Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Bladeviper]

yolo'ing a menu option is like doing a raw super in any other fighting game, its only gonna work in really small amount of circumstances and will most likely get your ass kicked for trying 99% of the time

oh btw for magic burst if you are on ledge when he does it just do a neutral get up on to the ledge, your invuln period lasts long enough it wont touch you

 

[|RK|]

Peach/daisy are nothing like hero with their rng, that argument really needs to end. They only have it on one move, and when they do get a stitchface, bob-bomb, or saturn, they still have to actually aim and hit and opponent with it. Otherwise the turnip is a fairly average projectile.

Meanwhile hero has the rng on all his smashes that can let him kill incredibly early (even 0%) if he got snooze and got a fully charged crit), and his downspecial, including possibly a move that damn near covers the entire stage, and is impossible to avoid if he gets it while opponents are recovering.

Peach/daisy’s rng on turnips, as well as luigi’s missfire, and gw’s judge, aren’t remotely similar to what hero has, so trying to compare them is a bit ridiculous.

I feel like there's a lot of "after the fact" justification for Peach.

There are sets in every game entirely turned around because Armada or Samsora or whoever got the right pull.

NOT TO MENTION that Smash 4 and now Ultimate have let us forget that Peach's fsmash was ALSO random in previous games.

Saying you have to aim a turnip is a cop out - outside of Magic Burst, Hero doesn't just do AOE on everything, and he definitely has to aim his Smashes.

Also, Judge isn't a bad comparison for Hero's Smash attacks. It's just that people vaguely talk about Hero's RNG being the problem, and as a result, we can switch when needed to say certain things aren't comparable to another.

Luigi Misfire is a great comparison for Zoom (except sometimes even better because you can edgeguard side b for free most of the time, then whoops, you died).

Hero has more elements of RNG in concert, sure. But each element is def comparable to other characters. This is simply the game we play.

 

[KirbySquad101]

For anyone who's wondering, this is basically what they did to Mewtwo's tail in patch 4.0:

Mewtwo tail hurtbox diff pic.twitter.com/0yKirIfjr3

— Meshima (@Meshima_) July 31, 2019

The change doesn't look big at first, but from what I heard, it basically allows Mewtwo to cover his hurtboxes much more effectively with his hitbox.

In particular, making his hurtbox thinner makes it so that his moves that involve his tail dipping into the Z-Axis are much less likely to get cheesed out. A visual idea of what I'm getting at:

Mewtwo’s tail is a sword again 🙏🏾🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/rtQSCDELsk

— Mightykeef (@MightyKeef) July 31, 2019

This change actually seems fairly significant for ; hopefully this should spark some faith in the character again.

 

[Arthur97]

I feel like there's a lot of "after the fact" justification for Peach.

There are sets in every game entirely turned around because Armada or Samsora or whoever got the right pull.

NOT TO MENTION that Smash 4 and now Ultimate have let us forget that Peach's fsmash was ALSO random in previous games.

Saying you have to aim a turnip is a cop out - outside of Magic Burst, Hero doesn't just do AOE on everything, and he definitely has to aim his Smashes.

Also, Judge isn't a bad comparison for Hero's Smash attacks. It's just that people vaguely talk about Hero's RNG being the problem, and as a result, we can switch when needed to say certain things aren't comparable to another.

Luigi Misfire is a great comparison for Zoom (except sometimes even better because you can edgeguard side b for free most of the time, then whoops, you died).

Hero has more elements of RNG in concert, sure. But each element is def comparable to other characters. This is simply the game we play.

Except Heroes' Smash attacks don't have a chance of hurting them even on a whiff. They can just sometimes be stronger while Judge can just as likely hurt the user or at least be very underwhelming (actually fairly likely) add that to being relatively small and hard to land, I'm not sure the two are a good comparison. The smash attacks have 1 in 8 chance I believe of critting while Judge has a 1 in 9 of getting a 9 and the same odds hurting the user (on a fresh use at least) and then something in between which might be useful. Meanwhile, the smash attacks still hit fairly hard without the crit.

 

[|RK|]

Except Heroes' Smash attacks don't have a chance of hurting them even on a whiff. They can just sometimes be stronger while Judge can just as likely hurt the user or at least be very underwhelming (actually fairly likely) add that to being relatively small and hard to land, I'm not sure the two are a good comparison. The smash attacks have 1 in 8 chance I believe of critting while Judge has a 1 in 9 of getting a 9 and the same odds hurting the user (on a fresh use at least) and then something in between which might be useful. Meanwhile, the smash attacks still hit fairly hard without the crit.

That's fine and fair, though Judge also has the advantage of various confirms into it and is safer on shield even at its worst.

 

[Rizen]

2: how many characters have frame 1 invulnerable options? The only ones I'm aware of are Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon Change and Ryu and Ken's true Shoryuken but only on their arm until frame 4. I wanna say Shulk might thanks to his Monado Art activation granting him invulnerability but that might've just been a Smash 4 thing.
.

's Usmash post patch is invulnerable f1-7.

I. It also bugs me that they essentially have just a better version of Link's dash attack. .

Why do people keep saying this? Link's DA hits 1 frame sooner and hits opponents on PS2's platforms. Hero's DA can't hit opponents on platforms.

 

[Bladeviper]

's Usmash post patch is invulnerable f1-7.


Why do people keep saying this? Link's DA hits 1 frame sooner and hits opponents on PS2's platforms. Hero's DA can't hit opponents on platforms.

hero's can hit on platforms when they are laying down for some reason though, i guess the hitbox extends just a tiny bit more

 

[Gleam]

The question with Hero is, when does the RNG or whatever part of his moveset, get to the point where it becomes fundamentally unfair or impossible for the opponent to deal with. Logically everything a character does should be possibly dealt with by another character until at least a certain percentage. For example, there's nothing Snake can do logically that can kill Ganon at 50% if Ganon plays right. Once you get to certain positions and certain percentages, yes it becomes harder and harder to get around whatever your opponent is throwing at you.

So the question is, does the act of RNG and moves, especially things like Magic Burst give Hero not so much an edge, but handicaps the fellow player from making reasonable moves in a survivable situation. We try to eliminate things like "Infinite Grabs" and "Wobbling" because they fundamentally prevent the other play from playing the game and the excuse of "Don't get grabbed" is no different than saying "Don't let the massive nuclear bomb hit you on your way back to the stage"

Magic Burst is the most questionable thing because, in certain situations, in this edgeguarding, the only option you have is to wait it out. You can't block it (for obvious reasons) You can't dodge it, again because it holds on for so long and it kills so early that it's too risky to take a hit so you can return back to stage. The only thing you can do is just avoid it and hope by the time it's done you can still make it back on stage.

Some characters like Peach, Kirby, Puff and anyone with multiple and/or elongated recoveries could certainly do that.

