Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[B_Burg]

I'd be curious what people think of in Doubles.

Both Yeti and Kameme put up some winning performances recently, so at least among the already dedicated players of the characters he seems to still be doing decently well in Singles.

In Doubles though, I feel like he would struggle to have any sort of significant synergy with any teammates. Pellets run the risk of interrupting your teammate and thrown metal blades cut through opponents and could hit them too. They could potentially save teammates with bad recovery I suppose, but I feel like the positioning of that would be tricky.

That said, maybe some creative use would be possible with Mega providing the metal blades for a teammate who could use them, and of course there's any character who can absorb energy attacks that he could work with.

I don't know. Seems like it would take a good amount of creativity to be anything standout.

 

[Kiligar]

I knew which placements I would have to defend before I posted them, which was why I posted them due to these characters being overlooked or underrated. Mewtwo got a serious amount of buffs, and was already decent before. Those people who say X character sucks don’t seem to be looking at the big picture, as in they either only focus on characters who are better than them or ignore the countless characters who are worse than them. (Marss ZSS) Mewtwo was no Bowser Jr, Little Mac, Kirby, King K Rool, Piranha Plant, Isabelle, or even Captain Falcon, Ryu and Corrin. He was at least upper mid tier before the buffs. He didn’t suck, his hurtbox was a problem but he still had offensive traits many characters didn’t have. Shadow Ball was very a useful projectile before the buffs, able to 2 frame many swordie recoveries hard, hard punish Inkling Roller, and assist in approaching uncharged. His recovery sucks. Is what seems to have been said, due to it being easy to 2 frame. That’s not enough evidence to say it sucks. Once again, Belmont’s, Little Mac, Swordies, SuperHeavies, Ness/Lucas, Rosalina, Wolf, Snake, and countless other characters would prefer Mewtwo’s recovery. There are weaknesses with his recovery, as there are with any balanced recovery, but his recovery is top 10. The main point I’m trying to make here, is that Mewtwo was not bad before, just not amazing. He had several traits that made him a character unique and worth maining, which several characters lack. But he got buffed the most out of any character in the patch (before several other characters who needed them more), and the decent character still sucked, according to Armada. Now, with all these tools to approach and stifle approaching, as well as not having any trouble ending stocks, seems Mewtwo has a solid place in the meta.

The X character sucks narrative is quite annoying. I’ve used characters who have several issues such as Little Mac, characters who have few issues such as Pit, and watched characters whose issues were that they were overtuned. Snake, Pichu, Peach, Olimar. Now, when ZSS sucks because she does, Snake isn’t top 10 because he isn’t, and Ike isn’t good anymore because (?), I feel these statements are made without evidence. Say ZSS X move doesn’t work properly, doesn’t means she sucks. Say Snake’s recovery is exploitable, but that’s expected for him to be balanced, and his recovery isn’t truly awful, outclassing many other characters. Ike is still as good as he always was, were people just letting him win? If his gameplay is predictable, it does not matter because it’s effective. Snake pulling out Nikita when you go offstage is predictable. Snake going above stage is predictable as well. However, due to how effective his strategies are, it does not matter how predictable they are if they garner high reward and are low risk. There are always similar high reward low risk mix-ups with these characters, such as grab on Ike. I feel many top tiers are exaggerated in their weaknesses.

As for my opinions on these characters, you can respond with your own. Trying to stimulate a discussion here, so listing someone unexpected is the best way to do so, and that claim can be supported or refuted by the community.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, I guess.


Was he ever, actually entertained to be low-tier though? A character who gets that much reward from his combos and has some overall solid buttons feels in no way, shape or form a low-tier candidate.

Looking through older MU charts and tier-lists, Luigi is rated pretty low everytime.

Main argument was that his recovery sucks. That's literally it whenever I see someone place him in low-tier.
On the other hand, a character like Chrom gets a free pass because of his on-stage game.

I think there's a problem: If a character has something taken away, like Luigi's rising cyclone, then this gets overvalued much more than what he has and this one flaw is something a lot of people are basing the character on. G&W's fAir is another prominent example for this, or Zelda's dTilt (all three are pretty solid characters and I know my opinion is biased, but I think all of them have a good spot in high-tier right now, so you can "attack" me if someone wants to ).

The strengths of these characters are mostly ignored or undervalued, even though other top-tiers, like Chrom, have a similar weakness.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Chrom's recovery is basically a meme at this point, it's hard to say it isn't taken into consideration by everyone. That said, I still wouldn't say Luigi has a BAD recovery, it's certainly better than the above memecovery, and Luigi does have a pretty devastating low % combo game and a Shoryu that's at times better than real Shoryu's. I can't say he's personally lower than mid tier.

 

[Thinkaman]

Reposting:

Friendly reminder that listing the attributes of a character does not an argument make.

We all know that a character has good/bad airspeed, a strong/weak n-air, good/bad frame data/whatever. We can look that up and put it together ourselves. You're not adding anything by listing such attributes on this forum. But what you can do is tell us how those attributes cause certain matchups to play out.

I'd be curious what people think of in Doubles.

Both Yeti and Kameme put up some winning performances recently, so at least among the already dedicated players of the characters he seems to still be doing decently well in Singles.

