Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Nidtendofreak]

Maybe all tournaments over 50 players should count? There's a lot of locals with well over 100 people. They should count a little. It's still character use after all.

Problem is at the end of the day, if its just a local there's not significant money at stake. Which means the high level players won't be trying nearly as hard/will play around with secondaries a lot more. Skews the data, creates false usage numbers. Like if Marss went to a 50 man local tournament and decided to use it as Ike practice and won going solo Ike I wouldn't say it should count towards character usage numbers or Marss' stats. Would I watch the VODs to learn more about Ike? Absolutely. But using it as actual data for comparing players or characters? No.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Problem is at the end of the day, if its just a local there's not significant money at stake. Which means the high level players won't be trying nearly as hard/will play around with secondaries a lot more. Skews the data, creates false usage numbers. Like if Marss went to a 50 man local tournament and decided to use it as Ike practice and won going solo Ike I wouldn't say it should count towards character usage numbers or Marss' stats. Would I watch the VODs to learn more about Ike? Absolutely. But using it as actual data for comparing players or characters? No.

I think this is probably why people were making a much bigger deal out of Thunder Smash despite its small tournament size; WaDi placing 4th in a 74-man tournament means a lot more when $10,000 are on the line and he's going up against people like Salem, Larry Lurr and Dabuz.

 

[Tri Knight]

Not a single and the only is Tweek's secondary (although I know Strike #88 has him as a secondary that's not listed). Talk about underrepresented.

edit
It bugs me that Strike's YL isn't listed. You can clearly see him:

At least Young Link is being used, and by the second highest rated player even. And he uses him a fair bit too from what I've seen.

My boy Link might have been in there if Salem didnt drop him and go to the dark side... or maybe he's in there because he joined the dark side... oh well lol

 

[ARISTOS]

Using locals are bad. They:

1. Are not highly representative of "high level" Smash, which is the aim of the data capture
2. Skew the data in terms of scenes with lots of locals
3. Feature sandbagging
4. Logistically, are a nightmare

In other words: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CPiiyD2TjeHnw-WRKDiuYf7izgrPfE-3XpDFmX8vqZU/edit#

This isn't to say that analysis of locals aren't good. If someone is doing well locally from a strong region, they'll likely break out at some point. Similarly, characters that do well locally in strong regions will likely break out as well.

But yeah, definitely shouldn't be used in data capture

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I think this is probably why people were making a much bigger deal out of Thunder Smash despite its small tournament size; WaDi placing 4th in a 74-man tournament means a lot more when $10,000 are on the line and he's going up against people like Salem, Larry Lurr and Dabuz.

I mean, if there's 10k on the line then I'd consider using its data even if its a fairly small tournament, obviously everyone is playing for real at that point. But its weighting is going to have to be really low in the data value, probably low enough it barely registers as a blip. But hey, those sorts of blips can be handy for tiebreakers I suppose.

 

[Shaya]

As a microcosm, locals (of a reasonable size and isn't isolated from other regions) are incredibly insightful and helpful in understanding balance, potential, design/etc and helps to shed light on how accurate high/top level data we do have is overall.

Collating them together without reasonable independence or interdependence may murk the waters a lot as complained about above, but I really would prefer having all the information than just the "top".
And if I could only have one, I'd probably still prefer the more abundant source of information (unfortunately in practice, match data/etc at a local is collected with less vigor than the majors) because it would be a stronger marker for potential unhealthy factors of the metagame AT THE LEAST.

If humans were more capable on average of being fluid with any facet of their lives (hello, we're all guilty), then the wider-range testing of different things such as stages would be far more effective and the data we receive far more helpful than "everyone at the major decided ahead of time to never practice this stage, and then either use their ban on it in set, or pick it to abuse a distasteful impact for the sake of it".
.... so wait, manipulation and sandbagging isn't unique to just locals then? Huh, who would've thought it.

Multi-day majors tend to be rife with issues of comfort and sleep, competitors at them are rarely tested on the entirety of their skill rather than just their endurance.
... Axe, nor anyone else, ever taking a major away from a Melee "god" for more than a decade occurred in a house-tournament with not even a 10th of the mental and physical strain (time-wise) of any similarly "important" tournament, heck arguably NOT EVEN A LOCAL IN THIS DAY AND AGE - this says a lot (to me) about environmental factors. I'd say it's too far different to actually be fairly taken as a data point, but it would be by most anyway. At the least, now I get the whole "Axe is the best melee player in the world" chanted on twitter for the last few years.
Perhaps this is just the starting point to a new trend in Melee and isn't a reflection of just the environment, we shall see (although the last decade's Golden Age of superstars maintaining dominance does have to stop at SOME POINT... won't be able to handle it happening in Tennis).

MKLeo and Tweek at [another] luxury house tournament would be very very interesting to me, because as we've seen time and time again, Tweek essentially has the largest variance of any tip-top level player right now, but could be the one dude on the planet actually capable of beating MKLeo on a good day (for both of them).

