Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Nidtendofreak]

So, I learned something new today:

https://clips.twitch.tv/KnottyUnusualMooseWow

You can 2 frame with the spike part of Aether. That was beautiful to watch. Don't know if I'd call it reliable but man you do not want a super predictable recovery in this game. Sheesh.

 

[trickroom]

Having watched recent Bayonetta footage it seems obvious to me she's now just Noisy Sheik. Don't be fooled by how intact her ABK combos appear, or that downward ABK is back as a combo starter: the dismal damage output says it all. The familiar-looking KOs with offstage Bullet Climax, down-air spikes, back-air, Witch Time or f-smash in neutral are exactly as toothless as Sheik's equally familiar offstage Bouncing Fish and smashes in neutral. It bums me out a lot because I love both characters' common archetype of "high-combo low-power brawler", but it simply doesn't work anymore.

This is true. My perception of Bayo's viability has gone down seeing all of the former Bayo mains who did well in bracket talk about how the character feels weak. It seems like their success was mostly riding off of everyone's inexperience still. That being said, I still think she is better than Sheik in this game, and is closer (worse than, but closer) in metagame position to Sm4sh Sheik.

 

[Rizen]

Has had any notable results? He feels more fluid but still lacking options vs quick characters and zoners (or maybe Ness is just a stupid MU for him :/). IDK much about him but am leaning toward the lower half of the cast. Can he extend recoveries by mashing B in Ultimate?

When mashing out of attacks is it best to spam buttons or wiggle the control stick?

 

[Kellojolly]

If anyone has any opinions on Young Link and how good he is in comparison to other characters (chrom, Fox, etc), I’d love to hear it. He’s been looking really good in some tournaments.

 

[Lavani]

When mashing out of attacks is it best to spam buttons or wiggle the control stick?

Spinning the control stick is fastest for inputs, and it also comes with the benefit of not buffering something fatal like an airdodge.

 

[Rizen]

If anyone has any opinions on Young Link and how good he is in comparison to other characters (chrom, Fox, etc), I’d love to hear it. He’s been looking really good in some tournaments.

See this post.

 

[Ajani]

I was reading into some commentary and here is something I would love to discuss

Punsihes aerials very hard. Is it best to play ground control against him?
Are heavies really the best way to counter? Are there any characters that have attacks that upstart at a very low hitbox?

 

[J0eyboi]

So I was messing around in Training mode a bit ago, and it looks like M2's tailbox is back to its Melee size, based on the invincibility display (how much this is affected by Z-axis remains to be seen). To say the least, this is pretty bad for him; it makes dashing back way worse for him than anyone else, and generally makes his ground movement far riskier in a game with generally strong ground movement.

Edit: Never mind. Did some quick tests, and it appears the larger tailbox only comes up on actual attacks, while his movement still has roughly the same hurtbox as in Smash 4. This does mean that his tail attacks are much less disjointed, though.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

I was reading into some commentary and here is something I would love to discuss

Punsihes aerials very hard. Is it best to play ground control against him?
Are heavies really the best way to counter? Are there any characters that have attacks that upstart at a very low hitbox?

Ground control is big for , since it allows him to do the kind of safe poking and hit and run tactics that make him so annoying to deal with. Taking away the ground control limits Sonic's options, so it's best to try and best him for it if possible.
Heavies really struggle with , yeah they can kill early but any smart Pichu player is aware of the low survivability. The sheer speed of their moves and movement is enough to make heavies suffer, especially with how early their main killing options can take stocks. / are too slow in both moves and movement to do anything much about Pichu without playing a very safe patient game, / fare better but once they're in disadvantage Pichu really gets the upper hand and it's tough to escape. is the best heavy for Pichu purely for projectiles and super armour, but they're still combo food like all the rest. Personally, the fire with fire option would be the ideal set up, try to go with a character with fast frame data who can both beat out Pichu's moves and escape their combos reliably.

