Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Honestly Joker seems like a somewhat impossible character to balance. Base Joker is honestly somewhat mediocre and, in some cases, could use some better hitboxes, but mostly something in the frames department (Why Fair doesn't autocancel is a mystery). He plays good but he just feels lacking somehow without Arsene.

And then you get to Arsene and all of a sudden he hits like Ganon.

The issue is that if you buff or nerf one side you have a very lopsided character, and someone is going to hate you regardless. Joker with Arsene is probably the best character in the game imo bar none. Joker on his own is just meh. Just make the massive gap between the two a bit better and I think everyone will stop complaining about him.

People don't think Joker is OP. They just despise Arsene and want it nerfed.

Edit: Might as well have something rational in my ****post. I think Ken and Ryu are the only characters you are going to see with a rise in the tiers. Everyone else is going to stay in the same tier for the most part, or like five spaces, whichever comes first.

Olimar is still a top 15 character, and personally I think Lucina is number one atm.

 

[Game7a1]

This.
This.
This this this.

To keep this topic going, who do you think is in the running for buffs in the future?

I'm thinking:

What kind of buffs are you talking about? Minor buffs like jabs linking together better or major buffs that Falcon, Diddy, Mii Brawler, and the like have gotten?
That said, those who have gotten major amount of buffs tend to either receive minor ones or none at all in the following patch.

 

[blackghost]

This.
This.
This this this.

To keep this topic going, who do you think is in the running for buffs in the future?

I'm thinking:

only thing bayo needs is an actual upair now.

zelda needs a moveset change not sure if this moveset is capable of ever being relevant. People talked about this before ultimate came out.
PP has a moveset issue as well.
rosa and puff are close they dont need much to at least be decent. i'mjust not the person knowledgable for what those buffs need to be.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Olimar is still a top 15 character, and personally I think Lucina is number one atm.

What's your reasoning for Lucina being number one? Her MU spread vs top tiers doesn't seem special to me, She seems to be closer to #12 than #1 to me. Her matchup spread isn't bad but it's pretty "even" versus top characters, and her matchup spread vs most other characters isn't spectacular either. Overall she's pretty similar to Smash 4, actually.

 

[|RK|]

Amen, Thinkaman. Amen . . . .


Anyway!

Honestly the cries of people complaining about the people complaining about Joker is starting to get tiresome.

Everyone here is well aware Joker has only been out a month. Constant reminders of this are unnecessary.

It’s still been enough time for people to develop opinions on the character. If you think that Joker isn’t overtuned, give us some valid reasoning outside of regurgitating Joker’s release date or reminding us that MKLeo is sick at the game.

I stated weaknesses, personally. Why do you think it's an appropriate time to form an opinion when the best player in the world just solidified a playstyle?

It's incredibly reactionary.

 

[$.A.F.]

only thing bayo needs is an actual upair now.

zelda needs a moveset change not sure if this moveset is capable of ever being relevant. People talked about this before ultimate came out.
PP has a moveset issue as well.
rosa and puff are close they dont need much to at least be decent. i'mjust not the person knowledgable for what those buffs need to be.

Honestly the Plant doesn’t really need a move set overhaul to be good. Ptooie is already amazing and needs no changes, Poison Cloud is busted in certain matchups as I detailed a while ago, however it does need buffs in general as it’s underwhelming. Honestly just lowering the end lag or startup makes this move way more scary and actually very good. Down b is great for edge guarding and zone breaking even as well as ledgetrapping using cloud near ledge. It should be intangible though on the actual plant. However that would make it ridiculously good at edge guarding. His tilts are decent, his jab is great, and his aerials would be definitely in the upper half of the cast with less lag. His move set itself is actually pretty good. Honestly just making his moves less laggy would be enough IMO to shoot him up a good couple tiers. If it wasn’t for so many crazy laggy moves, he’s a high tier free. Nair Up Smash becomes a kill confirm super early, fair becomes safe on shield, poison is useful for more than just ledge traps and weird projectile interactions, down b gets even safer, his up air gets even better at juggling, etc. His move set in itself honestly is pretty good and definitely could be high tier with buffs. As he is now, I’d say mid to low mid though many of you will argue otherwise. Just get rid of his lag and he shoots up 15 spots free.
EDIT: Also Up Smash just needs to connect. If it does it’s a top ten up smash in the game and is still top 20 rn. Intangible anti air that kills at 80 and is good OoS. The first hit doesn’t connect however like 20% of the time which holds it back.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Btw, I am a bit confused on the talk about not needing any bigger buffs. What significant thing has changed about her?

Her up tilt connects a bit more reliably, she has a few frames shaved off of her ABK and Witch Twist, and Witch Time is better than before. But is that really it?

Her up tilt is not the only move that has trouble connecting (and the move still doesn't work all the time when it needs to). The vast majority of her moveset has some troubles working together, unless that has changed (which according to the patch notes, doesn't seem to be), her moveset is still really laggy (the landing lag shave off to her ABK and Witch Twist isn't really by a whole lot; they are still easily punishable), and Witch Time still seems to be on the weaker side in terms of counters (Witch Time duration still seems a little too low for Bayo to do much with it) despite its notable improvements. Her combos has some inconsistencies thanks to the fact that you can easily D.I. out of all of them (not a lot of people has caught on to that due to how rare of a character she is).

