Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[$.A.F.]

think it just took a second for an unfamiliar matchup to click. like when lima played meister at ssc round one he looked confused and overwhelmed for game 1 and proceed to easily beat him in games 2 and 3.
Yes PP is bad. We've dissected why: bad normals, niche specials, bad disadvantage, and can get zoned being in GF at one event isnt enough to change that opinion. Is PP neutral B good? yes, but thats not enough to lift the character from the depths of low or bottom tier.
sometimes a good player can make a bad character overachieve its nothing new.
also at 4:24 enjoy.

The difference is Plant isn’t very unfamiliar for Japan at all compared to other regions. Brood and Rai have been playing Plant for months now. But lately Plant has been improving. Greward got 17th at Albion. Brood 2-0d Ken a few weeks ago. Brood got GFs here and beat players such as Shuton and Gackt. And at this event Rai also got 17th. These are multiple players and not just a one time thing either. And again we’ve seen other players significantly raise viability impressions for a perceived low tier by themselves. Raito, Ranai, Maister, Mang0, Kameme, I can go on. If the results are overachieving the tier list placements then we discuss the character being better than perceived. Horrible characters don’t get GF in one of the most stacked regions in the world at an A Tier. Especially when the region has more experience against the “Horrible” character than anyone else in the world. ESPECIALLY running through multiple top players like Zaki, Shuton, and Gackt who all from weeklies or majors have experience against his Plant. Show me smash 4 Puff, Ganondorf, or D3 doing this. Show me any Melee bottom tiers doing this. Show me Brawl Ganondorf doing this. Show me Ult Kirby doing this. Show me trash characters doing this while getting consistently decent results with other players and the best player consistently beating top ones.

 

[NotLiquid]

If Plant is bottom tier then Ultimate is the most balanced fighting game of all time.

 

[$.A.F.]

If Plant is bottom tier then Ultimate is the most balanced fighting game of all time.

Tekken 7 Panda

 

[The_Bookworm]

Found another difference between Roy and Chrom, particularly their forward smash:

Also here's their comparison for F-Smash i made. Roy uses some wierd interpolation on his frames, like @Meshima_ stated, while Chrom uses normal hitboxes.
This is due to Roy's animation being different because its missing a frame (As shown on the second picture). pic.twitter.com/KQlkXpV08U

— Foxyjoe (@FoxyjoeOnTweet) July 3, 2019

In other words, Chrom's forward smash has one more frame of hitbox duration (frames 13-15) than Roy's (frames 13-14).

Here's another comparison with f-tilt between Chrom and Roy.
Also i forgot to mention that Roy uses his "Boi-spot" for Fsmash as well, here it is corrected.

The boispot is wierd, because it uses different values and is either a weak sweetspot (smash) or a strong sourspot (tilt). pic.twitter.com/VUsqDeEg9Q

— Foxyjoe (@FoxyjoeOnTweet) July 4, 2019

In other words, Chrom's forward smash is stronger than Roy's in every way except for the small red spot near Roy (the sweetspot).

 

[|RK|]

I feel like we said Plant beats Olimar a long time ago. But it was one of those things people blew off.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Well for one we have established that the gap between tiers is less prevalent in Ultimate than other games that’s pretty well accepted. Being a weaker or bad character doesn’t condemn you to bad results for all to the time and frankly it never has in any competitive game, it just makes its a lot harder and a lot less commonplace. The key is consistency. Melee Yoshi didn’t move up tier spots over night due to a few head turning exploits by Amsa it took time and consistency. This result is a great for Plant and definitely shows that something could be there but one big spike in a sea of overall mildness to what we usually see doesn’t really speak to tier position. This is why i sighed when people were doubting Wolf and Fox and probably are now doubting Snake because they experienced the inverse of this in that they had or currently are having a streak of mildness relatively to the consistent level we usually see them in and then rebounded back afterwards. (another thing I think people get too worked up in, tiers matters but they also don’t.)

Also comparing Ultimate low/bottom tiers to Melee or Brawl low/bottom tiers is disingenuous as most of those characters didn’t function and even then they still weren’t complete blanks through the lifespan of those games. A more apt comparison would be a S4 Falco or Melee Link, functional characters that overall are weak but not out of the realm of “I can actually achieve some success with”.