So basically, I want it all. But I'd take the information from 100 locals across the planet with 20 people each over 1 major with 2000 to help me understand the tier list in a game of 70 characters with apparent "good balance".
(because most of the supersized tournaments happen to be VERY similar in terms of players and results; and for many of them their character choices have been fluid to the point it's not really changing anyone's opinions on a characters strength whatsoever, you already thought Lucina or Joker were "broken" before Leo won with them).

 

[Rizen]

As a microcosm, locals (of a reasonable size and isn't isolated from other regions) are incredibly insightful and helpful in understanding balance, potential, design/etc and helps to shed light on how accurate high/top level data we do have is overall.

Collating them together without reasonable independence or interdependence may murk the waters a lot as complained about above, but I really would prefer having all the information than just the "top".
And if I could only have one, I'd probably still prefer the more abundant source of information (unfortunately in practice, match data/etc at a local is collected with less vigor than the majors) because it would be a stronger marker for potential unhealthy factors of the metagame AT THE LEAST.

If humans were more capable on average of being fluid with any facet of their lives (hello, we're all guilty), then the wider-range testing of different things such as stages would be far more effective and the data we receive far more helpful than "everyone at the major decided ahead of time to never practice this stage, and then either use their ban on it in set, or pick it to abuse a distasteful impact for the sake of it".
.... so wait, manipulation and sandbagging isn't unique to just locals then? Huh, who would've thought it.

Multi-day majors tend to be rife with issues of comfort and sleep, competitors at them are rarely tested on the entirety of their skill rather than just their endurance.
... Axe, nor anyone else, ever taking a major away from a Melee "god" for more than a decade occurred in a house-tournament with not even a 10th of the mental and physical strain (time-wise) of any important tournament, heck arguably NOT EVEN A LOCAL IN THIS DAY AND AGE - says a lot to me. I'd say it's too far different to actually be fairly taken as a data point, but it would be by most anyway. But at the least, now I get the whole "Axe is the best melee player in the world" chanted on twitter for the last few years.

MKLeo and Tweek at [another] luxury house tournament would be very very interesting to me, because as we've seen time and time again, Tweek has the largest variance of any top level player right now, but could be the one dude on the planet actually capable of beating MKLeo on a good day (for both of them).

So basically, I want it all. But I'd take the information 100 locals across the planet with 20 people each over 1 major with 2000 to help me understand the tier list in a game of 70 characters with apparent "good balance".
(because most of the supersized tournaments happen to be VERY similar in terms of players and results; and for many of them their character choices have been fluid to the point it's not really changing anyone's opinions on a characters strength whatsoever, you already thought Lucina or Joker were "broken" before Leo won with them).

^This.

First of all you should always have a winning attitude. Just because some people sandbag doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of data in locals. Locals are the grass roots of competitive gaming. They're where a lot of meta development happens. Where players like Tweek test their Roy before unleashing him on Marrs. This is where counterpicks are born, stages are tested and uncommon characters can get some exposure. Never discount locals.
I do agree there should be a minimum size though for the sake of keeping track if nothing else. 50 players + seems good. You have to beat 6 or 7 people to win that way.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Sure you can get more raw data by using locals and try to find meta trends that way... but you're also going to run into a lot more people who say, don't know how to platform camp Little Mac or not run into K.Rool's tricks. Match up data you get from that level is going to have a lot of flaws in it, which isn't particularly helpful.

Continuing from above: local level tournaments have a large chunk of wifi level players. That is bad data. Actively harmful data for trying to determine the meta trends/character balance/match ups, not just sub-optimal. And you got no way to filter them out.

Also just because you should always have a winning attitude doesn't mean everyone will. Lets face it, some people know that they're just there to fill the pot and end up playing accordingly subconsciously. And because the tournament size is small they still show up in the data while at actual majors they are drowned in pools.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Sure you can get more raw data by using locals and try to find meta trends that way... but you're also going to run into a lot more people who say, don't know how to platform camp Little Mac or not run into K.Rool's tricks. Match up data you get from that level is going to have a lot of flaws in it, which isn't particularly helpful.

Continuing from above: local level tournaments have a large chunk of wifi level players. That is bad data. Actively harmful data for trying to determine the meta trends/character balance/match ups, not just sub-optimal. And you got no way to filter them out.

Also just because you should always have a winning attitude doesn't mean everyone will. Lets face it, some people know that they're just there to fill the pot and end up playing accordingly subconsciously. And because the tournament size is small they still show up in the data while at actual majors they are drowned in pools.

