Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[bc1910]

I also think Greninja is a Top Tier, yet a unexplored one. He definitely had the results that Shulk is lacking, and had been consistently doing well against Top Tiers from the get go- whilst keeping his moveset unchanged by patches. So that’s a big plus. He just seems to suffer from the Ness-syndrome, being that he had all the results but people just refuse to take the character seriously because of their status in Smash 4 (where Greninja was also Top Tier before the nerfs). Yet unlike Ness, Greninja has the actual means to be a Top Tier.

We just gotta accept at this point that people will cling to the easier to use Top Tiers, and unless more complex characters get the same results as the current Top Tiers, I don’t really expect any changes in this.

Maybe Ryu and Ken can show a little difference now with their buffs, but other than that, and outside of characters who’ve previously been Top Tier become meta-viable again (Sheik, Diddy, Mewtwo, Marth, Meta Knight, Falco etc) I’m not really seeing it. This is why Pichu is also way more explored than Pikachu for example.

Isn’t iStudying playing Ultimate? I bet he could do some wonders with Ultimate Greninja.

iStudying still plays but hasn’t shown a marked improvement from his performance in Smash 4, which is surprising given how much better Greninja is. Though that’s probably more of a testament to how amazing the dude was in Smash 4.

greninja fall off in interest and perception can be tracked to joker's release. we saw a similar effect in smash 4 with cloud release vs other sword users. If theres a new character that is both more fun (subjective measurement) and more effective (objective measurement) both kinds of players (competitive top level and mid level and below) will be drawn to that character.

when characters are super unique and dont have overlap they dont experience this kind of drop off. ken, shulk, bayo, snake, olimar these characters have dedicated , mains in every game to push their metagames because they offer unique gameplay.

while its wrong to say joker is a greninja clone or wannabe he does objectively fit in to the category of fast, light, frame data strong, combo character, with a strong air game greninja, shiek, and joker all fit into this bubble. joker is just objectively the best one in almost any measure i can think of. if and when joker hype dies down greninja may make a return.

Objectively Greninja is better than Joker in almost every way until Joker gets Arsene, at which point the opposite becomes true. Still, there are benefits to both characters and differences in their MU spreads. I think they are of similar strength overall, just that Joker is in the spotlight right now.

Joker having excellent frame data is a meme that needs to die though, it’s good but not Sheik level. His only move with spectacular frame data is Bair.

Sheik has much better frame data than both Greninja and Joker in exchange for damage, power and survivability. I think all three characters are quite different, though I can see how they’d fall into the same “general” class of character.

 

[Thinkaman]

Puff is mechanically superior to Smash 4 in a few ways, but suffers environmentally. Puff was the character saddest to lose SHAD, and least happy about directional air dodges. Puff likes the 1v1 damage multiplier more than most, but stands to gain little from parry. She is not pleased with the landing lag reductions yet suffers from the SH attack penalty more than most. Movement creep is bad for her, and there are just as many swords as ever.

It's not all bad. Rest is the best its been since Melee, Sing is actually usable, Rollout is almost as good as it was in Brawl (where it had plenty of niche applications), and Pound is much improved from 4. Smash attacks are appreciably better.

Honestly? If you just gave Puff the best air dodge in the game instead of the worst, she'd probably be quite scary.

 

[NuzTheMonkey]

How would that make her any better?

 

[Ark of Silence101]

iStudying still plays but hasn’t shown a marked improvement from his performance in Smash 4, which is surprising given how much better Greninja is. Though that’s probably more of a testament to how amazing the dude was in Smash 4.



Objectively Greninja is better than Joker in almost every way until Joker gets Arsene, at which point the opposite becomes true. Still, there are benefits to both characters and differences in their MU spreads. I think they are of similar strength overall, just that Joker is in the spotlight right now.

Joker having excellent frame data is a meme that needs to die though, it’s good but not Sheik level. His only move with spectacular frame data is Bair.

Sheik has much better frame data than both Greninja and Joker in exchange for damage, power and survivability. I think all three characters are quite different, though I can see how they’d fall into the same “general” class of character.

Yet Sheik would kill to have the damage and kill power of non-Arsene Joker. The reason I personally compare Joker to Sheik is because of how technical he can be(at least the way MkLeo plays him gives me this impression).

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I really don't know what low tier looks like after the last 2 patches. A lot of buffs were thrown around. Top tier is a similar story except from nerfs. IMO Pichu's fallen down to high tier and might even be worse than YL now. Wolf got a few wrist smacks but those add up. How many minor nerfs before a character sees real performance issues? There's a good case for Snake to be number 1 now. Maybe Ryu and Ken will end up in high or even top tier I really don't know. We may have to define low and top tier as closer to middle and high tiers while still keeping characters like Olimar and Peach in top tier. Before there was a noticeable power gap between them. Whatever the case one things for sure: the tier landscape has been shaken by patches.

I think Olimar might be only high-tier at best until the sheildpoking issue his addressed, I am guessing it may have been an oversight in this patch. His disadvantage and overall surviability is pretty shaky now. His still utterly absurd damage output and remaining strong kill options keeping him from being any lower.

Peach/Daisy I still think are top-tier, albeit maybe not top 5 now

 

[Roguewolf]

Puff really does have fundamental problems in smash ultimate where its just hard to figure out a game plan with her to me

 

[Thinkaman]

Puff's non-directional air dodge is invincible 4-32 (fresh), and lasts an incredible 73 frames. This is bad for 3 primary reasons.

First, it comes out frame 4. This is a trait shared only with super-heavyweights. And unlike them, Jigglypuff is a super-lightweight who is always in the air. So her core defensive option is just bad. This has always been the case, but this has not:


In Smash 4, her air dodge lasted only 34 frames. (And 49 in Brawl) This meant that Jiggs could air dodge the majority of aerial attacks in the game, and counter with an aerial attack of her own. (Or land and grab in Brawl) This is what most character do on the ground with spot dodges, of course--but Jigglypuff lives in the air and has the aerial mobility stats to pull it off there.