In Doubles though, I feel like he would struggle to have any sort of significant synergy with any teammates. Pellets run the risk of interrupting your teammate and thrown metal blades cut through opponents and could hit them too. They could potentially save teammates with bad recovery I suppose, but I feel like the positioning of that would be tricky.

That said, maybe some creative use would be possible with Mega providing the metal blades for a teammate who could use them, and of course there's any character who can absorb energy attacks that he could work with.

I don't know. Seems like it would take a good amount of creativity to be anything standout.

Kameme has a strong record in doubles, including getting first at last weekend's event with Tsu. Note that he tried playing Wario first, and switched to Mega Man.

 

[NotLiquid]

Looks like Lima is playing competitively again. He placed 2nd at USW27 the other day - his first tournament in 3 months - underneath MVD and above Awestin. He's still playing Bayonetta, but also pocketing Peach and Lucina. He made it clear he's not attending majors, but is going to attend more regionals.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Now, some of you may think Pichu Lite is overrated at this spot. However, the grab range buff in addition to the fall of Pichu and Olimar, alongside Pikachu’s lightning loops and oppressive edgegaurding, he fits right at home. Pikachu’s nimble movement alongside his oppressive neutral, tiny hurtbox and amazing offstage and grab games come together to create another candidate for best in the game.

You are not overrating Pikachu, Before the patch, I'd say they were on pretty equal footing (unpopular opinion) and both characters had a case for best in the game along with Peach (also somewhat unpopular).

Pikachu benefited a ton from Ultimate's mechanics, got some good buffs in the transition and benifited a lot from the nerfs to Olimar and Pichu. I'd argue that Peach is still the better character unless Pikachu gets a few buffs from patches or if she gets any more KO options nerfed.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, I guess.


Was he ever, actually entertained to be low-tier though? A character who gets that much reward from his combos and has some overall solid buttons feels in no way, shape or form a low-tier candidate.

Yes, people have been saying Luigi is low tier for a while now. Until recently, he really wasn't getting good tournament results and his easy 0 to death combo was patched out so people naturally people thought he was worse. I personally never bought into that opinion as a character with a top 5 to 10 advantage state isn't going to be bottom 10 even with a bottom 15 disadvantage state. Luigi's frame data also is good enough to the point where most low tiers don't have any good options once Luigi gets in.

IMO he's a high mid tier. He could be high tier in the future but I'd need more evidence before I go saying that.

 

[DunnoBro]

Chrom's recovery is basically a meme at this point, it's hard to say it isn't taken into consideration by everyone. That said, I still wouldn't say Luigi has a BAD recovery, it's certainly better than the above memecovery, and Luigi does have a pretty devastating low % combo game and a Shoryu that's at times better than real Shoryu's. I can't say he's personally lower than mid tier.

Luigi's recovery isn't so bad that you can just throw him off and he dies. But it is heavily dependent on his double jump, thus creating situations other characters don't have to deal with cause they can jump and risk getting landing trapped later.

His low horizontal mobility also combine with the new 2-frame mechanics to give him some crippling inconsistency.

Personally, I think Chrom's recovery is actually better in most matchups. He loses his stock at lower percents on average to edgeguards perhaps, but also threatens more potent reversals and landing options all around. Air speed + disjoints makes up for Luigi just being able to sweetspot imo.

 

[blackghost]

Lima is back? looks like im watching the tourneylocator stream again.

a few pages ago i made a commment about a character being basic will hold them back overtime. I'm going to explain why i said that now.

Characters like Ike and lucina in my experience suffer from Wesker syndrome. Wesker syndrome is when a character is objectively strong but because the character is very basic over time it becomes predictable. In marvel 3 wesker was solid character he didnt have a 25 percent chance to block mixup like zero, he didnt have vergil hitboxes or Morrigan zoning. He was decent at everything. Over time characters with wesker syndrome experience a drop in results and effectiveness in bracket. These characters often rely on their players having much better fundamentals than their opponents and often they don't have a tool or move that is ridiculous. This can happen over a period of years or even months. In smash we have seen this before with smash 4 characters mario comes to mind.

I'm not aware of any post from Mk Leo saying he thinks Ike is bad, what I think he's said is ike is limited. Ryuga has said similar things i believe. Its why i dont have long term faith in inkling, lucina, ike, and others. Metagames form these characters has a glass ceiling that, while not clearly evident in the beginning of a game's lifespan, will eventually catch up to them. inkling is the one character i honestly can't tell if it has wesker syndrome or not. it honestly could go either way imo.

note: palutena does not have wesker syndrome. mostly due to bair.

 

[NuzTheMonkey]

I don’t think Lucina falls into that though, since she still has some stupid stuff in Up B and Bair.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think Lucina absolutely falls under that, and her reliance on edgeguarding is troubling when many of the meta characters have recoveries that are hard to edgeguard. Furthermore, she somewhat struggles against projectiles, and many of the meta characters have strong projectiles. She still has lots of strong points and she's not going to be worse than high tier unless she's nerfed again, but she might not be the top tier behemoth some make her out to be. She's more likely to end up near the end of top tier or top of high tier.

 

[Thinkaman]

Lucina continues to enjoy disproportionate top tournament placings relative to her broader tourney usage. (Which is still high) She's the inverse of say Ness.