I thought you once said that big tournaments are only bigger locals. So, if I look through the brackets, I see a lot of unfamiliar people beating unfamiliar people. Do you think that these people would actually effect such a list like OrianStats with the 100 persons? Take Vegas for example: They have pretty good players outside of FOW and Ven and while they occasionally beat those two, they aren't really scratching their seeding as 1st and 2nd there. And then you have seeds that go way beyond.
In short terms: If you have a local and some really good players then thy will also constantly outrank them. Don't know, someone who's sandbagging will probably get last or something like that at a local and is definitely no match for the apparent best in that region.

The only two points where I see locals as problematic is the sample size: How many attendees should there be and what if the best player does do badly at bigger tournaments or never appeared? 30? 40? 50? A larger size like 30 would already exclude people that are sandbagging from such calculations. The latter, since bigger s-tier tournaments are already considered in the calculation and, shouldn't be that much of an issue. If you never attended there, then bad luck for you but even someone like FOW has attended at least Genesis 6 with decent results.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

My main thought on the merits of local vs. major tournaments is that the majors tend to attract the same pool of high level players on a regular basis, which risks slanting the data in favor of those players' mains if we only use majors for data. Locals, while their quality of play is lower, also collectively represent a much broader playerbase and I think can be useful for insights in their own right.

 

[$.A.F.]

ZeRo put out a new tier list. Or at least part one. And I have to say he’s a clown. He put D3 as bottom ten right next to k Rool. D3 has the second best results out of any super heavyweight surpassed by only bowser. I’m done.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I thought you once said that big tournaments are only bigger locals. So, if I look through the brackets, I see a lot of unfamiliar people beating unfamiliar people. Do you think that these people would actually effect such a list like OrianStats with the 100 persons? Take Vegas for example: They have pretty good players outside of FOW and Ven and while they occasionally beat those two, they aren't really scratching their seeding as 1st and 2nd there. And then you have seeds that go way beyond.
In short terms: If you have a local and some really good players then thy will also constantly outrank them. Don't know, someone who's sandbagging will probably get last or something like that at a local and is definitely no match for the apparent best in that region.

The only two points where I see locals as problematic is the sample size: How many attendees should there be and what if the best player does do badly at bigger tournaments or never appeared? 30? 40? 50? A larger size like 30 would already exclude people that are sandbagging from such calculations. The latter, since bigger s-tier tournaments are already considered in the calculation and, shouldn't be that much of an issue. If you never attended there, then bad luck for you but even someone like FOW has attended at least Genesis 6 with decent results.

I'm not talking only top 100 persons. OrianStats also collect character usage data.

As for sandbagging, as others have pointed out and the google doc that was posted: pro players also sandbag when they know they're up against significantly weaker players. That's all part of the data skewing. Data skewing comes from a lot of different sources, but you get a lot more risk of it at locals.

I don't know how many of you all have had to take a statistics course during post-secondary or what not. I have, and one of the things emphasized for sure is quality > quantity of data. Its better to have a smaller, even significantly smaller, collection of data and know its all good than to have 10x as much but have a lot of question marks about its quality. Need to have enough data obviously, like you wouldn't only use the data from the largest tournament of the whole year and nothing else. But depending how far down you're reaching, players that really shouldn't be included in the data could show up at a 50 man tournament quite easily (seen a previous argument around here that even smaller tournaments should be included to top 8 or top 16 for character data).

Or to put it another way, if you were to include smaller tournaments you would have to exclude the top 10% and bottom 10% of all character data at a minimum to get rid of outliers because of how many unwanted variables are showing up and the outliers can't be trusted as a sign of things to come. Which in turn more or less wipes out one off performances of lessor used characters and puts you basically right back to where you were at if you were only using major tournaments in the first place.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well back on the topic of tier lists. Armada aslo recently realeased a new one

I usaully do not take much stock into pro Melee players makimg tier lists for Ultimate (although everyone is free to express thier opinion) But actullay, this one I think its not that bad at all despite the things I disagree with. Such as / and being maybe too low.
At least I find it more believable than a few actullay Smash Ultilmate pro players lists whos names I wont mention now

 

[Lacrimosa]

Zelda (at worst) two-tiers too low.
No way she's that much lower than Shiek or Ganon.

 

[Nabbitnator]

ZeRo put out a new tier list. Or at least part one. And I have to say he’s a clown. He put D3 as bottom ten right next to k Rool. D3 has the second best results out of any super heavyweight surpassed by only bowser. I’m done.

It is probably best not to even pay attention to his tier list at this point.

 

[Rizen]

TBT there's a lot wrong with any given tier list. Humans as a species are terrible at analyzing and collecting data. For example I probably rate DK too high because there's a really good DK player in my region. DK has some scary things like huge reward off grab, he can chain aerials and is basically a sword character with intangibility on his arms during several attacks. He seems like the best super heavyweight. But if Leon lived in my region I'd probably say Bowser is. It's way too easy to get caught in our own biases in a game this balanced.

 

[KirbySquad101]

On the subject of , what are people's thoughts on her currently? From what I've seen, she isn't actually ranked that bad as far OrionStats, having more results than characters such as or . I think a lot of that comes from Sylph, a Japanese player who actually performs decently well with her.

