Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Supermodel From Paris]

Yea, like what even is Snake's weakness? Lmao

His advantage and neutral are both top tier. And his disadvantage just BARELY exists. He's vulnerable, moreso than Brawl MK or Sm4sh Bayo. But it's hardly a weakness.

Snake is top tier, but he's not broken, and he's a unique character that is fun to see. It's healthy for him to be a top character, it's good for the game IMO.

However it's important to remember that those succeeding with Snake are Brawl vets and Snake has a very unique playstyle that requires a lot of practice, which MVD and Salem (and others who played Brawl) have. Playing against Snake is also a skill unique to Snake. In the early days of Brawl people thought he was top 1 for the reasons you're stating here, and he was probably stronger in that game. Over time people got better at exploiting him and while he was still very strong his design was healthy and kept in check.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Success against Snake is largely dependent on how well your character can neutralize his traps and stage control. If you have absorbers or ways to effectively damage him from the part of stage he isn't controlling (note not just standard projectile zoning) then it's a lot easier to deal with circumventing around his field of explosions. Characters like Ness, Lucas and G&W come to mind as they don't allow Snake to trap as much as he's used to (he can still trap and use his explosives but he has to be careful which means less of them).

I'd be surprised if the space animals don't fare better against him than most, transcendent lasers that cover most of stage should allow them to get damage from afar ontop of a reflector should help them prevent Snake from being 100% in control of stage. Fox is fast enough to break through zone when needed though I can see the risk in such a light character getting his strings broken by a nade, the damage Fox takes compared to the damage Snake will take is heavily in Snake's favor given how light he is and how strong Snake's kill moves are. Falco can't zone break like Fox but Falco can chase snake off stage and exploit Snake's tendency to recover high fairly well with his high jumps.

Approaching is Snake's biggest weakness, if he isn't able to use nades to apply pressure to make his opponents press forward or sit in shield his Nade-less approach is pretty linear. (Most characters can't force Snake to play this way though so it makes sense you don't see it often.) He has his fantastic dash attack and that's about it. His aerials aren't good to approach with, dair probably being his best one and that only covers below him leaving him open to horizontal air to air exchanges. No matter how good his dash attack is it's only one option.

We will keep seeing Snake do very well aside from being a top tier character but a lot of the other top tiers in this game don't have kits that are as conducive to anti-snake counterplay as a Ness, Lucas or G&W. Not saying the beat Snake (I still believe Ness atleast does slightly I can't speak on the other two.) I would need to go and watch some Fox/Wolf vs Snake gameplay and see if my theorycrafting holds any water.

Oh and I completely agree that his moves could stand to lose some damage output and knockback. Up tilt being the primary offender with a kit like he already has.

 

[Kiligar]

The "trapper" archetype is a definitely variant of the zoner and in a lot of games they do both. See Ky in XRD, Testament in past GG games, Poison in SF4, and yes, Snake in Smash. If your character controls stage space at a distance and reduces options by putting hitboxes on the stage, they're a zoner.

I feel Snake does both. He uses grenades and C4 to control stage space in a way none other can. He seems most similar to Duck Hunt in the way he plays with C4 being similar to can, except better, and Wild Gunman and Clay Pidgeon serving as similar purposes to grenade in hindering approaching. But he does it all better, and has quick or powerful close range options that don’t seem to fit on his archetype. Why would Snake want to approach you? To get a down Throw read or throw you off stage and Nikita guard. He’s not rewarded for agressive approaching as much as the chip damage from his projectiles, attempting to trap you into a C4 kill or get you offstage into a Nikita kill. His dash attack is more of a tool to respect his space and further improves his zoning, rather than a tool for getting close. It’s very fast, so if among the minefield of grenades and C4 you aren’t prepared for that frame 5 dash attack, you may get trapped off of that one move. I feel Snake controls space more effectively than any other character due to his Up Smash, Nikita, Grenades, C4, and dash attack. These are the main components of Snake’s gameplay. Each of them control a certain amount and type of space, with U-ash being vertical, Nikita being both vertical and offstage, grenades being the stage itself, C4 being a permanent no go zone on the stage that you must keep track of, even if you do it restricts your option to an extent the remote bomb can’t emulate. The remote bomb can be picked up, you can’t do that with C4. Isabelle’s rocket can be destroyed, or blocked on, and lasts for much less time than C4. Now that I think of it, C4 is somewhat of a broken tool. It outclasses all of its alternatives from other zoner characters, has less counterplay and is less visible and much more powerful. To give you an idea of what it outclasses, Isabelle rocket, remote bomb, Duck Hunt can and Zelda Phantom. All these moves have similar purposes but much less kill power and much more counterplay. Does C4 need a nerf? No, unless they don’t nerf some of Snakes other tools so that he relies more on C4 rather than it being yet another overtuned weapon in his arsenal. The more I think about Snake, the more disturbing the risk reward system seems on him.