 

[Rizen]

Even post nerf 's looking strong. This GF with Mr.E's Lucina vs Venia's Greninja is a good example of how despite being basic, Lucina can beat more complex characters:

Being basic isn't inherently good or bad; Ganon's basic and he's mediocre but Lucina's basic and she's arguably top tier. If anything being complex hurts characters' results because fewer people pick them up. Look at Shulk, Greninja and YL, doing okay but generally getting overshadowed by characters like Palutena, Snake and Wolf.

Although the recent nerfs might open some avenues for our technical heroes. Or at least they would have if everyone wasn't flocking to instead .

 

[Lacrimosa]

Lucina wasn't even changed that much.
Some percent, that's pretty much it.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Speaking of top-tiers I am wondering about right now. He was considered Top 5 early in the competive scence and had the results to back that claim up. But now fall a fit in both results and notable users despite being basically untouched the games patch history. For an example many Smash 4 Fox mains i.e Larry Lurr and CharlieDaKing opting to use and seem to be sticking with him despsite the steady nerfs he has been getting. Of course Light has done very well with Fox, but I think he also to make top 8 for the last few major tournaments.

Fox still has amazing mobiliy, combos, power and of course that ridiculous Up-Smash that can be confirmed into. His only real weakness is his glass-cannon nature and overall low survability with being one of the lightest characters in the game and being pretty exploitable offstage .Some people were saying that Fox may fall off once people got better at edgeguarding at this game, I wonder if that has come true. Personally I cannot see Fox being anywhere else but top-tier. Especially in 3.1.0 where one of his worst MU's got hit hard.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Although the recent nerfs might open some avenues for our technical heroes. Or at least they would have if everyone wasn't flocking to instead .

Joker isn't technical? He potentially has one of the deadliest advantage states in the game if optimized correctly, and while Arsene is a big meme nothing the character does is simple in a way literally anyone can pick them up and do well. With Joker it's more that once played correctly, the potential that comes out of the character is just very astounding.

Trying to get the hang of reading DI as you do drag down UAir ladders off of BF plats, careful to not extend them too long all while fast falling at the right time into the right place before going to the next.. all into frametraps with the grapple at the BZ? That ain't easy to do consistently in real matches.

 

[Rizen]

Joker isn't technical? He potentially has one of the deadliest advantage states in the game if optimized correctly, and while Arsene is a big meme nothing the character does is simple in a way literally anyone can pick them up and do well. With Joker it's more that once played correctly, the potential that comes out of the character is just very astounding.

Trying to get the hang of reading DI as you do drag down UAir ladders off of BF plats, careful to not extend them too long all while fast falling at the right time into the right place before going to the next.. all into frametraps with the grapple at the BZ? That ain't easy to do consistently in real matches.

I never said Joker isn't technical. He is the flavor of the month.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I never said Joker isn't technical. He is the flavor of the month.

You ain't wrong.

 

[NotLiquid]

Speaking of top-tiers I am wondering about right now. He was considered Top 5 early in the competive scence and had the results to back that claim up. But now fall a fit in both results and notable users despite being basically untouched the games patch history. For an example many Smash 4 Fox mains i.e Larry Lurr and CharlieDaKing opting to use and seem to be sticking with him despsite the steady nerfs he has been getting. Of course Light has done very well with Fox, but I think he also to make top 8 for the last few major tournaments.

Fox still has amazing mobiliy, combos, power and of course that ridiculous Up-Smash that can be confirmed into. His only real weakness is his glass-cannon nature and overall low survability with being one of the lightest characters in the game and being pretty exploitable offstage .Some people were saying that Fox may fall off once people got better at edgeguarding at this game, I wonder if that has come true. Personally I cannot see Fox being anywhere else but top-tier. Especially in 3.1.0 where one of his worst MU's got hit hard.

I remember brushing the conversation with Spinosaurus the other week (forget if this was pre-patch). I think Fox barely misses the Top 10, and not for the lack of trying, but mostly a mixture of process of elimination, as well as multiple characters in the roster turning out to be deceptively more powerful in terms of capitalizing on his many blind spots that - unlike Chrom - actually do kind of harm him in the greater picture.

In terms of post-patch, I suspect the only thing that really makes a difference for the character is Pichu's hurtbox increase, and I don't think we've really see that manifest just yet in any meaningful way. Pichu having disproportionate strength for his frame felt less like a big problem and more of an exacerbation given that Fox doesn't need help to die easily.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I remember brushing the conversation with Spinosaurus the other week (forget if this was pre-patch). I think Fox barely misses the Top 10, and not for the lack of trying, but mostly a mixture of process of elimination, as well as multiple characters in the roster turning out to be deceptively more powerful in terms of capitalizing on his many blind spots that - unlike Chrom - actually do kind of harm him in the greater picture.

In terms of post-patch, I suspect the only thing that really makes a difference for the character is Pichu's hurtbox increase, and I don't think we've really see that manifest just yet in any meaningful way. Pichu having disproportionate strength for his frame felt less like a big problem and more of an exacerbation given that Fox doesn't need help to die easily.