From what I've seen, she's got extremely solid frame data and a variety of KO confirms, whether it's Needles/Nair/Bair into Bouncing Fish, or fast fall UAir into FSmash, or DTilt/FTilt into UAir/USmash. She's also got very solid combo strings that her can potentially net her a ton of damage. This makes for a character with a deadly neutral, but also a character that is VERY unforgiving to player mistakes.

Despite her extremely long strings, a lot of her attacks don't deal much damage on their own; coupled with the fact that the window for so much of her strings is extremely tight, playing badly with Sheik can cost the players so much to a point that missing one conversion can potentially lose you 30~40% net worth of damage, or in more dire scenarios, missing the window for her KO confirms can make taking stocks with her a really rough time, given that a lot of her attacks aren't necessarily powerful on their own. In that regard, I think that might be the culprit as to why some players like Mr R/VoiD underperform with her when they decidedly bring her out in tournaments sometimes.

These are just my brief thoughts on her though, I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks :0

Well back on the topic of tier lists. Armada aslo recently realeased a new one

View attachment 229319

I usaully do not take much stock into pro Melee players makimg tier lists for Ultimate (although everyone is free to express thier opinion) But actullay, this one I think its not that bad at all despite the things I disagree with. Such as / and being maybe too low.
At least I find it more believable than a few actullay Smash Ultilmate pro players lists whos names I wont mention now

Is there possibly a link for the video about it? I think it helps shed some light on his list if we are able to hear his explanations for each placement.

So far, the list looks better to me than most other ones; I do have to give him credit that he at least didn't feel obligated to rank every single fighter in the game, at least not yet anyway.

 

[Rizen]

is basically without the reward. Her buffs helped but she still has to work 3 times harder than other characters to accomplish the same things. She's the archetype of character that has amazing frame data and neutral but has to outplay the opponent several times more than they outplay her. The opposet would be Ganon. This type of character can be extremely successful, as shown with SSB4 Sheik. The problem is Ultimate Sheik's reward is undertuned even for her type. As such it's more likely the opponent will get more reward by winning less. So Sheik ends up in mid tier imo.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

On the subject of , what are people's thoughts on her currently? From what I've seen, she isn't actually ranked that bad as far OrionStats, having more results than characters such as or . I think a lot of that comes from Sylph, a Japanese player who actually performs decently well with her.

From what I've seen, she's got extremely solid frame data and a variety of KO confirms, whether it's Needles/Nair/Bair into Bouncing Fish, or fast fall UAir into FSmash, or DTilt/FTilt into UAir/USmash. She's also got very solid combo strings that her can potentially net her a ton of damage. This makes for a character with a deadly neutral, but also a character that is VERY unforgiving to player mistakes.

Despite her extremely long strings, a lot of her attacks don't deal much damage on their own; coupled with the fact that the window for so much of her strings is extremely tight, playing badly with Sheik can cost the players so much to a point that missing one conversion can potentially lose you 30~40% net worth of damage, or in more dire scenarios, missing the window for her KO confirms can make taking stocks with her a really rough time, given that a lot of her attacks aren't necessarily powerful on their own. In that regard, I think that might be the culprit as to why some players like Mr R/VoiD underperform with her when they decidedly bring her out in tournaments sometimes.

These are just my brief thoughts on her though, I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks :0



Is there possibly a link for the video about it? I think it helps shed some light on his list if we are able to hear his explanations for each placement.

So far, the list looks better to me than most other ones; I do have to give him credit that he at least didn't feel obligated to rank every single fighter in the game, at least not yet anyway.

Right here

 

[Krysco]

Just saw this tweet and figured I'd share it here since I don't care for top player tier lists and can't contribute much to the local vs major data conversation:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Direct link in case the embed doesn't work for some: https://twitter.com/Ho3kAlan/status/1143771635574616064

Gen and Monster were having a back and forth with Monster saying Gen basically didn't even try to edgeguard until the last second, just throwing out a non-threatening Explosive Flame, Gen responding with saying that if he went too far out, Joker could just up b early on reaction and make it back safely due to the invincibility frames of Arsene up b and Palutena having to recover after. There was also the mention of Palutena's nair not being very good for 2 framing since it has a rehit rate of every 4 frames. Wishes even replied, saying that they just rode the wall of the stage and that the invincibility frames had run out. Might be more of a Palutena issue since it sounds like only dtilt is good for 2 framing but I figured it was worth discussing since a decent part of the counterplay I see mentioned for Joker is to 'just edgeguard him' which reminds me of the same thing being said about Smash 4 Cloud and how well that turned out.