Characters like Ganondorf, Roy, Chrom, Lucina, Dr. Mario, etc. will have a vastly more difficult time than others.

So the question again to be asked is, are all of Hero's movesets logical enough to get around with correct play, or does it get to the point where the opponent is handicapped too much to make any reasonable choices in what would normally be a reasonable situation.

If yes, no problem.

If no, that's why changes are needed.

 

[Bladeviper]

The question with Hero is, when does the RNG or whatever part of his moveset, get to the point where it becomes fundamentally unfair or impossible for the opponent to deal with. Logically everything a character does should be possibly dealt with by another character until at least a certain percentage. For example, there's nothing Snake can do logically that can kill Ganon at 50% if Ganon plays right. Once you get to certain positions and certain percentages, yes it becomes harder and harder to get around whatever your opponent is throwing at you.

So the question is, does the act of RNG and moves, especially things like Magic Burst give Hero not so much an edge, but handicaps the fellow player from making reasonable moves in a survivable situation. We try to eliminate things like "Infinite Grabs" and "Wobbling" because they fundamentally prevent the other play from playing the game and the excuse of "Don't get grabbed" is no different than saying "Don't let the massive nuclear bomb hit you on your way back to the stage"

Magic Burst is the most questionable thing because, in certain situations, in this edgeguarding, the only option you have is to wait it out. You can't block it (for obvious reasons) You can't dodge it, again because it holds on for so long and it kills so early that it's too risky to take a hit so you can return back to stage. The only thing you can do is just avoid it and hope by the time it's done you can still make it back on stage.

Some characters like Peach, Kirby, Puff and anyone with multiple and/or elongated recoveries could certainly do that.

Characters like Ganondorf, Roy, Chrom, Lucina, Dr. Mario, etc. will have a vastly more difficult time than others.

So the question again to be asked is, are all of Hero's movesets logical enough to get around with correct play, or does it get to the point where the opponent is handicapped too much to make any reasonable choices in what would normally be a reasonable situation.

If yes, no problem.

If no, that's why changes are needed.

anyone with a projectile that has hitstun on it will stop the magic burst and waste all hero's mp gimping him for some time. if he is edgeguarding with it and you make it to the ledge just do a neutral get up right before you invlul runs out and you will avoid it. There are ways around magic burst along with it having a really low chance of showing up on the menu

Also a tip i didnt see listed here. If you see a move in the down B list it can't show up twice in a row so if you see magic burst show up an then get knocked off stage and he fishes for it the chance of him getting it are even lower since he would have to pull up the menu at least twice

 

[sleepy_Nex]

Even when most USA players would be pro-ban Hero wouldn't be banned because japan would never follow suit. The Dragon quest games are really loved there and the competitive in japan isn't as serious taken as in the USA. The discussion wether to ban him or not is at this time pretty ridiculous since he didn't even had a testrun at a major yet.

I think Hero won't have any problem managing his manapool in the hands of the right players since even a stray hit on shield recovers alot of mana. He will have his insane neutralb and sideb avaiable probably throughout most of the game wether some people like it or not.
I also think that many here undersell his rng as too inconsistent. Hero will probably have a useful spell ready in downb most of the time he pulls it out. Magic burst or what it was called isn't the only busted thing. The statbuffs(you can even stack that ****) and really fast traveling explosionspells are pretty good too.

That said i don't really wanna place him anywhere on the tierlist til we see how he actually plays out in higher level of play(like some say top, some say high and some say midtier depending on who you ask and how much they talk about his normals or specials) and how well rushdown keeps him from doing anything.

 

[ZephyrZ]

The question with Hero is, when does the RNG or whatever part of his moveset, get to the point where it becomes fundamentally unfair or impossible for the opponent to deal with. Logically everything a character does should be possibly dealt with by another character until at least a certain percentage. For example, there's nothing Snake can do logically that can kill Ganon at 50% if Ganon plays right. Once you get to certain positions and certain percentages, yes it becomes harder and harder to get around whatever your opponent is throwing at you.

Is that really a great comparison when Nikita can also potentially make unavoidable edge guard interactions against bad recoveries?

 

[Arthur97]

That's fine and fair, though Judge also has the advantage of various confirms into it and is safer on shield even at its worst.

At it's worst, it deals recoil damage no matter what the other player does. That's part of my point, the Heroes' smash attacks don't get weaker from RNG or hurt them. RNG produces no risk to them. Yeah, the moves themselves are laggy, but they are bigger than Judge (typically) and Judge isn't exactly safe to throw out either. If you land it, it's going to hurt. If you land Judge even with a confirm, it might hurt. The move's RNG makes it a gamble while crits just make them randomly hit even harder with no down side.

I'm no advocate of banning, but the crits are kind of ridiculous and were a pretty bad idea.

 

[blackghost]

this strawman argument of "what if hero gets magic burst." to me are coming from people that haven't watched enough gameplay of him. twitter clips and twitch clips make him look like he's doing dumb stuff all the time but that is not the case. magic burst won't play a key role in most sets. the most annoying thing about hero is him pulling out zoom in a moment where he was dead without it. i dont even mind the critical hits on smash attacks because run into smashes is my fault not hero's.

i think some people need to revisit how hard some of the heavies smash attacks hit acting like hero is the only one taking early stocks from a hard smash read is a disingenuous argument.

here are two sets froma good player

there's clear moment when the wolf player figures it out what to do vs. hero. also keep in mind these two generally run this local anyway.
these sets show why hero will be a character that will require skill to play effectively knowing how to bait and how use the moves to the best ability, they show hero will take your stock early if you do not know how to deal with spells, and they show that when you have good answers for the spells (reflector *cough cough*) that hero has areally bad time.
also yes rushdown eats him alive.

 

[Rizen]

I agree Hero was a poorly designed character from a competitive standpoint.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned about Hero is most of his strongest moves have reduced shield pressure. And thank goodness because shield breaks from Hero can turn into dying at 0% from crit Fsmash. Crits have no extra shield damage, Zap's final hits of each charge level will not occur on a blocking opponent, and sizz/sizzle does not erupt on shields.

You still have to watch out for kamikaze which can't be blocked, magic burst and hatchetman.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...uuzIH2DB4iQHVrqiG8VRbRA7Q/edit#gid=1017304447

Edit, Uncharged Crits are stronger than fully charged smashes.

Zoom seems to land Hero on one of three spots based on the direction he holds. This correlates with the stage's platform layout. So you have a 1 in 3 chance of punishing it with an aerial.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

ZSS is likely one of the Hero's worst MU's by far. She can almost literally stop Hero from even trying ANYTHING. Yeah she has the great mobility and pressure to harass him. But she can easily pursue and tether-grab him if he tireusing down-b menu on the ground, or possible punish many down-b options an with flip-kick.