Like I said his only flaw is that he has very low-surviability in all meanings in this game, although it is a pretty noticable one. I guess it does not help that many of the top-tiers are really good at edgeguarding . What 10 characters you think are above him right now.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Fox's weaknesses are sort of weird in that by design they only become apparent as the game ages, but to a noticeable degree. Some of the key things I've noted:
- the amount of GUARANTEED low and even mid% strings he has are minimal at best and usually don't do a lot of damage. He can pressure decently after but a lot of the good damage in this game is either guaranteed or from strong stray hits. This segues into....
- Move staling overall hurts him more here than before. On top of less stuff in neutral being as good and reduced ledge coverage and other coverage with Utilt, Fox is forced into utilizing the same set of moves/options to get damage, and this is far more rough a weakness than it has been in prior games, solely because even on block, moves stale in the queue here. This is also to FOx's benefit in one instance (Nair confirms are better when it's staled) but wholesale worse.
- His disadvantage state was already bad in S4 but it's extra pronounced here. Recovering isn't a matter of distance but simply a matter of having one airdodge and an incredibly slow Side-B, on top of lousy air speed and acceleration, and not a particularly high double jump like Falco's. It's not outright atrocious perse, but its noticeably worse than the last game.
- His ledge suffocation also suffers, and this is also why some other characters (Sheik, even Cloud) are a bit weaker too. Ledge attacks having full invuln effectively gets rid of their strong ledge vortexes they had with Nairs/other options, and Utilt not 2-framing anymore also further emphasizes this difference.

I think he's still quite strong, probably the 2nd best space animal, but I think of the 3 space animals he has the least impressive damage at low and mid percentages which does add a significant risk factor against how explosive the majority of this roster is, truthfully.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Back to talking about PT and late to the party but he would not like doubles. With all the hitboxes being thrown out the PT's disadvantage state is emphasized that much more even with a partner to take the pressure off. Granted ivysaur and charizard's large hitboxes shine since they're meant to hit multiple opponents at the same time but once hit they become very susceptible to 'team up' combos unless the partner can get in and prevent it.
This is just my hot take, anyone want to chime in here?

 

[bc1910]

Fox came out the gate swinging and was really strong in Ultimate’s early meta when defensive play was less developed. People hated to airdodge which let him get away with a lot of fake strings, he actually has very few true combos which really hurts his consistency. People also hated shielding; shield is incredibly effective against Fox given his poor range (giving him deceptively weak shield pressure against characters with fast OOS options) and frankly awful throws.

Killing a shielding opponent is legitimately a nightmare for the character. Fox has serious problems killing in general at this point, as people have learned to respect his shield at high percents to avoid the Usmash punishes as well as the ever-obvious Nair confirms. I see Light get more of his kills through Hail Mary Usmashes now than anything else which is concerning for consistency.

I think Fox has fallen significantly and I can think of more than 10 characters for which one could reasonably make a case for being better than him.

As ever though, top 10 is an arbitrary number and tier placement is what matters. Fox is likely still top tier but certainly at the lower end of it.

Even post nerf 's looking strong. This GF with Mr.E's Lucina vs Venia's Greninja is a good example of how despite being basic, Lucina can beat more complex characters:

Being basic isn't inherently good or bad; Ganon's basic and he's mediocre but Lucina's basic and she's arguably top tier. If anything being complex hurts characters' results because fewer people pick them up. Look at Shulk, Greninja and YL, doing okay but generally getting overshadowed by characters like Palutena, Snake and Wolf.

Although the recent nerfs might open some avenues for our technical heroes. Or at least they would have if everyone wasn't flocking to instead .

Bear in mind that Venia kinda fell apart in that set. The pressure of getting the first Xeno threepeat was clearly getting to him and he threw away that final game in particular.

Not to nitpick, your point is correct, but Greninja is doing a lot better than Shulk and YL, he shouldn’t be lumped in with them as overly technical characters who aren’t worth the investment. Pushing top 10 is much better than “okay”.

I’d argue Greninja is less technical than both of them though. Which says it all tbh.

Peach is one of the more technical characters at least in terms of execution and she’s widely considered top 5. She is the anomaly to the overall trend.

 

[Shaya]

https://smashboards.com/forums/advice-queries-musings.680/

Welcome to this BRAND NEW SUBFORUM, yay!

At this time I'm playing it by ear, but in general the Ultimate Competitive Discussion stances on etiquette and whatnot will still apply.
Threads are by default set to appear in order of original post date in contrast to latest post. The intent here is that threads shouldn't be about longevity.

If you're a regular competitive forum or CCI thread go-er, please set this forum to be watched and to receive alerts for at least new threads (manual link). Good contributors will be noted!

You might notice the thread prefix of "Attempt at Wit", this is the precarious part to this subforum and I hope it is used wisely/responsibly - the price for being a comedian might still apply (at base, as a blanket "wrist slap" of sorts). Low quality memes or memery in general will be frowned upon.
Rant / Other is also a bit ambiguous, but like the above title is of facetious intent; it is not a free pass for incessant complaining or being disrespectful towards others or anything.

"List / Chart" - dun dun dun, you probably know what that means. If personal tier list threads end up clogging up this forum significantly, something will change about that. If you're posting a tier list in this subforum you should include discussion and thoughts on your decisions or the process taken.

For "Advice", beyond the obvious, I see no issue also posting videos for critique or talking about match ups.
Do your best to give as much related information as possible when asking for help, "how do I get better" or things which are way too broad will likely not attract the answers you're after!