She still seems to have all of her myriad of issues and inconsistencies despite some QoL changes from the patch. Is there something I am missing? Is there some sort of hidden buff to her that when under my radar?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and the buffs, while helpful, still doesn't really solve that fact that Luma is still really easy to remove from the field. That has been slightly alleviated thanks to the Luma respawn timer being slightly decreased, but it still hasn't outright fixed the glaring problem. The balance change still hasn't really fixed forward air despite claiming it did. If they fixed those two issues, however, I think this character can potentially go places.

 

[blackghost]

Btw, I am a bit confused on the talk about not needing any bigger buffs. What significant thing has changed about her?

Her up tilt connects a bit more reliably, she has a few frames shaved off of her ABK and Witch Twist, and Witch Time is better than before. But is that really it?

Her up tilt is not the only move that has trouble connecting (and the move still doesn't work all the time when it needs to). The vast majority of her moveset has some troubles working together, unless that has changed (which according to the patch notes, doesn't seem to be), her moveset is still really laggy (the landing lag shave off to her ABK and Witch Twist isn't really by a whole lot; they are still easily punishable), and Witch Time still seems to be on the weaker side in terms of counters (Witch Time duration still seems a little too low for Bayo to do much with it) despite its notable improvements. Her combos has some inconsistencies thanks to the fact that you can easily D.I. out of all of them (not a lot of people has caught on to that due to how rare of a character she is).

She still seems to have all of her myriad of issues and inconsistencies despite some QoL changes from the patch. Is there something I am missing? Is there some sort of hidden buff to her that when under my radar?

there are other things they could do to buff bayo (witch twist had its height nerfed from the demo, witch twist multihit is awful, abk on shield, killpower overall) but I was saying what she NEEDS. To most of the bayo players, i've spoken with just want an upair minimal fixed. We are tired of being robbed games like zack was this past weekend.

bayo has a long list of issues. Clashing smash attacks with normals, lower charging multiplier than the entire rest of the cast, no normals under 7 frames, people falling out of moves, not ledge snapping, ect. She's slow, lacks killpower, has mid level speed, and recovery that is VERY easy to cheese at ledge.

Bayonetta is not going to be a consistent character that is very intentional and while irritating the opposite end is being treated like joker players will be in the coming months.

 

[ZephyrZ]

is tied to and I don't know if he's really in a position where the character as a trio needs buffs.

Popular speculation is that Ivysaur will get nerfed at the same time Charizard gets buffed. Most likey Ivy will get a nerf to Uair's kill power. The idea is to make people play as the whole trio more rather then just Squirtle and Ivy.

As the game gets older though the less neccesary I think that change seems, though. PT mains are getting more comfortable with Zard an non-mains get more comfortable playing around Ivysaur. Hopefully Ivy is able to just get away with a slap on the wrist.

Tbh I'm kind of content with Charizard though. I could go for the rest of the game without another buff to him and I'd be okay with it. At least he's relevant in this game. But I suppose I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to stress over patches and changes that we don't know exist yet.

 

[FruitLoop]

While I don't think Joker by himself is super duper amazing and broken outside of possibly Arsene and honestly he doesn't really need nerfs including Arsene if i'm being 100% honest, but imo just having the concept of making joker by himself better but arsene be worse i'm kind of down for. Making Joker have more reliable kill power that isn't just fishing for Bairs and relatively Safe smashes all the time while making a few of his normals feel less underwhelming could make Joker a more consistently threatening character that doesnt need to always use Arsene unless you have a godlike neutral like MKLeo does. And accomodating those buffs with having Arsene's kill power on moves like Back-Air being toned down with Eiha being less genuinely obnoxious alongside some other smaller nerfs as compensation I think is a fine approach to create consistency. One pattern in Ultimate's balancing in terms of 4 to Ultimate is that characters who have polarizingly good options get those options toned down in exchange for giving the character some buffs to their other toolkit to be able to utilize. Arsene doesn't really need a huge nerf but I also think it wouldn't be too bad of an idea for Joker by himself to be stronger while Arsene is a bit less dumb. I think with that the people complaining about the character will stop complaining and most Joker mains will actually still like the character even if they have to learn a bit about Joker himself instead of Arsene to play more optimally.

 

[FLGibsonIII]

Btw, I am a bit confused on the talk about not needing any bigger buffs. What significant thing has changed about her?

Her up tilt connects a bit more reliably, she has a few frames shaved off of her ABK and Witch Twist, and Witch Time is better than before. But is that really it?