 

[Rizen]

He notably thinks Dedede is low tier. The biggest thing is that he immediately compared him to K. Rool (who he put one placement lower than Dedede), saying that Dedede is basically a version of K. Rool that simply works better (or something like that). Despite Dedede's solid reps and results, ZeRo has never been fond of the character in the first place, so I guess it is kind of predictable that he puts Dedede as low tier himself.

I don't think that's a very good comparison. DDD and K.Rool may both be tanky super heavies but they play very differently. It's like saying Lucas is a worse version of Ness.

Just saw this tweet and figured I'd share it here since I don't care for top player tier lists and can't contribute much to the local vs major data conversation:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Direct link in case the embed doesn't work for some: https://twitter.com/Ho3kAlan/status/1143771635574616064

Gen and Monster were having a back and forth with Monster saying Gen basically didn't even try to edgeguard until the last second, just throwing out a non-threatening Explosive Flame, Gen responding with saying that if he went too far out, Joker could just up b early on reaction and make it back safely due to the invincibility frames of Arsene up b and Palutena having to recover after. There was also the mention of Palutena's nair not being very good for 2 framing since it has a rehit rate of every 4 frames. Wishes even replied, saying that they just rode the wall of the stage and that the invincibility frames had run out. Might be more of a Palutena issue since it sounds like only dtilt is good for 2 framing but I figured it was worth discussing since a decent part of the counterplay I see mentioned for Joker is to 'just edgeguard him' which reminds me of the same thing being said about Smash 4 Cloud and how well that turned out.

Palu should have dropped and Baired going for a stage spike rather than Nairing trying to get a 2 frame. But hindsight is 20/20 :/

 

[ZephyrZ]

The issue with edge guarding as a weakness is that except in extreme cases () it's often a difficult one to reliably exploit in ever game. First you have to win neutral, then get your opponent off stage, then react or move fast enough to intercept them, and then if they have any mix up potential (gun, rebel's guard, air dodge, throwing out a hitbox) you have to make a correct guess. If you mess any of those steps up you have to start from the beginning all over again and might even find yourself victim to an edgeguarding situation if you over extend. And even if you do manage to hit a move, if their recovery travels a good distance they still might have a second change to get back to stage anyway. It can end stocks early if done right, but it's a risky tactic - and it's intentionally designed to be one.

2-framing is a safer option but it still requires amazing timing which is also dependent on your opponent. While it is a weakness for sure it's not a reliable weakness that you can consistently abuse. Even if you main Wolf you just aren't going to be able to 2-frame Arsene 100% of the time, even at top level play.

Joker's recovery isn't phenomenal but it isn't terrible either. He can recover from far enough that he can afford to commit to a mix up if he feels the need to. Not to say that people shouldn't keep pushing the counterplay meta and get better and edge guarding him but it's not going to be a magical solution that'll solve all your match up problems.

 

[Krysco]

Palu should have dropped and Baired going for a stage spike rather than Nairing trying to get a 2 frame. But hindsight is 20/20 :/

Bair is only active for 3 frames so the timing would've still been tight but if it hit, due to Joker's percent and Palutena's rage, I imagine it would've resulted in an untechable stage spike. Bair also ends 2 frames before nair does for what little extra that's worth. Assuming it hits, an onstage dtilt would've still been the safest option or just going for a ledge trap. I'm not even sure how much this interaction mattered since I haven't seen the full match but Palutena did have a stock lead.

 

[Y2Kay]

What I don’t understand is why Sheik is still several units lighter than Zelda. I feel like it would be safe to bring her weight back up to match her doppelgänger.

Her being fragile AND having low damage AND not being able to kill is just too much. She needs to pick a struggle.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Just saw this tweet and figured I'd share it here since I don't care for top player tier lists and can't contribute much to the local vs major data conversation:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Direct link in case the embed doesn't work for some: https://twitter.com/Ho3kAlan/status/1143771635574616064

Gen and Monster were having a back and forth with Monster saying Gen basically didn't even try to edgeguard until the last second, just throwing out a non-threatening Explosive Flame, Gen responding with saying that if he went too far out, Joker could just up b early on reaction and make it back safely due to the invincibility frames of Arsene up b and Palutena having to recover after. There was also the mention of Palutena's nair not being very good for 2 framing since it has a rehit rate of every 4 frames. Wishes even replied, saying that they just rode the wall of the stage and that the invincibility frames had run out. Might be more of a Palutena issue since it sounds like only dtilt is good for 2 framing but I figured it was worth discussing since a decent part of the counterplay I see mentioned for Joker is to 'just edgeguard him' which reminds me of the same thing being said about Smash 4 Cloud and how well that turned out.

I don't see the issue here. Palu's Nair isn't active each frame of its duration and Aresen up B has a lot of intangibility frames on start up. It's completely plausible Joker could slip through it. The just edge guard him is more referring to his non-Aresen recovery which while he's not helpless off stage is definitely more exploitable off stage than Aresen Up B. In exchange Aresen Up B is easy to two frame, Palu could opt to use her lingering Dtilt which would had popped Joker in a terrible position she can kill with up/back/forward air.