PM me if you have any questions, issues, or suggestions (on like, thread prefixes, or what should or shouldn't be allowed here, etc).
Thanks~

I've also cleaned up quite a bit of the threads (moved a few things to the Archive). I probably need help with this as some things were more obvious than not.

BUT ALSO BIG WIN
I've enabled three extra prefixes for all users of this subforum (the others you see are still mod only):
Data, Event, Media

So for future threads to cover tournaments or tournament weekends, please use the "Event" prefix!
maybe others prefixes will be added in the future too (my use of 'important' for tech, and freedom of use of "meta" come to mind but I have reservations), but please use the above 3 as appropriate~

I hopefully haven't broken anything.
But I'd really like to emphasise the idea that if you're a regular user around here, consider setting yourself up to get alerts on the above forum and help out!
I feel kinda bad I didn't do this sooner, there's a lot of ghosted threads (not viewable) that I'm not sure whether they should be unghosted now that forum exists or not (will replying to those threads be seen by their creators? I don't know )

 

[Thinkaman]

Back to talking about PT and late to the party but he would not like doubles. With all the hitboxes being thrown out the PT's disadvantage state is emphasized that much more even with a partner to take the pressure off. Granted ivysaur and charizard's large hitboxes shine since they're meant to hit multiple opponents at the same time but once hit they become very susceptible to 'team up' combos unless the partner can get in and prevent it.
This is just my hot take, anyone want to chime in here?

Interesting, because it is somewhat at odds with my gut and very limited experience. The following things about PT jump out to me as specifically attractive in doubles:

• Attractive KO potential
• Fast animating throws
• Water Gun resets/punishes/cheese
• Bullet Seed tee-ing
• Flare Blitz bullcrap punishes
• Charizard run speed
• Piercing projectile
• Off-stage independence

Now, this is cherry picking. Obviously you only get to enjoy a fraction of these perks at any given time, and you have to always be putting up with Charizard's vulnerability to juggles, Ivysaur's inability to run to your ally, or Squirtle's lack of spatial control. All of those are really big issues to have in doubles!

And for some teammates, the cons definitely outweigh the pros. All of those cons sound awful to Mac, yet few of the pros matter.

But when it works, it works? I feel like Squirtle actually contributes the least in doubles, but the ability for a heavy to go tiny is a really big deal in a format with more juggling. And the enemy team is twice as likely to have at least one character vulnerable to Water Gun. Bullet Seed into something like Knee or Ganon fair or Charge Shot is... a big deal and easy conversion off of a f7 move with vertical coverage.

And Flare Blitz is just dumb against any opponent who--even briefly--tunnel visions on your ally and commits to something even slightly unsafe halfway across the stage.

I brought this topic up because I've been pondering who to play in doubles. (If I goof around as 20 characters in singles I'm just hurting myself, but in doubles my teammate should get some consistency) And I've been mostly leaning towards Mac and PT.

 

[Rizen]

I got 2nd out of 19 people losing 2 sets to the Lucina who won the tournament. It's my first time in grand finals. I won all the games with (used twice as a mixup but lost both games). Tomorrow I'll post some MU thoughts on:

PS Lucina and her wall of pain advantage state is still very much top tier.

 

[NotLiquid]

Since the topic of Luigi and Elegant's WNF performance came up earlier in the thread I went back to check the tournament and I feel like we buried the lede on that one. The real story is the fact that a 256-man regional had a Cloud in 4th place. Not only that, but said Cloud player is merely 13 years old, had set wins over Zenyou, VoiD, Elegant and Kameme, and while he lost the second set rematch to Elegant, he took it to game 5.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

A muted win, but pretty damn impressive for a character who's almost completely fallen out of favor. Considering both Leo and ZeRo have mentioned that playing the character is like walking on eggshells, leave it to some young blood to have one of the character's more notable showings.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

I can't think of a single character that I'd prefer as a teammate over . I'd probably saw the same for and .

K. Rool's crown is nice, but not worth the other heavies just being scarier, more assertive walls of lethality. His beloved d-throw is far less useful in doubles too.


Heavies are better in doubles than singles just because there is more demand for them as teammates--plenty of characters who have trouble killing or threatening space are happy to have a big boi around, and many are plenty capable of preventing said big boi from getting swarmed.

In the same way, poor recovery and inability to kill are much smaller liabilities, particularly on a good team.

I think mobility is the hardest thing to consider. In theory, mobility's value ought to be stressed more than anything else in doubles--you have more places to go, more windows to exploit, more windows to shut. Sonic can negate Mac's recovery issues far easier than Zelda. Yet we often see this to be not the case. Elegant's Luigi is the teammate of legends. Ancedotally, Incineroar is a delightful team player. "Oh no, I hate teaming with a Snake", said no one ever.

I'm not really sure how to reconcile this.