I feel people purposely underrated Snake due to his popularity. Olimar was hated on as soon as he reached the top, but where is that hate for Snake? He was toted as a high tier for no real reason, just people saying “I think he’s balanced” “He has weaknesses” “I think he’s good but not quite top tier”. No longer should this be done. Snake is top 3. Why is he top 3? He has overtuned aspects of his moveset that make him that way. Same with the other denizens at the top. If the balance team is serious about balancing the game, there will be careful but necessary changes to these characters in the next patch. There should also be buffs to a large part of the roster.

Finally, the buff mindset. Let’s say character A has X move that has a risk reward ratio of prepatch Nikita. Character B has Y move with a risk reward ratio that’s normal. Should you make Y move on character B have a silly risk reward ratio to character A, and repeat this across the game? What is the result of this? A term not taken seriously enough by the community known as ‘spamming’. The balance team hates spamming, shown in two ways. One of the most important mechanics of the game, called staling. Also the competitive community apparently does as well, evidenced by concepts like ‘mixups’ ‘neutral’ ‘reads’ ‘habits’. Finally, the projectile nerf, to not make projectile less powerful, but less safe. Since X and Y move are safe and powerful, the button inputs of these moves will be overused. Example include “wobbling” from melee, as well as Olimar’s smash attacks in Ultimate and Snake’s Up Tilt in Ultimate. Here’s another scenario. If character A has X move which is balanced, and character B has Y move that does 80 damage to yourself, deals 1 damage and sends you offstage, what are you going to do? Hence the buff and nerf mindset. Not on the extreme end if only one. This strategy of balancing the game would be most effective, not no nerfs, or no buffs which exists as well as said by ESAM on stream.

 

[Impax]

Frame data. Snake's frame data is kind of crap.

Characters that have fast frame data and high kill power ( actually comes to mind here) can give trouble, especially if they have a good projectile ('s fireball and 's thunder jolt are two examples) or a reflector/absorber ( all have one) can give Snake trouble if they can get past his wall of projectiles. However, even though these characters can give a lot of trouble if they get in, even characters with relfelectors can have trouble getting in if Snake plays right.

I'd argue that does surprisingly well in this matchup because of his kill power and reflector but others may not agree with that opinion, IDK.

Edit: has a pretty good reflector too as does and I think

Would projectiles in general be a weakness since he is susceptible to the chip damage while setting up?

 

[DunnoBro]

Frame data. Snake's frame data is kind of crap.

Frame 1 Nade
Frame 3 Jab
Frame 3 Dair
Frame 5 Dash Attack
Frame 6 Utilt

His frame data is actually average at worst. I'm not disagreeing with your overall post, but honestly "Muh Frame Data" is the same thing people said with sm4sh bayo. And Snake actually has wayyy better frame data than her. It's just not a valid defense.

Snake is top tier, but he's not broken, and he's a unique character that is fun to see. It's healthy for him to be a top character, it's good for the game IMO.

"Healthy" and "Fun" are very subjective. And defensive, linear characters who largely avoid the main draws of the game (combos and edgeguarding) being so prominent can easily be argued as rather unhealthy.

I also never said he was broken.

However it's important to remember that those succeeding with Snake are Brawl vets and Snake has a very unique playstyle that requires a lot of practice, which MVD and Salem (and others who played Brawl) have. Playing against Snake is also a skill unique to Snake. In the early days of Brawl people thought he was top 1 for the reasons you're stating here, and he was probably stronger in that game. Over time people got better at exploiting him and while he was still very strong his design was healthy and kept in check.

Yea, uhh. That's not even true? There's more than a few fresh ultimate snakes having success. (Pathoran, Heavy, Vinny G)

But it's irrelevant anyway. I've been saying all this for a while now. And I'm not analyzing Snake's success, but rather the general flow and situations from the data provided therein.

 

[Sean²]

Weren't these almost the same general complaints people had about Pichu and Wolf a few months back? Is it safe to say he's FOTM yet?

 

[Jampman]

Snake is top tier, but he's not broken, and he's a unique character that is fun to see. It's healthy for him to be a top character, it's good for the game IMO.

However it's important to remember that those succeeding with Snake are Brawl vets and Snake has a very unique playstyle that requires a lot of practice, which MVD and Salem (and others who played Brawl) have. Playing against Snake is also a skill unique to Snake. In the early days of Brawl people thought he was top 1 for the reasons you're stating here, and he was probably stronger in that game. Over time people got better at exploiting him and while he was still very strong his design was healthy and kept in check.

I had the same sentiments in my draft but I must‘ve edited them out by accident. IMO it’s important the game has a mix of viable character archetypes, plus I just love watching Snake and I wish the majority of the community could learn to appreciate matchups that weren’t 24/7 rushdown (there is no Smash game in which it’s viable anyway). Ally’s Brawl/Ultimate Snake is poetry in motion, man

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

"Healthy" and "Fun" are very subjective.

Yes, that's why I wrote "IMO" at the end of the sentence, but thanks for clearing that up for people who don't know what that abbreviation means, I guess.

Yea, uhh. That's not even true? There's more than a few fresh ultimate snakes having success. (Pathoran, Heavy, Vinny G)

But it's irrelevant anyway. I've been saying all this for a while now. And I'm not analyzing Snake's success, but rather the general flow and situations from the data provided therein.