 

[Ajani]

Ground control is big for , since it allows him to do the kind of safe poking and hit and run tactics that make him so annoying to deal with. Taking away the ground control limits Sonic's options, so it's best to try and best him for it if possible.
Heavies really struggle with , yeah they can kill early but any smart Pichu player is aware of the low survivability. The sheer speed of their moves and movement is enough to make heavies suffer, especially with how early their main killing options can take stocks. / are too slow in both moves and movement to do anything much about Pichu without playing a very safe patient game, / fare better but once they're in disadvantage Pichu really gets the upper hand and it's tough to escape. is the best heavy for Pichu purely for projectiles and super armour, but they're still combo food like all the rest. Personally, the fire with fire option would be the ideal set up, try to go with a character with fast frame data who can both beat out Pichu's moves and escape their combos reliably.

From the sounds of your reply, it makes me wonder if this game actually perfectly suits Pichu. Fast Kill options + High Kill potential + Early rage Mechanics

 

[Browny]

Revenge continues to find new uses. Its so much better than any other counter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbAlNjijDCY

Dtilt becomes positive on block, usmash only -4 to be unpunishable on block against the majority of the cast and Lariat is a true shieldlock. Don't tilt your shield towards a revenge boosted Incineroar unless you want to die at 0%.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Revenge continues to find new uses. Its so much better than any other counter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbAlNjijDCY

Dtilt becomes positive on block, usmash only -4 to be unpunishable on block against the majority of the cast and Lariat is a true shieldlock. Don't tilt your shield towards a revenge boosted Incineroar unless you want to die at 0%.

That's a good find and pretty useful, though I don't know why you would want to stay in shield against a revenge Incineroar in the first place, you are just asking to get clothesline'd to the blastzone lol.


Unrelated note: Am I the only one not seeing what's so much better about Falco in this game? Idk he just doesn't seem to be all that much improved from Smash 4 aside obvious things like faster lasers and a useable Dair. I haven't been able to watch high level Falco yet but from what I've played against he just seems to be undertuned again. I am not a competitive Brawl veteran so do forgive any ignorance on my part when I say that Wolf seems like he does what Falco was designed to do but better.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Any opinions about Luigi yet? As I think his grab game has improved, or stayed much the same from Smash 4. He can’t recover well, but he might be the best Mario brother now.

I also think Ganondorf is getting legitimately scary. He also has results. Just a few 3-4 hits, and you’re gone. Incineroar gets praised for its stage pressence, but Ganondorf is up there easily as well. He feels quite fast to.

Am also certain with all the popularity the character enjoys, backed with results and a huge list of options and general buffs all over, DK is definitely a High Tier, or potential Top Tier in this game. Crazy as it sounds, results won’t lie.

 

[Browny]

That's a good find and pretty useful, though I don't know why you would want to stay in shield against a revenge Incineroar in the first place, you are just asking to get clothesline'd to the blastzone lol.


Unrelated note: Am I the only one not seeing what's so much better about Falco in this game? Idk he just doesn't seem to be all that much improved from Smash 4 aside obvious things like faster lasers and a useable Dair. I haven't been able to watch high level Falco yet but from what I've played against he just seems to be undertuned again. I am not a competitive Brawl veteran so do forgive any ignorance on my part when I say that Wolf seems like he does what Falco was designed to do but better.

I mean tilt your shield as in during Darkest Lariat. Tilting it could result in a shieldbreak, and then you just might die at 0%. Any attempt to escape it is honestly worse than just letting it hit you.

 

[Tri Knight]

I think what will ultimately stop Ganon from being high tier is his awful mobility and recovery. He's gonna be subject to combos and suffer against the fast guys, that's a given. But not only does he not move well on ground or air, his Up-B does not travel far. It's also very slow and highly gimpable making one of the hardest characters to kill on stage be one of the easiest off stage. I've survived attacks with Ganon upwards of 240%. I've also been killed as low as 40% from simple sour spot gimps. Some of the currently highly praised swordies have this same issue but at least they have the mobility to back it up.

I really dont see him being low tier though, because of his highly threatening stage presence. His attacks are fast now and you gotta respect him or he's ending a stock real early.

 

[AxelVDP]

Re: Little Mac talk from a few pages back
While I used to be pretty optimistic about Mac in smash4 (just check my previous posts from my profile), in ultimate I feel quite the opposite, and for a few reasons.

- Stages, there are just too many (legal) stages where Macs weaknesses can be abused. If you can't shark with upsmash AND you're forced to deplete your double jump to get up there it's like asking to get gimped or edgeguarded HARD and speaking of which...