The importance of mobility in doubles stood out for me whenever I watched Abadango play Metaknight in Smash 4, often teaming with Kameme's Sheik. MK was great at edge-guarding, a fairly small target, could essentially always recover if not killed outright (especially with a partner covering for him), and could have his partner set him up into Shuttle Loop for kills - all good stuff. But his air speed and acceleration were mediocre, and I remember frequently seeing Aba living to higher percents, when opponents would knock him far away, and he'd have to make his way back to the fight while the opponents ganged up on Kameme. Inability to cover space quickly enough can put a teammate in a rough spot, and even if you're holding onto the stock, getting repeatedly swatted away at high percents makes survivability feel like less of an asset than it should be. Kame playing Sheik alleviated this to some extent, as she was one of the better characters at holding off multiple foes, as I recall. Eventually it all ended up useless in the face of double Cloud (two of the game's best character is the best team, who'd've thunk?), but that's all in the past now.

Mewtwo probably had the biggest difference in singles and doubles viability among the high/top tier in Smash 4, and he remains a sketchy doubles pick in Ultimate. Big, light, not too many disjoints, no get-me-out-of-here buttons, potential for Shadow Ball friendly fire - that's a lot of weaknesses to cover. Maybe Young Link would be a good match? Small, fast, good at harassing opponents and keeping them from suffocating Mewtwo, and in turn Mewtwo adds to Young Link's bullet hell and provides the killing punch he lacks. Plus, Mewtwo's good recovery doesn't require YL to go off stage and help him, and Mewtwo can shore up YL's weaknesses in that department.

As for Mewtwo reaching high tier in singles, I can't really see it. As I've said before, most of his good tools from Smash 4 got nerfed in some way, and the buffs to things like f-tilt didn't make them overbearing; a glass cannon design without abusive tools is probably not going to make many waves. He used to be one of those pistachios with the closed up shells, where you really have to work to crack em, and now he's one of the ones with a notable gap. It takes some work to get in, but his defense isn't so formidable. Even the one extra frame on his f-air feels like it really hurts him, but I could just be paying it too much attention. Not getting anything out of the tip of d-tilt anymore is painful. The jab buffs are nice, though, and I maintain that Disable is kind of nuts. Shadow Ball is the truth and the purple light.

His disadvantage, well, if Puff is the Balloon Pokemon, Mewtwo's the Hindenburg. He can cover a lot of space, but he feels sort of unwieldy in the air, struggling to weave effectively, and seemingly small problems can cause him to explode.

(Two goofy metaphors in one post. I've outdone myself.)

(Why do those electric mice have better versions of my n-air?)

 

[B_Burg]

Reposting:





Kameme has a strong record in doubles, including getting first at last weekend's event with Tsu. Note that he tried playing Wario first, and switched to Mega Man.

I appreciate the link. Lucario is an interesting idea for a partner I hadn't considered. All of those little hits he might catch wouldn't put him at any real risk of getting KO'd most of the time and would help him build aura.

 

[Furret24]

Looking through older MU charts and tier-lists, Luigi is rated pretty low everytime.

Main argument was that his recovery sucks. That's literally it whenever I see someone place him in low-tier.
On the other hand, a character like Chrom gets a free pass because of his on-stage game.

I think there's a problem: If a character has something taken away, like Luigi's rising cyclone, then this gets overvalued much more than what he has and this one flaw is something a lot of people are basing the character on. G&W's fAir is another prominent example for this, or Zelda's dTilt (all three are pretty solid characters and I know my opinion is biased, but I think all of them have a good spot in high-tier right now, so you can "attack" me if someone wants to ).

The strengths of these characters are mostly ignored or undervalued, even though other top-tiers, like Chrom, have a similar weakness.

It's funny, because G&W's fair isn't even a downgrade, but people still act like he got nerfed from 4, when almost everything about him was buffed.

 

[ARISTOS]

Since the topic of Luigi and Elegant's WNF performance came up earlier in the thread I went back to check the tournament and I feel like we buried the lede on that one. The real story is the fact that a 256-man regional had a Cloud in 4th place. Not only that, but said Cloud player is merely 13 years old, had set wins over Zenyou, VoiD, Elegant and Kameme, and while he lost the second set rematch to Elegant, he took it to game 5.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

A muted win, but pretty damn impressive for a character who's almost completely fallen out of favor. Considering both Leo and ZeRo have mentioned that playing the character is like walking on eggshells, leave it to some young blood to have one of the character's more notable showings.

I was actually about to post this hahaha.

I've stated it earlier but I think Cloud is still very strong and still does a lot of what he did in Smash 4, which was suffocate opponents due to his larger than life hitboxes and Limit still forces opponents to play a game they don't want to play. While Arsene is the snowball mechanic rn, Limit Cloud still racks up damage really well esp in juggles and LCS at ledge is still killing earlier than most things in the game. Uair can still combo break when spaced well too.

He's been neutered a bit especially in disadvantage where he lost omni-Nair and landing uair (this move made me so mad hahaha) but his gameplan is overall relatively in-tact, there's just more numerous avenues for counterplay now

 

[SwagGuy99]

With all of the talk about , I have some things to say about him and I want to state my current opinion of him in detail.

So, Luigi is a very hot and cold character. I think I heard him defined as that in Smash 4 but honestly, he really wasn't.

His recovery which is arguably one of his biggest weaknesses in Ultimate (and Melee as well) was actually very good in Smash 4 thanks to Cyclone which allowed him to both edgeguard for free and recovery without fear of being challenged. Luigi had hardly any trouble making his way back to the stage so which meant that being off stage was safe for him. Any character that can't be challenged off stage is not really a hot and cold character. However, in Ultimate, due to his nerfs to Cyclone, Luigi no longer can recover with no fear of being challenged which means that he is now much easier to edgeguard off stage. While in Smash 4, his recovery and edgeguarding were good enough to carry him from being a mid tier to a borderline top tier, he's not able to anymore in Ultimate which harms him a lot.