Okay, that's fair enough, and sorry for not being super aware of exactly what's happening in top level play all the time. But my point (which you didn't really respond to, you just picked at the details instead but whatever) still stands here: Snake is a unique character with a very unusual path to his win state. He doesn't care about taking damage or trading, he's primarily about controlling large amounts of space rather than a zone directly in front of or behind him, he's more about setup and payoff than keeping and maintaining a lead, etc. Beating him requires a degree of surgical precision that we can't really expect out of players yet because to most of Smash 4's audience he might as well be brand new, plus it's a new game.

Again, in Brawl, Snake is overtuned, but players slowly got better at attacking his weaknesses. He was #1 in the Brawl equivalent of this thread, #2 in the first tier list, and like arguably #5-#7 now. Snake hasn't changed much, and if anything, he's worse in this game because the mechanics make disadvantage state so much harder to get out of, he doesn't have DACUS to slide around the stage for free, his hitboxes are all more reasonable and less large, it's easier to hit his cipher while he's recovering, C4 recovery does eventually become untechable, absorb abilities can absorb his explosions and Nikita, and so forth.

Players will figure it out. Until they do Snake will win a lot. We've seen this all before, it's whatever.

 

[Rizen]

I've been saying Snake's top tier for several months. The problem with his DA isn't just that it's f5 but his arms are intangible. This creates a trample effect that beats out other hitboxes unless they have significant disjoint. It's really good vs landings.

 

[DunnoBro]

Okay, that's fair enough, and sorry for not being super aware of exactly what's happening in top level play all the time. But my point (which you didn't really respond to, you just picked at the details instead but whatever) still stands here: Snake is a unique character with a very unusual path to his win state. He doesn't care about taking damage or trading, he's primarily about controlling large amounts of space rather than a zone directly in front of or behind him, he's more about setup and payoff than keeping and maintaining a lead, etc. Beating him requires a degree of surgical precision that we can't really expect out of players yet because to most of Smash 4's audience he might as well be brand new, plus it's a new game.

Again, in Brawl, Snake is overtuned, but players slowly got better at attacking his weaknesses. He was #1 in the Brawl equivalent of this thread, #2 in the first tier list, and like arguably #5-#7 now. Snake hasn't changed much, and if anything, he's worse in this game because the mechanics make disadvantage state so much harder to get out of, he doesn't have DACUS to slide around the stage for free, his hitboxes are all more reasonable and less large, it's easier to hit his cipher while he's recovering, C4 recovery does eventually become untechable, absorb abilities can absorb his explosions and Nikita, and so forth.

Players will figure it out. Until they do Snake will win a lot. We've seen this all before, it's whatever.

Yea, I ignored it because being unique doesn't matter. Nor is it my problem.

And to be honest, when we get into "You need to have known this matchup for 10 years to deal with it" I think we get to the point that we can safely say Snake is overly privileged.

Also, I played brawl snake. His disadvantage is actually imo better in ultimate due to directional airdodge, cypher carrying momentum from DJ WAY better, frame 3 dair, and no edgehogging giving him a much wider range of options offstage.

Like, I'm not even sure how you can make the argument his disadvantage is worse. He has even more, and scarier mixups. (At least on landing.)

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I'm just not sure I agree with nerfing a character because people aren't good at fighting them yet, but you do you boo.

 

[blackghost]

I'm going to throw it out there that being meta and anti-meta are not mutually exclusive things. Something being anti-meta means that it's effective at countering some of the most popular metagame characters or strategies, which will often make them popular meta picks themselves.

meta means Most effective tactics available.
meta has nothing to do with usage rate. this isn't pokemon. if the best character has a high execution barrier it is still the meta character. but to deal with brackets at a tournament you need to be able to beat the character that is common in the bracket. but at top level META characters are simply the best characters.
an anti meta character is a good counter to meta characters. They often have options or moves that are heavy counters to meta characters. often these characters lose to common bracket characters. so far smash ultimate doesnt have a coutnerpick character based on character Matchups.

 

[SwagGuy99]

If he's fighting a fast character who can get in on him while he's setting up, then yes, but not all characters are fast enough to punish him for setting up.

 

[Diddy Kong]

As of the last 2 weeks, I see a lot of Diddy players winning local tournaments. It might not say that much, cause any character can really do this.. But it's been happening far more as of late. And I think that's an interessting change of flow. It also seems JJRockets still has confidence in the character, and I hope more older Smash 4 and Brawl Diddy mains will show up pushing Diddy to higher heights in Ultimate.

 

[Nutty Sponge]

That’s the popular opinion, to assume Snake isn’t OP, or that he’s well balanced. Why are there so many Snakes in the top 8 of every major tournament? It’s not because the character is simple and strong, because then there should be more Lucinas and Palutenas. It’s because the character is very polarizing. It is said he has weaknesses, but not listed. I’ll list them here. Tall hurtbox, exploitable recovery. That’s all, it doesn’t balance out his strengths. His recovery is still great due to being able to go high above the stage while dropping C4, which can get you killed if you try to attack him, as what happened in the Salem v Samsora set. His grenades get rid of the cons of being combo able due to his weight and hurtbox, and he can trade with the opponent using these grenades. He’s a polarizing character, as I said. Nowhere as polarizing as Bayonetta sm4sh, Meta Knight in Brawl, Fox in Melee, Kirby in 64 etc.