Joker I can also see as super bad too. What does he even have to deal with Arsene besides Magic Burst its recovery

 

[Arthur97]

this strawman argument of "what if hero gets magic burst." to me are coming from people that haven't watched enough gameplay of him. twitter clips and twitch clips make him look like he's doing dumb stuff all the time but that is not the case. magic burst won't play a key role in most sets. the most annoying thing about hero is him pulling out zoom in a moment where he was dead without it. i dont even mind the critical hits on smash attacks because run into smashes is my fault not hero's.

i think some people need to revisit how hard some of the heavies smash attacks hit acting like hero is the only one taking early stocks from a hard smash read is a disingenuous argument.

here are two sets froma good player

there's clear moment when the wolf player figures it out what to do vs. hero. also keep in mind these two generally run this local anyway.
these sets show why hero will be a character that will require skill to play effectively knowing how to bait and how use the moves to the best ability, they show hero will take your stock early if you do not know how to deal with spells, and they show that when you have good answers for the spells (reflector *cough cough*) that hero has areally bad time.
also yes rushdown eats him alive.

Yeah, but heavies also tend to have super laggy smash attacks and generally don't have swords (Ganondorf notwithstanding). If Link were hitting as hard as Ganondorf, then you'd have a case. The fact of the matter is, you have them hitting harder than heavies without the downsides of being a heavy.

 

[DelugeFGC]

yolo'ing a menu option is like doing a raw super in any other fighting game, its only gonna work in really small amount of circumstances and will most likely get your *** kicked for trying 99% of the time

oh btw for magic burst if you are on ledge when he does it just do a neutral get up on to the ledge, your invuln period lasts long enough it wont touch you

..No, no it doesn't. Your iframes run out just at the end, I tested this three times, it doesn't work at all and it's also assuming you make it to the ledge before he bursts. Your best option is to pray you only get grazed by the very end of the attack, which is still a very bad option. If the Hero gets a MB off when you're trying to recover, you're just dead most of the time.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

After playing some more as and against hero, my VERY initial impressions are:

Side-B and neutral-B is where this character shines, but he can't abuse fully charged stuff because of MP management. Also, both are pretty safe to block. In a way I find kafrizzle (I can't bring myself to learn the name of his moves, sorry) less scary then Samus's charge shot because shielding it is so much safer.

Getting 40% off a charged projectile seems silly until you realize that's the best hero can do in a game where top tiers can routinely get upwards of that in a single combo. Hero doesn't have those.

His ground speed is good, but his air speed is BAD. Combined with his terrible aerial frame data, it's way too easy to just stuff him in the air and keep him there.

Powerful stuff from RNG (magic burst, sleep, critical smashes) is silly when you get hit by them, but, outside of particular situations, you shouldn't really be getting hit by them. Most of the silly stuff requires Hero to go for a read and THEN get lucky. I can imagine it happening a couple of times a set, and most times being an actual liability for the character for how unsafe it is to go for them in most situations. For example, if I'm playing hero and send the oponente way off stage, I can space myself outside of getup attack range and hope for magic burst. Most of the time, I'll roll the dice twice, not get it, and have to settle for a buff that doesn't last that long and my opponent can play around. For me, it seems that going for a good old edgeguard or charging neutral-B is better.

In fact, I have no idea if the menu is any good. Haven't found a way to use it properly and haven't been hit by it and not thought it was on me for throwing myself in front of something with such narrow usage.

Playing against hero, for me, as Inkling, was a two-phase process. In the first, I was trying to read his menus and play accordingly and was generally perplexed by his specials. That's the phase when I got bodied. In the second, I focused on playing a good, safe, pressuring neutral game and abusing his poor frame data on normals and general weakness to shield. Then Hero seemed like a lackluster character with powerful options that are narrow and cannot be used on reaction.

I'm actually really curious to see how this character will shape up in the long term. If it turns out making good use of his down-b is a necessity to be competitively viable, i can't imagine this character being common at all. Menuing during gameplay is such an awkward thing to do!

 

[Vyrnx]

You also don't have to actually get hit by Peach's stitch to be affected by turnip pull RNG. If Peach pulls bomb, stitch, saturn, dot eyes, whatever the match is going to change dramatically for as long as the item is on screen, e.g. neutral isn't going to be played the same way.

The main difference between Peach RNG and some other RNG is that you can see turnip RNG happen before it hits you--that's not true of a crit fsmash or a 9.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Yeah, but heavies also tend to have super laggy smash attacks and generally don't have swords (Ganondorf notwithstanding). If Link were hitting as hard as Ganondorf, then you'd have a case. The fact of the matter is, you have them hitting harder than heavies without the downsides of being a heavy.

When you get a read land a heavy's usually 20+ frame F-smash, you can always count on it to hit stupid hard.

When you land Hero's frame 17 F-smash, its a toss up between if it'll hit really stupid hard or just hit hard.

Not really the same thing.

 

[Rizen]

Hero's Fsmash will probably kill around 70% on average, non crit based on testing vs Mario.

The thing about Peach's turnips is you have a 2.7% chance to get any of a bomb, Mr.Saturn or stitchface. There's really no comparing her to Hero's levels of RNG.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

Hero's Fsmash will probably kill around 70% on average, non crit based on testing vs Mario.

The thing about Peach's turnips is you have a 2.7% chance to get any of a bomb, Mr.Saturn or stitchface. There's really no comparing her to Hero's levels of RNG.

True, but it's way safer for her to roll the dice and she's also guaranteed to get something very useful for her gameplan, so the comparison is inappropriate in both directions. You're right that the RNG is way more relevant for Hero, but I'm not sure whether that's good or bad for him.

Also, for all the talk of hero's RNG being "bad design," I am happy that they went nuts with the 77th character to be added to the game. There are plenty of more traditional characters already. It would only be a problem if it turns out to break the competitive scene, in which case we can expect a ban or, much more likely, a good old nerf.

 

[Bladeviper]

..No, no it doesn't. Your iframes run out just at the end, I tested this three times, it doesn't work at all and it's also assuming you make it to the ledge before he bursts. Your best option is to pray you only get grazed by the very end of the attack, which is still a very bad option. If the Hero gets a MB off when you're trying to recover, you're just dead most of the time.

https://youtu.be/wqsabdymbbw?t=520

nairo does it in this video at 8:40 if the timestamp didnt work

 

[NotLiquid]

https://youtu.be/wqsabdymbbw?t=520

nairo does it in this video at 8:40 if the timestamp didnt work

Nairo grabs the ledge when the attack has already started and before the hitbox overlaps the ledge for the two-frame. Him avoiding the attack is down to pure clutch more than anything. Samsora was also keeping a good distance from the ledge, presumably because he didn't anticipate receiving Magic Burst as an option. If Samsora either initiated the attack earlier to get a two-frame, did it later to intercept the getup/drop, or just generally kept closer to the ledge, there'd be nothing Nairo could do.

