ultimate only needs some slight adjustments to its system mechanics and this minor issue goes away. but im with tweek on one thing the top tiers in this game are all simple and its really boring sometimes (outside of peach).

 

[ARISTOS]

How you gonna make a pun like this without calling it out explicitly

Nah you gotta let it rock, wink wink nudge nudge stuff is hella lame

I find that brand of modesty refreshing since alot of the time when people go out of their to point out their puns, they come off like a giant tosser.

Glad to see you understand, fellow duelist

More on topic I wish parries could be mapped to a command rather than dropping shield but that could probably be abused since the whole point of parry mechanics is that you have to forfeit blocking

Do agree that parrying should have additional + frames. I also wish anti-airs were stronger in general/grounded moves were actually better on block/could blockstring but that's a wish I've had since 4

Anyway reminder fighting games are fun by mistake

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Parries definitely need to give you more time to punish when you parry. The idea was borrowed from fighting games but in fighting games, you can almost always get big damage off one hit if you have resources to burn

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I don't understand why a top tier not being flashy is bad. I'm not sorry that when a player decides to pick a character that they can perform well on is boring for spectators. Bayonetta was flashy in S4, and the community hated it. Melee had wobbling and that got recently banned since the community found it un-fun. If Ice Climbers (in Ultimate), could do their footstool infinite on the full roster, and a player decided to use it in bracket and managed to get far, I'm pretty sure the community would hate him, even though he would be playing the game optimally; others players may even feel pressured to pick them up if that is what they are looking for.

If you guys want excitement in your grand finals, then watch DBZF, where flashy, screen-dazzling supers, and a beautiful overlay, can grab your attention easily (there are also plenty of other 2D fighting games that have sprite graphics or give the illusion of it) or get commentators who can actually explain the game well to an audience and describe what is currently going on-screen.

If a player wanted to, they could play Shulk, get the lead, and proceed to stall out the match using Monado Arts to frustrate the opponent. Sonic players did that in S4 using his speed and his specials, the Smash community hated it. That's only a few examples. I could bring up Jigglypuff in Melee, or Kirby and Jigglypuff in Ultimate, if a match-up or opponent allowed for it to take place. There's also that recent Melee clip, where that Ice Climbers players got up and walked away because stalling frustrated him so much.

-

Here's an example from a traditonal fighter. In the timestamped part of the video below, a player decides to use a "rushdown" character (i'm using this term loosely), think of like Sheik or any other character that can get in your face and apply pressure safely to condition you into choosing a bad option.Ike and his safe N-air according to the how the community reacted to him online might be a good smash example.

Spoiler: Video: The timestamp is 12:47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akK...list=PLiSdC6Lp8c7MZzfgTaeRLMthUs52ZqJp8&t=767

The point of the video, is that a player was willing to play it safe and time out his opponent for 6 games in during Grand Finals even though his character had the tools to get in. If you found this annoying then good, that was the point. Any character can play this way to an extent, it just relies on the player.

P.S. If you guys want to see good commentary carry a game, here is a great vod.

Spoiler: Final Round: Soul Calibur 6 - Top 8

Take note of when Astaroth uses a Soul Charge, almost everytime, the crowd is chanting along, inserting themselves into the match, which can bring hype, engage stream viewers, and help tell a story if the commentators opt for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBvVvCLx7Q4

 

[Sean²]

Tweek's not wrong, although a lot of what he said is opinion. I'll go ahead and say it: parries are a bad mechanic. They're very difficult to do, risky and have poor reward. For CQC it's so much easier to simply use everyone's f3 jump squat to do an OoS option. The only time parries are consistent is vs range attacks you see in advance. If parries guaranteed a smash it might be worth going for them but as Tweek said, a lot of things are safe on parry.

Aerials generally are very safe to throw out. Ike's Nair is fairly spammable. The 6 frames input lag (so I've heard) plus low landing lag makes punishing disjoints harder than previous games. Is this bad? That's a matter of opinion but reacting is certainly weaker in ultimate. Ground games are less important as a result. Ground to air to ground is almost instantaneous.

The thing I don't like about parrying, is that every parry is like a 3rd Strike red parry. You have to be shielding to perform it. So yea, a lot of time it feels more useful to take the shield hit, then punish with an aerial instead.

I wouldn't mind if it was an mappable button input like it is in Rivals or Aether, or even a button combo of some kind, but I don't know what all problems this could cause if it were too easy. I feel like you'd almost have to make the window to parry even smaller.