There are a few things that would tweak him to make him more balanced, and I listed them above. This is not only for Snake, there are other overtuned characters like Olimar, and slightly overtuned character like Peach. A few fixes here and there is all that’s needed to balance them properly. If they’re not properly balanced right now, and they aren’t, then what is wrong with fixing them. The current mindset is don’t nerf, find counterplay. Which is nice and all but only if the subject is already balanced. You can counterplay as hard as you want, but improper balance gives your opponent an advantage as soon as the game says GO! Zero outplayed Salem at Evo, but guess what happened. One combo from Salem and it was over. This is an extreme example but we shouldn’t overlook imbalances just because we say don’t nerf without thinking. The Nikita nerf was a step in the right direction. It was broken before, and is still slightly broken now. Who here says that Nikita shouldn’t have been nerfed? The move was so oppressive over half the roster benefited from its nerf. No nerfs only buffs is not always correct. Both are needed. Duck Hunt is an example of an only nerf character, when he wasn’t that strong to begin with. He suffered from the projectile nerf and his side Special nerf. He received a slight buff to can lag. That’s not enough buffs.

I have been going on for some time, but I want to make clear my point. The objective as far as I understand is balance. And both nerfs and buffs are needed to get there. Regardless if you want a character to remain slightly overpowered, no. The end goal I see is a fair meta , not a meta game centered around 12 out of 75+ characters.

In my opinion, this isn't really much of an issue. I don't have a hard time fighting snake with Wolf, mainly just Shulk. There are better characters that definitely deserve a nerf more than Snake. I'm not saying he isn't extremely good because of me liking Snake, because Snake definitely is a top tier- he's more manageable than a good Olimar or Peach for sure though

 

[$.A.F.]

Yes. It’s been terrible. For the past literal two weeks, he’s been dominating tournaments and I don’t want to learn his weaknesses. Clearly he needs a nerf because he’s obviously busted. Okay this has been the case for half the characters in the game. First it was Pikachu, then Meta Knight, then King K. Rool, then Inkling, then Chrom, then Pichu, then Ike then Wolf, then Wario, then Peach, then Lucina, then Greninja, then Olimar, and now Snake. Almost all of these characters didn’t have much attention coming with them, then boom! Someone does well with them in the slightest way and you guys beg for nerfs. And how are all these characters now? Half of them aren’t even top tier, even less are widely argued for top 5. Y’all are way too quick to beg for nerfs. If Snake actually is still dominating tournaments in a month, we’ll have an issue.

 

[Arthur97]

I agree people are too nerf happy. Especially after what happened to poor ol' Chrom. One should not be too rash when talking game balance.

 

[$.A.F.]

I agree people are too nerf happy. Especially after what happened to poor ol' Chrom. One should not be too rash when talking game balance.

Chrom? He practically got away with a hand slap. Did he deserve a nerf? No. Is he still pretty good? Yes. If I had to choose anyone, pour one out for the dead homie, king k. Rool Buff. Him.

 

[Roguewolf]

K rool needs buffs but he wasn't really nerfed that hard nintendo seems to do just enough to appease the people clamoring for nerfs who don't pay attention. But yes please buff k rool

 

[Kiligar]

Is Snake’s risk reward ratio on certain moves on his moveset balanced properly? No. Then fix that. He may not be the same amount of jank as clearly broken characters in the past, but even a little broken is still some amount of imbalance. What is wrong with fixing what isn’t properly balanced? Same thing goes with, what’s wrong with buffing Duck Hunt, Bowser Jr, Little Mac, K.Rool, Plant etc.

 

[Rizen]

Yes. It’s been terrible. For the past literal two weeks, he’s been dominating tournaments and I don’t want to learn his weaknesses. Clearly he needs a nerf because he’s obviously busted. Okay this has been the case for half the characters in the game. First it was Pikachu, then Meta Knight, then King K. Rool, then Inkling, then Chrom, then Pichu, then Ike then Wolf, then Wario, then Peach, then Lucina, then Greninja, then Olimar, and now Snake. Almost all of these characters didn’t have much attention coming with them, then boom! Someone does well with them in the slightest way and you guys beg for nerfs. And how are all these characters now? Half of them aren’t even top tier, even less are widely argued for top 5. Y’all are way too quick to beg for nerfs. If Snake actually is still dominating tournaments in a month, we’ll have an issue.

This is a false equivalency. Most of those characters haven't had anywhere near the tournament success Snake had. Snake is not "Someone does well with them in the slightest way ": Snake's been dominating top 8s from Pound to Who's Your Daddy to Thunder Smash.

I agree people are too nerf happy. Especially after what happened to poor ol' Chrom. One should not be too rash when talking game balance.

So you liked Chrom being able to kill you first with his upB at any %? Even when things like Ganoncide kill Ganon first?


