Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Supermodel From Paris]

I mean, people are still claiming that Ultimate isn't as horribly imbalanced as Smash 4 was in it's early days. But whereas Smash 4 had fleeting characters claimed to be Top Tier (Bowser, Little Mac, Greninja for example) not many remained so. In Ultitmate, Wolf, Palutena, Lucina and Snake have been strong since the get-go. And they still are dominant.

I hope the team will not be as conservative with buffs and nerfs in the upcoming patches.

People are better at scoping out what makes a good character in the engine. 4 and Ultimate are different but the core strengths needed to be strong are just as important in both.

Also, almost every top tier in Ultimate has at least one pronounced and severe weakness that you can exploit. Lucina has a bad disadvantage state. Pichu is hard to control but dies at 60%. Palutena is like Bison from SF, very strong and safe but with a relatively linear gameplan making her more susceptible to reads. Olimar has poor disadvantage, moments of vulnerability built in to his kit, he's almost as light as Pichu, and if you know how his Pikmin work, his best option at any given time is right there for you to see. Peach and Wolf could be argued to have fewer real weaknesses, but they are also just very good all-rounders with good fundamental traits and aren't as overwhelming in the advantage as someone like Pichu for example. But even they both have bad vertical recovery.

When people say this game is balanced by comparison we mean that the top characters are very strong, but mortals like everyone else. In Brawl, MK and to a lesser extent ICs were outrageously strong compared to everyone else. There's nothing of the sort in Ultimate at this point in time. The top characters are just strong characters.

 

[Sean²]

Saw Larry's usage of space animals just now. He plays a very precise and mean Falco. Impressive how he could make Falco hold his own against Wolf. Wolf I believe is actually a pretty ridiculous character. He's meant to be balanced, and can do a little of everything , but instead all he can do has way too much strenght. I get he might be balanced around Fox as well, as in Brawl both Fox and Wolf ended up being regarded as around similar in viability... I believe it's the same case here. Same with the Fire Emblem swordies, with it's exceptions. It's no coincidence that say, both Ike and Roy are now way better than in Smash 4. It's how I believe they balance things around.

Anyway, this is probably how they balance the cast, and I don't expect buffs and nerfs of one character without them touching the others they might be balanced around. Last patch, they deliberately buffed the Smash 4 Top Tiers who where overnerfed.

Still think there's some ridiculous stuff with the current Top Tiers that need adjustments. I mean, people are still claiming that Ultimate isn't as horribly imbalanced as Smash 4 was in it's early days. But whereas Smash 4 had fleeting characters claimed to be Top Tier (Bowser, Little Mac, Greninja for example) not many remained so. In Ultitmate, Wolf, Palutena, Lucina and Snake have been strong since the get-go. And they still are dominant.

I hope the team will not be as conservative with buffs and nerfs in the upcoming patches.

Of the characters you listed, really only Lucina and Palutena were considered to be amazing from the get go. Everyone thought Wolf was a mid tier until Zackray showed up and won a 500 man tournament with him. I've listed reasonable ways to "balance" the character in the past that don't involve making people have to relearn how to play the character in any sense. Fairly inconsequential things like reducing damage output on some moves, or removing dsmash's ability to hit underneath the ledge. I've speculated Nintendo follows a "rule of three" with the spacies, Fox is fast, Falco has jumps, and Wolf is strong. It just so happens that the first and third will almost always take priority over the middle option. Snake was listed anywhere from pretty good to pretty terrible in a lot of opinions, even after MVD won a tournament with solo Snake. I don't understand that character well enough beyond that he's super strong, and Nikita is still crazy, to even think about where to begin with thinking of reasonable balance changes. The original "problematic" characters in Ultimate were the Belmonts, K Rool, and Chrom, to go along with Lucina, Palutena, and Pikachu. Only half of them survived the initial top tier debate.

It's really difficult for me to take the 3ds days seriously. It was almost like an incomplete demo/Alpha of the Wii U version.

On your ending note, they can be a little more liberal with buffs if they want. Nerfs should always be conservative unless the thing is wildly busted and very clearly a considerable problem. Please allow me to link a video:

Nintendo holds all the marbles. They distributed half of them amongst all the kids in the playground, and kept the rest to themselves. Some kids got more, some got less. The kids who got less are rightfully upset that they got less marbles. Taking away marbles from the kids who got more to even things out would then make them sad. What would the smart thing for Nintendo to do? Go full Communist/Thanos and forcefully yank half of them away from the kids who got more to give them to the other kids and tell them to deal with it? Or take from their personal (unlimited, fairly) stash and give the kids who got less a few more, so everyone is happy?

I know I quoted your post, but I'm really not trying to single you out on that last analogy. You were just the first to mention it in a long while. That's just always been my idea on balance patches. Loss aversion is real, and can legitimately alienate fans in the same way that an MK or Bayo dominating can. I kind of expect them to tiptoe through further patches and introduce more universal changes while continuing to fix some of the more obvious over-nerfs from previous games.

Diddy, Zero Suit, Sheik and Fox didn't nearly get as much attention at the get-go of 4 though. Diddy was even considered just a High Tier. Hoo-Hah hasn't even been discovered then. Rosalina was pretty damn mean in the early days however. But most glamoured to Greninja, Little Mac and Bowser in the early 3DS days. Rosalina to.

Anyway, Wolf has been consistantly dominant ever since release. I fail to see how Wolf is less of a problem than the early Smash 4 Top Tiers where.

Also am relieved there's quite a few strong Diddy mains left. Archy plays a good Diddy, Legit mains him, LightningCam is doing great works, and now I also have seen Dakpo pushing Diddy at his hardest. I still think the character is heavily underrrated in this game. Dakpo made it real difficult for Awestin's Ness to win even. That's quite something.