 

[Siledh]

Parrying doesn't even protect you from multihits or jabs. If someone parries Link's jab1, I usually still hit them with jab2 or jab3. Not worth the effort parrying in that case.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Honest to god the more work I put into Bayonetta's landing lag chart the worse she looks.

autocancelled down air does some weird **** with recovery frames

for example, double witch twist into Down Air gives you 42 frames of landing, regardless of whether you use the landing hitbox or it autocancels

but afterburner kick into Dair gives you 30 frames with the landing, and 20 (aka no change) with the autocancel

another example is witch twist into dair, 30 with the landing, 25 with the autocancel

Who the hell came up with these values? They sort of follow a pattern but single witch twist is absolute jank when it comes to landing lag. I'm getting 19, 25, 30 frames depending on if I just land, use airdodge, or dair.

More testing time

Parrying doesn't even protect you from multihits or jabs. If someone parries Link's jab1, I usually still hit them with jab2 or jab3. Not worth the effort parrying in that case.

You just got to parry all three lol. Pretend you're playing Devil May Cry.

Edit: if yall wanna see my chart
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10XNTMy5xAPS2MvYeNGtD--Uq7SRyaqZVu5-uK8l53AM/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Rizen]

I was watching the sets from BoBC3 with big D. He's a great player first of all but it looked like a big factor was nobody knew how to fight ICs. He was getting away with blizzards and squall hammers for free. How often do you fight ICs at all, let alone a good one? ICs have potential. Their zoning game is surprisingly good and they're hard to punish. But I don't think they're above mid tier; they have poor range and can be exploited hard.

This supports what I've said about consistency. There are so many MUs to learn and it's easy to be caught by surprise. Even mediocre characters can be threatening and being good with an uncommon character has its benefits. We saw it with Master's G&W, Trela's Ridley, Nairo's Ganon, Big D's ICs and less so DDD. Who will the next upset be?

____________

Strike's YL was really good too. He's one to watch along with Zan, Tweek and T if he does something again.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Stalling and playing campy in smash is a problem because of the ruleset, the player who has more stocks wins regardless of percentage and percentage is secondary until the 2 players has the same stocks, so as soon as one player gets the first stock there is zero incentive to approach an oponent like literally zero, stocks doesn't have a hard cap like life bars in traditional fighters this mean that you can make your stock last longer combined with DI, SDI, crouch canceling, and in melee case safe movement options means that playing agressive in a smash game is discouraged or more difficult, this is why as more esports money is injected in the scene the more players will play safe, defensive or campy, smash players want something that smash games aren't (certainly not with this ruleset), and hopeful they start realizing it or melee, ultimate and every future smash will suffer from the same fate.

 

[Siledh]

Tell that to Guile turtling and similar playstyles which exist in other fighting games.

 

[Rizen]

Stalling and playing campy in smash is a problem because of the ruleset, the player who has more stocks wins regardless of percentage and percentage is secondary until the 2 players has the same stocks, so as soon as one player gets the first stock there is zero incentive to approach an oponent like literally zero, stocks doesn't have a hard cap like life bars in traditional fighters this mean that you can make your stock last longer combined with DI, SDI, crouch canceling, and in melee case safe movement options means that playing agressive in a smash game is discouraged or more difficult, this is why as more esports money is injected in the scene the more players will play safe, defensive or campy, smash players want something that smash games aren't (certainly not with this ruleset), and hopeful they start realizing it or melee, ultimate and every future smash will suffer from the same fate.

This is why we have a short legal stage list. Timeouts are very rare in ultimate because campers only has so much space to work with. Stalling isn't really a problem.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Tell that to Guile turtling and similar playstyles which exist in other fighting games.

guile can't circle camp, he can't run away, he can't plank at the ledge, and in street figther match the max you can camp is 99 seconds in smash you can camp up to 8 minutes, hell we have special stall rules.