Face it the recent nerfs against Snake's Nikita and Wolf's Dsmash were in no way unreasonable. When characters display the level of tournament dominance they have it's healthy for the diversity of the meta to tweek them a little. Heck in Thunder Smash top 8 we saw 2 of the exact same MU, Wolf vs Snake, with different players.

 

[Roguewolf]

Because sometimes when your just trying to balance you end up gutting the charachter ala pre patch shiek

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

When talking about character results and how broken a character is, does snake really dominate the rankings to be considerated broken or unhealthy ? or is because he is constantly featured on popular streamed tournaments and you don't like to watch how he plays, this is a very important distiction because the "balace" ideas from some of the posters in this thread will not make snake less viable at top level and you will still see him on top 8 or top 16 , MVD, ally and salem will still featured on top 8 or 16.

The same with case with , shuton, dabuz and myran will still use the character even if olimar were a high tier or even a mid tier, so you will still see him on tournaments.

balancing the game around character placements on top 8 or top 16 isn't feasible when most of the time people will use the most recent tournaments or the tournaments that got more views as a base to make changes to the game balance.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I'm not going to say that buffs and nerfs are bad, or even that they're unneeded...but it does still irk me the way patch culture keeps distracting us from more productive discussion.

meta means Most effective tactics available.
meta has nothing to do with usage rate. this isn't pokemon. if the best character has a high execution barrier it is still the meta character. but to deal with brackets at a tournament you need to be able to beat the character that is common in the bracket. but at top level META characters are simply the best characters.
an anti meta character is a good counter to meta characters. They often have options or moves that are heavy counters to meta characters. often these characters lose to common bracket characters. so far smash ultimate doesnt have a coutnerpick character based on character Matchups.

Maybe "popular" wasn't my best word choice (I guess my history with competitive Pokemon is showing, eh?), but even then popularity still effects the metagame.

I still stand by my point that a character can be both meta and anti-meta at the same time and that "losing to common bracket characters" is not a necessity to being anti-meta, the important part is that they still counter other meta tactics. But at this point we're just arguing semantics, and meta still might be a better way to describe Snake and Olimar even if it could be argued that "anti-meta" is also still true.

 

[Arthur97]

Chrom? He practically got away with a hand slap. Did he deserve a nerf? No. Is he still pretty good? Yes. If I had to choose anyone, pour one out for the dead homie, king k. Rool Buff. Him.

I thought general consensus after that was that Roy was better now that they took away one of Chrom's most effect tools? I don't know, with Lucina taking up so much attention, Roy and Chrom don't seem to be hot topics for discussion.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I feel like Roy and Chrom are two halves of a complete character. Whenever I'm playing one I miss something from the other one.

 

[Kiligar]

I'm not going to say that buffs and nerfs are bad, or even that they're unneeded...but it does still irk me the way patch culture keeps distracting us from more productive discussion.

Is patch culture a bad thing if a game isn’t properly balanced and there are several opportunities to do so? The opinion of the community has an effect on the patches, as shown with what happened to Krool. They began fixing him more in patch 3.0.0, as he was now not as commonly considered overpowered. I feel the label ‘patch culture’ has a negative stigma attached to it, when it’s a good thing for patches to improve a game. Melee has awful balance. That’s the truth of that game, and it had 0 patches. The meta developed indeed. And players understand that Fox is the best in the game, because he is. Wobbling is not balance at all, it’s a glitch and if Sakurai was capable of patching Melee or knew it was in the game before release, he would have gotten rid of it. And with Ultimate we have the chance to eliminate imbalances within the game, through nerfs and buffs. That potential for balance to improve over time with patches is a great thing. This is one of the reasons why this game is the best smash in terms of balance, since balance can constantly be improved. Human beings make errors, but with patches they can be fixed. There are probably dozens of glitches in the game that allow you to 0 death an opponent consistently. Should those remain in the game? Should Olimar take damage from his own smash attacks? Glitches are patched because they’re unfair due to not being planned beforehand. Perhaps the developers had a different vision of how a character would balance out while creating their moveset, but put into reality they realized they made a mistake. I don’t see anything bad about improving the game.

Regardless, the original topic was Snake, and that’s what brought us here.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Is patch culture a bad thing if a game isn’t properly balanced and there are several opportunities to do so? The opinion of the community has an effect on the patches, as shown with what happened to Krool. They began fixing him more in patch 3.0.0, as he was now not as commonly considered overpowered. I feel the label ‘patch culture’ has a negative stigma attached to it, when it’s a good thing for patches to improve a game. Melee has awful balance. That’s the truth of that game, and it had 0 patches. The meta developed indeed. And players understand that Fox is the best in the game, because he is. Wobbling is not balance at all, it’s a glitch and if Sakurai was capable of patching Melee or knew it was in the game before release, he would have gotten rid of it. And with Ultimate we have the chance to eliminate imbalances within the game, through nerfs and buffs. That potential for balance to improve over time with patches is a great thing. This is one of the reasons why this game is the best smash in terms of balance, since balance can constantly be improved. Human beings make errors, but with patches they can be fixed. There are probably dozens of glitches in the game that allow you to 0 death an opponent consistently. Should those remain in the game? Should Olimar take damage from his own smash attacks? Glitches are patched because they’re unfair due to not being planned beforehand. Perhaps the developers had a different vision of how a character would balance out while creating their moveset, but put into reality they realized they made a mistake. I don’t see anything bad about improving the game.