- Recovery, with the universal changes to airdodging and the ""buffed"" sideB Mac has now more trouble than ever getting back on stage, this might feel counterintuitive since directional airdodging should help giving him another mixup and sideB not putting you into freefall BUT consider this: directional airdodging is basically just a sidegrade (or arguably even slightly better) from his already existing counter when used as a recovery mixup and the sideB change hurts more than it helps, the situations where acting out of sideB help you recovering are pretty limited and while in smash4 if you got hit (with a generous angle) you could try recovering again, now you are just dead -- also, if you use your sideB on the stage and get hit out of it for whatever reason you lose the ability to use it to recover aswell, meaning that it's even riskier than before to use it (and that makes projectile more powerful against Mac)

- speaking of projectiles, the changes to shields are a double edged sword. Dealing with projectiles is now much harder because you can't just run in and perfect shield anymore, so closing distances against zoners got harder. One of the main reason I was pretty optimistic for Mac in smash4 was because shields were pretty strong and gave him some pretty good safety thanks to stuff like jab/dtilt OoS, now his defenses are basically non-existant, his OoS options are bad all around, shield drop jab is like f12 now (from f8 of smash4), shieldgrab was bad and now is even worse, aerials or just jumping OoS = lol, upB works just for badly spaced moves due to its short range

- his neutral did not get significantly better even though the huge change of being able to use every move out of a run, in fact I might argue it got slightly worse, dtilt being 2 frames laggier and ftilt connecting way less than it used to are some pretty big nerfs, walking got worse thanks to the increased move speed across the roster and the aformentioned run change for every character. Walking was imo one of the most important skills to use in Macs neutral, having always access to shield (his dash->shield was terrible in smash4 and now everyone is just as bad in this regard) and tilts was pretty huge... but now you risk getting swarmed if you just walk, so you have to rely on his foxtrot and on a whiff punish playstyle (might change in the future, for now this is how I feel), the problem with this is that spacing is harder (dashes have to travel a set amount of frames before you can act out of them, also faster opponents) and harder spacing with less reliable tilts is not an incredible combo.

I could go on but writing all this made me pretty tired and I'm lazy.
like
worse KO punch
tilts not safe on hit or not comboing at very low %s (not even setting up for frametraps)
and so on

all in all I feel that Little Mac is kinda meeeeeeehh in this game, yeah you can probably still curbstomp people unfamiliar with the matchup but that's it

edit: also wth is everyone comparing mac to incineroar lol
edit2: he might still be "good" as a counterpick character, but solo maining feels rather unfeasible

 

[Lorisaur]

Re: Little Mac talk from a few pages back
While I used to be pretty optimistic about Mac in smash4 (just check my previous posts from my profile), in ultimate I feel quite the opposite, and for a few reasons.

- Stages, there are just too many (legal) stages where Macs weaknesses can be abused. If you can't shark with upsmash AND you're forced to deplete your double jump to get up there it's like asking to get gimped or edgeguarded HARD and speaking of which...

- Recovery, with the universal changes to airdodging and the ""buffed"" sideB Mac has now more trouble than ever getting back on stage, this might feel counterintuitive since directional airdodging should help giving him another mixup and sideB not putting you into freefall BUT consider this: directional airdodging is basically just a sidegrade (or arguably even slightly better) from his already existing counter when used as a recovery mixup and the sideB change hurts more than it helps, the situations where acting out of sideB help you recovering are pretty limited and while in smash4 if you got hit (with a generous angle) you could try recovering again, now you are just dead -- also, if you use your sideB on the stage and get hit out of it for whatever reason you lose the ability to use it to recover aswell, meaning that it's even riskier than before to use it (and that makes projectile more powerful against Mac)

- speaking of projectiles, the changes to shields are a double edged sword. Dealing with projectiles is now much harder because you can't just run in and perfect shield anymore, so closing distances against zoners got harder. One of the main reason I was pretty optimistic for Mac in smash4 was because shields were pretty strong and gave him some pretty good safety thanks to stuff like jab/dtilt OoS, now his defenses are basically non-existant, his OoS options are bad all around, shield drop jab is like f12 now (from f8 of smash4), shieldgrab was bad and now is even worse, aerials or just jumping OoS = lol, upB works just for badly spaced moves due to its short range