Now Jigglypuff air dodge is 13 frames longer than a Ganon u-tilt. Let that sink in.


Finally, because 34 frames was less than her SH duration, Jigglypuff could SHAD. For most characters, this was a novelty comparable-but-inferior-to rolling--slower to the point of near uselessness, but with some spacing advantages. But with Jigglypuff's aerial mobility stats, those spacing advantages were quite large. What's more, she could do it into Rest! (And since Rest is aerial and frame 2, this negates part of the slowness of the option and lets it be relevant in far more sitautions)


Even if Jigglypuff was given a 40 frame non-directional air dodge--still far worse than any air dodge in Smash 4--she'd be able to do basic aerial counter attacks and SHAD shenanigans.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Puff's non-directional air dodge is invincible 4-32 (fresh), and lasts an incredible 73 frames. This is bad for 3 primary reasons.

First, it comes out frame 4. This is a trait shared only with super-heavyweights. And unlike them, Jigglypuff is a super-lightweight who is always in the air. So her core defensive option is just bad. This has always been the case, but this has not:


In Smash 4, her air dodge lasted only 34 frames. (And 49 in Brawl) This meant that Jiggs could air dodge the majority of aerial attacks in the game, and counter with an aerial attack of her own. (Or land and grab in Brawl) This is what most character do on the ground with spot dodges, of course--but Jigglypuff lives in the air and has the aerial mobility stats to pull it off there.

Now Jigglypuff air dodge is 13 frames longer than a Ganon u-tilt. Let that sink in.


Finally, because 34 frames was less than her SH duration, Jigglypuff could SHAD. For most characters, this was a novelty comaprable but inferior to rolling--slower to the point of near uselessness, but with some spacing advantages. But with Jigglypuff's aerial mobility stats, those spacing advantages were quite large. What's more, she could do it into Rest! (And since Rest is aerial and frame 2, this negates part of the slowness of the option and lets it be relevant in far more sitautions)


Even if Jigglypuff was given a 40 frame non-directional air dodge--still far worse than any air dodge in Smash 4--she'd be able to do basic aerial counter attacks and SHAD shenanigans.

Basically make her Smash 4 Mewtwo then? Basically give her the best air-dodge in the game compensate for her flaws and bad surviability

 

[Thinkaman]

Basically make her Smash 4 Mewtwo then? Basically give her the best air-dodge in the game compensate for her flaws and bad surviability

Sort of.

Mewtwo's air dodge in 4 was unique because it came out at an impressive frame 2 (like a few others), and only lasted an amazing 28 frames. All while having the big perk of invisibility. It made sense for glass cannon Smash 4 Mewtwo to have this in the same way that it makes sense for glass cannon Little Mac to have a top spotdodge.

I don't think Jigglypuff needs to be an outlier like that to function. It's just that this new paradigm of airdodge duration being tied to inverse fall speed really spoils Jigglypuff's lunch. She can keep the same crappy 4-frame startup she's always had, as long as she gets a duration that allows *some* possibility of counter attack.

 

[DunnoBro]

There's a good case for Snake to be number 1 now. .

More than a good case.

His only losing matchups are Megaman(rare af) and Inkling. Along with Fox ALLEGEDLY. (Though the results and theorycraft do not support this)

In addition to this, he beats the majority of the lower cast pretty hard. Even Peach, Inkling, and Pikachu fail to invalidate many mid-tiers that hard. As we've seen.

Honestly, the main thing keeping him from dominating top 8s is because he's just not a traditionally 'fun' smash character. (And also partly because everyone knows he's on the chopping block)

 

[Thinkaman]

More than a good case.

His only losing matchups are Megaman(rare af) and Inkling. Along with Fox ALLEGEDLY. (Though the results and theorycraft do not support this)

And Joker. I'm not on the Joker fear train, but it's obvious that multiple aspects of Joker's kit are great for dealing with Snake's nonsense.

 

[DunnoBro]

And Joker. I'm not on the Joker fear train, but it's obvious that multiple aspects of Joker's kit are great for dealing with Snake's nonsense.

Yea, I haven't seen snake mains talk much about Joker yet. But he certainly does seem to have the tools to deal with Snake fairly well.

-Grappling Hook to force earlier airdodges, very consistent landing traps due to this.
-Rebel's guard to deter over-reliance on nades
-And of course Arsene to really force Snake to approach more often/seal stocks sooner or risk getting dumpstered if he tries playing the low committal damage game like usual.

Joker also has the potential to be #1. And I think it's far more real than people are willing to accept.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Joker in particular further highlights the weaknesses of Isabelle (and copy-less Kirby).

They're not even the same archetype, but Isabelle's strength - like Joker's - work best when her opponent has to approach her.

Her smash attacks, her traps, so on. But in the end, Isabelle has no ways to force her opponents to approach, and no way to keep them from just shielding. She can't close distance quickly, her grab is incredibly slow, she doesn't fall so fast as to be a fastfaller, she can't safely pressure shield (in a way that scares her opponent out of it), so on.

Her projectiles aren't unreactable... yeah.

Honestly, more than the mine, if you gave her something that made her opponents have to get out of shield (e.g. more shield damage to fair and bair without a change in kb/damage), she could be a threat. Faster grab, too maybe.

That's all she needs though, imo.

Isabelle also may need buffs to her Smash attacks as well because side-b and down-b kill won't start killing a lot of characters until really high percents.

Up smash needs a frame data and/or range buff (it's really slow and doesn't have too much range)

F-smash needs a range buff (it's really powerful and quick but horrid range)

Down smash needs a knockback buff (it's fast and has good rage but is less reliable as a kill move than Samus's down-smash which is notoriously unreliable at killing.

Edit:

Joker having excellent frame data is a meme that needs to die though, it’s good but not Sheik level. His only move with spectacular frame data is Bair.

Joker's frame data seems a lot faster than it is until you play a character with really good frame data. That's when you start to realize it's not as good is it actually seems.