Regardless, the original topic was Snake, and that’s what brought us here.

I wasn't saying Nintendo should stop patching the game. Not in the slightest.

But I don't think us talking about what changes we'd make here will really matter much. I think we should focus on the metagame as it is right now and leave balancing to the balance team. I doubt they watch this thread anyway.

 

[$.A.F.]

This is a false equivalency. Most of those characters haven't had anywhere near the tournament success Snake had. Snake is not "Someone does well with them in the slightest way ": Snake's been dominating top 8s from Pound to Who's Your Daddy to Thunder Smash.

So you liked Chrom being able to kill you first with his upB at any %? Even when things like Ganoncide kill Ganon first?


Face it the recent nerfs against Snake's Nikita and Wolf's Dsmash were in no way unreasonable. When characters display the level of tournament dominance they have it's healthy for the diversity of the meta to tweek them a little. Heck in Thunder Smash top 8 we saw 2 of the exact same MU, Wolf vs Snake, with different players.

All tournaments within the literal past two weeks. Be real. Snake is a character that nobody really knows the matchup that well against (bar Esam of course) because he’s unfun to play against according to quite a bit of people, and until literally two weeks ago, wasn’t really that common so nobody really DID need to learn it. Supplement this with the ridiculously bad hot takes by Leffen and ZeRo wrecking the opinions on Snake’s viability even pre release, and his nerfed kit from Brawl, and ya have a character who is both underrated, uncommon, and a supposed bore to fight. So now when people see him doing really well in tournaments, it kind of creates a trap. The character had a meteoric rise in the opinions of many in viability due to ridiculously bad takes perpetuated by a hate of playing the matchup or character enough to really judge accurately. This last point comes back again. Snake seemingly out of nowhere has a huge increase in results. This creates a huge problem because people now think he’s busted due to a lack of matchup experience and hate against the character along with people being whiny creates the opinion that he’s instantly a top 5 character now and desperately needs nerfs. Now remember, Snake actually has weaknesses. Characters that aren’t even top tier have good matchups against him. Game and Watch, Lucas, Piranha Plant, Ness, Samus, Bowser and Ivysaur. In top tier he has Fox, the chus, Peach and Lucina. He honestly isn’t as good as he’s portrayed by some of y’all to be.

 

[Y2Kay]

I find it difficult to believe snake is the best in the game, or even second best. He's definitely strong, though.

The main issue, at least from my experience, is the grenade. Not only do grenades make it hard to take stage control from snake, but also makes him difficult to keep in disadvantage. Most characters have to hold frametraps and vortexes when they get hit, but frame 1 Grenade pull makes it difficult to keep up juggling.

I still think his inability to approach still hurts him big time though. If you're in a position where u can avoid the minefield all together, a lot of snake players kina fall apart. I've personally stopped trying to rush down snake when fighting him. I usually just poke with shurikens and throw back any grenades, baiting him into dash attacking thru and punishing accordingly.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I had the same sentiments in my draft but I must‘ve edited them out by accident. IMO it’s important the game has a mix of viable character archetypes, plus I just love watching Snake and I wish the majority of the community could learn to appreciate matchups that weren’t 24/7 rushdown (there is no Smash game in which it’s viable anyway). Ally’s Brawl/Ultimate Snake is poetry in motion, man

Agreed. Rather you think they are 'overtuned' or not, having characters in the meta that can get viable, consistent results without having to play the exact same rushdown sort of metagame the vast majority of the rest of the roster (or the viable end of the roster, at least) plays is nice and just as entertaining to play/watch as anything else.

Having an intense game of neutral to me is far more tense than any advantage state run.

 

[Sean²]

Is patch culture a bad thing if a game isn’t properly balanced and there are several opportunities to do so? The opinion of the community has an effect on the patches, as shown with what happened to Krool. They began fixing him more in patch 3.0.0, as he was now not as commonly considered overpowered. I feel the label ‘patch culture’ has a negative stigma attached to it, when it’s a good thing for patches to improve a game. Melee has awful balance. That’s the truth of that game, and it had 0 patches. The meta developed indeed. And players understand that Fox is the best in the game, because he is. Wobbling is not balance at all, it’s a glitch and if Sakurai was capable of patching Melee or knew it was in the game before release, he would have gotten rid of it. And with Ultimate we have the chance to eliminate imbalances within the game, through nerfs and buffs. That potential for balance to improve over time with patches is a great thing. This is one of the reasons why this game is the best smash in terms of balance, since balance can constantly be improved. Human beings make errors, but with patches they can be fixed. There are probably dozens of glitches in the game that allow you to 0 death an opponent consistently. Should those remain in the game? Should Olimar take damage from his own smash attacks? Glitches are patched because they’re unfair due to not being planned beforehand. Perhaps the developers had a different vision of how a character would balance out while creating their moveset, but put into reality they realized they made a mistake. I don’t see anything bad about improving the game.

Regardless, the original topic was Snake, and that’s what brought us here.