Edit: Also the game isn’t even a year old yet this meta is still new. While we may have a good idea of who the best characters are everyone around the 20-77 range is honestly still completely up in the air. We still have a ways to go before we know for certain.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Looking back at Umebura SP 4, there is another big thing to note.


As we all know, Dragon Quest in insanely popular in Japan. When you look at factor, you would assume that there would be numerous players in Japan that would play Hero.

However, similarly to Smash Con, there wasn't really anyone that placed well with Hero. A lot of them drowned in pools. There are only two that broke the top 48 threshold, with Vent placing 33rd. The other happens to be zackray, who is trying his hand out with mostly Hero and using a little bit of Joker. However, that ended up him underperforming, landing at 25th.

Whether this trend of mediocre showings at bigger events for a perceived high tier character will continue remains to be seen, but things are not pointing in the right direction for the character.

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On that side note, this tournament shows once again why Japan is indeed the home-turf of lower tiered characters, with Brood placing 2nd, Tarakotori placing 13th, Rai placing 17th, and Arika placing 25th.

 

[Call_Me_Red]

Looking back at Umebura SP 4, there is another big thing to note.


As we all know, Dragon Quest in insanely popular in Japan. When you look at factor, you would assume that there would be numerous players in Japan that would play Hero.

However, similarly to Smash Con, there wasn't really anyone that placed well with Hero. A lot of them drowned in pools. There are only two that broke the top 48 threshold, with Vent placing 33rd. The other happens to be zackray, who is trying his hand out with mostly Hero and using a little bit of Joker. However, that ended up him underperforming, landing at 25th.

Whether this trend of mediocre showings at bigger events for a perceived high tier character will continue remains to be seen, but things are not pointing in the right direction for the character.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On that side note, this tournament shows once again why Japan is indeed the home-turf of lower tiered characters, with Brood placing 2nd, Tarakotori placing 13th, Rai placing 17th, and Arika placing 25th.

You also have to consider how new Hero is. Leo didn't win his first tournament as Joker, and I'd say Hero is more complicated to learn, so it might take a while to get there.

 

[Nate1080]

You also have to consider how new Hero is. Leo didn't win his first tournament as Joker, and I'd say Hero is more complicated to learn, so it might take a while to get there.

I disagree. Hero is pretty simple to learn compared to Joker.

Hero doesn’t really have any combos to learn, just simple strings and simple tech chases with side/neutral B. His lag on aerials and grounded attacks forces you learn how to not just press buttons blindly, therefore lowering the bar of execution with him. When to press down B is easy when you realize it’s bad in neutral and disadvantage (except when fishing for zoom offstage) unless your opponent is making a ton of mistakes.


Basically, the hardest part about Hero is that using him forces you to learn neutral in this game, instead of finding out how to ignore it like Joker can. Learning neutral is a lot easier than learning how to ignore it.

 

[Impax]

Is plant better than we think? With brood and rai placing well?

 

[NotLiquid]

I disagree. Hero is pretty simple to learn compared to Joker.

Hero doesn’t really have any combos to learn, just simple strings and simple tech chases with side/neutral B. His lag on aerials and grounded attacks forces you learn how to not just press buttons blindly, therefore lowering the bar of execution with him. When to press down B is easy when you realize it’s bad in neutral and disadvantage (except when fishing for zoom offstage) unless your opponent is making a ton of mistakes.


Basically, the hardest part about Hero is that using him forces you to learn neutral in this game, instead of finding out how to ignore it like Joker can. Learning neutral is a lot easier than learning how to ignore it.

A character isn't necessarily easier to learn just because they don't have combos. A whole bunch of Joker's BnBs were learned pretty much day one. Hell even I can do FAir > FAir > jab lock > smash. If I take a character like Inkling, I'd say that learning her at a top level is pretty hard, though learning most of her strings and combos are actually the easiest part about the character, and way easier than having to learn optimizing the setplay of a Belmont, or learning how to optimize Snake's frametraps and working around his mediocre disadvantage state.

Whether Hero is easier to learn than Joker isn't something I find myself qualified to comment on but I think people kinda overrate the importance of "combos" when it comes to learning the character. Not that it isn't important, obviously, but Smash is a game that's so dependent on stage control that the mastery of a character usually boils down to a lot more than how much reward they get off of a confirm, and Hero is a character that has to account for a lot of option selects when he's in part held back by expendable resources and the roll of the dice.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It was also a pretty good showing for ZSS. With Choco placing 5th and Shky at 9th. Shows that its just not Marss just not carrying her ir anything

 

[TimG57867]

I feel like we said Plant beats Olimar a long time ago. But it was one of those things people blew off.