Characters like all have better frame data than Joker and it shows if you are playing one of these characters vs him. This is from personal experience.

Edit 2: Punctuation.

 

[Game7a1]

I don't think Jigglypuff needs to be an outlier like that to function. It's just that this new paradigm of airdodge duration being tied to inverse fall speed really spoils Jigglypuff's lunch. She can keep the same crappy 4-frame startup she's always had, as long as she gets a duration that allows *some* possibility of counter attack.

As a Puff player (Smash 4 and Ultimate), I'd actually would like her air dodge to come out a frame or two sooner because of two reasons. One, while Rest can work as a fast dodge option, the massive endlag on it makes such a use-case very situational (but still implementable). And two, she puffs when she jumps. The main issue I have with this is that her hurtbox expands when jumping, making jumping sometimes the worst evasive option to choose. The amount of times I've tried to get away from an attack by jumping, only to still get hit is probably more than the amounts of bones than in a typical person. Lower endlag is great and all, but I want dodge fast enough to, well, dodge stuff.

That said, the only move I'd like to see buffed in terms of defensive capabilities is her N-air. Either make the clean hitbox last longer or come out sooner. It deals decent damage (11%), good enough to be used as a kill move at high percents, and it covers her entire body. (I think sans her ears, but someone double check me on that). Making it last longer or come out sooner would mean she has another option to challenge attacks and not get beaten out after the move goes into its, while deceptively long lasting, late hitbox that only covers her foot. They've already buffed her B-air to come out 2 frames sooner, so why not her N-air?

Even if she doesn't get more buffs, I'm just happy she's gotten some at all (compared to the one bugfix change she got in Smash 4).

 

[ZephyrZ]

I think Pokemon Trainer definitely has a strong match up against Snake. It's heavily Ivysaur centralized but eh that's true for a lot of PT's stronger match ups.

Razor Leaf is can bounce away grenades and clank with dash attack, so it's really obnoxious for Snake to deal with in neutral. Ivy's Fair and Bair are also disjointed enough that Snake hates dealing with them in the midrange to. Ivysaur's advantage is even stronger though. Up Air is disjointed enough that Ivy doesn't fair Snakes frame 1 grenades, and Snake's air speed is low enough that its difficult for him to just maneuver his way around that giant hitbox. Regardless of if Snake recovers low or high, Ivysaur still has a giant hitbox (Uair/Dair) in either direction to deal with it.

The momentum can shift in Snake's favor quite quickly though if he's able to win a neutral exchange and set up his traps. Ivysaur might be able to beat grenades in neutral but landing against Snake's planted nades and dash attack is a bit of a pain for her in disadvantage. Ivysaur is most certainly not a fan of Nikita, but Charizard loses super hard by Snake so no matter what you do being offstage is awful. Even if you do manage to get back to stage as Ivy, she's not really a fan of being ledgetrapped either.

Squirtle does okay but you don't want to stay as him too long because Ivy does better. Having a small hurtbox is really nice for avoiding grenades, and water gun can put Snake in a made position. Snake is also combo food at low percents, and many of Squirt's combos are true so he doesn't have to worry about Snake's frame 1 grenades until higher percents (which by then you'll probably have wanted to switch to Ivysaur anyway).

Snake might be Charizard's absolute worst match up though, I'll give him that. You can't even Flare Blitz cheese him like other zoners because Grenades will block it. It's probably common sense but don't stay as Charizard too long in this one.

 

[Gleam]

I'm gonna talk about Ganon , because I recently dropped the character entirely from my list of secondaries and just wanted to come by and say everyone who was bad-mouthing him was.. correct. This used to be a character I'd switch to sometimes and manage to just, run through the remainder of a set like a powerhouse.. but now? Ganon just feels like a handicap and every time I switch to him I regret it after.

Ganondorf sucks and while I've always said he was flawed, I tried to be optimistic in some way. Unfortunately, he just sucks and sure he's technically better than he was in the past game but that just means he sucks a little less. He's hardly better than he was in Melee and now a days, he's not doing too well there either. They have done nothing to actually make Ganondor better. The only thing they did was shove some steroids into him and called it a day.

Be no different if they took , who's kind of awesome right now, and instead of giving him all these buffs via mobility, flames, super armour, recovery and what not...they just gave him a big a** Koopa Klub he smacked with people using his F-Smash.

Another thing is, while this is a bit off topic, on the subject of Ganondorf. I am sick and tired of Ganondorf being a clone. Nearly every one of his moves is either copied from Falcon or with his Smash Attacks, copied from Ike and Cloud. What's worse is that Ganondorf is the only Clone like character whose moveset isn't based off a similar series.

-Same Series, hell same character.
-Same Series.
-Same Series...hell arguably same character. (Though I do wish more originality was put on Dark Samus)
-Same series
-Same Series
-Same Series
-Literally the same evolution.
-Same Series
-Same Series
-Same Series...same character.

I mean sure in Melee, you had time restraints and what not, had to base him off some kind of design. But the same thing in Brawl? The same thing in Smash4 and now in Ultimate you haven't made him less a clone, you just changed who the clones were.

But beyond that subject, yeah Ganodnorf sucks and someone's going to have to give me a pretty good argument why being Bottom 20 on Orion makes him anything more than mediocre.

 

[Guynamednelson]

him less a clone,

The Flame Choke should explain itself.
His attack animations have a less stylish feel and a more brutal one than Falcon's.

I would however love a brand new neutral B.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Another thing is, while this is a bit off topic, on the subject of Ganondorf. I am sick and tired of Ganondorf being a clone. Nearly every one of his moves is either copied from Falcon or with his Smash Attacks, copied from Ike and Cloud. What's worse is that Ganondorf is the only Clone like character whose moveset isn't based off a similar series.

While animation-wise, Ganondorf's moveset looks similar, his move function differently enough from Falcon's to not really be a true clone. And, yes, while it would be nice for him to get a few changes to his moveset (mostly his specials), all of his attacks feel powerful and powerful is a very good way to describe Ganondorf in the Zelda series.