At the very least, I still say Diddy is better than Sheik. VoiD, pick up Diddy instead.

At least Sheik has a semblance of a vertical recovery and her up B isn't vulnerable to a light grazing. I kind of feel bad for anyone who plays Diddy in Ultimate. I'd hate for my character to be gutted as hard as him.

I think wolf just needs an actually BAD recovery. And for upb ledge snap not to hit half a roll distance inward to the stage sometimes. Giving him somewhat of a monopoly on 2-frames and ledge traps.

Blaster should probably also get tweaked somehow. It just too perfectly lends itself to his low % game trying to force people to approach into fair strings. Though I dunno, it might be fine if the main problem is addressed.

It's crazy how much you have to risk trying to l/edgeguard him as some characters. Totally ruining the flow of your advantage state, and having to constantly try fighting him onstage with his oppressive neutral. (Which, I actually think is mostly fine if his disadvantage was more palpable)

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'bad'. Do you mean like the Belmonts, who can be very oppressive onstage but once offstage just die like Little Mac? And that has basically reduced opinion of them from top tier candidates to very low high tier/mid tier? I've said it a million times, but it would probably be fine if they just reduced the knockback on Wolf's up B. There are other characters who hit through the stage with their up B that fend off ledge traps and 2 frames, just none that are really kill moves. There have been numerous kills I've gotten just by recovering and thought "I probably didn't deserve that". His up B's diagonal distance is still pretty abysmal. at that angle, it's either drift inward and try to recover low, every time, or go for a riskier side B to the ledge.

And here I am getting sucked into the buff/nerf talk again. Is there another thread better suited for this?

 

[DunnoBro]

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'bad'. Do you mean like the Belmonts, who can be very oppressive onstage but once offstage just die like Little Mac? And that has basically reduced opinion of them from top tier candidates to very low high tier/mid tier? I've said it a million times, but it would probably be fine if they just reduced the knockback on Wolf's up B. There are other characters who hit through the stage with their up B that fend off ledge traps and 2 frames, just none that are really kill moves. There have been numerous kills I've gotten just by recovering and thought "I probably didn't deserve that". His up B's diagonal distance is still pretty abysmal. at that angle, it's either drift inward and try to recover low, every time, or go for a riskier side B to the ledge.

And here I am getting sucked into the buff/nerf talk again. Is there another thread better suited for this?

Mainly the anti-ledge trap/2-frame stuff. Characters with oppressive neutrals, advantage, shouldn't also have a dubious disadvantage state. Generally characters with consistent anti-ledge traps like Yoshi, Duck Hunt, WFT, etc have a more palpable on-stage disadvantage.

Unless you have disjoints/projectiles, Wolf is extremely hard to juggle onstage due to his nair, fair, and airspeed. Similar to fox, making it often more optimal to get them offstage, or at least deny stage control. (And wolf is also amazing in the corner so really off-stage is where he SHOULD be weakest, but it's still very dubious)

 

[Rizen]

Of the characters you listed, really only Lucina and Palutena were considered to be amazing from the get go. Everyone thought Wolf was a mid tier until Zackray showed up and won a 500 man tournament with him. I've listed reasonable ways to "balance" the character in the past that don't involve making people have to relearn how to play the character in any sense. Fairly inconsequential things like reducing damage output on some moves, or removing dsmash's ability to hit underneath the ledge. I've speculated Nintendo follows a "rule of three" with the spacies, Fox is fast, Falco has jumps, and Wolf is strong. It just so happens that the first and third will almost always take priority over the middle option. Snake was listed anywhere from pretty good to pretty terrible in a lot of opinions, even after MVD won a tournament with solo Snake. I don't understand that character well enough beyond that he's super strong, and Nikita is still crazy, to even think about where to begin with thinking of reasonable balance changes. The original "problematic" characters in Ultimate were the Belmonts, K Rool, and Chrom, to go along with Lucina, Palutena, and Pikachu. Only half of them survived the initial top tier debate.

It's really difficult for me to take the 3ds days seriously. It was almost like an incomplete demo/Alpha of the Wii U version.

On your ending note, they can be a little more liberal with buffs if they want. Nerfs should always be conservative unless the thing is wildly busted and very clearly a considerable problem. Please allow me to link a video:

Nintendo holds all the marbles. They distributed half of them amongst all the kids in the playground, and kept the rest to themselves. Some kids got more, some got less. The kids who got less are rightfully upset that they got less marbles. Taking away marbles from the kids who got more to even things out would then make them sad. What would the smart thing for Nintendo to do? Go full Communist/Thanos and forcefully yank half of them away from the kids who got more to give them to the other kids and tell them to deal with it? Or take from their personal (unlimited, fairly) stash and give the kids who got less a few more, so everyone is happy?

I know I quoted your post, but I'm really not trying to single you out on that last analogy. You were just the first to mention it in a long while. That's just always been my idea on balance patches. Loss aversion is real, and can legitimately alienate fans in the same way that an MK or Bayo dominating can. I kind of expect them to tiptoe through further patches and introduce more universal changes while continuing to fix some of the more obvious over-nerfs from previous games.


At least Sheik has a semblance of a vertical recovery and her up B isn't vulnerable to a light grazing. I kind of feel bad for anyone who plays Diddy in Ultimate. I'd hate for my character to be gutted as hard as him.


I guess it depends on what you mean by 'bad'. Do you mean like the Belmonts, who can be very oppressive onstage but once offstage just die like Little Mac? And that has basically reduced opinion of them from top tier candidates to very low high tier/mid tier? I've said it a million times, but it would probably be fine if they just reduced the knockback on Wolf's up B. There are other characters who hit through the stage with their up B that fend off ledge traps and 2 frames, just none that are really kill moves. There have been numerous kills I've gotten just by recovering and thought "I probably didn't deserve that". His up B's diagonal distance is still pretty abysmal. at that angle, it's either drift inward and try to recover low, every time, or go for a riskier side B to the ledge.