Her up tilt is not the only move that has trouble connecting (and the move still doesn't work all the time when it needs to). The vast majority of her moveset has some troubles working together, unless that has changed (which according to the patch notes, doesn't seem to be), her moveset is still really laggy (the landing lag shave off to her ABK and Witch Twist isn't really by a whole lot; they are still easily punishable), and Witch Time still seems to be on the weaker side in terms of counters (Witch Time duration still seems a little too low for Bayo to do much with it) despite its notable improvements. Her combos has some inconsistencies thanks to the fact that you can easily D.I. out of all of them (not a lot of people has caught on to that due to how rare of a character she is).

She still seems to have all of her myriad of issues and inconsistencies despite some QoL changes from the patch. Is there something I am missing? Is there some sort of hidden buff to her that when under my radar?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and the buffs, while helpful, still doesn't really solve that fact that Luma is still really easy to remove from the field. That has been slightly alleviated thanks to the Luma respawn timer being slightly decreased, but it still hasn't outright fixed the glaring problem. The balance change still hasn't really fixed forward air despite claiming it did. If they fixed those two issues, however, I think this character can potentially go places.

Well, the narrative that has made some people sympathetic to Bayo buffs is the idea that character is non-functioning and that her moves just dont work or work correctly. This patch did a significant amount to address that. She may need more significant fixes to moves that I don't know much about, but I don't think too many people want her to be buffed just for the sake of making the character more powerful. So I think people will be receptive to any QOL changes for Bayo, but I am not sure if many people want her to be buffed beyond that.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Well, the narrative that has made some people sympathetic to Bayo buffs is the idea that character is non-functioning and that her moves just dont work or work correctly. This patch did a significant amount to address that. She may need more significant fixes to moves that I don't know much about, but I don't think too many people want her to be buffed just for the sake of making the character more powerful. So I think people will be receptive to any QOL changes for Bayo, but I am not sure if many people want her to be buffed beyond that.

Well as far as I can tell, the only moves that where fixed for Bayo in the patch is up tilt and, to some extent, Witch Time. It doesn't seem to be that significant.

Edit: At least there is now the notion that the devs knew that they heavily overdid the nerfs to the witch. Considering how obnoxious she was when she was good, I can indeed see people hesitant to buff to her further than this. Zack's recent performance in Smash 'N' Splash 5 doesn't really help in that aspect either.

 

[FLGibsonIII]

Well as far as I can tell, the only moves that where fixed for Bayo in the patch is up tilt and, to some extent, Witch Time. It doesn't seem to be that significant.

Edit: At least there is now the notion that the devs knew that they heavily overdid the nerfs to the witch. Considering how obnoxious she was when she was good, I can indeed see people hesitant to buff to her further than this. Zack's recent performance in Smash 'N' Splash 5 doesn't really help in that aspect either.

Well, from what I could tell, those two moves were complained about the most which is probably why these buffs are seen as at least somewhat significant, but I am sure that there are more buffs that should head Bayo's way.

 

[FruitLoop]

Also i'm kind of debating about who is actually the worst character in the game, with Little Mac having genuine Kill Confirms and just general Low to Mid % confirms ALONGSIDE having a frame 1 jab that can confirm into his up-b for free while still having great counterpick potential on FD and Battlefield I def don't think he's quite the worst character in the game anymore. My thoughts on Kirby and Bowser Jr have kind of improved from formerly thought as Kirby actually does have a lot of great traits that benefit him in the current meta such as his super safe frame data that gives him a ton of frame advantage for no reason while also being short with a good advantage state, edge guarding game, and recovery. Bowser Jr. imo is alright as while his advantages aren't anything crazy I at least do recognize how genuinely great Bowser Jr's ability to get free Up-Air strings off of Up-tilt and Up-Throw while having individually great normals such as f-smash, jab, f-tilt, up-tilt, n-air, etc. Also having an actual approach option with his Side-B and having actual ledge trapping tools with mecha koopa and up-special also kind of makes Bowser Jr. have a lot of great niches at ledge making his advantage state a bit better than what I'd usually expect. Also his recovery isn't as gimpable as first perceived as the conservation of Jr's double jump on side-b actually benefits him a lot more in terms of recovery mixups so its a lot harder to just freely know when Jr will activate an up-special to gimp with. With characters like Sheik and Bayo being buffed and Piranha Plant imo being a bit underrated and with D3 still being kind of low tier but not really stooping to the levels of bottom 3. I think I've been debating between two characters being the absolute worst.