This is why we have a short legal stage list. Timeouts are very rare in ultimate because campers only has so much space to work with. Stalling isn't really a problem.

is more that characters have limited movement options, DI and SDI isn't as strong, so your opponent can't escape your combo or kill confirm and run away, platforms being more weak helps against camp too, Ledge invincibility is reduced, crounch canceling is toned down a lot, shield dropping isn't in the game etc.

edit:My bad double post.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

in street figther match the max you can camp is 99 seconds in smash you can camp up to 8 minutes,

The timer doesn't really matter, players can and will run the timer down. BBTAG has a 3 minute timer while DBZF has a 5 minute timer. Having an 8 minute timer has not stopped Smashers from timing out each other in Melee and Smash 4 from what I have seen, so I don't see this arguement going anywhere unless you want to talk about Crew Battles where the timer is set to 2 hours. Then you would have a point there until a player was willing to stall for that long.

guile can't circle camp, he can't run away, he can't plank at the ledge,

Guile CAN run away. The character has a built-in skill that allows him to use the same projectile multiple times in succession to cover ground approach while forcing you to approach (the move costs meter, last a very short while when active, and takes even longer to build up the meter for). He also has another skill which is a lovely huge anti air to punish jump-ins. He can even approach while using his projectiles as a shield of sorts which can force you to block or eat a high-low mix-up or even a grab. Is he unbeatable? No. It's just going to take more effort to beat him if the Guile player is good enough. In Street Fighter you cannot easily get rid of projectile attacks unless your character has a move to get around it, whereas in Smash, a simple jab will get rid of it.

I won't talk much about SFV since I do not play the game, nor keep up with the scene, so I've missed a lot of Guile matches. While typing this, I looked up a match from Daigo's Guile and saw that he chose to approach in the M.Bison match-up. I then looked up a video that showed M.Bison's move list and saw that he has a move which can be used to absorb the projectile, he also has the option to fire a projectile of his own back should he absorb a projectile. It also moves at an increased speed too.

hell we have special stall rules.

The stalling rules in Smash do not matter. They only exist IF your opponent cannot reach you, for example, using a move to sit at the top of the blastzone after you take a percent lead. An example of this could be if a double Luigi or PAC-MAN team in doubles had the stock lead. They could spam up b on each other to sit at the top of the blast zone, forever, and run the timer down. Some characters may be able to catch them if they are quick enough, but I'm assuming that the majority of the cast would not be able to and that would be called out as foul play, very quickly. So the rules would apply there.

If a Shulk attempted this, the rules should not be applied to him, because that character would eventually have to touch the ground, the same goes for the Bayonetta "planking/ledge stall", that was short-lived in S4. There's counterplay to it, so the strategy is beatable.

Here is an example from another game where the stalling rule could be applied.

Spoiler: Street Fighter X Tekken: Mega Man Glitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JpVtxoXc0I

No counterplay. Just get the life lead in the game and you win.

Edit: Just because stages work differently in two fighting games does not mean that the same or a similar strategy cannot be applied. It's just not approved of by players who are not a fan of that playstyle. You'll probably lose to it, until you learn to suck it up and find a way around it, or just forfeit because your opponent decided not play "fairly" or like everyone else you've encountered before. I'm sorry that this community has encouraged players to believe that they have to win by killing their opponents when you have other options to win.
I feel like linking Core A Gaming's Salt video again, along with his Hadouken video and Justin Wong's Art of Lame video, but I feel like it won't do any good, since I tried during the S4 days and I cannot force people to change their minds. At least I'm trying to inform you guys.

Edit 2: Back to SFV, if a player really wanted to, they could runaway and throw projectiles, and once they push themselves into a corner, they could use their wall jump or a special move to get out of the corner. See: Chun-Li, Rashid, and Kolin; all 3 characters have projectiles and a wall jump (Kolin actually has a double jump unique to here, not a wall jump, my bad) to get out of the corner, should they find themselves there.

 

[Sean²]

This is why we have a short legal stage list. Timeouts are very rare in ultimate because campers only has so much space to work with. Stalling isn't really a problem.

The stagelist could be better, though. With the common bannings of Yoshi’s Story and Yoshi’s Island because people think they’re redundant with Battlefield and Smashville, the only small stage left is Smashville. Campers have all the room they want to work with on medium to large stages.

The unspoken ‘honor’ rule of not consistently stalling to time just hasn’t been broken yet in Ultimate. Ultimate doesn’t yet have an Hbox or Wrath who deems it’s better to turtle around than risk approaching. I could see a few characters doing this in the future, but the player willing to have everyone hate them for tournament wins just hasn’t emerged yet.