And here I am getting sucked into the buff/nerf talk again. Is there another thread better suited for this?

It's not that nerfs are inherently good or bad. It really depends on how each character is balanced. If one character got 10 marbles and everyone else got 1-3 it makes sense to nerf that one outlier. SSB4 and showed that if anything Nintendo is too conservative with their nerfs (these icons look so much better that the dumb ultimate ones ). People need to stop thinking of nerfs as a bad thing.

Given the balance of Ultimate, only a few nerfs are really needed to top tiers and more characters could use quality of life buffs. Ultimate doesn't need much work but it could use some tweaks.

 

[Sean²]

Nerfs aren't a bad thing if it's actually necessary. Bayo and Cloud were very necessary, as they controlled almost all aspects of the game. Too bad they quit patching the game soon after they were released. Singles Bayo and Doubles Cloud were very much bordering OP. I'd say pretty close to every top tier in Ultimate would likely be just a high tier in 4. Maybe a few of them would cross the threshold, but would probably be gatekept from progressing higher by the aforementioned duo.

I'd also be curious as to how MK would be today if his kit was never drastically changed from his Brawl iteration, if he'd have been able to keep up or outright beat Cloud and Bayo, but I guess that's probably for another thread.

 

[Terotrous]

Played some interesting matches last night against a and a player, both characters I was generally under the impression weren't very good.

definitely seems way better compared to 4. The biggest change is that most of his stuff just actually works now. His throw combos work, Final Cutter actually hits properly, he has reasonable hitboxes and kill power on key moves, etc. I also think he benefits quite a bit from the engine, since edgeguarding matters a lot now his strong offstage game is now a huge plus, and hilariously, his Dash Attack, which was once famously horrible, is now actually a pretty good dash attack since it goes through and has decent power. He's still short and stubby, so I quickly made the adaptation to play lame against him, forcing him to work around big hitboxes and projectiles, though I feel like he could still beat this playstyle if he plays smart with inhale since he can now eat most projectiles and potentially steal a projectile move of his own. This character definitely seems a bit slept on to me, which I was also definitely guilty of because "well obviously Kirby is bad he's always bad".

is a character I didn't expect much from, since in 4 his neutral is actually garbage, but he lands command grab once when he's at high percent and you die at 20 so who cares? With rage not being a thing anymore I figured this character would basically have nothing, but's it's certainly not quite that dire. He has fantastic air speed so he can kind of drift around the whole stage and throw out decent hitboxes (even at low percent) and his recovery is deceptively versatile and hard to punish, so he's usually able to live long enough to become scary. I did notice though that his OOS options are pretty bad so you can probably bully him with a more aggressive character. I still don't think he's especially great (in particular I would not put him anywhere near high tier), but I do have a bit more respect for the character than I did before.

In other news, and I are starting to reconcile. Maybe it just took me a while to unlearn everything from PM but I've been having decent success with her lately, initially I felt like the reduced hitbox size on backair and the loss of stalling on down air hurt the character too much but I'm kind of getting used to it. Though maybe it's just that I haven't been playing too many matches against the Fire Emblem brigade lately. I feel like Ivysaur is another one of the laundry list of characters who feels decent as long as you're not playing against someone with a big sword who just beats all of your hitboxes for free. Probably applies to all of the characters in this post to be honest.

still sucks though. God I hate new Yoshi. I played a couple Yoshi rounds last night and we're so done.

 

[Sean²]

Kirby is in fact slept on, but still not super good. He's too slow for a small/featherweight character and gets outranged against a lot of really common characters. Snake vs Kirby is really unfun, and taking Snake's copy ability just turns it into a war of attrition that Snake will win. You can spike his recovery but any good Snake is gonna have that C4 recovery on deck if they ever get into a situation like that. I think if he was just a little faster, Stone wasn't made to be so weak, and he wasn't balanced primarily on his copy abilities, he'd be more highly thought of. If dtilt always tripped, that would be amazing.

Kirby is top tier in mood boosters though. If I ever get frustrated practicing my mains, I play a few rounds as Kirby to brighten things up. You just can't get mad while playing Kirby.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Kirby is in fact slept on, but still not super good. He's too slow for a small/featherweight character and gets outranged against a lot of really common characters. Snake vs Kirby is really unfun, and taking Snake's copy ability just turns it into a war of attrition that Snake will win. You can spike his recovery but any good Snake is gonna have that C4 recovery on deck if they ever get into a situation like that. I think if he was just a little faster, Stone wasn't made to be so weak, and he wasn't balanced primarily on his copy abilities, he'd be more highly thought of. If dtilt always tripped, that would be amazing.

Kirby is top tier in mood boosters though. If I ever get frustrated practicing my mains, I play a few rounds as Kirby to brighten things up. You just can't get mad while playing Kirby.

I don't even know how to meaningfully buffy Kirby. He has a lot of the things we associate with good characters, throw combos, recovery, damage, kill power, but he just doesn't end up working, You could increase his air speed but I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Kirby has high air speed tbh LOL

 

[Sean²]

I would live in that world. Kirby's first decent appearance since 64? Please and thank you.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I don't even know how to meaningfully buffy Kirby. He has a lot of the things we associate with good characters, throw combos, recovery, damage, kill power, but he just doesn't end up working, You could increase his air speed but I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Kirby has high air speed tbh LOL

The main things I would buff Kirby is aerial startup (maybe slightly buff air speed) as his aerials has a high amount of startup, his forward throw on BF's and PS1's platforms fixed, and probably buff Inhale's interaction with projectiles (while he can technically absorb projectiles with Inhale, Kirby suffers from so much lag and only heals 1%).