My two cents is that either K Rool OR Ice Climbers (unless desync turns out to actually be not only practical in top level play but also genuinely consistent and THREATENING as taking one stock from a desync combo out of an entire tournament set because you practice the same icies twitter combo 10 hours a day doesn't actually make icies good). K Rool does have a few nice normals with nair and down-smash being especially stupid and having belly armor does give him a random get out of jail free card in disadvantage sometimes alongside K Rool having fantastic survivability with his heavyweight prowess and his fantastic recovery that has a hitbox that practically covers the entire ledge for no reason. K Rool despite being good at surviving doesn't really have the advantage state or neutral to really get anything done. K Rool's frame data is so genuinely trash in almost every single way alongside K Rool himself being super slow to the point where free flow combos almost never work with K Rool. K Rool on hit is extremely underwhelming despite how many hoops he has to go through to win neutral just once. K Rool offstage isn't even impressive if you just go around his back-air hitbox and don't become predictable in your recovery patterns to get spiked by D-Air. Like when one of K Rool's zoning option out of two of them can literally be caught after buffering a jab onto it and throwing it off the stage to devoid K Rool of his zoning option almost more than half of the time in neutral, K Rool just isn't that threatening. Also when one of his main strengths (belly armor) can literally be broken if the opponent reads his neutral-aerial landing as a character with predictable landing and they buffer a relatively strong smash attack it can basically cost the game, so I don't really know what K Rool really even has at this point that isn't recovery and survivability despite him taking 80-100% to the face after a neutral loss which will inevitably happen due to his poor neutral.

Icies are a bit of a hot take to truly call the worst in the game as they're definitely the definition of a theory-craft character. However I just don't see them doing well at this point in time. Like I know that even with the nerf in 3.1 towards Nana's desyncs it can still exist but its less practical. While a fair point, I just don't think any of Icie's desync tech as of right now and what will likely happen in the future will ever really be practical at this point in time. Icies are really only good at one thing and that's just having good damage output when they're together I guess and sometimes every now and then the icies when together can get some desync jank going on. But Icies lack in pretty much everything else EVEN when paired together which aka is supposed to be when they're actually "good". The icies when together still don't have good mobility or approach options that aren't side-special which is still unsafe on shield and their only projectile in the form of their neutral-special can literally be sent back to them to force them to approach while the move is suprisingly slow. This kind of makes the icies hard to really get things going even when together and the fact that most of the cast can just seperate them easily means that they'll just never get to the point where they do get an up-air string. Most of their flaws were retained from Brawl/Melee however the obvious main difference is the fact that unlike those two games the most they can do is deal a 50% string more or less unless something janky happens and basically reset to neutral. The icies by themselves have to even fish for kills most of the time at late game which is an even bigger issue as it gives everyone a bigger timeframe to seperate Nana and it again just makes Icies less threatening. What made icies good before was that you only had a few opportunities to truly seperate Nana, now you just have all the time in the world to seperate an AI that isn't even smart in the first place.

I know it's a bit of me rambling but both of these characters just don't seem to be great in a lot of situations and feel too niche to really fit in as a true serious tournament choice assuming that nothing super broken gets discovered for the icies which probably won't happen in a very long time, especially since it'll probably get patched out almost immediately like usual.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Bayonetta's upair and smashes are still pretty bootycheeks, unless I missed a memo somewhere (although dsmash at ledge remains my favorite kill method in the game regardless of how impractical it usually is) and I rather suspect the latter, at least, wouldn't draw too much criticism if buffed. Uair is a touchier subject since she can tack it on at the end of a lot of her combos, buff it a hair too much and she'll have reliable kill confirms from I M A G I N A T I O N again and...yeah, that won't go over too well.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I personally think the pretty nice buffs to and (and to some extent ) kind of paved the way for to be worst character.

We kind of already chewed on her (get it?) in a previous page. To illiterate, her entire design simply doesn't work properly. Lloid Mine is a mediocre move at best, she has moves in general that feels joke move-esque (like her jab) or is simply undertuned (like her down smash). Fishing Rod is an okay tool, especially offstage, but it is still react-able and easily punished.

Her main shine is her slingshot (the move alone makes her matchup against Ganondorf silly sometimes), but that is pretty much her main only good tool (and Villager literally has the same tool). She has somewhat decent frame data, but all of her faster moves have very little reach and is not really rewarding enough.


She didn't really get much love in patches at all. It is mainly just bug fixes and what-not, and never solved any of her problems (arguably made it worse by buffing other characters in the lower tiers at the time). is sort of the same, but its advantage state is at least pretty rewarding to begin with.

 

[FruitLoop]

I personally think the pretty nice buffs to and (and to some extent ) kind of paved the way for to be worst character.

We kind of already chewed on her (get it?) in a previous page. To illiterate, her entire design simply doesn't work properly. Lloid Mine is a mediocre move at best, she has moves in general that feels joke move-esque (like her jab) or is simply undertuned (like her down smash). Fishing Rod is an okay tool, especially offstage, but it is still react-able and easily punished.

Her main shine is her slingshot (the move alone makes her matchup against Ganondorf silly sometimes), but that is pretty much her main only good tool (and Villager literally has the same tool). She has somewhat decent frame data, but all of her faster moves have very little reach and is not really rewarding enough.


She didn't really get much love in patches at all. It is mainly just bug fixes and what-not, and never solved any of her problems (arguably made it worse by buffing other characters in the lower tiers at the time). is sort of the same, but its advantage state is at least pretty rewarding to begin with.