Patches are a bad thing when mishandled by developers due to player demands over actual necessity. Players demand nerfs, not because something is overpowered, because they don't want to put in the time to learn how to beat it first. That's what "patch culture" really is, it doesn't involve them patching things that actually need fixed.

 

[Avokha]

Hate to derail this nerf culture talk, but I found something that could spark some new interesting discussion;

Thoughts?

 

[DelugeFGC]

With the way Nintendo / Whomever balances this game, it's all kind of null to cry out for buffs / nerfs one way OR the other.. lord knows they ain't listening. Seeing as how online results and the JP comp scene seem to influence 99.99% of the balance changes, most people probably won't end up seeing the things they want anytime soon.

So it truly is best to just learn the (STILL GROWING) meta and try to find counterplay where you can. Complaining doesn't really do anything past a certain point. Discussion is healthy, consistent complaining just stagnates the topic further.

 

[Rizen]

All tournaments within the literal past two weeks. Be real. Snake is a character that nobody really knows the matchup that well against (bar Esam of course) because he’s unfun to play against according to quite a bit of people, and until literally two weeks ago, wasn’t really that common so nobody really DID need to learn it. Supplement this with the ridiculously bad hot takes by Leffen and ZeRo wrecking the opinions on Snake’s viability even pre release, and his nerfed kit from Brawl, and ya have a character who is both underrated, uncommon, and a supposed bore to fight. So now when people see him doing really well in tournaments, it kind of creates a trap. The character had a meteoric rise in the opinions of many in viability due to ridiculously bad takes perpetuated by a hate of playing the matchup or character enough to really judge accurately. This last point comes back again. Snake seemingly out of nowhere has a huge increase in results. This creates a huge problem because people now think he’s busted due to a lack of matchup experience and hate against the character along with people being whiny creates the opinion that he’s instantly a top 5 character now and desperately needs nerfs. Now remember, Snake actually has weaknesses. Characters that aren’t even top tier have good matchups against him. Game and Watch, Lucas, Piranha Plant, Ness, Samus, Bowser and Ivysaur. In top tier he has Fox, the chus, Peach and Lucina. He honestly isn’t as good as he’s portrayed by some of y’all to be.

Snake's had results for months. This is a post I made in January:

Spoiler: Here's all of the weekly full results

https://smashboards.com/threads/ssbu-tournament-results.464865/

Results aren't everything but I hope this can lay the "Link is better than Snake" business to rest. Snake is easily a top 5 character, significantly outplacing Link every week. I am done with this topic.

Snake's always been crazy.

 

[Kiligar]

Characters that aren’t even top tier have good matchups against him. Game and Watch, Lucas, Piranha Plant, Ness, Samus, Bowser and Ivysaur. In top tier he has Fox, the chus, Peach and Lucina. He honestly isn’t as good as he’s portrayed by some of y’all to be.

I feel having to pick up a different character to have a decent chance against him shows how polarizing he is. If you don’t have a reflector or teleport, good luck against Nikita. Most characters. All characters you listed either have a reflector/absorber, zoning, or amazing recoveries. Many of those matchups are even too, such as Piranha Plant, Samus, Bowser and Ivysaur. Basically what I got from the post is since Snake can be counterpicked he isn’t broken. Well, let’s return to sm4sh Bayo, where characters who had a decent chance against her were the main ones seen at competitive level. Rosalina, Diddy, Sheik, Cloud and Bayo herself. If you decided to use anyone else vs her, good luck. Which brings me back to Nikita. Of course, a character may have a few matchups in which they dominate. But the more matchups in which they dominate, that is what decides their placement overall. Snake’s Nikita is absolute denial to many recoveries. A character can have a tool which makes a matchup harder for others, but it shouldn’t be so widespread. An example is magnet pull Rosa v Ness, but Ness has the advantage on stage so the matchup isn’t aa bad as it seems. I’ll give you a video example. Skip to 13:54

Xcal is knocked off stage, and the commentators said he ‘caught an airdodge’. The reality was that Xcal had no way to escape, the hitbox on Nikita lingers for too long. Furthermore even if the air dodge got past which it was incapable of doing so, the lag after an airdodge and the low end lag of Nikita or option to pursue further meant it would be checkmate. The second situation had Xcal test the limits of his characters recovery with the perfect wait, but the lasting hitbox of Nikita caught his drop down. He dropped because he was afraid of his neutral get up being caught by the lasting hitbox. He also felt jump would be caught as well. Roll would most likely be safest, except that Ally was in the perfect place to cover that due to Nikita’s low end lag. The final hit was a mistake by Xcal, recovering too high, but the damage had already been done, this entire situation beginning with a dash attack. Xcal also did his best to outmaneuver the Nikita, too bad he couldn’t simply click down B. Keep in mind all of this was done from a safe distance with no risk to Snake himself, you’re not reverse edgegaurding a missile or losing stage control. All I’d expect is more end lag on Nikita.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I find it difficult to believe snake is the best in the game, or even second best. He's definitely strong, though.