 

[Rizen]

Didn't Kirby get his copy abilities buffed so he doesn't lose them as easily? How's that working out?

What do Kirby's MUs look like?

 

[Sean²]

I'm by no means a Kirby expert, but I kept a Falco laser copied for pretty much an entire stock of being knocked around a bunch, when before a good back air would hit it out. You have to survive a pretty hard hit to get it hit loose now, it seems.

Again, not an expert, but anyone who can outrange his approach options, force him to approach, or has a projectile he can't crouch underneath/eat for healing (something else that's too slow tbh, if you eat a projectile from midrange, you basically just get hit for it, while even Wario gets away with it a lot of the time), kind of make you feel the pain of playing Kirby. If that projectile is a neutral B, though, watch out, he comin for it.

Maybe |RK| can help with more matchup knowledge.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I don't even know how to meaningfully buffy Kirby. He has a lot of the things we associate with good characters, throw combos, recovery, damage, kill power, but he just doesn't end up working, You could increase his air speed but I'm not sure I want to live in a world where Kirby has high air speed tbh LOL

The best ways to buff him would be either better air speed or larger hitboxes both of which would make Kirby an actual threatening character.

 

[boysilver400]

I haven’t played that many matchups with Kirby, but characters that are heavily projectile base are definitely bad for him. But outside of Ike, the swordies without projectiles don’t seem to be that bad for him as people might think.

 

[DunnoBro]

IMO Kirby HAS to be tweaked into a Niche. He likely can never be solo-viable, but by giving him guaranteed or at least easier inhale set-ups off grab, or more feasibly ledge get-ups. I think he can find a niche, or at least be an overall more fun character.

He also probably should get the same reflector buff Dedede got. (Though maybe make it manual, or a star hitbox to differentiate)

 

[Djmarcus44]

Nobody asked but Mii Gunner is the worst Mii Fighter probably by a pretty wide margin.
and they take the least amount of effort to play effectively too so it's a sad hard knock life for us.

Can you explain your thoughts? I have not gotten much time playing either swordfighter or brawler.

I find Mii Swordfighter to be a non-issue against Olimar, and in general. Gale Strike has a ton of lag and imo it's easy to read, the move has way less utility than a lot of of MS players seem to think it has. If anything I'd say Olimar stomps that MU if he knows what to do. Plus pulling more Pikmin takes little to no time at all, even if you lose them it's not the end of the world.

I'll agree on Gunner, though.. but Brawler's damage output doesn't fix their other glaring issues. All of the Mii's have pretty big problems, primarily that they feel like incomplete characters wholely focused on one aspect of gameplay.. like how Mii Gunner is '100% neutral and nothing else' the character.

You're not wrong about nobody playing them because nobody likes them.. but I don't find of them to be particularly strong characters either. Swordfighter and Gunner can sometimes feel like actual characters.. then one or two things happen in a match and reality comes crashing back. They don't even feel like they belong in the game sometimes.

I know a lot of people who love Wii Fit to death, but that's just in my area.

While Gunner isn't a character that focuses on combos, Gunner has really good damage output. Most of Gunner's moves deal really good damage, and Gunner can also combo into grabs for a lot of damage. Gunner's up throw does 15.6% and combos into nair at low to mid percents and up air at mid percents to kill percents (uthrow to uair is a kill confirm on most of the cast). This means that Gunner can easily get over 35% from landing a good variety of moves (nair, fair, bair, missiles/flame pillar, grenades) without using charge blast. Gunner also has a few moves to combo into charge blast (fair, flame pillar/missiles, bombs) at low percents and kill percents for over 40% damage. Gunner can even combo flame pillar to flame pillar to charge blast for over 60%. There is more information in the Mii Gunner combo thread.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I'm an ex-Kirby main, so I could be wrong on a lot of this stuff, but I'll give my full thoughts on him:

Kirby's range is actually fairly decent on his attacks that involve his feet, namely forward tilt and up tilt. These definitely give him the edge against swordies, which makes those kinds of match-ups not too much of a struggle. Komota in particular does a really good job of handling characters like , while RK does well with handling swordies like . It's nothing like it was in Brawl, but still good enough.


The thing about Kirby is that the guy is actually really scary up close; all of his tilts are really good at harassing opponents: Forward tilt constantly pressures them from a distance and leads into tech chases, down tilt is extremely spammable and leads into grabs, and up tilt constantly pops opponents in the air and racks up damage fast. It actually makes him fairly decent against characters that let him play his game, even against high/top tiers like , , and .


Aside from being a juggle ball in the air and a non-functional forward throw below platforms, the biggest issue I find with Kirby is finding ways to get that close to opponents; he can do this for the most part, but it becomes much more problematic when you have to deal with characters that have strong projectiles, such as or . When he gets Inhale against certain characters with strong neutral B projectiles (i.e. , ), it evens out a bit more, and that was the good thing about 3.0.0's patch: Getting the Inhale feels much more rewarding as it Kirby can cling onto the ability for far longer than before. The problem now is that Kirby lacks many ways to actually get Inhale; as a whole, it's too slow for a command grab, and it's too short-ranged to make it reliable overall.

I think the thing he needs the most right now is a faster and more wide-ranged Inhale to make it work better as both for its intended purpose, and as a reflector. It would make dealing with projectiles less of a struggle, and PLEASE actually making healing with it worth a damn; it's literally the worst thing you can do with Inhale atm.

Other changes, like giving him a faster and a more disjointed NAir as a "GTFO" me option for juggling would be appreciated, as well as making FThrow work, but I feel an Inhale buff should happen first and foremost.