Speaking of nerfs, many of Luigi's best options were nerfed and the game mechanics hit Luigi in some areas as well. The combined nerfs to his recovery and the fact that edgeguarding is generally a better option than Smash 4 make his recovery significantly worse. Not Chrom, Little Mac, Captain Falcon, or Ganondorf level of bad, but still not that great. Another indirect nerf was the fact that Luigi's air speed was not increased to the same extent as the rest of the cast and his air speed, (despite still being second worst) is probably worse in comparison to the rest of the cast overall.

However, these major nerfs were a trade off for small buffs in many other areas of Luigi's kit. The most major buffs he received are as follows: Getting back his Smash 64 up-tilt which functions similar to Mario's Smash 4 up-tilt, the significant decrease on down tilt's end-lag, the buffs to his ground movement speed, back throw's increased knockback (it kills reliably near the ledge at 110% or below what were they thinking?), and the increased knockback to his down-b. Also, Luigi benefited from the ability to up-tilt out of a dash as well and his aerials having even less landing lag that his Smash 4 aerials (which already didn't have much landing lag) helps him to pressure characters a lot better.

Luigi also received a new grab but I'm going to keep it short and say it wasn't really a nerf or a buff, but a bit of a trade off.

Luigi has kept some of his strengths from Smash 4 being his down-throw, combo game, and fireball, all of which function pretty similarly to their Smash 4.

Luigi also keeps some of his weaknesses from Smash 4 however, because of the characters who are currently popular in competitive play and the changes to Ultimate's mechanics, these weaknesses are more problematic here than in Ultimate. These weaknesses are being out ranged, juggled, and camped. Luigi can deal with camping to some extent but the other two are the two things that can change a matchup for Luigi. If Richter and Simon were to only use their close ranged moves and not use their projectiles, Luigi would easily win. But because of their range and projectiles, they can put up a pretty good fight against Luigi.

Speaking of matchups, Luigi's top and high tier matchup spreads are honestly kind of wack. He loses hard against characters like , , , , , , , and but still possess the ability to do well against other characters like , , , , and . However, when Luigi fights against another mid/low tier, he tends to do a lot better because most mid/low tiers can't really contest his frame data. There are a few exceptions of characters who can exploit Luigi's weaknesses like , , , , and / but he possesses the ability to do well against most of the other characters.

Tier wise, I'd say Luigi is probably a high mid tier with potential to go up or down depending on how favorably he is treated in the upcoming patches, and how well Luigi mains preform in the future.

I know this kind of turned into a long essay which wasn't what I intended, but I figured that I should try to touch on as much of the character as possible.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The person in the video talks about Marth's Dancing Blade being potentially stealth buffed. Some Marth mains claim that it is indeed as stealth buffed, while others are claiming that it is placebo and that it has been a thing since the beginning.

His recovery which is arguably one of his biggest weaknesses in Ultimate (and Melee as well) was actually very good in Smash 4 thanks to Cyclone which allowed him to both edgeguard for free and recovery without fear of being challenged. Luigi had hardly any trouble making his way back to the stage so which meant that being off stage was safe for him. Any character that can't be challenged off stage is not really a hot and cold character.

His recovery being "very good" in SSB4 is very arguable. The move leaves Luigi wide open for edgeguards simply because of the move's ending lag. Super Jump Punch isn't that difficult of a move to trade with. The reason why Elegant sometimes gets away for recovering is simply from the fear factor of screwing-up edgeguarding him and be put in a bad spot in return. The fact that Luigi is not that common of a character in SSB4 also leaves the players with not that much experience dealing with it.

There are some characters in SSB4 that also cannot afford to travel that low to edgeguard him as well, as such characters cannot really do that in Ultimate as well.

Speaking of nerfs, many of Luigi's best options were nerfed and the game mechanics hit Luigi in some areas as well.

You didn't really elaborate on what "best options" of his got nerfed. As far as I can tell, most of Luigi's moveset got nothing but direct buffs.

Luigi has kept some of his strengths from Smash 4 being his down-throw, combo game, and fireball, all of which function pretty similarly to their Smash 4.

These three things you mentioned actually buffed in Ultimate. Down throw has even more combo potential thanks to his faster jumpsquat and it now no longer having hitlag (emphasis on why Luigi now has a 0-death) and his combo game overall flows more fluidly thanks to his faster jumpsquat and buffed aerials.

Luigi as a character is more polarizing than in SSB4. His strengths have been boosted even further but so has his weaknesses.

 

[Lacrimosa]

What I consider interesting is the fact that Luigi's zAir can cancel out certain projectiles. I didn't know that and apparently neither did FOW when he fought Elegant's Luigi with Ness: PK Fire was more than a few times canceled by the zair and that's pretty damn good because it's a good way to deal with projectiles Luigi apparently struggles against.