Isabelle isn't great but I still think she's pretty alright. I mean she's still a pretty short character with still generally good reach thanks to slingshot. I mean I guess Slingshot + Lloid Mine even with its easy tradeability does make her neutral game actually apparent unlike the rest of the bottom 5ish characters. I don't think anything about Isabelle is truly "that" exploitable, its just that she has really not a whole lot of things going for her. Imo characters like K Rool and Icies also kind of have the issue of just them not really having anything to seperate them from the rest of the cast outside of a gimmick or two as well, however they have more clearly awful disadvantages that makes it a lot more of a struggle. Like getting isabelle to top 8 must be a lot more practical than K Rool and Icies as accidentally losing Nana prematurely can basically cost you the set to force you to go to do a losers run by default or to be eliminated prematurely as well while K Rool could just get easily cheesed by his big body hitbox + Belly armor alongside the fact that playing lame vs him could force you to go a different character for the set or risk losing ALONGSIDE K Rool plateauing easily thanks to his low skill curve.

Isabelle still has an anti-camping niche with pocket, she still can at least force the opponent to hit lloid mine to gain frame advantage sometimes while still having access to a pretty alright kill throw and at least having access to pellets and a short-ish hitbox when the meta benefits short characters alongside still having a decentish edge guarding game with pellets and a pretty okay ledge trapping game with Lloid Mine + Fishing Rod despite its underwhelming presence and despite her gimpable recovery its still overall good despite its lack of safety. I don't really see her as bottom 3 due to her neutral game being genuinely practical and honestly theres nothing about her that screams horrible, just a painfully mediocre character that gets outshined by her villager counterpart in almost every way.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Isabelle isn't great but I still think she's pretty alright. I mean she's still a pretty short character with still generally good reach thanks to slingshot. I mean I guess Slingshot + Lloid Mine even with its easy tradeability does make her neutral game actually apparent unlike the rest of the bottom 5ish characters. I don't think anything about Isabelle is truly "that" exploitable, its just that she has really not a whole lot of things going for her. Imo characters like K Rool and Icies also kind of have the issue of just them not really having anything to seperate them from the rest of the cast outside of a gimmick or two as well, however they have more clearly awful disadvantages that makes it a lot more of a struggle. Like getting isabelle to top 8 must be a lot more practical than K Rool and Icies as accidentally losing Nana prematurely can basically cost you the set to force you to go to do a losers run by default or to be eliminated prematurely as well while K Rool could just get easily cheesed by his big body hitbox + Belly armor alongside the fact that playing lame vs him could force you to go a different character for the set or risk losing ALONGSIDE K Rool plateauing easily thanks to his low skill curve.

Isabelle still has an anti-camping niche with pocket, she still can at least force the opponent to hit lloid mine to gain frame advantage sometimes while still having access to a pretty alright kill throw and at least having access to pellets and a short-ish hitbox when the meta benefits short characters alongside still having a decentish edge guarding game with pellets and a pretty okay ledge trapping game with Lloid Mine + Fishing Rod despite its underwhelming presence and despite her gimpable recovery its still overall good despite its lack of safety. I don't really see her as bottom 3 due to her neutral game being genuinely practical and honestly theres nothing about her that screams horrible, just a painfully mediocre character that gets outshined by her villager counterpart in almost every way.

K. Rool won an Australian Major, though. Like that's not just, worst character material when you consider what their player beat out to get to that spot.

Also in no world can I concede to IC's being worst either, Isabelle is definitely in the running for the spot of the biggest ****ter in Ultimate's roster.

 

[Frihetsanka]

K. Rool won an Australian Major, though.

It wasn't really a major though. So far the only countries that have hosted Smash Ultimate majors, as far as I know, are Japan, the US, and Canada. Albion 4 in the UK is also shaping up to be a major.

Also, and I've mentioned this before, that tournament had a bunch of non-top tier characters in the top 16. It's not really representative of the current metagame and thus certain low tier characters may be more viable. Tier lists primarily matter for ~100 in the world or so, and character placement is based largely on how well they perform against the top tier characters. If a King K. Rool wins some more stacked tournament then we could be talking.

Is he the worst in the game? I don't know, but he's probably one of the worst characters in the game, based on what I've seen.

 

[DelugeFGC]

It wasn't really a major though. So far the only countries that have hosted Smash Ultimate majors, as far as I know, are Japan, the US, and Canada. Albion 4 in the UK is also shaping up to be a major.

Also, and I've mentioned this before, that tournament had a bunch of non-top tier characters in the top 16. It's not really representative of the current metagame and thus certain low tier characters may be more viable. Tier lists primarily matter for ~100 in the world or so, and character placement is based largely on how well they perform against the top tier characters. If a King K. Rool wins some more stacked tournament then we could be talking.

Is he the worst in the game? I don't know, but he's probably one of the worst characters in the game, based on what I've seen.

I meant major as in bigger tournament, not like, supermajor big but I honestly don't know the Aussie scene well enough to know the importance of their tournaments in the scene overall. Either way, more than a worst character could do imo.

 

[DunnoBro]

only thing bayo needs is an actual upair now.

Nah, Uair was clearly retooled. It hits people horizontal for a reason; She's supposed to kill via edgeguard/by the corner now, not ladders. Those are only for damage.