- his neutral did not get significantly better even though the huge change of being able to use every move out of a run, in fact I might argue it got slightly worse, dtilt being 2 frames laggier and ftilt connecting way less than it used to are some pretty big nerfs, walking got worse thanks to the increased move speed across the roster and the aformentioned run change for every character. Walking was imo one of the most important skills to use in Macs neutral, having always access to shield (his dash->shield was terrible in smash4 and now everyone is just as bad in this regard) and tilts was pretty huge... but now you risk getting swarmed if you just walk, so you have to rely on his foxtrot and on a whiff punish playstyle (might change in the future, for now this is how I feel), the problem with this is that spacing is harder (dashes have to travel a set amount of frames before you can act out of them, also faster opponents) and harder spacing with less reliable tilts is not an incredible combo.

I could go on but writing all this made me pretty tired and I'm lazy.
like
worse KO punch
tilts not safe on hit or not comboing at very low %s (not even setting up for frametraps)
and so on

all in all I feel that Little Mac is kinda meeeeeeehh in this game, yeah you can probably still curbstomp people unfamiliar with the matchup but that's it

edit: also wth is everyone comparing mac to incineroar lol
edit2: he might still be "good" as a counterpick character, but solo maining feels rather unfeasible

I agree with you and personally belive that many players are overrating Little Mac recently, probably because in the first days of a game it's always harder to detect and abuse the weaknesses of a character (look at King K. Rool). Another problem he might have is that many characters are good on the ground, and while in sm4sh you had to keep a distance from him to be safe, now you can approach easier with foxtrots. Aaand he also has bad matchup with many newcomers so he might be cool to counterpick some characters as Bowser, Dk, or maybe Incineroar but if you want to play him competitively... well you probably need to have a true main
Some characters instead are quite the opposite, I mean, they were considered as very bad before game's release and now may look... decent, if not very good. I'm talking about guys as Samus, Ridley, Sonic... what do you think about them?

 

[Iridium]

Maybe this may prove itself to be useful for characters with quick "get off me" options, such as jabs (i.e. and ). Perhaps this may even buff aerial offense as well.

 

[Lorisaur]

Maybe this may prove itself to be useful for characters with quick "get off me" options, such as jabs (i.e. and ).

Well, i think it might be even more useful with jab jump cancel, I mean, you can spotdodge jump Nair with 8 frames before move's startup and this seems quite decent for a spotdodge. It has even less vulnerability than a shield drop lol

 

[Nobie]

So I noticed something about Mewtwo's teleport. If you teleport horizontally while close to the ledge during Mewtwo's double jump animation, you'll end up quite deep on stage. I'm not sure what affects the different distances I'm getting (might just be my inconsistency with the control stick).

In Ultimate, if Mewtwo double jump Teleports into horizontally the ledge, it can end up much farther on stage compared to a ledge roll.

Might be good for getting past ledge traps. #ssbu_mewtwo

(Sorry for the video quality. It's the best I can do) pic.twitter.com/oAYRgZ1keq

— Dr. Ogiue @999+GGG (@sdshamshel) December 31, 2018

I know people are really down on Mewtwo's disadvantage state, so I wonder if this might be able to help.

I also tried it with Palutena, and it doesn't work. She just bonks downwards and falls to her death.

Maybe this may prove itself to be useful for characters with quick "get off me" options, such as jabs (i.e. and ).

I do find it funny that side step into dodge is exactly how you play Punch-Out!! It makes me wonder if this universal change is meant to buff Little Mac in particular.

 

[MapleBeasts]

I agree with you and personally belive that many players are overrating Little Mac recently, probably because in the first days of a game it's always harder to detect and abuse the weaknesses of a character (look at King K. Rool). Another problem he might have is that many characters are good on the ground, and while in sm4sh you had to keep a distance from him to be safe, now you can approach easier with foxtrots. Aaand he also has bad matchup with many newcomers so he might be cool to counterpick some characters as Bowser, Dk, or maybe Incineroar but if you want to play him competitively... well you probably need to have a true main
Some characters instead are quite the opposite, I mean, they were considered as very bad before game's release and now may look... decent, if not very good. I'm talking about guys as Samus, Ridley, Sonic... what do you think about them?