Palu also could had opted to go off stage sooner before Joker was below the ledge. If Joker Aresen Up Bs above the ledge all Palu needed to do was jump back to stage and punish Joker during special fall. Joker isn't using up b above the ledge often because of special fall and the fact landing on stage would put him in generous lag. I wouldn't be too worried about him just flying over your head in that situation.

Edge guarding isn't always cut and dry, even Mac can play around a bit off stage to make him less susceptible to being punished. This one situation doesn't really prove anything imo. Comparing to S4 Cloud who had the benefit of unlimited air dodging with little end lag, being a faster character off stage in a game with a overall slower speed and massive hitboxes all around himself isn't too fair.

 

[Lacrimosa]

What I don’t understand is why Sheik is still several units lighter than Zelda. I feel like it would be safe to bring her weight back up to match her doppelgänger.

Her being fragile AND having low damage AND not being able to kill is just too much. She needs to pick a struggle.

I agree.
Although 85 in the weight chart isn't that much for Zelda as well. I think they should match Peach's weight which is 89. Not much more, but will help nonetheless.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Armada's tier list puts and far too low.

There's also other parts I disagree with quite a lot.

ZeRo's tier lists are always kind of bad imo, there's a lot in this game he clearly doesn't understand well (like the Shoto's, which he admits to) and despite his skill as a player I wouldn't put stock in any of his lists.

 

[NairWizard]

Yes, let's nitpick pro player tierlists and claim that they're trash without engaging with them at all. Quality content. Much better than a 2 hour video organizing someone's thoughts about a 70-character roster.

 

[Lavani]

Some stuff on the Palutena-edgeguarding-Joker clip:

- Palutena nair having a rehit rate of 4 is irrelevant to its ability to edgeguard. It's actually to her benefit that she uses a hitbox coded with a rehit rate instead of manually-set active frames, as the hitbox is active 5-27f and can hit at any frame within that generous window; the rehit rate only means the second hit happens 4 frames after the first. Moves like Wario's dair that have hitboxes set individually per frame (9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19) rather than using a rehit rate (theoretically 9-19f rehit:2) would have gaps to slip past, however.

- Palutena nair is, however, honest to the animation and follows her staff. So rather than covering all around her at all times, she's working with a rotating bar that can leave brief gaps to slip past.

- Arsene upB has 25 frames of intangibility and can grab the ledge starting frame 17. Joker snaps low (vulnerable to 2-frame), but is otherwise intangible the entire rest of the way.

- 2-frame situations are janky in terms of the recovering character's hurtbox shifting and moving. It's also really hard to tell where exactly Joker is with Twitter quality (his outfit does a great job blending in with the background), but as far as I can tell he's below Palutena's nair every frame before he actually grabs the ledge, even if only barely. A high quality MS Paint rendition of what I'm seeing out of the snap situation:

- If nair were used either a frame earlier or at a lower height, Joker wouldn't have made it back. In response to that, if Joker used upB a bit earlier, he also could've potentially gone for a high snap from below the ledge to avoid the 2frame situation altogether (this is something I'd like to see Jokers start labbing personally; Wings of Rebellion may be restricted in angle, but it has the potential to be as untouchable as teleports and it makes me sad to see Jokers frequently opt for really low recoveries that give the opponent time to reposition and don't abuse his generous intangibility).

- Bair would've had a better hitbox position for the area needed to cover that specific recovery, but nair's active frames easing timing are ultimately going to be more reliable.

 

[SwagGuy99]

ZeRo unleashed part 1 of his tier list.

He notably thinks Dedede is low tier. The biggest thing is that he immediately compared him to K. Rool (who he put one placement lower than Dedede), saying that Dedede is basically a version of K. Rool that simply works better (or something like that). Despite Dedede's solid reps and results, ZeRo has never been fond of the character in the first place, so I guess it is kind of predictable that he puts Dedede as low tier himself.

I thought DDD was low tier as well when Ultimate released. However, he got a lot of good buffs from Smash 4 some of which I think are easy to overlook.

His aerials all got landing lag nerfs, he's a lot faster on the ground, his air speed is a bit better, n-air is very good, all aerials have less landing lag (which makes n-air even better), and all of his specials got buffed in different ways.

Edit: This was leading up to my opinion but I didn't even mention it. I think he's mid to low to mid tier.

 

[blackghost]

its interesting to me how the clip of the palutena edge guard actually intersects with the argument of locals being weighed heavier or not.

This is a local between two mid level players right? this is a small sample of why top level play has to be prioritized when discussing these characters and tier lists. Yes, at locals top tier players may sandbag but the bigger issue is the mid level players that make up most locals dont make the optimal play. based off a few posts it appears the palutena was a few frames off on his edge guard. Would the palutena make the same mistake if it was nairo or dabuz? Hard to say definitely but what we have is an interaction that may have gone differently if the palutena was a higher level of play.

to simplify my post there is a difference between trying to come back from an edge gaurd from lima than it is to mysterica. its is two different levels of bayonetta edgegaurd play. same issue here.