That said, Kirby's 3.0.0 changes are better than people give them credit for: NAir finally has endlag on par with most standard sex kicks, and actually has decent edgeguarding potential, up smash is a much more effective anti-air, Final Cutter is no longer hilariously easy to gimp, and Inhales actually feels worth using now. He ain't amazing by any stretch, but I don't really feel Kirby's as hopeless as people are currently making him out to be.

 

[Terotrous]

I don't even know how to meaningfully buffy Kirby.

I feel like the key would be to buff his bad matchups, because he can actually feel pretty good in his better matchups and we don't suddenly want him to become a low-tier killer or something.

When I played Joker vs the Kirby player, the adjustment I made was to try to basically never approach him, I just spaced him out with Side B and Forward Tilt, and occasionally neutral B when he was very far away or recovering, which he seemed to have few answers to (can he eat Joker Side B?). It seems like buffing Inhale's interactions with projectiles (ie, having eating a projectile heal him for more health, or making it have less endlag) might help to deter projectile spam and force characters to engage with him up close more often, which is where he feels strong.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The most important thought I have on Kirby:

Please disable him during pre-release events for new Smash games so scrubs will play other characters, thanks. I don't understand why 50% of all Smash players would wait in line for 5 hours just to test out Kirby down-b for 2 minutes.

 

[Terotrous]

The most important thought I have on Kirby:

Please disable him during pre-release events for new Smash games so scrubs will play other characters, thanks. I don't understand why 50% of all Smash players would wait in line for 5 hours just to test out Kirby down-b for 2 minutes.

There's a very obvious correlation between how much players play a character pre-release and how bad that character ends up being.

Remember when Kirby had an Upthrow that killed you from the top platform of battlefield at 70%? Or when Bayo was actually a functional character in this game? Or when Samus Screw Attack was a kill move?

For Smash 6 we all need to agree to play as much Lucina and Pikachu as possible before launch so they get nerfed into the ground. "You can hit the top hitbox of Thunder to spike them into the lower hitbox and it kills from center stage at 110? Gotta take that out!"

 

[AEMehr]

I find Mii Swordfighter to be a non-issue against Olimar, and in general. Gale Strike has a ton of lag and imo it's easy to read, the move has way less utility than a lot of of MS players seem to think it has. If anything I'd say Olimar stomps that MU if he knows what to do. Plus pulling more Pikmin takes little to no time at all, even if you lose them it's not the end of the world.

Well the key word used was "recklessly". The MU isnt dominated either way, it just means Olimar has to adapt a bit. Which on it's own can be a big game changer, forcing the opponent to have to alter their playstyle is key on making any MU difficult in some form. What separates good from bad players is how well they can adapt in situations that require them.

I'll agree on Gunner, though.. but Brawler's damage output doesn't fix their other glaring issues. All of the Mii's have pretty big problems, primarily that they feel like incomplete characters wholely focused on one aspect of gameplay.. like how Mii Gunner is '100% neutral and nothing else' the character.

Then what exactly makes Swordfighter and Brawler one-trick ponies then? If Gunner is "Neutral the Character" (which I agree with) what do you call the other two? I don't see the point this remark is supposed to make.

You're not wrong about nobody playing them because nobody likes them.. but I don't find of them to be particularly strong characters either. Swordfighter and Gunner can sometimes feel like actual characters.. then one or two things happen in a match and reality comes crashing back. They don't even feel like they belong in the game sometimes.

Do you speak from experience with playing these characters? Because I don't understand what I'm supposed to take from this last sentence. I mean Swordfighter's frame data seems slower than most and Brawler loses to disjoints, I get that, but I do not understand how they do not feel like they belong. Unless you mean they can't just spam a safe option over and over again, that I could kind of see.

I know a lot of people who love Wii Fit to death, but that's just in my area.

Well I have some people in my region that enjoy Mii Fighters too. The point I was getting across is that people naturally flow to their RPG/Action heroes over than the zany and create-a fighters. So how are you supposed to accurately judge characters that nobody with a high level of talent is playing.
- - - - - - - - -

Can you explain your thoughts? I have not gotten much time playing either swordfighter or brawler.

Gunner is neutral focused, so your ease of playing is dependent on the neutral tools you bring with you.
If bring 13X2 to match, you are generally set versus any player that has no idea how to deal with projectiles. The hardest thing you have to do in that scenario is:
run away
find time to set up Charged Blast

getting out of disadvantage is hard as gunner, your frame data isn't helping you versus the bad matchups, so you're generally getting corner carried off the stage. Then you need to find a way back, and if they know anything about how your up special works it is not an easy time making it back without a hitbox. And even if you have the hitbox if they trade with you or knock you out of a jump, you're KO'd regardless of what % you are at.

Swordfighter can fill a similar niche in the projectile department, without the outright kill power, while still able to pressure opponents while recovering with the possibility of getting clipped by Hero's Spin or Stone Scabbard or just getting beat out by Skyward Slash Dance while they attempt to hit you.

Brawler is a different archetype altogether, but the versatility they have in recovering with Feint Jump or even following behind shotput from above allows more leeway to get back to the stage since Gunner generally has to maneuver around the Opponent.
-----
long story short you trade a lot of your versatility as a character to make your neutral as comfy as possible, but even then your ideal neutral is max range, since characters are too fast in this game to make the mid-range safe in most scenarios.

 

[SwagGuy99]

IMO Kirby HAS to be tweaked into a Niche.

He always had a niche against fast-fallers like Fox and Captain Falcon in Smash 4, and I think he benefits from the worsening of recoveries as it makes his edgeguarding stand out a bit more but otehrwise, he's the same old Kirby we've had since Brawl (except worse and better in some ways).