 

[Rizen]

The Flame Choke should explain itself.
His attack animations have a less stylish feel and a more brutal one than Falcon's.

I would however love a brand new neutral B.

I got hit by 's neutralB attack once in dittos because the opponent used it to armor through Ganon's super laggy smash attack and I couldn't get away, lol.

The only thing that makes warlock punch worse is it's on Ganon. He already has crazy strong smashes and Utilt for shield breaks. It's completely pointless on him. The same logic could be applied to his Utilt. Why give Ganon so many super slow nuke attacks?

 

[Gleam]

Except those moves still share the same design. Now there's a certain point where you can only get so far from how different a move looks from another but there's no reason whatsoever for Ganondorf to continue holding these same movesets.

There is no reason for him to have Warlock Punch, Wizard Kick or Dark Dive. There's no reason that nearly every move is a carbon copy design of another one when he has so many abilities or options they could use. They don't even have to do it entirely based on Ocarina of Time. Hell I'll make a list right now.

Neutral A: 3 hit combo he used on Link in Wind Waker
Neutral B: Projectile that can be charged like in Ocarina of Time.
Neutral B: Summon bats like Ganon in LTTP, charge it up for a swarm.
UpB: Any of his massive jumps he does in Wind Waker or Twilight Princess, he might have great vertical reach but lesser vertical.
Down-B: Jumps into the air and does a ground pound similar to what he does at the start of his fight in OOT.
Down-B: Another option might be similar to Mario's cape where he deflects projectile with his cape.

Now yes these are clone of other moves but it's moves Ganondorf has done himself.

His Smash attacks might yield different weapons he's used.
F-Smash: Swings the Twilight Princess Sword
D-Smash: Swings both of his Wind Waker blades.
U-Smash throws up a Trident used in LTTP

Heck, look at the SpaceDemo2000 where the sword he used in Ultimate and in Melee's character images are based off and there's a plethora of different options.

1.) A swing of the sword comboed into a quick powerful Kick.
2.) A powerful single handed lunge.
3.) Another single handed slice with the sword

They could incorporate different weapons of the BotW Guardians, axes, swords, spears, etc. Not only has Calamity Ganon used them but much like Zelda and her moveset, even if he technically hasn't, they're based off of his series and it can be easy to see why he would use them.

What's funny about Ganondorf is that, Smash has turned him into some kind of lumbersome force who uses brute strength to win. Yeah that's true for 3D Ganon, but Ganondorf was powerful in terms of his abilities and skill. He could probably punch out a wall but that wasn't his style. He uses magic, trickery and illusions. He's refined as a swordmaster, in both single blades and dual wielding.

You effectively name one move Ganondorf does in Ultimate that he's done in his series proper.

F-Tilt..which is similar to one he does in TP, which is technically a copy of Darknuts..ironic.
Flame Choke might be said to be similar to what he does to the Sage, but at least its one of his more unique moves.

Besides that though, there is not one thing Ganondorf has done in Smash that he has ever done in his proper games. At this point, it would be better to give him Zelda's special and just put a purple flame around them and call them...

"Din's Evil, Wicked Nayru and Farore's Fear...at least it would be moves from his series.

Now if Ganondorf had been good, I might not care that much. I'd still like an original character but, I can only complain so much if he gets the job done. But he doesn't and if I can't have a "good" character, I at least want a "Unique" character. Ganondorf lacks all of this. He's a terrible character and barely has anything that he can call his own.

I got hit by 's neutralB attack once in dittos because the opponent used it to armor through Ganon's super laggy smash attack and I couldn't get away, lol.

The only thing that makes warlock punch worse is it's on Ganon. He already has crazy strong smashes and Utilt for shield breaks. It's completely pointless on him. The same logic could be applied to his Utilt. Why give Ganon so many super slow nuke attacks?

Ganon having 2 extremely slow moves is just a load of BS. Having one slow, strong move, perhaps for Free For All, fine. Many characters have something like that, Ridley's Skewer for example. An idea I had for his Utilt might be to make it charged. A quick press of the button does a short stomp, not much power but quick. Charging it up however does a powerful blast, similar to Roy's Neutral B.

 

[The Rhythm Theif]

Honestly, I always thought Kirby was a top tier character. It was like that in Smash 64. He has the most amount of jumps out of any fighter in the game, tying with Meta Knight and Jigglypuff for #1 highest jumper, and as a result, he's hard to kill. I'm just saddened that a lot of amazing Kirby payers had dropped him after Smash 4 and when Ultimate began. Is he underappreciated, or do people just think he's bad because he's a hard to kill character with really good moves?

 

[Impax]

Honestly, I always thought Kirby was a top tier character. It was like that in Smash 64. He has the most amount of jumps out of any fighter in the game, tying with Meta Knight and Jigglypuff for #1 highest jumper, and as a result, he's hard to kill. I'm just saddened that a lot of amazing Kirby payers had dropped him after Smash 4 and when Ultimate began. Is he underappreciated, or do people just think he's bad because he's a hard to kill character with really good moves?

Hes great when he gets in, but he lacks the tools to get in. His air speed is poor. He lacks range. Hes just not that good, imho.

 

[Thinkaman]

People think Kirby is bad because he has slow attack speed, low attack range, and slow movement speed. That's the crippling combo, no other character is missing all 3. Kirby is, according to the data we have, almost certainly the single worst character in the game currently.

Edit: I will say though, this is probably the best mechanically Kirby has ever been post-64. I think his relative performance in Brawl was in large part environmental.



And this is not the thread for character wishlists. We've let patch discussion slip from hypothetical to whimsical to wishful, and now it's slipping to grumpy. Consider this a warning.

 

[Bobert]

The only thing Ganondorf "needs" is a functional recovery or a movement speed increase. He's basically a really slow glass cannon, which doesn't work at all because he just gets shattered before he can do anything.