Being a character in Smash with a lol worthy aerial game and god awful recovery is a complete death sentence. This is increasingly evident in this game as edge guarding has become more important and prevalent than Sm4sh. The dominance and safety of swordies is also bad news for Mac as many of the higher tier characters are better able to space. His ground game is not good enough to make up for his uselessness anywhere else and the improved fox trot mechanics further nullifies his advantages. He's pretty much a noobstomper and that's it.

 

[Rizen]

I was watching Seagull's Wolf use lasers a lot and realized something: YL can do the same thing with arrows, arguably better. Wolf's lasers are frame 16 total 49 and YL's fire arrows (uncharged) are f14 total 37. These things are crazy spammable. Arrows were meh in SSB4 so I habitually didn't think much of them but these are really good. The only downside is they always launch up and therefor don't gimp recoveries.

 

[Ajani]

Ive noticed character's Dair hitboxes going through ledges, is this a glitch or confirmed?

 

[Phosphophyllite]

Looking over character changes as a whole, I've really enjoyed the changes in Ultimate in regards to combos. I've been seeing a lot of players lately, and the change in playstyle from Smash 4 to Ultimate is really noticeable. As a whole, I hated fighting against combo characters in Smash 4 because they were just really boring to fight. There's a reason why people mocked Smash 4 by calling it "Down Throw Up Air The Game" and to see that factor mostly eliminated from Ultimate is a real blessing. People don't nearly fish for grabs as much as they did in Smash 4, and the combo variety is already far superior to Smash 4's combos, it makes the game a whole lot more fun to play against a load of different characters.

Obviously this isn't perfect for every character, there's a bunch of characters I can name who lost their throw combos and didn't get much in return, but for the most part it's been a very welcome change. Anything that diversifies playstyles and avoids over centralising something is good in my book.

 

[FruitLoop]

Overall after playing Pac-Man and talking with others about Pac-Man. I personally believe that Pac-Man is severely underrated and could become very meta-relevant once fruit recycling is truly optimized as a mostly "Top of Mid Tier" or "Bottom of High Tier" character.

Pac-Man's changes overall allow him to work effectively as an aggressive zoner as most of his normals have been generally buffed, most notably his Forward-Aerial which is much safer on hit at lower percents and can actually be more effective at gimping and is significantly better as a neutral option. Combine that with Pac-Man's better overall mobility, including his already great air mobility being better, it allows for Pac-Man to actually be quite useable for close-range play. He also has great OoS options and decent retreating options which helps complement this aggressive zoner schtick. The lack of Z-Dropping on Fruits as in you can't recatch fruits that have already been Z-Dropped is a bit of a bummer despite the fact that now you have a frame 1 stun move out of an item drop. However the introduction of Fruit Recycling (When you catch a fruit and press b again, you can change your fruit into another fruit, or you can just press B again to rethrow the fruit while still making it catcheable) allows for more effective Galaga tech-chasing and overall damage racking which makes Pac-Man capable of covering plenty of options overall which is complimented by the fact that Pac-Man actually has some of the best frame data on normals in the game. He's decent at stuffing out approaches in an aggressive meta with moves such as trampoline forcing the opponent to jump making them susceptible to Pac-Man's fantastic aerials and Trampoline also protects Pac-Man against many projectile camping character. Pac-Man also benefits from the nerfs to most character's recoveries which really helps his fantastic edge guarding both onstage and offstage (Forward-Aerial) despite the loss of Pac-Man's airdodge himself indirectly nerfing his campy playstyle. Pac-Man's grab is of course actually tolerable and even has some throw combos off of up-throw at low % such as upthrow up-air/nair and it means that Pac-Man can properly deal with shields which is a great thing since Pac-Man was really good at forcing shields but couldn't really do much about it outside of running up and up-bing the opponent. Also note that Pac-Man's landing options are a bit better thanks to Down-Aerial's buffs.