What she needs is simply consistency at those higher percents like ZSS has with Uthrow and Whip.

Her gamestate from 0-130~% is rock solid. But she never really gains any more reliability or potency at percents beyond that. Her ledge coverage is pathetic too. All she can do is bair/fthrow, maybe witch time or dair but those are commitments and they don't really fit well into the bair/fthrow flowchart, so they become telegraphed and punishable.

I think her fthrow should just kill sooner. Maybe dash attack too to create a a real mix-up at higher percents vs cornered opponents. If Pikachus dash attack can kill midstage around 150%, I don't see why Bayos can't kill around 150 from the roll distance or so. (And 130% right by the lip)

With fthrow killing more like 140% by lip, 160% at roll.

 

[Anomika]

I feel like people are afraid of Joker being in top tier and wanting nerfs because of the initial thoughts of Cloud and Bayonetta in SSB4. They were considered high tier at the time but then were top 2. Now, some of us don't want that to happen again so we ask for nerfs for a fighter that wasn't even out for 3 whole months and keep forgetting that Ike was also placed highly thanks to MKLeo. Let's just wait, shall we?

 

[DunnoBro]

I dunno if Joker is, or isn't problematic. But the Comparisons to MKleo's Ike are, and will always be a meme.

The situation is entirely different. We understand the game better. It's been far longer. With more solo-success (Leo used Ike and Lucina) And we can clearly observe that Joker has a plethora of options compared to Ike's basic boy routine.

The Lucina comparisons are more apt. (But she ended up getting nerfed.)

 

[Vyrnx]

Yeah, this doesn't remind me of Leo's Ike--like, at all. At the very least, it should be obvious that Joker is a significantly better character, especially considering how Leo's Joker just ran a train through the six plus month old meta game with ease--twice. You can argue that Joker may not end up being the best character, but it'd be pretty difficult to argue that we aren't in a situation where every other character and their respective players are playing catch up--e.g., Leo's made it look like Peach has a borderline unwinnable matchup vs. Joker.

Is that a sign of a problematic character? Maybe, but there's no way this could happen again after the double dose we got in Smash 4, right?

But I also think "subtle" is a pretty poor word to describe Joker. Because, again, there's nothing remotely subtle about Arsene.

I do want to see more of Joker's mus played out at top level. These past two tournaments were both closed out vs. Peach and Zero Suit--and since all attention will be focused on Joker moving forward, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Rizen]

Amen, Thinkaman. Amen . . . .


Anyway!

Honestly the cries of people complaining about the people complaining about Joker is starting to get tiresome.

Everyone here is well aware Joker has only been out a month. Constant reminders of this are unnecessary.

It’s still been enough time for people to develop opinions on the character. If you think that Joker isn’t overtuned, give us some valid reasoning outside of regurgitating Joker’s release date or reminding us that MKLeo is sick at the game.

The thing is a lot of people have been trying out Joker. Leo's had success, although he falls back on Lucina for problematic MUs. Void and Tweek seem to do better with their mains. If you look at the top 64 for Smash and Splash
Smash 'N' Splash 5 (1,610 entrants) (Wisconsin)

1. MkLeo
33. Tweek
and top 32 for Dreamhack Dallas
25. Karna

We're not seeing a huge concentration of Jokers. He may be overtuned but probably not the best in the game. Other top tiers, many now nerfed, saw greater success. I can see Joker becoming top tier after the wave of nerfs or high tier if his placements start to slip after initial popularity like Link. There's room for counter play with the 33f of endlag Rebel's Guard has, his exploitable recovery and generally playing defensively with Arsene out.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Want to set the record straight: the Bayonetta buffs don't do much to fix Bayonetta. They we're insanely minor, to the point where her Utilt still isn't perfect and still messes up (albeit much much less).

Her landing lag buff gave her 2-4 frames less landing lag on some combinations. Individual Witch Twist is still 18 frames for instance.

Jab 1 and Dsmash having an extra active frame is nice but I've literally never heard a complaint about those moves so it seems random. At least the trails are starting to like up?

Rapid Jab kills past 150%, same with Dash Attack. Jab is frame 9, DA is 19. Neither is a reliable kill move now, just a last ditch effort to finish a stock.

The Witch Time buff is hot, it needed more active frames, but it doesn't change the frame 8 startup or the fact that it's still one of the longer counters in the game. It doesn't fix Bayonetta's issues in WT, namely a lack of invulnerability, and how multihits can still hurt her. Or how it still takes 40 frames for Bayonetta to act out. Or how if you parry a move you get slowed down.

Doesn't fix her ladder combos not killing a Mega Man at 140% above the visible screen. Doesn't fix Uair being a non-existent kill move with a trail that gives it a massive blindspot. Doesn't make Dair connect better on ground. Doesn't fix her Smashes lag, or the glitch where they have an extra 8 frames on shield due to hasty disjoint programing. Bullet arts are still ass, throws are still ass, neutral is still ass...