 

[AxelVDP]

I wanted to make this post earlier but it seems some people have already been hinting at these concepts

DISCLAIMER: the aim of this post is not to prove that "Hero should be banned" or that he is badly designed, that is a different topic

You also don't have to actually get hit by Peach's stitch to be affected by turnip pull RNG. If Peach pulls bomb, stitch, saturn, dot eyes, whatever the match is going to change dramatically for as long as the item is on screen, e.g. neutral isn't going to be played the same way.

The main difference between Peach RNG and some other RNG is that you can see turnip RNG happen before it hits you--that's not true of a crit fsmash or a 9.

To expand upon this
Let's talk about RNG: what constitutes "good" (personally, I'd rather say "acceptable") RNG and why is RNG ever implemented?
A multiplayer game (not even necessarily a turbo competitive game) is fun when there's a certain Depth in the interactions* that occur between the players. **
Having your mind challanged with quick decision making if fun, and this is where RNG can be good as it presents you with possible options that you need to make the best of. *** This kind of RNG is also accettable in multiplayer games since it brings forth varied interactions between the players, that is, if all players are able to strategize around this random event (which means that being reactable is a prerequisite). In the Hero's case, the whole concept of his downB fits this description decently, as do Peachs turnips.
Bad RNG would be something that actually -reduces- interactions and their depth. A random insta death removes a stock worth of interactions, the chances of a good result in a move might degenerate the game into less interesting interactions (fishing), and so on
A good example of terrible RNG would be Brawl's tripping, even casuals hated that mechanic. Less major offenders are G&W's 9 and Luigi's missfire, though at least these CAN be somewhat fun. And of course, Hero's crits and random insta kills.

Personally, I do dislike RNG (in fighting games) very much, but there's something I dislike more: seeing the community get toxic

* it is to note that having lots of options for possible interactions does not make them more meaningful, in fact I'd argue that it's pretty common for games to add lots of fluff that does not impact the gameplay in any meaningful way (and depending on the type of game, that could also be fine) - this is why games like DiveKick, a game with just 2 buttons, manages to be more entertaining than it should be

** which is why I think DI (in most of its forms) is one of the best mechanics ever implemented in a fighting game, it creates meaningful interactions even in gamestates where other games would simply let one of the player sit idly (ie getting comboed), and it does so in an elegant way that fits the game perfectly

*** an example: Tetris, the game would be -boring- if the random element was not in it bacause it would reduce the gameplay to simple iterations of algorithms -- do note though that throughout history Tetris' RNG got changed quite a bit, most modern games of Tetris make it so that you cannot get the same piece repeatedly for example

I apologize if this post is all over the place.

 

[PK Gaming]

Ridley is nightmarish to face now, dang

He's got Bowser syndrome in the sense that making mistakes vs him is extremely punishing

Be careful out there...

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Warios are popping off hard at EVO right now lol. He's really dangerous in high pressure environments like EVO. Every mistake is soooo punishing.

 

[Rizen]

Warios are popping off hard at EVO right now lol. He's really dangerous in high pressure environments like EVO. Every mistake is soooo punishing.

Yeah Wario's def top tier. Waft is such a ridiculous tool on a character who can kill fine without it.

 

[boysilver400]

Is in top 8 at evo once again with Raito. He’s definitely high tier. really hates him too(or st least I do).

I think could be high tier also. Elegant’s been making waves with him and (I think?? Smash.gg is running slowly) he’s either top 16 or got 17th at evo

 

[Aaron1997]

EVO 2019 TOP 8

Winners

Raito vs Gluttony
Tweekvs Samsora

Losers

Light vs Protobanham
Zackrayvs Mkleo

9th

Dabuz
Kameme
Nietono
Abadango

13th

Marss
Mr.R
Shuton
Scatt

17th

Wadi
Nairo
Elegent
HIKARU
Plup
Pandarian
Shogun
Maister

25th

Stroder
Kept
ESAM
Rotsuku
Seven
Myran
Sinji
Vintendo

33rd

Zenyou
Cyro
Skilly
Lea
Salem
Masashi
Zaki
CaptainZack
Sparg0
Puppeh
Kome
Chag
Eim
Dragoomba
Mao
MastaMario

49th

Etsuji
Prodigy
istudying
Lui$
Atelier
AC
Umeki
Javi
Seth
VoiD
Mew2king
JW
Gackt
Wizzrobe
Flow
LarryLurr

 

[ZephyrZ]

I've been working all day so I missed it, but a Duck Hunt in winners? Clearly we've been sleeping on them. Even with match unfamiliarity on their side making it that far is no easy feat. This game's full of surprises.

I used to say that PT was high tier, but not quite good enough to be top tier. Now that Tweak has picked him up I'm starting to think I may have just been stuck in a Smash 4 mentality on that. I was probably subconsciously using as a reference point when I used the term "oppressive" - even in Ultinate that character has always been a personal weakness of mine. When I start comparing PT to and (worth noting they both made top 8 as well), I start to see how my character's neutral and advantage are both very fkexible and strong relative to the Ultimate meta.

Ivy nerfs are definitely going to hurt going forward (I'm particularly feeling the effects of the kill confirm nerf myself), but Zard buffs are going to mitigate that somewhat and I don't think PT is going to fall off the map amy time soon.

Also I'm very surprised to see MKLeo in losers. Seems like people finally are figuring Joker out. Not that I doubt that the character is top tier. Character impressions aside though, I seeing MKLeo in the more vulnerable side of top 8 certainly spices things up. This could be anyone's game.

 

[Rizen]

EVO 2019 TOP 8

Winners

Raito vs Gluttony
Tweekvs Samsora

Losers

Light vs Protobanham
Zackrayvs Mkleo

9th

Dabuz
Kameme
Nietono
Abadango

13th

Marss
Mr.R
Shuton
Scatt

17th

Wadi
Nairo
Elegent
HIKARU
Plup
Pandarian
Shogun
Maister

25th

Stroder
Kept
ESAM
Rotsuku
Seven
Myran
Sinji
Vintendo

33rd

Zenyou
Cyro
Skilly
Lea
Salem
Masashi
Zaki
CaptainZack
Sparg0
Puppeh
Kome
Chag
Eim
Dragoomba
Mao
MastaMario

49th

Etsuji
Prodigy
istudying
Lui$
Atelier
AC
Umeki
Javi
Seth
VoiD
Mew2king
JW
Gackt
Wizzrobe
Flow
LarryLurr