 

[Diddy Kong]

At least Sheik has a semblance of a vertical recovery and her up B isn't vulnerable to a light grazing. I kind of feel bad for anyone who plays Diddy in Ultimate. I'd hate for my character to be gutted as hard as him.
?

It’s been pretty awful so far yes. ZeRo has said it well in his last video, where he plays Diddy exclusively for a moment. He says : ‘Diddy prefers the slower approach and should be played a little slowly. But no character in Ulitmate is gonna allow him to.’

That, and the fact that Bananas just won’t hit at professional levels of play. Which is just... frustrating. Because Diddy’s whole moveset snd gameplay resolves around it.

I hope the next few patches are gonna turn him more into a bit of a rushdown character honestly. He needs some stronger boxing tools, like a great jab, or at least better range, and if nothing else better recovery.

I mean so far I’m doing great with him online, where it’s terribly hard to play him effectively because Diddy is very precise just like Sheik, but without a solid secondary (which outside of DK, I haven’t really found yet) I doubt I could enter tournaments with him and win. I live in the Netherlands however, and will probably be the best or one of the better Diddy players here, but I’m still not on the level of USA Diddy players I saw.

 

[Terotrous]

Then what exactly makes Swordfighter and Brawler one-trick ponies then? If Gunner is "Neutral the Character" (which I agree with) what do you call the other two?

IMO Brawler is Shotput the character. I feel like Shotput is secretly a top 5 projectile, since you basically just can't challenge it, if you stick out a hitbox or another projectile it just always goes right through, and it's also a great edgeguarding tool against many characters too. It forces characters to either shield (in which case you can Suplex) or be overly aggressive, which gives you opportunities to land otherwise crappy moves like FSmash (which, while having an awful hitbox and recovery, does at least hit extremely hard).

I've actually been playing a lot of Brawler lately and I kind of like him. I don't think he's actually very good (mid tier at best), but he's fun to play.

 

[DunnoBro]

He always had a niche against fast-fallers like Fox and Captain Falcon in Smash 4, and I think he benefits from the worsening of recoveries as it makes his edgeguarding stand out a bit more but otehrwise, he's the same old Kirby we've had since Brawl (except worse and better in some ways).

I don't think "Can bully fast fallers once he gets in" is a Niche unique to Kirby.

If there's any Niche, it's more of an crouch/anti-spacie one that him and Jiggs share due to their crouch forcing very awkward, risky approaches out of them since they can't laser, and both characters threaten very dangerous anti cross-up options OOS. (utilt)

As for Diddy, I honestly just think the engine is what mostly hurt(not ruined) him.

Smash 4 was HEAVY on ledge trapping as edgeguarding was inconsistent. Whereas now it's a bit more even, which hurts Diddy and his poor recovery.

His damage and kill potential honestly seem fine for the lack of commitment. And his recovery/disadvantage seem in-line with that.

I'd say the only issue is a small timing gap in his neutral and sometimes advantage state (especially at lower percent) of not knowing if he has time to pull banana. He's constantly forced to try CQCing people. And he's not bad at it, but the cost of failure is pretty high due to that disadvantage state.

Furthermore, NEEDING Banana to press advantage state safely leads to another issue that the time needed to pull/grab banana often lets people recover high/return to neutral. (Thus largely avoiding the ledge traps it would enable)

Banana was honestly an obnoxious, toxic neutral tool and shouldn't get sped up/buffed in any way. But Diddy's neutral definitely could stand a minor buff.

Though to be honest, I don't think Diddy players are properly using popgun shield cancel. The fact they made the shield cancel pretty much INSTANT from smash 4's frames likely means you're supposed to mix up from it more. And they don't. And I think this is the missing link in his neutral.

But if it's actually not good enough, I think that's what needs to be buffed. But Smash 4 Diddy who constantly went for banana should stay dead.

Banana should straight up not be a consistent neutral tool. But Diddy's disadvantage does warrant a better neutral.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Well the key word used was "recklessly". The MU isnt dominated either way, it just means Olimar has to adapt a bit. Which on it's own can be a big game changer, forcing the opponent to have to alter their playstyle is key on making any MU difficult in some form. What separates good from bad players is how well they can adapt in situations that require them.

Then what exactly makes Swordfighter and Brawler one-trick ponies then? If Gunner is "Neutral the Character" (which I agree with) what do you call the other two? I don't see the point this remark is supposed to make.

Do you speak from experience with playing these characters? Because I don't understand what I'm supposed to take from this last sentence. I mean Swordfighter's frame data seems slower than most and Brawler loses to disjoints, I get that, but I do not understand how they do not feel like they belong. Unless you mean they can't just spam a safe option over and over again, that I could kind of see.

Well I have some people in my region that enjoy Mii Fighters too. The point I was getting across is that people naturally flow to their RPG/Action heroes over than the zany and create-a fighters. So how are you supposed to accurately judge characters that nobody with a high level of talent is playing.
- - - - - - - - -
Gunner is neutral focused, so your ease of playing is dependent on the neutral tools you bring with you.
If bring 13X2 to match, you are generally set versus any player that has no idea how to deal with projectiles. The hardest thing you have to do in that scenario is:
run away
find time to set up Charged Blast

getting out of disadvantage is hard as gunner, your frame data isn't helping you versus the bad matchups, so you're generally getting corner carried off the stage. Then you need to find a way back, and if they know anything about how your up special works it is not an easy time making it back without a hitbox. And even if you have the hitbox if they trade with you or knock you out of a jump, you're KO'd regardless of what % you are at.

Swordfighter can fill a similar niche in the projectile department, without the outright kill power, while still able to pressure opponents while recovering with the possibility of getting clipped by Hero's Spin or Stone Scabbard or just getting beat out by Skyward Slash Dance while they attempt to hit you.