The patch doesn't do much. It's appreciated, but to compare it to the level of buffs that Diddy, Ryu, and Ken received is incorrect.

 

[DunnoBro]

Doesn't fix her ladder combos not killing a Mega Man at 140% above the visible screen.

He was carried up from 81.2% off a single utilt. With a true combo. That STILL did 60%

I don't think THIS needs 'fixing'

 

[Anomika]

Of course Ike and Joker are different in popularity and have different results, but still: let the time pass. I also personally think that some nerfs for top tiers were unnecessary, but oh well. Now let's hope they'll finally fix Oliph for like 4th time.

 

[Xenophon of Athens]

On the subject of Joker Dabuz recently posted a video he made back in May 3rd about how "dumb" Joker is and how he is easily top 5 in game. This was before Leo's run at momocon and when people were writing of Joker as a high tier character.

https://youtu.be/8ijDoFjo1qc

Personally I don't think Leo was this dominant with Ike or Lucina when he used them and unlike Ike and Lucina Leo has not expressed doubt on the character. During Genesis Leo was already saying Ike was going to fall off the meta, and he said the same on Lucina, calling her a one trick pony.

In comparison when he was trying out Joker he said he thought Joker was broken back in may 1st:
https://mobile.twitter.com/mkleosb/status/1123803123418587136?lang=en
And recently in an interview with hbox he said Joker is top 10. And unlike Marth, he tried to make him work, he didnt give up on Joker even after his bad placing at Umebura. I don't think it's wise to undersell Joker here. It may very well be Leo carrying Joker or it could be a combination of Leo and Joker. It will be interesting how the Joker meta unravels these coming months.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Edit: Might as well have something rational in my ****post. I think Ken and Ryu are the only characters you are going to see with a rise in the tiers. Everyone else is going to stay in the same tier for the most part, or like five spaces, whichever comes first.

Olimar is still a top 15 character, and personally I think Lucina is number one atm.

It's interesting that you say that becuase I think Lucario and/or Diddy Kong might move up a bit too.

Diddy's recovery was one of his biggest weaknesses other than his kill power and that's no longer an issue (or at least not as much).

Lucario also just got a lot of QOL buffs and I already think that he was probably a high mid tier so he could be a low high tier now.

I think Ryu and Ken went from Low Tier to mid tier and if the Twitter combos that we've been seeing with Ken are somewhat practical, I think Ken could even be high tier in the future.

Also, I think the characters most needing buffs right now (after the update) are , , especially , , , , , , , , , , and . These are basically every character I would consider a low-mid tier , low tier, or bottom tier.

Edit: While Charizard is part of Pokemon Trainer, Squirtle is the most balanced of the three and Ivysaur has some very well defined strengths and weaknesses that can be worked around. Charizard honestly feels worse in some ways from Smash 4 and outside of using him for his recovery and his kill power, he isn't really useful at all. I think making his down throw a combo throw again, fixing the auto-cancel window on f-air, and making his recovery stand out more would probably fix him enough to be off of this list.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Yes Diddy, and also Captain Falcon, have definitely improved tons since the patch update. They can actually play their game now, and aren’t unnecessarily restricted by the game engine like before. If they where mid tiers before, they will likely now be High Tiers. It also helps that both characters already have a great kit to begin with, so buffing them is way easier than characters who’ve never been good, like Zelda or Charizard. And they don’t rely on stupid broken mechanics as Ice Climbers.

This gives me way more hope that characters as Mewtwo, Sheik, Rosalina and Bayonetta will get shown some love down the line, because it’s way easier to make them good than others.

Also K.Rool should just be patched back into his initial release self. Even newer players should be able to deal with his “oppression” now. He was a very fun character when the game released, and complaints got him nerfed too hard.

 

[blackghost]

He was carried up from 81.2% off a single utilt. With a true combo. That STILL did 60%

I don't think THIS needs 'fixing'

I'll need to look at the combo a view times to see if it was actually true. additionally, also need to check to see how many(if any) DI reads zack made on that combo. Bayo combos are almost never simple. Its not like bayo landing utilt guarantees that outcome. bayo doesnt possess a move akin to ike's nair or roy's jab. true guaranteed confirms are not present under universal circumstances for the character.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Also K.Rool should just be patched back into his initial release self. Even newer players should be able to deal with his “oppression” now. He was a very fun character when the game released, and complaints got him nerfed too hard.

K. Rool is probably already better than his initial release self, thanks to the array of buffs from 3.0.0 (and to an extent, 3.1.0 with the up air buff). However, I do agree that he needs more.

 

[Diddy Kong]

K. Rool is probably already better than his initial release self, thanks to the array of buffs from 3.0.0 (and to an extent, 3.1.0 with the up air buff). However, I do agree that he needs more.

Stronger belly armor is a thing that could fix him. Faster projectiles as well, and his recovery being safe again. That would do wonders to fix him I think. Maybe faster running speed as well.

 

[Rizen]

's recovery can be exploited by certain characters but it's fairly safe. His upB's long enough he can afford to air dodge then fly up to the ledge. The more experienced I get the less belly armor breaking is a problem except a in few MUs like the Belmonts.