Some observations:
is doing fine without Tweek. On a lesser character losing a top 2 player would be a huge blow but Wario has Glutonny, Abadango and others carrying the torch.
is not dropping off. Light also got 5th at defend the North.
survived the nerf waves and although he isn't as prominent or common as a few months ago he's still a top 5 character.
hasn't dropped off either. Is she basic or does she have amazing option coverage? (the answer is both)
is obviously good and would be fine without Leo. But he's not appearing everywhere like . You have 2 Joker heads. I admit I underestimated Joker but he's not "the best character", that's Leo, or even a top 3.
are these characters high tier or are Raito and Elegant absurdly good? There's a case for both but this game is balanced well enough that it's entirely possible for a mid tier to preform well at a major.
this character's so good yet so easily overlooked. Mega preforms well all over the place and even beat Leo's Joker and MVD's Snake. He deserves more spotlight.
I've got to admit PT's standing strong with or without Tweek. Tweek's a wild card; he pulls Roy out of nowhere and beats the 3rd best player, Marss, then he pulls PT out of nowhere and wins several big tournaments. I honestly think he and Leo could sweep everyone except each other with any high tier or above (like Leo's Ike).
I think PT's A popular and B enjoying the lower power level of top tier. I've seen pre-patch Pichu fight PT and thought 'Pichu's just better than PT'. I've seen the same thing with post patch Wolf; the PT player seemed to be playing at least as well but Wolf's options were just more powerful. PT seems like a high, not top tier to me. But I can't deny the flood of results so maybe there's something I'm missing.
had a good showing yet couldn't play with the big boys in top 8.
what are they doing up there? It goes to show how balanced this game is that they could make it.
sadly YL fell short again. I wish he had top player rep.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Some note-taking and stuffz, sort of as a warm-up before Top 8:

The Bad Stuff:

- Despite the strong rep had under his belt, not a single Mario solo main placed Top 32 or higher; two Marios getting 33rd at a big tournament at EVO is good news, but ANTi, Prodigy, and Dark Wizzy were all knocked out pretty early, which is especially unfortunate after Dark Wizzy had such a good run at Thunder Smash. Hopefully, Dark Wizzy will truly be able to shine at Smash Con, but for now, the jump man is at a stagnant place at the moment.

THAT said, one Mario main in particular completely surpassed my expectations, and anyone who was watching EVO closely would know who I'm talking about: MastaMario. Aside from outplacing nearly every Mario solo main except Zenyou, MastaMario had an impressive Loser's Bracket run, 2-0ing Fatality, Dark Wizzy, and Larry Lurr all in a row before losing to Myran. Given that he outplaced his seeding by quite a bit (33rd vs. 125th), I hope this marks the beginning for something truly great.

- is continuing to see success, but after what seemed like a dominance of Snakes in the early metagame of Ultimate, his grip over the competitive scene has been noticeably loosened. Salem and Shogun both had impressive runs, placing 33rd and 17th respectively, but MVD unfortunately fell short at 65th, and no Snakes were able to make it to top 8 (Scatt and Mr R did have two Snake secondaries and placed 13th, so that's pretty good, at least). I still feel that Snake is a top tier, but other characters/players are definitely catching up to his little tricks and shenanigans. And in that regard, I think I'm starting to see why Ultimate has not nerfed him at all as of yet, even if he is blatantly bonkers.

- Today was not a good day for , , or To start with the really bad stuff, ven did not do well, placing a whooping 193rd at EVO (over 100 ranks lower than his seeding); Ven had an unfortunate run in with YMCA early on, and things went downhill from thereon. I really hope ven is able to bounce back, because things are not looking good for Zelda right now. Captain Falcon did not fare much better, as Fatality ended up placing 97th after losing to MastaMario; while C. Falcon shows great promise as a counter-pick, he hasn't been able to go much beyond that, and based on his tweets, Fatality is not happy with Captain Falcon currently. Cookieslayer was only able to place 129th after an unfortunate run-in with Maister early on; YL's presence is diminishing slowly, and from the looks of it, it'll be up to Supashimmie to represent him.

- Neither or did very well, contrary to what their seedings would suggest; T unfortunately lost to both Mr R and then Eim immediately after, landing him a 65th place, a fair amount lower than his seed. Cosmos had his worst placement yet, placing 65th after losing to Larry Lurr, and just when Inkling needed it most, Abadango decided not to pull her out at all, instead opting for Wario the whole tournament. Cosmos didn't seem to be all that focused judging by his early set with Dank, so it's possible that's the biggest reason for his low placement. Good news for Inkling, though, she's still riding off her major success in Smash Factor 8, so not placing that well in EVO isn't too much of a blow to her top tier status. Link, unfortunately, doesn't have that luxury.

- seemed to suffer a MAJOR case off "Fox at CEO" syndrome, because almost every major Greninja main (Lea, Stroder, and iStudying) were all forced to fight through the same bracket; with that kind of luck, it's no wonder why only one of them was able to make it to top 32 (who also had to fight WaDi right after, RiP). As a result, Greninja didn't do quite as well as I had hoped (though still pretty good), but I feel this is more of a product of just a really unfortunate arrangement.

- is really struggling to retain the same level of oppressiveness that his pre-patch version was capable of, with not a single Pichu main even breaking top 48; I didn't think that Pichu's nerfs affected it all that much, but out of every nerfed character at first, but after seeing how unkind the meta has been to it as of late, Pichu is definitely feeling the sting of the balance patches the most. Unless things suddenly turn up overnight (hey, it can happen), I think it's a safe bet to say that Pichu is probably not a top tier anymore.

- just can't seem to get rid of the "amazing at regionals, eeeeeehhhhhh at majors" stink he has on him, with not a single Ness breaking top 48 (Gackt placing 49th is pretty good, though); BestNess dropping didn't help things at all, but in terms of meta development, Ness has probably been one of the most stagnant characters in all of Ultimate.

- was unable to prove his supposed top tier status once more, but Samsora's game against Kome did make me understand a little better about what top players see in him; kome almost defeated Samsora and brought him to game 3, and his use of Monado Art switching was phenomenal. Still an overhyped as heck character, but I do see seeds of potential.

Now, for the good stuff:

- mains are celebrating everywhere right now, because we not only had one, but TWO Duck Hunt mains in top 32, with Vintendo placing 25th (taking out Kome in the process), and Raito not in the Loser's Side of Top 8, but the WINNER'S side. Given how consistently strong Raito has been doing, given the types of players he has been defeating (Dabuz, Maister, Shuton) to reach where he's out, I honestly don't see Duck Hunt as anything less than high tier. Maybe not top tier, since it is mostly Raito getting work done, if anything, Raito is showing you can definitely get work done with him. Guess it turns out not being able to kill doesn't really seem to mean much when Duck Hunt doesn't let you play the game 95% of the time anyway.