 

[Rizen]

its interesting to me how the clip of the palutena edge guard actually intersects with the argument of locals being weighed heavier or not.

This is a local between two mid level players right? this is a small sample of why top level play has to be prioritized when discussing these characters and tier lists. Yes, at locals top tier players may sandbag but the bigger issue is the mid level players that make up most locals dont make the optimal play. based off a few posts it appears the palutena was a few frames off on his edge guard. Would the palutena make the same mistake if it was nairo or dabuz? Hard to say definitely but what we have is an interaction that may have gone differently if the palutena was a higher level of play.

to simplify my post there is a difference between trying to come back from an edge gaurd from lima than it is to mysterica. its is two different levels of bayonetta edgegaurd play. same issue here.

Unless I'm completely mistaken, Gen and Wishes are high level players. And it's not like top level players make the optimal plays all the time either. A big part of how successful characters are is how forgiving they are of human error. Option coverage and safety are both very important in negating human error.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Unless I'm completely mistaken, Gen and Wishes are high level players.

Gen rated 33, Wishes 34 on the OrionRank. https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/2019/06/25/orionrank-ultimate-six-months-in-top-100/

 

[Browny]

I see mentioned for Joker is to 'just edgeguard him' which reminds me of the same thing being said about Smash 4 Cloud and how well that turned out.

That statement means nothing.

Against smash 4 cloud, for some utterly bizarre reason, top players loved to stand on the edge, powershield the upb as it came up and then do nothing because there was not enough frames of advantage before cloud ledgesnapped. This was the worst possible option since it had 0 reward for a low risk. Watch Esam, he loved to do this all the time. Characters with very fast jabs like fox and zss couldn't hit low enough to clip him so perhaps pikachu was the only character who could actually get a jab off in time.

Attempting to edgeguard cloud would of course just get you a nair in your face for your troubles but what so few people actually did was get out there ASAP and bait a nair to punish. It was the only possible way you could edgeguard cloud and was a medium risk -> high reward scenario but people consistently chose the low risk -> no reward scenario.

I've said it before in this thread, people are letting Joker get back to stage for free way too often. As per usual, Esam is the only top player in the world who seems to actually go for it and it works well. If he doesn't have Arsene, drop down with a nair right where the hook will hang and he gets KO'd. If he does have Arsene, 2 frame him and don't bother challenging the wall ride invincibility. You can watch any random set of Tweek vs MKLeo and you'll witness how Tweek does almost nothing whatsoever to edgeguard Joker. Then watch MKLeo edgeguard other joker players. That's all the contrast in the world you need to see its not a case of Jokers recovery being good, its a case of people choosing the right options to do it.

It is identical to the situation with Inklings upb which I discovered when the game came out, how its ledgesnap is so low that it actually can not be 2-framed by most ground moves. Yet I will still see top players and streamers trying to do it and they never... ever learn. 7 months, literally zero 2 frames in that time and they will still put Inkling as top tier and complaint that their recovery is too good. Just drop a dair over the ledge and you'll hit them fine. Funny how Ivysaur doesn't seem to have problems doing it with dair, then people immediately go back to dtilting and whiffing and can't figure it out.

 

[Anomika]

I keep wondering if Melee players are right about Ultimate players not being able to edgeguard efficiently because of being used to Smash 4 mechanics or it's because of something else. There is almost definitely an inconsistency in 2-framing recoveries, like different moves having different success (Palutena's down tilt lasts for a good while so it's not too difficult to 2-frame with), and then we have recoveries that poke through stage (like Peach), then recoveries that either peek too high or too low before grabbing the ledge. I'm hoping that over time people will have enough experience to find ways to edgeguard each character, though with new DLC and possibly patches that could change the mechanics, it will surely take a while until we're in a "stable state".

 

[|RK|]

That statement means nothing.

Against smash 4 cloud, for some utterly bizarre reason, top players loved to stand on the edge, powershield the upb as it came up and then do nothing because there was not enough frames of advantage before cloud ledgesnapped. This was the worst possible option since it had 0 reward for a low risk. Watch Esam, he loved to do this all the time. Characters with very fast jabs like fox and zss couldn't hit low enough to clip him so perhaps pikachu was the only character who could actually get a jab off in time.

Attempting to edgeguard cloud would of course just get you a nair in your face for your troubles but what so few people actually did was get out there ASAP and bait a nair to punish. It was the only possible way you could edgeguard cloud and was a medium risk -> high reward scenario but people consistently chose the low risk -> no reward scenario.