Fighting games in general are just defensive at high levels. I can’t think of a single game that greatly rewards offense over defense.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I'd say, that award probably goes to DBZF. When I watched top 8 at Final Round recently, and for previous events around release, all I have seen is corner pressure lockdown with Vegeta assist. Now, it's changed to Piccolo's Hellzone Grenade super and a mix of other characters tools along with using assist to cover up gaps in blockstrings. It's pretty much your classic UMVC3/MVCI, minus pushblocking which is HUGE. Without pushblocking, it allows players to easily get away with being so "offensive". The only time we'll really see neutral is at the start of the match, or when both players are down to their last characters. That's usually when both players decide to slow down the match, even if it only lasts for a few seconds.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

The timer doesn't really matter, players can and will run the timer down. BBTAG has a 3 minute timer while DBZF has a 5 minute timer. Having an 8 minute timer has not stopped Smashers from timing out each other in Melee and Smash 4 from what I have seen, so I don't see this arguement going anywhere unless you want to talk about Crew Battles where the timer is set to 2 hours. Then you would have a point there until a player was willing to stall for that long.



Guile CAN run away. The character has a built-in skill that allows him to use the same projectile multiple times in succession to cover ground approach while forcing you to approach (the move costs meter, last a very short while when active, and takes even longer to build up the meter for). He also has another skill which is a lovely huge anti air to punish jump-ins. He can even approach while using his projectiles as a shield of sorts which can force you to block or eat a high-low mix-up or even a grab. Is he unbeatable? No. It's just going to take more effort to beat him if the Guile player is good enough. In Street Fighter you cannot easily get rid of projectile attacks unless your character has a move to get around it, whereas in Smash, a simple jab will get rid of it.

I won't talk much about SFV since I do not play the game, nor keep up with the scene, so I've missed a lot of Guile matches. While typing this, I looked up a match from Daigo's Guile and saw that he chose to approach in the M.Bison match-up. I then looked up a video that showed M.Bison's move list and saw that he has a move which can be used to absorb the projectile, he also has the option to fire a projectile of his own back should he absorb a projectile. It also moves at an increased speed too.



The stalling rules in Smash do not matter. They only exist IF your opponent cannot reach you, for example, using a move to sit at the top of the blastzone after you take a percent lead. An example of this could be if a double Luigi or PAC-MAN team in doubles had the stock lead. They could spam up b on each other to sit at the top of the blast zone, forever, and run the timer down. Some characters may be able to catch them if they are quick enough, but I'm assuming that the majority of the cast would not be able to and that would be called out as foul play, very quickly. So the rules would apply there.

If a Shulk attempted this, the rules should not be applied to him, because that character would eventually have to touch the ground, the same goes for the Bayonetta "planking/ledge stall", that was short-lived in S4. There's counterplay to it, so the strategy is beatable.

Here is an example from another game where the stalling rule could be applied.

Spoiler: Street Fighter X Tekken: Mega Man Glitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JpVtxoXc0I

No counterplay. Just get the life lead in the game and you win.

Edit: Just because stages work differently in two fighting games does not mean that the same or a similar strategy cannot be applied. It's just not approved of by players who are not a fan of that playstyle. You'll probably lose to it, until you learn to suck it up and find a way around it, or just forfeit because your opponent decided not play "fairly" or like everyone else you've encountered before. I'm sorry that this community has encouraged players to believe that they have to win by killing their opponents when you have other options to win.
I feel like linking Core A Gaming's Salt video again, along with his Hadouken video and Justin Wong's Art of Lame video, but I feel like it won't do any good, since I tried during the S4 days and I cannot force people to change their minds. At least I'm trying to inform you guys.

Edit 2: Back to SFV, if a player really wanted to, they could runaway and throw projectiles, and once they push themselves into a corner, they could use their wall jump or a special move to get out of the corner. See: Chun-Li, Rashid, and Kolin; all 3 characters have projectiles and a wall jump (Kolin actually has a double jump unique to here, not a wall jump, my bad) to get out of the corner, should they find themselves there.

I agree that characters can be very campy in other games, but in the case of smash it doesn't help that matches are already too long even when playing offensive, so when someone play campy it looks or "feels" more bad that really is not to mention that smash players want everything to be hype and offensive rush down, so hopeful they learn that is not the end of the world or at least address the issue with the ruleset and not booing players

 

[Big O]

I think the concept behind parrying in this game is great and that the mechanic is better than perfect shielding. The problem with parrying is that the reward is undertuned. It is about as rewarding as perfect shielding numbers wise, but much more difficult and risky to pull off.