 

[Kiligar]

Luigi is my least favorite character to fight in Ultimate. I feel disgusted as soon as I see his clueless face show up on the screen. 0 death is obnoxious. I don’t think true 0 deaths should be in the game. Well, it’s not true. But with a good Luigi player ‘reading’ DI, when that plunger hits at 0, my heart rate increases. He’s not impossible to beat. Far from it. It’s simply he is designed to have as much cheese as possible. Down Throw-Up Special, Down Throw-Down Special. I don’t think the former is true, but when you have a 70% lead on Luigi and suddenly he gets off the combo, I wish the character to be removed from the game. It’s all these possible opportunities that Luigi has to destroy your efforts that makes him a pain. They may not be 100% true, but they’re close enough to be a possible scenario. I can edgegaurd Luigi, but I usually can’t figure out where his side-Special will go and avoid being stage spiked by it. Without any matchup experience, this matchup is the most toxic I’ve ever seen, even surpassing Pac-Man. Getting hit by that taunt at 0 is not funny. Someone please explain how best to exploit Luigi’s recovery , his recovery flaw seems to be exaggerated. Or rather, how to DI away from all his cheese kill confirms, because that would’ve saved me a whole lot of GSP. Thanks for reading my rant.

 

[Furret24]

Luigi is my least favorite character to fight in Ultimate. I feel disgusted as soon as I see his clueless face show up on the screen. 0 death is obnoxious. I don’t think true 0 deaths should be in the game. Well, it’s not true. But with a good Luigi player ‘reading’ DI, when that plunger hits at 0, my heart rate increases. He’s not impossible to beat. Far from it. It’s simply he is designed to have as much cheese as possible. Down Throw-Up Special, Down Throw-Down Special. I don’t think the former is true, but when you have a 70% lead on Luigi and suddenly he gets off the combo, I wish the character to be removed from the game. It’s all these possible opportunities that Luigi has to destroy your efforts that makes him a pain. They may not be 100% true, but they’re close enough to be a possible scenario. I can edgegaurd Luigi, but I usually can’t figure out where his side-Special will go and avoid being stage spiked by it. Without any matchup experience, this matchup is the most toxic I’ve ever seen, even surpassing Pac-Man. Getting hit by that taunt at 0 is not funny. Someone please explain how best to exploit Luigi’s recovery , his recovery flaw seems to be exaggerated. Or rather, how to DI away from all his cheese kill confirms, because that would’ve saved me a whole lot of GSP. Thanks for reading my rant.

I don't think this is the place for a rant like this. I don't think Luigi's 0 death is hard to avoid and his recovery can't go horizontally well, so just hit him away since it's so telegraphed.

Edit: Since you main Dark Pit, it's good to note most of your aerials gimp him easy, and you can safely harass him offstage. Side special's semispike probably helps a lot too since you're online.

 

[blackghost]

I was actually about to post this hahaha.

I've stated it earlier but I think Cloud is still very strong and still does a lot of what he did in Smash 4, which was suffocate opponents due to his larger than life hitboxes and Limit still forces opponents to play a game they don't want to play. While Arsene is the snowball mechanic rn, Limit Cloud still racks up damage really well esp in juggles and LCS at ledge is still killing earlier than most things in the game. Uair can still combo break when spaced well too.

He's been neutered a bit especially in disadvantage where he lost omni-Nair and landing uair (this move made me so mad hahaha) but his gameplan is overall relatively in-tact, there's just more numerous avenues for counterplay now

i think people were/are playing him improperly when it comes to limit. when i watched sparg0 play, in addition to pushing advantage state exceptionally well (especially vs characters like mario)he manages his lmit better than most other clouds i've seen.

when he plays he charges limit not to fill it all the way but so that it fully charges on its own WHILE he is making an offensive push. this led to some interesting situation were he'd land a normally unthreatening string but in the middle he'd start glowing blue causing his opponent to make a panic airdodge or throw out a move trying to create space. this lead to a lot of LCS getting landed. which while not absurd now still hit extremely hard.

He also did a great job anti-airing with both normal cross slash and upair.

also cloud bair is still very good.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I've said it before and I'll say again, the transition from Sm4sh to Ultimate was itself a huge buff to a character who has the advantage state tools such as Cloud, and while he has meh frame data and landing lag to deal with he has a ton of range on top of hitting like a truck. People are playing him too much like Sm4sh Cloud and I think as-such they've gotten the impression he's a lot worse than he is.

Is he top tier? No. But he's definitely a solid high-tier swordie imo, still plenty deadly in the right hands when used well.

 

[TTTTTsd]

The largest Cloud nerf that nobody talks about is that his grabs are pretty bad now. Throws themselves are still very nice (except D-Throw) but the actual grab frame data in terms of startup was neutered (more than it should be IMO). This really limits the amount of pressure he can put on your block.

For perspective his grab/dashgrab/pivotgrab data in S4 was 7/10/11 respectively in terms of startup. In Ult it's now 9/12/13. Pretty horrendous, tbh. He's still quite good but, this was definitely the largest nerf he got simply because of how much it hurts his empty jump threat zone

On the flipside, Climhazzard OoS (non-Limit) is now very good since its not techable on hit, so his raw OoS is much better here

 

[Kiligar]

Considering how many people are wondering about the lack of buffs for their main, I made a thread that theorizes why and when Nintendo plans to buff certain characters , and why certain are delayed. I call it the Buff Priority Tier List.
Buff Priority Tier List