He's still got major issues killing however. Pac-Man can only really kill at the very stage corner as otherwise none of his kill moves with the exception of his smashes kill until past 200. While Pac-Man is usually decent at getting the opponent at the corner, he can only really do it for so long, especially when the opponent starts playing more defensively at mid-stage. Pac-Man has to depend a lot on getting the opponent to make the wrong option and punishing them with a Back-Air or fishing for Forward-Aerials to get a Forward-Aerial to Key confirm. While you can try using Bell to get a free smash attack and while you do get more opportunities to use it thanks to Fruit Recycling alongside the fact that you can mixup bell throws by fruit recycling then shield cancelling afterwards to force shields then throw the bell when the opponent drops the shield (Credit to Sinji for showing that off). Bell still pretty much requires finding enough time to get it properly set up and most opponents can hit pac-man before he reaches bell again. Also moves like Apple, Melon, and Back-Throw simply don't kill at reasonable percents and Hydrant is too risky at high % unless you are hitting it with key or something to cover multiple hitboxes. Pac-Man's kill power is way too inconsistent for a game that has 3 stocks and it's the only thing truly holding him back. Pac-Man also technically isn't super fast for an aggressive character despite his great frame data and is a bit light/floaty for a character that can't really kill alongside having quite stubby range. Also Pac-Man does seem to struggle a lot against swordfighters which are relatively common in Ultimate's meta which is honestly the biggest factor towards why Pac-Man isn't really a true High tier character.

However overall, I personally believe that Pac-Man is being slept on and that hopefully one day people will open up to Ultimate Pac-Man.

 

[JustCallMeJon]

I cannot believe that we are close to 2019! Big changes to the meta will obviously expected to develop at Ultimate.

At the same time, we havent gotten another and final tier list of Smash 4, I am really suprise from that.

 

[Ajani]

I cannot believe that we are close to 2019! Big changes to the meta will obviously expected to develop at Ultimate.

At the same time, we havent gotten another and final tier list of Smash 4, I am really suprise from that.

I believe that is a sign of a healthy game. Last week no one was discussing Wario and it was hilarious seeing Mango pop off on his streams with him. Now just a few days ago, Gluttony topped with Wario in a tournament that featured Keiatoro and NAKAT. If tournaments go at this pace then a tier list maybe as variable as people's decision making on their mains.

Looking over character changes as a whole, I've really enjoyed the changes in Ultimate in regards to combos. I've been seeing a lot of players lately, and the change in playstyle from Smash 4 to Ultimate is really noticeable. As a whole, I hated fighting against combo characters in Smash 4 because they were just really boring to fight. There's a reason why people mocked Smash 4 by calling it "Down Throw Up Air The Game" and to see that factor mostly eliminated from Ultimate is a real blessing. People don't nearly fish for grabs as much as they did in Smash 4, and the combo variety is already far superior to Smash 4's combos, it makes the game a whole lot more fun to play against a load of different characters.

Obviously this isn't perfect for every character, there's a bunch of characters I can name who lost their throw combos and didn't get much in return, but for the most part it's been a very welcome change. Anything that diversifies playstyles and avoids over centralising something is good in my book.

Absoluelty, heres some fun facts about Mario's frame data:

Jab 1: Tied for 2nd
Jab 2: Tied for 2nd
Jab 3: Tied for 1st

FTilt: Tied for 5th
UTilt: Tied for 8th
Dtilt: Tied for 11th

NAir: Tied for 2nd
BAir: Tied for 9th
UAir: Tied for 1st
DAir: Tied for 4th

 

[The_Bookworm]

I believe that is a sign of a healthy game. Last week no one was discussing Wario and it was hilarious seeing Mango pop off on his streams with him. Now just a few days ago, Gluttony topped with Wario in a tournament that featured Keiatoro and NAKAT. If tournaments go at this pace then a tier list maybe as variable as people's decision making on their mains.

Another funny thing is that Tweek recently won a big tournament (forgot it's name) using mainly Wario. He also used DK and Chrom, but considering how stacked that tourney is, this is an impressive feat for the character.

 

[Untouch]

This is the BIGGEST reason why I think tier lists, even if just for discussion, can and may be hurting the meta.
Even early, people want to pick the best characters and are looking at tier lists.
I think a lot of these early tier lists are looking at what characters are being picked more, shoving the lesser picked characters into low tier, which just influences it more.
Then you get get upsets with characters like Pac-Man and Wario where everyone thought they were bad because no one gave them a chance.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Another funny thing is that Tweek recently won a big tournament (forgot it's name) using mainly Wario. He also used DK and Chrom, but considering how stacked that tourney is, this is an impressive feat for the character.