The advantages of parrying are full body intangibility throughout the entire parry (Rosa boost grab whiffs), not being vulnerable to shield pokes, and being able to dash immediately after it ends. However, in practice those perks don't make up for how much riskier and more difficult it is to perform. It feels like a much bigger moment of counterplay when you pull off a parry, but a lot of multi-hits and jab combos are actually not punishable on parry. The correct play for these are to parry into holding shield again, which is awkward and counter-intuitive.

Another problem with parrying is that when you parry a projectile, you actually suffer more lag than just shielding it. When you parry a non-projectile you gain 3 frames of advantage compared to shielding. When you parry a projectile you end up suffering 2 extra frames of lag instead of being +3 due to the parry animation being longer.

If they were to fine tune parrying to address these problems, I think more people would appreciate how much more thought goes into using it compared to perfect shielding. Making it last 5 frames less when parrying projectiles would address the first problem and bring the reward for parrying them in line with parrying other moves (+3 instead of -2). Adding a few frames of full body intangibility after the parry ends to help escape/counter/re-parry multi-hits would address the second problem. Maybe buffing the frame advantage to be like +5 instead of +3 would be enough to make the risk/reward feel better. Most people at this point agree that parrying is a little underwhelming, so I wouldn't be surprised if it got buffed in the near future.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Part of that is because we run 3 stocks now. Smashers assumed that 3 stocks would ruin Smash 4 and make games last forever or some nonsense like that, because they were too used to the For Glory standard that Smash 4 set. I believe that the only reason we are using 3 stocks in Ult is because the option exists in For Glory now and due to the new knockback mechanics, players assumed that this game would be faster than Ult among other changes.

Edit: G Gearkeeper-8a

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

I think the concept behind parrying in this game is great and that the mechanic is better than perfect shielding. The problem with parrying is that the reward is undertuned. It is about as rewarding as perfect shielding numbers wise, but much more difficult and risky to pull off.

The advantages of parrying are full body intangibility throughout the entire parry (Rosa boost grab whiffs), not being vulnerable to shield pokes, and being able to dash immediately after it ends. However, in practice those perks don't make up for how much riskier and more difficult it is to perform. It feels like a much bigger moment of counterplay when you pull off a parry, but a lot of multi-hits and jab combos are actually not punishable on parry. The correct play for these are to parry into holding shield again, which is awkward and counter-intuitive.

Another problem with parrying is that when you parry a projectile, you actually suffer more lag than just shielding it. When you parry a non-projectile you gain 3 frames of advantage compared to shielding. When you parry a projectile you end up suffering 2 extra frames of lag instead of being +3 due to the parry animation being longer.

If they were to fine tune parrying to address these problems, I think more people would appreciate how much more thought goes into using it compared to perfect shielding. Making it last 5 frames less when parrying projectiles would address the first problem and bring the reward for parrying them in line with parrying other moves (+3 instead of -2). Adding a few frames of full body intangibility after the parry ends to help escape/counter/re-parry multi-hits would address the second problem. Maybe buffing the frame advantage to be like +5 instead of +3 would be enough to make the risk/reward feel better. Most people at this point agree that parrying is a little underwhelming, so I wouldn't be surprised if it got buffed in the near future.

Wasn't the point of them that they be used primarily against bigger hits? The trailer essentially said something along the lines of "parry a smash attack, have enough time to smash attack as a counter". I'm not sure that parrying weaker, faster moves was ever supposed to be super rewarding.

EDIT: Not saying it shouldn't be better, just saying I don't know about the dev's intent.

 

[Rizen]

The stagelist could be better, though. With the common bannings of Yoshi’s Story and Yoshi’s Island because people think they’re redundant with Battlefield and Smashville, the only small stage left is Smashville. Campers have all the room they want to work with on medium to large stages.

The unspoken ‘honor’ rule of not consistently stalling to time just hasn’t been broken yet in Ultimate. Ultimate doesn’t yet have an Hbox or Wrath who deems it’s better to turtle around than risk approaching. I could see a few characters doing this in the future, but the player willing to have everyone hate them for tournament wins just hasn’t emerged yet.

Fighting games in general are just defensive at high levels. I can’t think of a single game that greatly rewards offense over defense.

YS and YI aren't banned in my region. YStory isn't a good stage to take zoners nor is it redundant with BF (that's ridiculous). As YL I'd much rather go to Story than BF, Lylat, SV or YI.