 

[Idon]

Honestly, I always thought Kirby was a top tier character. It was like that in Smash 64. He has the most amount of jumps out of any fighter in the game, tying with Meta Knight and Jigglypuff for #1 highest jumper, and as a result, he's hard to kill. I'm just saddened that a lot of amazing Kirby payers had dropped him after Smash 4 and when Ultimate began. Is he underappreciated, or do people just think he's bad because he's a hard to kill character with really good moves?

Having jumps doesn't mean you're not hard to kill when a dozen characters can leap off the ground and hit Kirby with a disjointed aerial that Kirby doesn't really have any tools to contest or defend against.

 

[blackghost]

iStudying still plays but hasn’t shown a marked improvement from his performance in Smash 4, which is surprising given how much better Greninja is. Though that’s probably more of a testament to how amazing the dude was in Smash 4.



Objectively Greninja is better than Joker in almost every way until Joker gets Arsene, at which point the opposite becomes true. Still, there are benefits to both characters and differences in their MU spreads. I think they are of similar strength overall, just that Joker is in the spotlight right now.

Joker having excellent frame data is a meme that needs to die though, it’s good but not Sheik level. His only move with spectacular frame data is Bair.

Sheik has much better frame data than both Greninja and Joker in exchange for damage, power and survivability. I think all three characters are quite different, though I can see how they’d fall into the same “general” class of character.

obtaining arsene is not difficult. i would argue it hasnt even been fully optimized. with that counter, joker mains should get him consistently in the future. the gap when joker doesnt have arsene and grenninja is EXPONENTIALLY smaller than the gap of joker w/ arsene and greninja or shiek.

Joker having good frame data is not a meme. i main a character with bad frame data. joker doesnt have shiek or ryu or ken frame data, yes that is true. but its ridiculous to say that makes his frame data overrated. especially when he has a disjoint all of the characters that have better frame data dont have a consistent disjoint if one at all.

no its not just bair. frame 4 jab, frame 8 ftilt, frame 8 uptilt, frame 5 upair, frame 10 upsmash, frame 7 bair.

having slightly worse frame data in exchange for much better kill power still goes in jokers favor.

 

[KirbySquad101]

To be honest, aside from Isabelle, I feel like Kirby's one of the few characters whose got the most going against him when it comes to early tier placings, and this is coming from a guy who actually thinks his buffs were pretty good. Ultimate really did wonders in giving him a more threatening CQC game, thanks to buffs to his tilts; his combo game is both better and worse, with up tilt chains not really working that much anymore, but having more combo potential off thanks to F-Throw changes (Battlefield tank notwithstanding). His coverage options for landing opponents are way better thanks to a better dash attack and an up smash that has a clean hit of 3 frames instead of 1.

Unfortunately, almost every major problem he suffered from 4 is still in tact, with little done between 4 and Ultimate to solve those issues; Kirby sports both a terrible air speed and really slow frame data on aerials for one; this makes it harder for him to take advantage of the lower landing lag buffs to space effectively, but opens the gateway to a plethora of other issues: His edgeguarding is excessively linear and predictable, most likely only approaching opponents with DAir shenanigans, he is hopelessly prone to juggling as a result of his slow fall speed and terrible aerial frame data, and his recovery, while better thanks to DAD, is still gimpable because of how slow he wades through the air and the lack of a reliable ascending hitbox on frame data (though his 3.0.0 patch did mitigate this to some exist).

His range, while not as terrible as before, isn't enough to make up for both his poor ground and air mobility. Because of this, he can struggle to get the drop on characters who outmaneuver and outrange them (i.e. , ), and he REALLY struggles against characters with strong projectiles because (i.e. , , , etc.) because he just doesn't have the mobility needed to maneuver around them. He does some slight workarounds thanks to Inhale and the low profile he gets from crouching, but these generally feel like applying Band-Aid solutions on what I feel is a fatal blow.

His tournament representation has not done him much favors either; despite having decent rep thanks to both Komota and Captain L, Kirby as a whole has been really struggling to make a name for himself, if at all. It doesn't help that on pretty much every aggregate results-based list, Kirby's almost always at least bottom 3.

I don't think he's the worst character in the game, but quite frankly, I don't blame anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

[PK Gaming]

Pit and Corrin both have rather minimal reps and results. The former is due to how basic/boring of a character he is (as well as Lucina existing and Earth currently not existing). The latter is mostly due to her entire playerbase abandoning the character after the nerfs she got from SSB4 to Ultimate (also the fact that Ike is pretty much better in every way).

To use this post as a springboard, I currently consider Pit to be an absolute failure of a "jack of all trades" type character. The fact that people write him off with "having no real strengths or weaknesses" despite having very discernible strength and weaknesses speaks to that, imo.

 

[DunnoBro]

Joker's frame data is cleanly above average. No, it isn't TOP tier; But they're either disjoints, have lots of reward, or both.

If anything's a meme, it's that Joker crumbles vs characters with superior frame data.

 

[Terotrous]

This is sort of a more meta post about character viability than one about a specific character, but I'm curious to know how people feel about this.

To what degree do you think having good smash attacks affects character viability?

I started thinking about this after watching a couple sets of M2K playing Joker and noticing that he went many entire matches without ever using FSmash once (when I play Joker, I almost never go a single stock without FSmashing). I also often see people suggest that Smash attacks are only marginally or situationally relevant much of the cast (ie, they might have use in edgeguarding but not in neutral). However, I pretty much always consider the speed / range / power / overall quality of a character's Smash attacks in evaluating how good a character is and I've often given newer players the advice to use Smash attacks fairly liberally when they have the opponent at kill percents. I've always felt Smash is a game where you just have to swing on people sometimes, if for nothing else other than to make them more cautious in their offense.