- I dunno if Japan has a "bring your to work" day, because that's what it certainly felt like with Abadango and Nietono shredding through the brackets with their Wario's; Gluttony in particular has improved so much since Smash Factor, now on the Top 8 Winner's Side of EVO. Wario is seriously looking like one of the frontrunners of Patch 4.0.0; it almost feels like the apocalypse all over again.

- Despite the nerfs, is still looking as fabulous as ever. Samsora continues to see major success with Peach, and has done a great job of covering up Peach's more noticeable weakness (i.e. having a hard time killing sometimes); the fact that Peach can still KO with BAir/NAir/cheese stocks with FAir, while also getting 80% damage off of a combo, really makes the nerfs look like nothing in comparison.

- After what looked to be a downwards spiral for , Light is suddenly back, and with a vengeance too, defeating Marss, WaDi, and Dabuz all in a row just to get into Losers Top 8; Fox's issues may look more pronounced, but there's one thing he's still good at it more than anything else, and that's scaring the living daylights out of people at kill percents. USmash is just such an oppressive punish tool, especially when compounded with Fox's top tier speed.

- and continue to show decent success in the tournament scene, with Zaki, Sparg0, and Masashi all placing 33rd, each with a noticeable win (Masashi against ANTi, Sparg0 against uncivil ninja, and Zaki against both Umeki and Nicko); not much to prove they're high tier threats, but also nothing to prove that they should be slept on, especially in the case of DDD since player opinion has seemingly fallen of him.

- was the definite creeper in the shadows of this tournament, because I don't think anyone expected a Villager to place 25th, much less bring Nairo of all people to game 3 AND to his last tournament stock. Kept did a great job of showing that it's sometimes really easy to get overwhelmed by Villager's barrage of slingshots and Lloid Rockets. Hopefully he's able to keep up this level of success.

- Things continue to look up for both and . Both Elegant and Maister had some excellent runs for this tournament, with both placing 17th and taking out some pretty big names (with Elegant defeating Masashi, Scatt, and ESAM, and Maister defeating VoiD, Puppeh, and Vintendo while taking a game off of MKLeo). I really hope they continue to go further, because aside from Raito, Elegant and Maister have made some of the biggest improvements I have ever seen across the Smash community. I'm not sure if I'm completely sold on Luigi or GnW being high tiers (though maybe for GnW since Regi's still great), I don't blame anyone who thinks otherwise.

- Despite Larry Lurr deciding to mostly go for this tournament, today was a pretty good day for . Seven by far had the biggest disparity between his placement and his seeding, managing to nab a solid 25th placement while notably taking out Prodigy in the process; I hope other players are inspired from this notable victory, because oh my lord, Falco is such a fun character to watch lol

Overall, lots of upsets, emotions, crying, happiness, etc.... TLDR, things look great for some characters, things look bad for others, and things look about the same for a few others.

EDIT: Oh yeah... AHA! I told you was a top tier!! Okay, for real, this tournament alone is probably not enough to prove that he is, but dang, this was a good tournament for him. Kameme defeating MKLeo helped just a biiiiittttt with that.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

I'll stray away from the Hero topic to talk about another character who keeps getting relevant buffs and I'm not exactly sure why him over lower characters.

4.0 was no exception for him, I'm obviously talking about .

Bolding in the above quote is mine, because this is sort of a hobby horse for me. (Note that I'm just using your post as a jumping off point, Myollnir; from this point on, I'm using the term "you" as a general reference to the reader.)

If the devs find a design for your favorite character that works for Smash, meaning the fighter can compete but isn't broken or reliant on a very small number of tools, you're in a very good spot. It's a sort of design blueprint, such that even if a character is weak initially, the devs know how to make them competent. By contrast, if your favorite character has never been good in any Smash game, I advise against holding your breath for patches to fix that.

When Ultimate was first released, there were many, many characters stronger than Sheik, but I maintained that Sheik had a better chance of reaching high or even top tier than many of those stronger characters, and I still believe that, because Smash 4 demonstrated a clear design path for Sheik. It took a few versions of her being overpowered in that game to get there, but the concept works. Funnily enough, Smash 4 Sheik doesn't share a whole lot with her Melee self, so while Sheik has been a tournament threat in two games, the version of her we have today is very new. Mewtwo is in sort of a similar spot, though he was initially underpowered in Smash 4, rather than dominant.

I think it was Shaya who once described Mewtwo's glow-up from Melee to Smash 4 as "psychic lemur turns into Bizarro Ganon", but whoever said it, I find it apt. Melee Mewtwo didn't really have a coherent design, likely due to his being added to the game so late; this contributed to his being weak but was also its own separate issue. Now that Smash 4 has demonstrated the viability of his glass cannon zoner design for competitive play, the devs have a pretty clear idea of what direction to go with his buffs. Thus, he gets more buffs, even if other fighters are in greater need. (In his case specifically, many of his tools got nerfed in the transition to Ultimate, but his attacks have been improved with patches. His disadvantage is still bad, though. The second best thing about his Smash 4 airdodge was that it came out on frame 2. The best thing was that it was interruptible on frame 29, which is nuts. The longer lag on the end has been killing him in Ultimate. He also still gets nothing out of landing the tip of down tilt, but we'll see where he goes from here. He might be good enough to make waves now. Honestly, I feel the thing most holding back his representation was that he was frequently very frustrating to play, and the jury's out on how much that's changed, though the changes to up smash have already reduced my sighs per match by roughly 10%.)

Certain characters have had working, competitively viable designs as far back as Melee, or perhaps even 64. Think Pikachu and Fox in particular. I'd also mention Captain Falcon here, who is perhaps my favorite design in the series as a whole; I could write so much about him. He's not a lock for top or even high tier, but the devs know what they want him to be. (Brawl Falcon is a weird anomaly here, I admit. Not sure how that happened.) Mario, Nintendo's flagship character, feels like he didn't have much of an identity as a fighter until Smash 4, but he's doing well nowadays. There's another fighter who ought to spring to mind for this group: I will be extremely surprised if Marth is still a forgotten character by the time Ultimate patches are done.

Other fighters are caught in limbo because they relied heavily on a few options or had, ah, issues with their designs, even if they were competitive. Corrin was strong in Smash 4, but relied a ton on Pin. It seems like the devs are having trouble finding out what to do with the character now, though other nerfs also hurt Corrin, and I'm not sure how popular they'd be anyway. Maybe they should just bring back the super Pin. Ice Climbers and Bayonetta are also in this camp, I think. They've been strong in the past, but in ways that most players didn't care for, to put it mildly. (As Das Koopa said, these two became infamous for their punishes and how players felt they weren't playing the same game as the rest of the cast. For my money, I thought Cloud was the strongest character in Smash 4, though I may be totally alone there, but Bayo was far more likely to be banned than him. I think that's partially because of how out-of-place she felt, though I'd say it was also a function of putting an SDI-testing, death-comboing, disadvantage-reversing fighter in a game without a functional training mode. Cloud definitely felt like a top tier Smash character, and I don't mean that as a compliment to his design, but that's not really a topic for this thread.) Jigglypuff is another one that belongs in this group. There's clear tension between Sing and Rest in her kit, for one thing. Intriguingly enough, I've heard from many players that find Luigi obnoxious, but he's still comboing people to death out of grab. Not sure what to say about that, other than that he's also very different than he was in Melee.