He pretty much used DK mostly up till top 8 where he went all Wario besides the one game he lost.

I do think his dominance mostly came from matchup inexperience. Wario thrives on whiff punishing, and Nairo and Dabuz were pretty aggressive against Tweek. Not to take away from Tweek's impressive display of course, and Wario still won two stacked tournaments this weekend which is worth talking about.

 

[Rizen]

Another funny thing is that Tweek recently won a big tournament (forgot it's name) using mainly Wario. He also used DK and Chrom, but considering how stacked that tourney is, this is an impressive feat for the character.

Let's Make Moves.

 

[Ajani]

He pretty much used DK mostly up till top 8 where he went all Wario besides the one game he lost.

I do think his dominance mostly came from matchup inexperience. Wario thrives on whiff punishing, and Nairo and Dabuz were pretty aggressive against Tweek. Not to take away from Tweek's impressive display of course, and Wario still won two stacked tournaments this weekend which is worth talking about.

Its a really smart strat actually. When I looked at alot of Wario's frame data and saw how well he did in tourneys, it came down to people not necessairly knowing how to play. That doesnt really discredit the amazing players but I do have a feeling people will be at disadvantage for having 1 main. Bringing out a surprise main may be advantageous for the first year.

 

[Vincent21]

A few posts have been taken to mention that is doing well, but do we wanna take a crack at discussing why?

Personally, when I was looking at that footage, what stood out to me was that Wario seems to have a pleasant time with closing stocks. Putting Waft aside, being able to convert off of dtilt, and just that ftilt smack in and of itself are really good tools for that purpose. Then, go back and add waft and the various ways the character can effectively set it up, and just compare that to some of the other characters whose names have been floating around for top tier candidacy. And then you can still add a respectable off-stage game to that equation while you're at it.

Like, and would kill for those kinds of tools, and so would after spending half a game running around a 120%+ opponent getting absolutely sick of landing accidental sour spots until a hard read falls into his lap.

On the positive end, having much more reliable stock closing than the rest of the cast has similarly been a boon to and , so it doesn't surprise me to see Wario making use the same kind of advantages to start taking events. At the risk of stating the obvious, decisively closing stocks is becoming a sticking point in Ultimate, and when you can't.... well lets just say I've been noticing a trend of more comebacks in this game as opposed to others this early on in their lifespan.

 

[Browny]

So I noticed something about Mewtwo's teleport. If you teleport horizontally while close to the ledge during Mewtwo's double jump animation, you'll end up quite deep on stage. I'm not sure what affects the different distances I'm getting (might just be my inconsistency with the control stick).

In Ultimate, if Mewtwo double jump Teleports into horizontally the ledge, it can end up much farther on stage compared to a ledge roll.

Might be good for getting past ledge traps. #ssbu_mewtwo

(Sorry for the video quality. It's the best I can do) pic.twitter.com/oAYRgZ1keq

— Dr. Ogiue @999+GGG (@sdshamshel) December 31, 2018

I know people are really down on Mewtwo's disadvantage state, so I wonder if this might be able to help.

I also tried it with Palutena, and it doesn't work. She just bonks downwards and falls to her death.



I do find it funny that side step into dodge is exactly how you play Punch-Out!! It makes me wonder if this universal change is meant to buff Little Mac in particular.

Mewtwos best recovery in smash 4 was DJ up to ledge height at about a distance just beyond something like marth fsmash, then teleport exact horizontal and you could get a ridiculous slide that about 3/4 across FD. You dont want the landing version, is too slow. Using DJ + teleport from that close to the ledge in that video is a death sentence, you're just asking for a smash attack to get KO'd or anything weaker that then snipes your jump, forcing you into a ledge regrab scenario where you're going to get spiked or something.

Vincent21 I'm glad the dogs in your sig are still running on that site.

 

[Ajani]

A few posts have been taken to mention that is doing well, but do we wanna take a crack at discussing why?