Brawler is a different archetype altogether, but the versatility they have in recovering with Feint Jump or even following behind shotput from above allows more leeway to get back to the stage since Gunner generally has to maneuver around the Opponent.
-----
long story short you trade a lot of your versatility as a character to make your neutral as comfy as possible, but even then your ideal neutral is max range, since characters are too fast in this game to make the mid-range safe in most scenarios.

Gunner can still use projectiles offstage while recovering. Missiles/flame pillar, bombs or charge blast can be used to make it harder for the opponent to edgeguard Gunner. We can also shoot homing missiles and recover behind them with up b 3 (The same can be done with bombs although it is harder to recover with enough distance to avoid damaging Gunner). Lets also not forget how you like to up air opponents through the stage to help with recovery. Gunner's recovery is probably worse than the other miis, but I don't think that it is enough to make Gunner the worst mii overall.

I still wouldn't call Gunner "neutral only" with all of the combos I previously mentioned. Using full hop and dj nair to extend Gunner's combo percents combined with Gunner's kill confirm from grab gives Gunner one of the better grab games in the cast.

 

[Lacrimosa]

If the Diddy player is not careful then you can snatch the Banana once he pulls one.
You have to harass him constantly because otherwise he can't really do much and pulling bananas becomes a threat for Diddy in this case.
Dunno how top-players get around this issue (they probably will), but this seems easy to exploit in Ultimate.

 

[Terotrous]

I think the correct Diddy buff is that down tilt should work again. That was a very stupid nerf.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I think the correct Diddy buff is that down tilt should work again. That was a very stupid nerf.

They nerfed a lot olf dtilts. Little Mac's got nerfed and r.i.p. Zelda's dtilt .
I don't know why they did that in case of Mac but they may feared that Zelda gets a fair if she lands a dtilt and this would kill pretty reliably at very low percent. They probably also thought that one character's gameplan shouldn't be around one tilt attack. I don't know, they should give that back to Mac and Diddy and maybe other characrter's whose dtilts got nerfed.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

If the Diddy player is not careful then you can snatch the Banana once he pulls one.
You have to harass him constantly because otherwise he can't really do much and pulling bananas becomes a threat for Diddy in this case.
Dunno how top-players get around this issue (they probably will), but this seems easy to exploit in Ultimate.

you want to get close to a character with those normals?

 

[Lacrimosa]

you want to get close to a character with those normals?

Just stay out of his range and try to snatch the bana when he is trying to do it. There's a bit of lag that allows that and a ton of characters have caught up to Diddy when fighting up close. In Ultimate, Diddy has this problem.

 

[The_Bookworm]

IMO Brawler is Shotput the character. I feel like Shotput is secretly a top 5 projectile, since you basically just can't challenge it, if you stick out a hitbox or another projectile it just always goes right through, and it's also a great edgeguarding tool against many characters too. It forces characters to either shield (in which case you can Suplex) or be overly aggressive, which gives you opportunities to land otherwise crappy moves like FSmash (which, while having an awful hitbox and recovery, does at least hit extremely hard).

Shotput is a good projectile (definitely way better than the sad excuse of a projectile it was in SSB4), but it is far from a top 5 projectile. It goes in an arc, which means characters standing underneath the arc (a.k.a. about 2-5 feet away from Mii Brawler) can easily dodge it without any shields or defensive options, while it has quite a bit of cooldown for an easy punish. It is great as an edgeguarding tool, but not very great as a neutral tool unless the opponent is camping on the platforms.

 

[Terotrous]

Shotput is a good projectile (definitely way better than the sad excuse of a projectile it was in SSB4), but it is far from a top 5 projectile. It goes in an arc, which means characters standing underneath the arc (a.k.a. about 2-5 feet away from Mii Brawler) can easily dodge it without any shields or defensive options, while it has quite a bit of cooldown for an easy punish. It is great as an edgeguarding tool, but not very great as a neutral tool unless the opponent is camping on the platforms.

It's still pretty good even if the opponent is at what I'd call "mid range", which still comprises a lot of the match. For example, suppose I get down throw into forward air and the opponent drifts back towards the ledge to escape further pressure. It's time to throw more shotputs! Of course, since you can throw them in the air you can always hop back and throw one or whatever, which I often do if someone short hops over one. Other times you can catch their landing with a Suplex.

I'm sure a lot of the reason this works to any degree is just that people don't know the matchup or get tilted, but I feel like he's not THAT bad. I recall some people putting Mii Brawler at like bottom 3 and I think that's a bit too harsh.

 

[AEMehr]

IMO Brawler is Shotput the character. I feel like Shotput is secretly a top 5 projectile, since you basically just can't challenge it, if you stick out a hitbox or another projectile it just always goes right through, and it's also a great edgeguarding tool against many characters too. It forces characters to either shield (in which case you can Suplex) or be overly aggressive, which gives you opportunities to land otherwise crappy moves like FSmash (which, while having an awful hitbox and recovery, does at least hit extremely hard).

I've actually been playing a lot of Brawler lately and I kind of like him. I don't think he's actually very good (mid tier at best), but he's fun to play.

I mean sure you're tossing it when the opponent has no chance of hitting you, but I'm not seeing how exactly the character centers around Shotput like how you can argue Gunner centers on Neutral or how Swordfighter relies on Gale Strike. It's a good tool in advantage state, but I wouldn't say most of their damage comes from it.
- - - - - - - -

Gunner can still use projectiles offstage while recovering. Missiles/flame pillar, bombs or charge blast can be used to make it harder for the opponent to edgeguard Gunner. We can also shoot homing missiles and recover behind them with up b 3 (The same can be done with bombs although it is harder to recover with enough distance to avoid damaging Gunner). Lets also not forget how you like to up air opponents through the stage to help with recovery. Gunner's recovery is probably worse than the other miis, but I don't think that it is enough to make Gunner the worst mii overall.