Finally, there are fighters that have never been strong competitively, and it's not clear how they could get there; it's possible they're more intended for casual play than anything else. As happy as I am that Mewtwo has a solid blueprint, I'm equally frustrated with Zelda. She could be mid tier in Ultimate, and that's the best she's ever been. I don't foresee patches changing this much. I think she probably has to lose one of the lightning kicks, which isn't a change that's going to happen in a released game, but maybe next time (if there is a next time?). Also in this group of fighters is Ganon, the free-for-all extraordinaire. I've joked before that getting into Melee is the worst thing that ever happened to him, but it's not really a joke. I said that I love Falcon's design, but that design only works because he's great at whiff punishing and comboing, two strengths that flow directly from his speed. Take that speed away, and the character basically falls apart. An interesting wrinkle that Zelda and Ganon bring up: they're not strong in tournaments, but are notably better in WiFi play. So not only do the devs have to balance casual and competitive, they have to make characters competitive in ways that don't end up miserable with a bit of lag. I don't envy the balance team for that conundrum.

But hope springs eternal, if not necessarily in regard to patches. With Ultimate, it seems like the devs have found good designs for Pichu, Bowser, and Roy, who were various degrees of underwhelming in the past, apart from Jujitsu Bowser in Smash 4, and I think we're all glad that design didn't stick around. Link is probably the best he's ever been, though he wasn't bad in Smash 4.

So, questions for the thread: which characters do you think got functional game plans in the transition to Ultimate that they didn't have before, but just don't have quite enough juice in them yet? Those could be characters to watch for buffs in future patches. On the flip side, which fighters do you think are dangerously reliant on a few tools or obnoxious to play against? They might see nerfs, but that isn't always a death sentence. Smash 4 Luigi used to have down throw into cyclone, if you recall (if you'd rather not, I understand). Can universal engine changes between Smash titles make a character design unsalvageable? Jiggs is definitely weaker in titles with weaker edge-guarding. If later titles were more like Brawl, Falcon might still be unplayable.

Most importantly, am I off base with all this? Do clear designs and game plans mean that much? It's not clear to me that Falco has an established design across multiple games, apart from vertical comboing. But I don't think he's obnoxious or reliant on one move, and he's turned out alright in Ultimate. Maybe I just haven't examined him closely enough.

Edit: Another question: Is there a character whose design changed in a way that you didn't care for, even if they're still strong? Do you wish Falco's shine still popped your opponent up? Did you prefer killing people with Melee Sheik's forward air, and the new direction just doesn't do it for you? A Metallica "Black Album" moment, if you will? Or a Radiohead moment. "The Bends" is their best album.

 

[B_Burg]

Well, if nothing else I can say this Evo proved my concerns over were not justified as of now.

Great performances by everyone. Really happy to see it and I hope other people check out the character. He's super fun.

 

[bc1910]

I had an entire bumper post written on Hero which has disappeared for reasons genuinely unknown.

Suffice to say I think he’s a low tier with top tier specials. His normals aren’t Plant tier but they’re certainly not good, his frame data is laughable in places and unlike Link he doesn’t have any fast options with a good hitbox to use as get off me or neutral tools. His disadvantage feels heavy tier at times. The specials of course are godlike; outside of the neutral B landing traps I’m increasingly interested in side B level 2 which has huge range and decent speed. If used smartly it should be able to contest the midrange burst options which otherwise blow Hero up.

Hero loses hard to rushdown, pressure and bait and punish. The Greninja MU is just sad, if Greninja waits around in mid range he can react to everything Hero does and hit his startup or endlag with dash attack which leads straight into his strong advantage state. Pikachu rushes Hero down hard, and Wolf camps him pretty hard whilst threatening a reflect on Hero’s most devastating tools. Hero can’t do much to escape the vortexes of characters like Fox and Inkling. The Joker MU actually seems doable, I saw Nairo fighting Arhungry on stream and whist it’s true that Hero is kinda boned against Arsene he can certainly contest Joker in his base form due to his lack of oomph (har har), slightly stubby range and fairly DI-able vortexes.

Ban talk is frankly ludicrous for a character that has been out for less than a week. I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t have a huge RNG factor, he will win some games he shouldn’t in his competitive life, but he’s not going to be cheesing whole tournaments with such seemingly bad MUs against a slew of top tiers.

EVO 2019 TOP 8

Winners

Raito vs Gluttony
Tweekvs Samsora

Losers

Light vs Protobanham
Zackrayvs Mkleo

9th

Dabuz
Kameme
Nietono
Abadango

13th

Marss
Mr.R
Shuton
Scatt

17th

Wadi
Nairo
Elegent
HIKARU
Plup
Pandarian
Shogun
Maister

25th

Stroder
Kept
ESAM
Rotsuku
Seven
Myran
Sinji
Vintendo

33rd

Zenyou
Cyro
Skilly
Lea
Salem
Masashi
Zaki
CaptainZack
Sparg0
Puppeh
Kome
Chag
Eim
Dragoomba
Mao
MastaMario

49th

Etsuji
Prodigy
istudying
Lui$
Atelier
AC
Umeki
Javi
Seth
VoiD
Mew2king
JW
Gackt
Wizzrobe
Flow
LarryLurr

The Greninja team kills were super unfortunate. Greninja actually did really well here though, he had a stronger overall showing in top 64 than a big chunk of characters who often get placed above him these days including Pichu, Chroy, Mario and ROB. As long as the player has a secondary for his seriously disadvantaged top tier MUs (Snake, maybe Pika, and PT is starting to look pretty bad, although 4.0.0 will definitely help since Gren blows Zard up regardless and he will appreciate the nerf to cheesy Ivy Up B kills as well as Ivy’s significantly worse mid range zoning) there’s no reason Greninja can’t compete at top level, we just need a player to do it.

Also, player skill is a factor that is underlooked far more than it should be. Tweek has been killing tournaments since release with a slew of characters including Wolf, Wario and now PT, and he can clearly do well with whoever he plays. Same goes for Leo with Ike, Lucina and Joker. Ultimate is extremely well balanced and the most skilled players are winning most of the time, as they should be. Getting top 8s, good results etc is not the only indicator of how good a character is, it’s the same pool of players who are getting that far.

Shoutouts to Raito for being a truly incredible player. Great to see Zackray doing well again too.