Ultimately, I feel like this probably comes down to personal playstyle, where I feel like read or footsie heavy players will probably make more use of Smash attacks, though I still think pretty much every player should show all of their options at least occasionally. If I know you will never FSmash, I'm going to be more aggressive with certain options that might get beat out by an FSmash. I feel the same way about Counters, where even if Counters are, strictly speaking, not terribly rewarding, I still like to show them in disadvantage state occasionally so the opponent will be thinking about it. If they try to bait a Counter and I don't do one, that's a free reset to neutral for me. Coming from other fighters, I see this as being somewhat similar to "Wakeup Dragon Punch". Strictly speaking, the risk / reward on such an option is totally nonsensical - if it hits, you do slight damage, if it gets read, you get obliterated, but all good players still do it sometimes anyway because if the opponent knows you won't ever do it they can be much more aggressive.

 

[ZephyrZ]

To what degree do you think having good smash attacks affects character viability?

This is a tricky question to answer because it depends entirely on a character's kit, and how their Smash Attacks play into it. Maybe a Joker player could get away without using any Smash Attacks in some matches, but how about a Wolf main? Some characters, good or bad, are in part dependent on their smashes in some way or another while others might only use their's very conservatively.

Not all smashes are even meant to be good in the same way. Compare Charizard's Up Smash to Wolf's Down Smash. Zard Up Smash is a frame 6 move primarily used as an OoS punish while Wolf's Down Smash is a move that comes out much slower but has great range and low endlag and is used to ledge trapping and tech chases. Neither move is merely a "typical smash attack", but rather each is a tool with particular uses.

It's better not to look at characters as just as just the sum of their parts, but rather how all of their tools come together to complement one another.

 

[Lacrimosa]

This is sort of a more meta post about character viability than one about a specific character, but I'm curious to know how people feel about this.

To what degree do you think having good smash attacks affects character viability?

If you get punished for landing one, then the viability is somewhat hurt. Especially when it's the most commonly used smash attack for Zelda in this case.
Falling out of fSmash is a huge deal because you will get punished. Sometimes more, sometimes less. That depends where the move sends the opponent before the final hitbox. Sometimes you fSmash an opponent and for example Fox lands behind you. You are still in endlag and you gewt punished hard with an uSmash/fSmash for landing your own smash attack. This happens fairly often as well.
I think she isn't dependent of her fSmash (lol, no), but the move sometimes just doesn't work and I'm a bit salty because the last patch fixed multi-hitting moves but not her fSmash at all...:3. It still hurts her a bit.

 

[bc1910]

obtaining arsene is not difficult. i would argue it hasnt even been fully optimized. with that counter, joker mains should get him consistently in the future. the gap when joker doesnt have arsene and grenninja is EXPONENTIALLY smaller than the gap of joker w/ arsene and greninja or shiek.

Joker having good frame data is not a meme. i main a character with bad frame data. joker doesnt have shiek or ryu or ken frame data, yes that is true. but its ridiculous to say that makes his frame data overrated. especially when he has a disjoint all of the characters that have better frame data dont have a consistent disjoint if one at all.

no its not just bair. frame 4 jab, frame 8 ftilt, frame 8 uptilt, frame 5 upair, frame 10 upsmash, frame 7 bair.

having slightly worse frame data in exchange for much better kill power still goes in jokers favor.

This came across pretty aggressive just FYI, for no reason that I can discern.

It’s easy to argue that counterplay against Arsene is also nowhere near fully optimised. There are times when Arsene is barely a factor if one is able to keep Joker in disadvantage for extended periods of time, not everyone (or anyone?) is able to maintain stage control and advantage like Leo.

Joker without Arsene has significantly lower damage output and kill power than Greninja with a more exploitable recovery (which people don’t edgeguard properly, another area where counterplay is not optimised) and worse mobility. The gap is larger than you’re giving it credit for. Sheik and Joker is a more apt comparison, even then Sheik is quite a bit faster both in frame data and movement with comparable damage output and kill power.

I wasn’t referring to you specifically when I said that, I was just commenting on general perception. But his frame data is absolutely overrated. Startup is one aspect, though incidentally a 4f jab is nothing special. FAF of 24 is relatively high for a jab. Joker’s lowest FAF on the ground outside of jab is a 35 frame Ftilt, everything else is much higher. FAF 38 Dtilt, 41 Utilt, all smashes hovering around 45-50 and they’re relatively weak with meh startup data. That bRoKeN dash attack has a FAF of 46! I actually went and checked this because I couldn’t believe it. It gets away with it on shield because it has two hits but that’s not a move you want to be whiffing. His aerials range from 8-14 landing lag with sensible startup (12/7/7/5/13 N/F/B/U/D) for what they do and actually pretty high FAFs (Uair 40, the rest much higher) except for the aforementioned spectacular FAF 32 Bair. Only Bair autocancels in a short hop. These numbers pale in comparison to both FE swordies and top/high tier rushdowns, and Joker’s range is somewhere between the two.

These numbers are of course significantly more impressive when Arsene is online considering the incredible power boost. Still, as ever, Arsene is half the story.

Joker’s frame data is good, that is certainly true and I do not mean to detract from that. But it is absolutely not as excellent as it’s perceived and much worse than several top and even high tiers. The whole thing reminds me of when people said that 3DS Greninja had comparable frame data to Sheik while being much stronger, which was also blatantly untrue and again caused by them falling into the same general category of character. I don’t want misconceptions like this leading to Joker getting nerfed in other ways when all he needs (if anything; as I said counterplay is not developed) is an adjustment to how easily he can get Arsene and how long it lasts.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Shuton only got 9th at a japanese tourney which was done today. He also went some secondaries, apparently.
Does anyone know how he played and if these Olimar nerfs were really that impactful?

 

[DelugeFGC]

Shuton only got 9th at a ***. tourney which was done today. He also went some secondaries, apparently.
Does anyone know how he played and if these Olimar nerfs were really that impactful?

Yeah. They kind of are. The sweetspot changes to FSmash (makes grab follow ups more consistent at lower %'s, makes killing and tech chasing that much more difficult so overall definitely a net loss) along with the lag increase on FSmash (the one on USmash is fine, but FSmash is laggier than Sm4sh FSmash now and the sweetspot especially with purples is just.. ugh) and his Up-B nerf / shield problems all combine to hurt him quite a lot. He's still definitely up there in high tier, but until his shield is fixed and more is optimized and developed on him he struggles far more than he used to. The shield problem alone almost makes him a pseudo-mid tier at the moment, shield tilting helps some but honestly it makes his neutral so risky outside of range.. and combined with his disadvantage state and the Up-B nerf it's the trifecta of doom.