Flame Pillar helps less than doing nothing at all when recovering off stage, and using any of those projectiles forces you to have to recover low mostly at all times due to endlag, the only exception being Grenade but it still loses to any hitbox that's thrown on it.
And just because you can use up air when you're below ledge doesn't help you when you've used all your resources already to get to that position in the first place. You'll just die after trying it since you can't grab the ledge afterwards.

I still wouldn't call Gunner "neutral only" with all of the combos I previously mentioned. Using full hop and dj nair to extend Gunner's combo percents combined with Gunner's kill confirm from grab gives Gunner one of the better grab games in the cast.

Mii Gunner has like no combos, they defeat the purpose of the character. You have like one or two kill confirms in Flame Pillar / Fair to Charge Blast, but that is basically it. The character excels when the player understands how the opponent likes to move around the stage and places a projectile accordingly. They're not about linking hits, they're about landing individuals one over time.
In a game where the higher echelon of fighters are good because they allow the other player to actively participate less, is it really better for you to have to KO power spread across several moves you have to land by some luck, or having the KO power left into few attacks that you use at the end of a string that's started by something relatively safe?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Just stay out of his range and try to snatch the bana when he is trying to do it. There's a bit of lag that allows that and a ton of characters have caught up to Diddy when fighting up close. In Ultimate, Diddy has this problem.

What you effectively have to do is not lose neutral.

Anytime you're in disadvantage, that's a free banana.

That's not realistic unless you're just simply better.

 

[Terotrous]

I mean sure you're tossing it when the opponent has no chance of hitting you, but I'm not seeing how exactly the character centers around Shotput like how you can argue Gunner centers on Neutral or how Swordfighter relies on Gale Strike. It's a good tool in advantage state, but I wouldn't say most of their damage comes from it.

I feel that it's a strong enough tool that the threat of it dictates the way the match is played. Against Mii Brawler, you have to approach, because otherwise I'll keep throwing Shotputs forever. I feel like he can actually force almost any character to approach, I'm trying to think of a character that can force him to approach instead and I'm not coming up with much. The fact that it arcs allows him to jump over projectiles while retaliating at the same time, and it also goes through any other projectile. Maybe Olimar but even then, I'd be willing to trade in that exchange because it's probably about the same amount of damage but a shotput hit puts Mii Brawler in advantage state and if they hit each other the pikmin just die and the ball goes right through.

Of course, the result is that your opponent will try to close in, so much of the match will be played in close quarters where you cannot easily throw shotputs. But being able to neutralize the long range game of various characters is still pretty good. For example, I wouldn't fear Snake at all as this character. You want to pull grenades to deter aggression? Go ahead, I've got way more iron balls where that came from. You can't really try to "slow down the match" vs him because he'll just go back to spamming if you give him any space to work with.

 

[Aaron1997]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Raito made a MU chart for Duck Hunt

 

[Rizen]

Against Mii Brawler, you have to approach, because otherwise I'll keep throwing Shotputs forever. I feel like he can actually force almost any character to approach, I'm trying to think of a character that can force him to approach instead and I'm not coming up with much. .

Yo !

YL can force almost anyone to approach or at least stalemate them in a projectile war. Part of that is the ability to hop over stuff while angling his spam down. Shotput is not exactly a spammable projectile with 67f FAF.

 

[The_Bookworm]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Raito made a MU chart for Duck Hunt

This is a decent matchup spread for Duck Hunt, assuming they are indeed accurate. being -1 for Duck Hunt interests me, and I bet playing with Abadango's MK is what gave him the experience. I can imagine why: it can be hard to deal with MK's quick disjoints and unparalleled disadvantage state. In a similar vein, being -1 makes sense due to reflector and laser shenanigans.


Another interesting thing is yet another matchup spread where as a solo character is labeled as even, but as a whole as -1. I can imagine that it is because it is the average between all the three Pokemon's placings ( is even, is -1, is -2), but again, you can just stick to Ivysaur if you want to. Stamina is no longer a thing (which thank goodness), so you are not forced to switch, aside from losing a stock which isn't even that difficult to switch back.

 

[Terotrous]

Yo !

YL can force almost anyone to approach or at least stalemate them in a projectile war. Part of that is the ability to hop over stuff while angling his spam down. Shotput is not exactly a spammable projectile with 67f FAF.

Honestly, I think I'd be more afraid of Adult Link for his remote bomb, which he can throw and detonate quite quickly and it also puts you in disadvantage if it hits. I wouldn't fear arrows much since once you start firing one you can't really move, if jumped over you can easily shotput. Shotput can also blow right through boomerang if he tries to angle it upwards at you or something.

Funny enough, I actually think the biggest issue might be Mii Swordfighter. Gale Strike is huge, also has the property of going through any other projectile, and he gets huge reward if it hits, since Mii Brawler is a fast faller the combo will work on him every time. Even then I would still throw them but if I was eating too many Gale Strikes I might go in. Stage might also matter here. I feel that Mii Brawler can spam quite easily on FD, Hazards On Smashville, Kalos, and PS2, but not so much on BF, YI Brawl, and Hazards Off Smashville.

In any case, if there ever was a matchup where you had to approach as Mii Brawler you'd probably just lose, and he probably loses a bunch of matchups against characters with very good rushdown as well. Even though he can force approaches, he's not exactly the best character up close, which is what keeps him from being a high tier character or anything, but at least he does have something resembling a functioning gameplan for the most part.