In general for most national voting, if a referendum occurs and its a 50.1/49.9% split, the former wins, and once the pain and doomsday calls of the latter are actualized as falsehood, terms like "everyone" or holistic implications become a lot more common place.

Or, in the case of Brexit (a 52/48 national split), denial of the “pain and doomsday” claims which are actually looking to be true, to the point that following through with the result of the referendum has become an exercise of sheer damage control with few if any genuine positives at least in the short-to-medium term.

But I guess this isn’t the place for politics.

 

[NotLiquid]

Rough tournament for Inkling. Chag placed really well given his seed and at least gave the character a bit of a boost but Cosmos' placement hurts. A lot of aspects to his play has begun to legitimately show signs of wear over the weeks as I feel he's been on autopilot too much lately. His first game against Dank on stream was bewilderingly sloppy. EVO nerves have been pretty palpable among top seeds. What's funny is that I felt FullStream's performance on stream was actually really inspiring and exciting to see manifest, despite not advancing further in bracket it felt like the kind of unique play I wanted to see more of. Would love to see Proto's Inkling come out but he's been on a tear with Lucina so I'm not holding my breath.

EDIT: Small correction; Proto used Inkling against Mr. R and ended up winning the set, so it seems like his Inkling has seen some use and is still going to earn a notable boost by proxy.

Really glad to see Mega Man have such a breakout tournament. I wouldn't have anticipated Plup to be such a force to be reckoned with, especially on such a stacked stage.

Hoping most of these players who went out criminally early get a chance at redemption in Super Smash Con. Man, what is it about EVO that always powers up the Japanese players across every game in the lineup though? Always hiding their power levels for this very event I tell you.

 

[Krysco]

So, questions for the thread: which characters do you think got functional game plans in the transition to Ultimate that they didn't have before, but just don't have quite enough juice in them yet? Those could be characters to watch for buffs in future patches. On the flip side, which fighters do you think are dangerously reliant on a few tools or obnoxious to play against? They might see nerfs, but that isn't always a death sentence. Smash 4 Luigi used to have down throw into cyclone, if you recall (if you'd rather not, I understand). Can universal engine changes between Smash titles make a character design unsalvageable? Jiggs is definitely weaker in titles with weaker edge-guarding. If later titles were more like Brawl, Falcon might still be unplayable.

Most importantly, am I off base with all this? Do clear designs and game plans mean that much? It's not clear to me that Falco has an established design across multiple games, apart from vertical comboing. But I don't think he's obnoxious or reliant on one move, and he's turned out alright in Ultimate. Maybe I just haven't examined him closely enough.

Edit: Another question: Is there a character whose design changed in a way that you didn't care for, even if they're still strong? Do you wish Falco's shine still popped your opponent up? Did you prefer killing people with Melee Sheik's forward air, and the new direction just doesn't do it for you? A Metallica "Black Album" moment, if you will? Or a Radiohead moment. "The Bends" is their best album.

For your first question, Samus comes to mind. The ability to charge in midair, perfect shields being taken out while parries don't help against projectiles and tether grabs not being far inferior to normal grabs have helped her a lot. Also the better edgeguarding in this game further helps as all of her aerials can edgeguard well with uair and zair less so since the former can sometimes combo at low percents into fair or nair offstage and the latter can snipe double jumps. Charge Shot offstage further helps. She still suffers from having a bad jab and if anything, the way Ultimate changed jabs made it worse since before it would at least pop the opponent up eventually.

Ike immediately comes to mind for your other question. In Brawl, I don't believe he had too noteworthy of a gameplan outside of spacing while Smash 4 made him a sword wielding grappler of sorts. Then in Ultimate they nerfed grabs across the board and created Ike nair. I don't even see Ike pop up in tournament results anymore with MKLeo focusing on Joker and before that, Lucina but I and I'm sure many others would rather Ike not be so reliant on his nair.

Falcon being as bad as he is in Brawl I feel largely has to do with the abysmal hitstun that game has. Falcon needs to be able to combo to make his punish game noteworthy and he has combos in every game but Brawl.

And speaking of Falcon, you brought up how Ganon's design doesn't work as he's based on Falcon's design but with far less speed and I feel Dr. Mario is similar in that regard. Both Doc and Ganon were at their best in Melee (I suppose it's debatable for Ganon now) and that's when they were both most similar to the character they're based on. And much like Ganon, Doc suffers a lot from his lack of speed along with his poor recovery.

Kirby is another character that's much like Ganon and Zelda, being a rather bad character across every Smash game except 64. Poor ground and air speed, poor range, lacking frame data in the air, no projectiles to force approaches, a poor up special for recovery purposes. Brawl was the best he ever did outside of 64 and he has a crazy grab game at early percents in that game and I'm sure edgehogging helped too.

As for your last question, I do miss Melee Falco shine, blaster, dair and bair. Shine is the only one I'm really not satisfied with in Ultimate. I think it would've been neat if they still had it pop up and allow for combos even with the kicking animation Brawl onwards gave it. I'd have a lot more to complain about if this was Smash 4 Falco we were talking about but Ultimate thankfully fixed a lot of his issues from that game.

For that matter, I miss Melee/Brawl Fox and Brawl Wolf too. I miss Fox's faster Illusion even if it meant he couldn't Fire Fox after and I miss his jab set ups and lagless blaster. Melee shine was just silly but most of all for Fox, I miss his edgeguarding. Fox actually had reason to go offstage and edgeguard in 64, Melee and to a lesser extent Brawl but from Smash 4 onwards, his aerials really weren't designed for offstage use so usually the best thing for him to do is ledgeguard, just letting the opponent recover to ledge for free. For Wolf, I miss his longer ranged fsmash, his DACUS, his semi spiking dthrow, Wolf Flash cancels, scaring, his longer reaching jab and I miss his old bair more than anything. Wolf was actually the one character I voted for in the Smash Ballot and while I'm happy he's in Ultimate and happy he's a good character, he's not the same to me and so I only really have him as a pocket character to pull out every now and then to change things up.

Lastly, I guess there's me missing Brawl Pikachu too but that character is such a unique case. Being able to Quick Attack Cancel all over the stage, chaingrabbing to rack up damage and edgehogging allowing for easy edgeguards. We're never gonna get another character like Brawl Pika and I don't think anyone would want one anyway.

 

[Lacrimosa]

needs some buffs.
It's just sad to see and it looks true that she does well at the beginning but falls slowly but steadily.

 

[NotLiquid]

This should probably be brought up here but following a pretty devastating EVO loss, Fatality is considering giving up on competitive play. Despite feeling like he's reached the ceiling with Falcon, he feels incapable of abandoning him, despite not even performing that well at locals, and is considering putting his talent to better use elsewhere. He suggests that he's either going to focus on content creation, or try picking up Chrom.
https://twitter.com/FatalityFalcon