I've dropped him as my solo main. It's that bad. I'm probably gonna end up settling into either Joker or Wario and going back & forth between them + Olimar for my primary characters, keeping an adaptive list of secondaries and CP's I know fairly well from there for other instances / situations I need them for. It was nice being able to rely on one character in pretty much all MU's, but those days are over for sure. It hurts to be an Olimar main right now, I tried to remain optimistic but as I've continued to use him it's only been made clear that of all the characters hit with the nerf bat, Olimar is the one who got homered.

The shield thing is the biggest, most pressing issue at the moment. As it stands, Olimar is probably the easiest glass cannon in the entire game to shatter to pieces.. and all you have to do is get close to him in some MU's to do that. Olimar doesn't have the tools to literally run away forever and camp out everyone, some MU's will see that work but other ones? Hah..

He'll always be one of my mains, even if for some ungodly reason he got nerfed harder, but pretending like I can rely on him to get through most all MU's at tournaments and such is.. well, unrealistic. It hurts to say that, but it is what it is. One mistake as Olimar can potentially cost you your stock, it's always kind of been that way, but now the window to make a mistake is larger and the shield thing makes the situation a big meme.

I understand Olimar had irritating Smashes, but ultimately he's the only character whose attacks / weapons can literally die (Pikmin aerials even if you catch them in the first frame or two) and leave him with no good means of defending himself.. those smashes were pretty much his entire CQ neutral when grounded and they directly tie into a lot of his options. Olimar has pretty much nothing safe to pressure shields with in some MU's now except Yellow aerials which if not spaced with the utmost precision still result in you getting punished.. even so in some MU's they're not even safe then.

Side-B is great yes, but it's limited in use and being careless with it can too leave you in poor situations without good means of response / defense if you get rushed down. He doesn't play like anyone else, and thus shouldn't be played AGAINST like other characters which is the mistake many made imo. I understand on the surface they seemed broken (his Smashes), but they were just a part of him, Olimar is simply different to your typical Smash character. I really don't think he should've been nerfed, not anymore at least. I've seen first hand through my own playing experience what it has done to him now. His aerials are still great, but they can still die and ultimately for disjointed 'sword' aerials they don't have a ton of range.. combine that with how Olimar isn't a particularly fast character and you can kind of see how they're not the best neutral options in most cases. His Smashes were his THING.

The only reason he's anchored in high tier still imo is because he still has his absurd damage output and in a lot of MU's he's irritating as hell at range. That's kind of it at the moment, until his shield is fixed I truly can't say too much more 'good' about him post-nerf. When you can hit him through a nearly full shield with a LOLYeet Smash attack you just threw out for giggles and put him straight into one of the worst disadvantage states in the game.. well it leaves the character in a pretty poor place.

 

[blackghost]

This came across pretty aggressive just FYI, for no reason that I can discern.

It’s easy to argue that counterplay against Arsene is also nowhere near fully optimised. There are times when Arsene is barely a factor if one is able to keep Joker in disadvantage for extended periods of time, not everyone (or anyone?) is able to maintain stage control and advantage like Leo.

Joker without Arsene has significantly lower damage output and kill power than Greninja with a more exploitable recovery (which people don’t edgeguard properly, another area where counterplay is not optimised) and worse mobility. The gap is larger than you’re giving it credit for. Sheik and Joker is a more apt comparison, even then Sheik is quite a bit faster both in frame data and movement with comparable damage output and kill power.

I wasn’t referring to you specifically when I said that, I was just commenting on general perception. But his frame data is absolutely overrated. Startup is one aspect, though incidentally a 4f jab is nothing special. FAF of 24 is relatively high for a jab. Joker’s lowest FAF on the ground outside of jab is a 35 frame Ftilt, everything else is much higher. FAF 38 Dtilt, 41 Utilt, all smashes hovering around 45-50 and they’re relatively weak with meh startup data. That bRoKeN dash attack has a FAF of 46! I actually went and checked this because I couldn’t believe it. It gets away with it on shield because it has two hits but that’s not a move you want to be whiffing. His aerials range from 8-14 landing lag with sensible startup (12/7/7/5/13 N/F/B/U/D) for what they do and actually pretty high FAFs (Uair 40, the rest much higher) except for the aforementioned spectacular FAF 32 Bair. Only Bair autocancels in a short hop. These numbers pale in comparison to both FE swordies and top/high tier rushdowns, and Joker’s range is somewhere between the two.

These numbers are of course significantly more impressive when Arsene is online considering the incredible power boost. Still, as ever, Arsene is half the story.

Joker’s frame data is good, that is certainly true and I do not mean to detract from that. But it is absolutely not as excellent as it’s perceived and much worse than several top and even high tiers. The whole thing reminds me of when people said that 3DS Greninja had comparable frame data to Sheik while being much stronger, which was also blatantly untrue and again caused by them falling into the same general category of character. I don’t want misconceptions like this leading to Joker getting nerfed in other ways when all he needs (if anything; as I said counterplay is not developed) is an adjustment to how easily he can get Arsene and how long it lasts.

it is really hard to debate someone that thinks a 4f jab isnt special. especially on a sword user.
next youcan;t base an arguemnt based on assumptions. "if i keep joker in disadvantage arsene isnt a factor."
You ar epretty dismissive of arsene. arsene isnt half the story. Aresene IS the story of joker. that state is the reason he is an elite character as opposed to being a very good one.
In a few months good luck throwing any sort of projectile at joker. you will be forced to approach him. Only players i've seen use rebel's guard effectively are an ex-bayo player (forgot his name) from the midwest and leo.