Personally, when I was looking at that footage, what stood out to me was that Wario seems to have a pleasant time with closing stocks. Putting Waft aside, being able to convert off of dtilt, and just that ftilt smack in and of itself are really good tools for that purpose. Then, go back and add waft and the various ways the character can effectively set it up, and just compare that to some of the other characters whose names have been floating around for top tier candidacy. And then you can still add a respectable off-stage game to that equation while you're at it.

Like, and would kill for those kinds of tools, and so would after spending half a game running around a 120%+ opponent getting absolutely sick of landing accidental sour spots until a hard read falls into his lap.

On the positive end, having much more reliable stock closing than the rest of the cast has similarly been a boon to and , so it doesn't surprise me to see Wario making use the same kind of advantages to start taking events. At the risk of stating the obvious, decisively closing stocks is becoming a sticking point in Ultimate, and when you can't.... well lets just say I've been noticing a trend of more comebacks in this game as opposed to others this early on in their lifespan.

Just because I dont know how Wario is played, what are his Kill options out side smash attacks? Id like to look into his frame details because his frame data at first glance is really dece.

 

[Vincent21]

Well I haven't really done much with him myself since 4, so I wouldn't be an authoritative source, but I was watching Gluttony all day, and I was seeing ftilt, waft, and dtilt --> dash attack & other buttons clean up shop.

It started to look to me like Gluttony felt comfortable treating Wario ftilt like it was Pichu ftilt. In other words, as if it were just a bonus smash attack that you could press in neutral to absolutely obliterate stocks and totally spam at the ledge when your opponent's back is too the blast zone.

Browny I'm glad they are too, and that I can didn't have to think of something new to put there since it's been so long. It's almost kinda strange to me how I can just slip back into this thread and it feels "normal," for lack of better phrasing.

 

[Ajani]

Well I haven't really done much with him myself since 4, so I wouldn't be an authoritative source, but I was watching Gluttony all day, and I was seeing ftilt, waft, and dtilt --> dash attack & other buttons clean up shop.

It started to look to me like Gluttony felt comfortable treating Wario ftilt like it was Pichu ftilt. In other words, as if it were just a bonus smash attack that you could press in neutral to absolutely obliterate stocks and totally spam at the ledge when your opponent's back is too the blast zone.

Browny I'm glad they are too, and that I can didn't have to think of something new to put there since it's been so long. It's almost kinda strange to me how I can just slip back into this thread and it feels "normal," for lack of better phrasing.

Thats interesting becaues Wario's Ftilt is F12, which ties him for 58th rank. However, his DTilt is at F5 has him tied for 12th. Infact, it does out prioritize lots of moves, infact if he combos with dash attack then thats also a F5 move and its insanely good.

Maybe we can analyze a video in detail? Because that is a great kill option.

 

[Lavani]

In Smash 4, Wario ftilt was basically Greninja fsmash with less endlag, no blind spot, the ability to be angled, and still having disjoint. I'd assume it's no different here.

From a frame data perspective, I was impressed with how much mileage Tweek got out of utilt; the Japanese frame data sheet notes that utilt no longer has intangibility, but it seemed to beat out a number of things I wouldn't have expected it to if it weren't at least disjointed, and the reduced endlag makes it that much more reliable for confirms.

Wario's kit seems to flow surprisingly well in general in this game. Generally-safe neutral options seemed to convert into damage reliably off either combos or tech chases; he doesn't seem to struggle with damage racking, and Waft seems to be more of a bonus than a crutch now as far as his kill potential is concerned. Watching Tweek play I have to wonder if the bike nerf even meant anything in the long run, because it sure didn't look like something that would've added to how he was playing were it the same as 4.

 

[EvilD]

How about ? I've been seeing some people say he may be much better than originally thought. But seems mostly like an inferior choice to other sword fighters like or even


I'm personally doing good with him locally, but I'd like to see some true high level results with him.

 

[Kellojolly]

How about ? I've been seeing some people say he may be much better than originally thought. But seems mostly like an inferior choice to other sword fighters like or even


I'm personally doing good with him locally, but I'd like to see some true high level results with him.

I think this is a good video to analyze the current state of Cloud. Ultimately, the nerfs may stack up since the previous installment.