The only real way to stall would ironically be having someone like Jigglypuff go back and forth under SV and there are already rules about stalling, or at least there were in SSB4. Short of that, you're going to have interactions; they're unavoidable. Even when I fought Ganon on PS2 he got me down to last stock both games. You try and stall and either get corralled against the ledge or landing trapped. It's not smart gameplay. Ledge shananagains like planking died with Brawl. Sure we have stages like PS2 but characters are faster and more mobile in Ultimate. It's a different game.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

At first glance, Yoshi's Story and Dreamland can be seen as alternative Battlefield's due to the platform layout. They do have blastzone and stage differences but those are negligible if a player is only looking to pick a tri-plat stage to suit their character.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

At first glance, Yoshi's Story and Dreamland can be seen as alternative Battlefield's due to the platform layout. They do have blastzone and stage differences but those are negligible if a player is only looking to pick a tri-plat stage to suit their character.

Well, "negligible" might be out of place for Dreamland. Most characters can no longer pressure beneath the platforms from the ground due to their significantly higher placement. You basically need a sword and a pretty tall up tilt to do anything under them.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

That's the point. Characters with disjoints can easily juggle their opponents.

 

[Captain Sa10]

The thing I don't like about parrying, is that every parry is like a 3rd Strike red parry. You have to be shielding to perform it. So yea, a lot of time it feels more useful to take the shield hit, then punish with an aerial instead.

I wouldn't mind if it was an mappable button input like it is in Rivals or Aether, or even a button combo of some kind, but I don't know what all problems this could cause if it were too easy. I feel like you'd almost have to make the window to parry even smaller.

Wasn't the point of them that they be used primarily against bigger hits? The trailer essentially said something along the lines of "parry a smash attack, have enough time to smash attack as a counter". I'm not sure that parrying weaker, faster moves was ever supposed to be super rewarding.

EDIT: Not saying it shouldn't be better, just saying I don't know about the dev's intent.

I quoted these two posts mostly because they are great in showing what I believe, and how I perceive, parry’s in this game.

I believe a majority of the player base that has come into recent competitive smash, (I would roughly say middle of brawl era up till now), has little understanding of how parry mechanics worked back in older fighting games. Parrying, while a necessity in higher play, was hard and flashy in 3rd Strike(or learned when 3rd Strike Online came out). It was also very specific in how it worked on a case by case level and didn’t always give you a free punish(be it red parry or not).

This ultimately developed into a better understanding as players grew in the scene making parrying more fundamental in special scenarios.

Take for an example one extreme- parrying supers; it’s not easy. Learning how to parry specific ones drew in a massive pay-off in the form of a punish or having a better chance against a incoming mix-up.

For our smash example take something like Smash attacks or misplaced normals/specials, and you can potentially reap the same rewards. Although you’ll never find those rewards unless the effort and exploration into the system is taken into account (this could mean months or years with the sheer volume of characters in the roster).

The problem is that you have to figure those things out as the game progresses. It’s still too early in the games life to say a fundamental mechanic is flawed just because it’s not giving instant gratification/results (which is a another issue with patch culture and new age thinking, but that’s for another topic). It took 3rd Strike players a long ass time to get to where they are now(and even then some people still cant reliably parry everything or bother to).

I think players need to understand that a good fighting game is not like most other games. It’s like good wine- it gets better with age. We’ll know if it’s crap because then it won’t age well..IDK maybe I’m just too old school.

Honestly if this was the last smash game for awhile people would have to accept it for what it is (or leave I guess). Low key kinda wish it would be for at least 4 or 5 years.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Spoiler: Evo Moment #37

https://youtu.be/pS5peqApgUA?t=159

The Smash equivalent could be parrying a shield breaker during Game 5 in a last stock last hit scenario; where your shield is very low and you kill your opponent with a smash attack.

 

[Captain Sa10]

Spoiler: Evo Moment #37

https://youtu.be/pS5peqApgUA?t=159

The Smash equivalent could be parrying a shield breaker during Game 5 in a last stock last hit scenario; where your shield is very low and you kill your opponent with a smash attack.

Yes this precisely! It drives me absolutely nuts when my Shield breaker gets parried, (usually accidentally), and I get wrecked for it. Especially when several top and high tier cast can respond with very good kill options or kill confirms.

Honestly the realm of possibilities is still vastly unexplored. All it takes is one person to go out and Figure it out then boom! Metagame evolves.