FAF on jokers moves isnt as relevant as it appears. most of his combos start from upthrow. he doesnt combo in the way shiek or greninja do from normals as a normal part of his gameplan.

greninja may have more killpower than base joker but like loud in smash 4 base joker is temporary. arsene joker reward is more than enough to still pull it in joker's favor and as the opponent you have a timer until you have to face it. that forces the opponent to press the issue plus gun is pretty good as well as a neutral tool.

no joker does have worse frame data than other top tiers but look at those other characters: they dont have swords, they dont have the range,. pichu has survivability issues, snake has disadvantage issues. lucina has a simplicity issue (this is a different discussion to have) Pikachu is an issue for joker but pikachu still has to approach joker and that an advantage for joker.

as for jokers recovery, i think its worse with arsene than it is base joker. but i don't see his recovery as exploitable as of right now. i think people saw a tether and assumed it would be.

 

[DelugeFGC]

no joker does have worse frame data than other top tiers but look at those other characters: they dont have swords, they dont have the range,. pichu has survivability issues, snake has disadvantage issues. lucina has a simplicity issue (this is a different discussion to have) Pikachu is an issue for joker but pikachu still has to approach joker and that an advantage for joker.

..Are we playing the same game? The problem with Snake is that his disadvantage yeets itself out of the equation due to things such as his F1 grenades and his Up-B that literally has super armor on it.. not to mention frame data and range on his aerials that's a bit TOO good for a character of his weight / archetype (F7 DAir OoS option that does over 20% if all the hits land.. LOL) and that contributes a small amount as well, particularly DAir and BAir. Snake skips disadvantage state, literally nulls it from the equation in a lot of MU's. Snake does NOT have disadvantage state issues.. Snake pretty much LACKS a disadvantage state most of the time. Between his grenades, the Cypher with its armor and his juggle / OoS options.. yeah that's the ONE thing I think pretty much anyone can say Snake does not struggle with.

Snake doesn't have real weaknesses or 'issues'. Outside of like, two matchups (Megaman and Joker), he's never really finding himself in poor positions if his player sticks to his gameplan, executes well and etc.

 

[bc1910]

it is really hard to debate someone that thinks a 4f jab isnt special. especially on a sword user.
next youcan;t base an arguemnt based on assumptions. "if i keep joker in disadvantage arsene isnt a factor."
You ar epretty dismissive of arsene. arsene isnt half the story. Aresene IS the story of joker. that state is the reason he is an elite character as opposed to being a very good one.
In a few months good luck throwing any sort of projectile at joker. you will be forced to approach him. Only players i've seen use rebel's guard effectively are an ex-bayo player (forgot his name) from the midwest and leo.

FAF on jokers moves isnt as relevant as it appears. most of his combos start from upthrow. he doesnt combo in the way shiek or greninja do from normals as a normal part of his gameplan.

greninja may have more killpower than base joker but like loud in smash 4 base joker is temporary. arsene joker reward is more than enough to still pull it in joker's favor and as the opponent you have a timer until you have to face it. that forces the opponent to press the issue plus gun is pretty good as well as a neutral tool.

no joker does have worse frame data than other top tiers but look at those other characters: they dont have swords, they dont have the range,. pichu has survivability issues, snake has disadvantage issues. lucina has a simplicity issue (this is a different discussion to have) Pikachu is an issue for joker but pikachu still has to approach joker and that an advantage for joker.

as for jokers recovery, i think its worse with arsene than it is base joker. but i don't see his recovery as exploitable as of right now. i think people saw a tether and assumed it would be.

It’s difficult to take someone seriously who lauds a f4 jab in a game full of f2 and f3 jabs on a character who’s “sword” is a short knife that lands his practical range in between sword users and brawlers, often leaning closer to brawlers.

Dismissing FAF when discussing frame data is laughable, as is saying Joker’s frame data is better than sword characters when there are literally four Marthlings in top/high tier with better frame data than Joker. I don’t know what point you’re trying to prove by listing disadvantages of other top tiers, unless you’re saying Joker has no weaknesses which even the biggest Joker advocates would disagree with. At least “simplicity issues” gave me a chuckle.

I’m not dismissive of Arsene, Arsene is clearly incredible. I just recognise the fact that counterplay has yet to be developed. Players like Marss, Nairo and VoiD have started labbing Joker, and the Joker MU, hard, and the meta will continue to evolve. Sorry I’m not jumping on the “Joker is broken” bandwagon because the best player in the world was able to win tournaments with him. This is irrelevant to my argument though which is simply that Joker’s frame data is good, not spectacular. You said yourself he has worse frame data than other top tiers so you seem to agree.

Shuton only got 9th at a japanese tourney which was done today. He also went some secondaries, apparently.
Does anyone know how he played and if these Olimar nerfs were really that impactful?

At this stage it’s hard to hell how much Olimar is affected directly by the nerfs and how much he’s being held back by his bugged shield. I’m no Olimar player, but there does seem to have been a noticeable drop off in enthusiasm for the character and even players like Dabuz dropping him. Things don’t look too good for the space captain, but I do think his rightful place in the meta will become clearer once his shield is fixed because that’s clearly a massive issue for a defensive character with low mobility.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Can confirm, Olimar's shield issue is the biggest problem he has by light years, if/once fixed I'll go back to using him as my primary main and he's definitely got a nice High Tier + spot still with his damage output & such.. but until then he's really risky to use in a lot of MU's. Even if his shield is fixed, the days of him being a viable solo main are over.. I'm now left trying to decide if I'm going to use Joker or Wario as my secondary main (primary until Olimar's shield is fixed) going forward.. heavily leaning toward Wario.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Shuton only got 9th at a japanese tourney which was done today. He also went some secondaries, apparently.
Does anyone know how he played and if these Olimar nerfs were really that impactful?

Can someone link me to that said Japanese tournament? I want to know who exactly beat Shuton that tourney. If it is against respectable losses (such as Zackray, Nietono, KEN, etc.) then I think it is a little too early to sell out his performance to Olimar's nerfs alone.