If I was to buff K.Rool I'd work on his hitboxes. Increase DA sweetspot duration, increase grab range, Utilt's range directly over him, increase Dtilt's burying hitbox so there's less sour spot, and reduce lag on his aerials and projectiles.

 

[Sean²]

This.
This.
This this this.

To keep this topic going, who do you think is in the running for buffs in the future?

I'm thinking:

- Even though I mained this character in a prior iteration of the series, I kind of want her to just be forgotten about at this point. She probably needs buffs to deal with heavy zoners and sword characters better, but at the same time she shouldn't be enabled to the point where she can run away for entire games after getting a lead. I'd say she's been one of the most difficult characters to keep in check throughout the years, and she could be power creeped over the edge if given just a bit too much. Maybe why she went the entirety of S4 with nothing in the patch notes.

I think Kirby is the floaty that needs heavier attention brought to his normals, speed, and range over the constant attention brought to his copy abilities. He has some amazing tools that just don't get seen because people can keep him away too easily. At the very least, speed up his reaction to inhaling projectiles so they can't come in and charge a smash in the amount of time it takes him to "swallow" it.

I'd be happier to see some recovery buffs on some of the nearly-free-edgeguards we have now. I know these characters were designed this way to keep their onstage presence in check, but holy hell, some of them were just unnecessary. I'm talking the Docs, Belmonts, etc. of this game. They could be amazing if they could just get back more reliably. I would include Chrom and Cloud here, but they both have the x factor of their up B spiking on the downswing, and pretty great aerial mobility.

On a similar note, it seems pretty easy to 2-frame Pichu now.

Version 3.1:"Pichu is easier to hit"

Shout out to @Lewkernuggetshttps://t.co/fLNAkVDt8b pic.twitter.com/13GWCUZC9Q

— Dream Catcher Gaming (@DreamCGaming) June 5, 2019

 

[Thinkaman]

1. MkLeo
33. Tweek
and top 32 for Dreamhack Dallas
25. Karna

Tweek actually switched characters when the going got tough--I don't think he won a single bracket game as Joker. If he didn't buster out early, he'd presumibly be listed as other characters and not Joker, leaving MKLeo as (AFAIK) the sole Joker player in top 64 of SnS.

 

[LightKnight]

ZSS has an annoyingly narrow hurtbox as well to be fair, particularly in certain hitstun states. Try hitting her with a multi hit move on a platform or locking her with a non-stubby character’s jab.

Her landing hurtboxes are easier to hit than Joker’s, which admittedly is a big deal. She’s also a bit taller and much lighter which hurts her survivability. Why is Joker so heavy, come to think of it?

It’d be fair to make his model 10-20% bigger given his weight and beneficial animations. It might make his proportions look less weird compared to the other human characters as well. That tiny head makes me uneasy.

I've been questioning not only why his weight isn't lower but Inkling's as well..

 

[Lacrimosa]

Also, I think the characters most needing buffs right now (after the update) are , , especially , , , , , , , , , , and . These are basically every character I would consider a low-mid tier , low tier, or bottom tier.

Edit: While Charizard is part of Pokemon Trainer, Squirtle is the most balanced of the three and Ivysaur has some very well defined strengths and weaknesses that can be worked around. Charizard honestly feels worse in some ways from Smash 4 and outside of using him for his recovery and his kill power, he isn't really useful at all. I think making his down throw a combo throw again, fixing the auto-cancel window on f-air, and making his recovery stand out more would probably fix him enough to be off of this list.

You really want to put in Zelda here despite she does way better than all of the mentioned characters, except Duck-Hunt? Don't get me wrong, every character has their flaws (I was told in the Buff Wishlist topic that Rockcrocking and turn around speed for still sucks and I at least agree on rockcrocking).
I kinda agree on the other characters, but Duck-Hunt (looking especially at Raito) and Zelda don't really fit this list. They have clear weaknesses but they also have srengths that help them to work around that.

Charizard, however, is ok. He has Squirtle and Ivysaur to help him out. He has to function in a team now. If he were a single character, like in Sm4sh, then he desperately needs buffs but he isn't in Ult and I can ensure you that you don't really want a somewhat viable Charizard when there is already Ivysaur.

 

[Thinkaman]

I feel like we're not talking about Inkling enough.

Inkling is super popular, does decently at the highest levels of play, and was hyped to death as the next big thing close to release. Inkling's roller nerfs were rather modest and haven't changed any of this. I think pretty much everyone would put Inkling in their top 12, minimum?

But what's her deal? How have her matchups evolved? How is speculate she will shake out against Joker?

(Mario is also flying under the radar for how well he is performing, but Inkling is new and more of a conversation starter.)


Side-bar: I want to see more proof that it fixed things, but Duck Hunt's uair QoL fix is probably the most impactful QoL fix in 3.1, and the closest to a straight up major buff. No character relies on a specific janky multi-hit more than KO-starved Duck Hunt does on his uair.