 

[Wunderwaft]

I knew Bayonetta became worse but I didn't know to which degree until I played her recently. She can barely kill. Her moves have so much lag. And committing to an action leaves you wide open, there is nothing safe with Bayo. Also Witch Time is broken, and I mean it in a negative way, it's probably the worst counter in the game.

I don't know if she's really viable, I feel like her negatives outweigh her positives.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I knew Bayonetta became worse but I didn't know to which degree until I played her recently. She can barely kill. Her moves have so much lag. And committing to an action leaves you wide open, there is nothing safe with Bayo. Also Witch Time is broken, and I mean it in a negative way, it's probably the worst counter in the game.

I don't know if she's really viable, I feel like her negatives outweigh her positives.

She retains an ability to completely shut down the neutral of a lot of characters with some of her kit, but that only goes so far and in MU's mostly limited to other mid tiers and low tiers. I wouldn't call her super viable, but at the same time she's not totally useless either. She was over-nerfed like many predicted, if balancing fixes her that could show some promise but as-is she gets murked far too often within the realm of high/top tier to be considered TRULY viable.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I think the concept behind parrying in this game is great and that the mechanic is better than perfect shielding. The problem with parrying is that the reward is undertuned. It is about as rewarding as perfect shielding numbers wise, but much more difficult and risky to pull off.

This right here. Perfect Shielding as it was, was so brainless. It was just blocking, but better; there's no reason to not do it if you can. And the whole "if you hold R, shield comes out on the first frame it can" thing made it even worse.

The risk associated with parry makes it a better mechanic. I have some concerns about some multi-hit moves becoming parry fodder as time goes on, but most of them are punishable on block anyway I guess.

 

[Sean²]

YS and YI aren't banned in my region. YStory isn't a good stage to take zoners nor is it redundant with BF (that's ridiculous). As YL I'd much rather go to Story than BF, Lylat, SV or YI.

The only real way to stall would ironically be having someone like Jigglypuff go back and forth under SV and there are already rules about stalling, or at least there were in SSB4. Short of that, you're going to have interactions; they're unavoidable. Even when I fought Ganon on PS2 he got me down to last stock both games. You try and stall and either get corralled against the ledge or landing trapped. It's not smart gameplay. Ledge shananagains like planking died with Brawl. Sure we have stages like PS2 but characters are faster and more mobile in Ultimate. It's a different game.

I didn't necessarily mean like Melee or Brawl ledge stalling. I'm talking just actively running away to intentionally avoid interaction.

Some characters can do it well, like if you use Palutena and teleport cancel the moment you get a stock lead. I had someone try this on me once and, though I won, it was an absolute war of attrition of me trying to time hits for when she landed on the ledge of the platform, and her nickel and diming damage on me here and there. I could have easily lost that set if I didn't remain just as patient as that guy - I got a lucky hit with like 10 seconds left on an 8 minute timer. Some other characters are fast enough to circle camp BF platforms if they really wanted to.

And you're lucky to have those stages legal where you're at. A lot of places have YI and YS, banned. Sometimes Lylat as well. with Kalos/T&C/FD - usually at least 2 out of the 3 - as starters. 3 stages that promote the same kind of gameplay/tactics. The same types of characters do well on all of those stages. You're usually limited to Smashville and BF if you want a primarily different type of stage.

 

[ARISTOS]

I didn't necessarily mean like Melee or Brawl ledge stalling. I'm talking just actively running away to intentionally avoid interaction.

Some characters can do it well, like if you use Palutena and teleport cancel the moment you get a stock lead. I had someone try this on me once and, though I won, it was an absolute war of attrition of me trying to time hits for when she landed on the ledge of the platform, and her nickel and diming damage on me here and there. I could have easily lost that set if I didn't remain just as patient as that guy - I got a lucky hit with like 10 seconds left on an 8 minute timer. Some other characters are fast enough to circle camp BF platforms if they really wanted to.

And you're lucky to have those stages legal where you're at. A lot of places have YI and YS, banned. Sometimes Lylat as well. with Kalos/T&C/FD - usually at least 2 out of the 3 - as starters. 3 stages that promote the same kind of gameplay/tactics. The same types of characters do well on all of those stages. You're usually limited to Smashville and BF if you want a primarily different type of stage.

Lots of characters can really degen the game should they choose to, though I think the stickiness of platforms help in preventing the worst of the abuse.

The best thing stage wise would be for a hazard toggle to be moved to the stage selection screen rather than the ruleset screen