I've said it before in this thread, people are letting Joker get back to stage for free way too often. As per usual, Esam is the only top player in the world who seems to actually go for it and it works well. If he doesn't have Arsene, drop down with a nair right where the hook will hang and he gets KO'd. If he does have Arsene, 2 frame him and don't bother challenging the wall ride invincibility. You can watch any random set of Tweek vs MKLeo and you'll witness how Tweek does almost nothing whatsoever to edgeguard Joker. Then watch MKLeo edgeguard other joker players. That's all the contrast in the world you need to see its not a case of Jokers recovery being good, its a case of people choosing the right options to do it.

It is identical to the situation with Inklings upb which I discovered when the game came out, how its ledgesnap is so low that it actually can not be 2-framed by most ground moves. Yet I will still see top players and streamers trying to do it and they never... ever learn. 7 months, literally zero 2 frames in that time and they will still put Inkling as top tier and complaint that their recovery is too good. Just drop a dair over the ledge and you'll hit them fine. Funny how Ivysaur doesn't seem to have problems doing it with dair, then people immediately go back to dtilting and whiffing and can't figure it out.

Tbh, ZeRo was the only one who legit knew how to edgeguard Cloud. He'd always have Cloud in the exact situation to send him directly to the blastzone. No one else was even half as good at this, even if they also used Diddy.

 

[Lore]

For anyone who's interested:

Can't really get behind him saying that Zelda has a bad OoS game which is just not true. Fair/bair are fast (frame 6 I've heard) and if you're in teleport range she will lift you up and that's a really good get-off-me tool because you don't necessarily have to hit the opponent with the stronger 2nd hit.
Don't really know why ZeRo is thinking that since I haven't heard any Zelda player that complains about that and Dabuz praised her for her OoS game in his list, so it's a bit puzzling.
Can't tell anything about the other characters as I probably won't watch the whole thing but it's kinda interesting how such ideas that someone has a bad OoS game take roots.

Boy I sure do love how pros push their tier lists for the sake of their brand rather than grouping up for a single list.

It leads to endless discussions of this pro or that pro's list, where they get huge advertising pushes. I miss the old days where the community as a whole came together for lists.

 

[Krysco]

My comparison to Smash 4 Cloud was literally just that the same advice being given to counterplay Joker is the same advice people gave to counterplay Cloud. Nobody back during Smash 4 bothered to bring up the unlimited air dodging, presumably because doing so would be comparing the game to Melee or 64 which are way too different of games. At most, there was 'bait the air dodge and then punish'. If the best counterplay there is to any given character is to just edgeguard them then unless they've got a Little Mac tier recovery, it's not going to mean much as it's already been mentioned that any amount of mixups provide leeway for recovering and there's no one answer to always get a successful edgeguard. I'm not saying Joker is literally Smash 4 Cloud or on par with him but that 'just edgeguard him' isn't enough in a game without edgehogging.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

If the best counterplay there is to any given character is to just edgeguard them then unless they've got a Little Mac tier recovery, it's not going to mean much as it's already been mentioned that any amount of mixups provide leeway for recovering and there's no one answer to always get a successful edgeguard.

Character counterplay doesn't have to be 100% consistent. Of course you can't edgeguard a decent joker all the time. If his weakness were that bad, he'd suck (and we all know he doesn't suck). The fact a certain counterplay isn't easy or fail proof doesn't mean it isn't the right play. Most of the time, your options will put you in a RPS scenario. If you have an option that just works everytime, that's kinda broken.

I keep wondering if Melee players are right about Ultimate players not being able to edgeguard efficiently because of being used to Smash 4 mechanics or it's because of something else.

I believe so. Smash 4 players just spent years playing a game in which you really risk just losing stage control if you go for an edge-guard. On the other hand, I think melee players, at least up until now, have both underrated and struggled against projectile zoners such as Snake and MegaMan because the archetype sucked hard in Melee.

 

[Krysco]

Character counterplay doesn't have to be 100% consistent. Of course you can't edgeguard a decent joker all the time. If his weakness were that bad, he'd suck (and we all know he doesn't suck). The fact a certain counterplay isn't easy or fail proof doesn't mean it isn't the right play. Most of the time, your options will put you in a RPS scenario. If you have an option that just works everytime, that's kinda broken.

I 100% agree. The original context from the Tweet is that Gen feels they did the proper thing by doing drop down nair and yet it didn't work. Lavani's post mentions how it was a good choice due to the long lingering frames (I completely forgot rehit rate only matters after a successful hit) but that Gen simply used the move too early/too high up due to the way Palu's nair hitboxes work.

People complain about Ivysaur dair and pre-patch Pichu ftilt because of how consistently they can edgeguard/2 frame with little to no risk from the user so I definitely agree that if there was always a perfect way to edgeguard, that alone would hinder any character without an amazing recovery and could be considered broken. But when the right thing is done and it doesn't work, of course the player is going to be confused and possibly outright annoyed as Gen appeared to be, especially with Joker being such a good character.