The main issue, at least from my experience, is the grenade. Not only do grenades make it hard to take stage control from snake, but also makes him difficult to keep in disadvantage. Most characters have to hold frametraps and vortexes when they get hit, but frame 1 Grenade pull makes it difficult to keep up juggling.

I still think his inability to approach still hurts him big time though. If you're in a position where u can avoid the minefield all together, a lot of snake players kina fall apart. I've personally stopped trying to rush down snake when fighting him. I usually just poke with shurikens and throw back any grenades, baiting him into dash attacking thru and punishing accordingly.

Exactly, the issue with Snake is that people have conditioned themselves to use rushdown or juggle tactics. Something that Snake invalidates with his frame1 grenade causing those said opponents to run right into it.
Snake is far weaker to bait and punish tactics or opponents that use single hit knocks to get him offstage.
You literally have to unlearn a staple of high level smash play with most characters to stand a chance and most players can't adjust to that.
Trying to learn entirely new tactics is.....difficult when your tactics work on every character except one.

 

[$.A.F.]

Snake's had results for months. This is a post I made in January:

Snake's always been crazy.

Snake was only in the best tier for one week of the 5. I’m not debating that he’s not a top tier. I’m debating that he isn’t Bayonetta. Up until very recently, Ally had apparently fallen off, Salem was a Link Player, and the best Snake we had was only really getting 8th or so. Snake is undoubtedly great, but unless he dominates majors in a month after people start trying to play/the matchup.

I feel having to pick up a different character to have a decent chance against him shows how polarizing he is. If you don’t have a reflector or teleport, good luck against Nikita. Most characters. All characters you listed either have a reflector/absorber, zoning, or amazing recoveries. Many of those matchups are even too, such as Piranha Plant, Samus, Bowser and Ivysaur. Basically what I got from the post is since Snake can be counterpicked he isn’t broken. Well, let’s return to sm4sh Bayo, where characters who had a decent chance against her were the main ones seen at competitive level. Rosalina, Diddy, Sheik, Cloud and Bayo herself. If you decided to use anyone else vs her, good luck. Which brings me back to Nikita. Of course, a character may have a few matchups in which they dominate. But the more matchups in which they dominate, that is what decides their placement overall. Snake’s Nikita is absolute denial to many recoveries. A character can have a tool which makes a matchup harder for others, but it shouldn’t be so widespread. An example is magnet pull Rosa v Ness, but Ness has the advantage on stage so the matchup isn’t aa bad as it seems. I’ll give you a video example. Skip to 13:54

Xcal is knocked off stage, and the commentators said he ‘caught an airdodge’. The reality was that Xcal had no way to escape, the hitbox on Nikita lingers for too long. Furthermore even if the air dodge got past which it was incapable of doing so, the lag after an airdodge and the low end lag of Nikita or option to pursue further meant it would be checkmate. The second situation had Xcal test the limits of his characters recovery with the perfect wait, but the lasting hitbox of Nikita caught his drop down. He dropped because he was afraid of his neutral get up being caught by the lasting hitbox. He also felt jump would be caught as well. Roll would most likely be safest, except that Ally was in the perfect place to cover that due to Nikita’s low end lag. The final hit was a mistake by Xcal, recovering too high, but the damage had already been done, this entire situation beginning with a dash attack. Xcal also did his best to outmaneuver the Nikita, too bad he couldn’t simply click down B. Keep in mind all of this was done from a safe distance with no risk to Snake himself, you’re not reverse edgegaurding a missile or losing stage control. All I’d expect is more end lag on Nikita.

Yes. As we all know, Snake completely destroys every other character in the game. Because he can gimp them well. In that case, I guess that Ness is top 3. Yo-yo and PK Thunder are low risk and great at edge guarding hurt-durr. He loses to half of top tier, and a lot of characters outside of it. Also, Toon Link has a recovery hitbox. As we’ve seen it beats out Nakita.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Having a character that 'bodies the whole roster' doesn't make them OP. Melee C. Falcon is easily describable that way.. yet he also gets bodied by most of the roster in return. Granted, Snake has a much better overall MU spread than a character like Melee Falcon.. but overall in a lot of MU's Snake can get bodied just as hard as he CAN body.

He's strong as hell, very good.. but I have a hard time conceding to him being OP. And this is coming from a guy who hates that MU more than any other MU in this game. You can look at my signature for my personal (highly opinionated) tier list, you'll find that I concede very much so to Snake being great.. but I still don't think he's a big problem. Tone down Dash Attack (take away the intang-frames on the front and make it like F7-8) and make UTilt have a bit more startup/endlag.. and Snake is pretty damned balanced imo. If all it takes are two minor changes to 'fix' a character, they're not THAT broken to begin with..

 

[Kiligar]

Yes. As we all know, Snake completely destroys every other character in the game. Because he can gimp them well. In that case, I guess that Ness is top 3. Yo-yo and PK Thunder are low risk and great at edge guarding hurt-durr. He loses to half of top tier, and a lot of characters outside of it. Also, Toon Link has a recovery hitbox. As we’ve seen it beats out Nakita.

Ness is underrated. His strengths are so strong they more than compensate his weaknesses. Awestin just 3-0’d an Olimar main since brawl in GF.