I also vividly remember a long discussion over the idea of beating around that time too. Brood's recent track record with Gackt may have vindicated some of those opinions...

But on a serious note though, the fact this idea can just now be brought up unironically is another testament to how we've not only been prematrue in attempting to assign tiers to a lot of characters but also have been premature in trying to rank matchups as well. Myran actually made a matchup chart for 3.1 and on that chart he had Pirahna Plant listed as a strong advantage for Olimar (aka. +2) which Brood's 2-0 over Shuton flies in the face of. Not only are a lot of characters veritably being underestimated and taking a while to showcase what they're capable of, but a lot of matchups and their dynamics are either being glossed over or are being viewed with inaccurate assumptions due to various factors making it harder to see proper firsthand showcases of a matchup. I wonder what Myran's opinion on the MU would be if this happened prior to him making that chart. It's pretty clear that even top and high level players are not immune to misjuding underplayed matchups and I don't see this kind of thing stopping for a while.

It's often agreed that better characters have generally better matchup spreads so if a lot of underrated characters are slower starting to show they're more capable than previously perceived, that likely means that by extension, their matchup spreads aren't as bad frequently perceived either and speaks of how, just like tier lists, accurate and useful MU charts likely won't be a commodity for quite some time either. Patches and a constantly developing metagame are already making accurate MU charts a hard goal to pursue. And the short supply of capable players for a lot these niche fighters is clearly exacerberating things further with the massive roster overall making proper firsthand MU experience a tougher resource to get for a lot of rarer picks than it ever was in SSB4.

Patience truly will be a virtue in assessing this game's meta.

 

[Nate1080]

A character isn't necessarily easier to learn just because they don't have combos. A whole bunch of Joker's BnBs were learned pretty much day one. Hell even I can do FAir > FAir > jab lock > smash. If I take a character like Inkling, I'd say that learning her at a top level is pretty hard, though learning most of her strings and combos are actually the easiest part about the character, and way easier than having to learn optimizing the setplay of a Belmont, or learning how to optimize Snake's frametraps and working around his mediocre disadvantage state.

Whether Hero is easier to learn than Joker isn't something I find myself qualified to comment on but I think people kinda overrate the importance of "combos" when it comes to learning the character. Not that it isn't important, obviously, but Smash is a game that's so dependent on stage control that the mastery of a character usually boils down to a lot more than how much reward they get off of a confirm, and Hero is a character that has to account for a lot of option selects when he's in part held back by expendable resources and the roll of the dice.

A character being easier because they don’t have many combos is literally not what I said at all. I mentioned it in one sentence, for the overall purpose of illustrating how much simpler it is to learn Hero optimally (at least at the mid level) compared to Joker.

I played both characters. Joker exclusively since launch until Hero dropped. After the initial (but expected) shock of feeling how laggy Hero’s moves are and how risky down B is (btw I love baiting approaches just by pulling up the menu), he becomes a really simple character to play.

Joker, while not super hard or anything, isn’t as simple to play as Hero. You need to maximize all the damage you inflict to the opponent and while trying to not get bodied before Arsene comes out. Easier said then done tbh. Easiest way to do that is to get good at his combos. There’s a reason why, despite everyone saying he’s the best character, after 3-4 months there’s only less than a handful of standout players using Joker.

 

[NotLiquid]

A character being easier because they don’t have many combos is literally not what I said at all. I mentioned it in one sentence, for the overall purpose of illustrating how much simpler it is to learn Hero optimally (at least at the mid level) compared to Joker.

I played both characters. Joker exclusively since launch until Hero dropped. After the initial (but expected) shock of feeling how laggy Hero’s moves are and how risky down B is (btw I love baiting approaches just by pulling up the menu), he becomes a really simple character to play.

Joker, while not super hard or anything, isn’t as simple to play as Hero. You need to maximize all the damage you inflict to the opponent and while trying to not get bodied before Arsene comes out. Easier said then done tbh. Easiest way to do that is to get good at his combos. There’s a reason why, despite everyone saying he’s the best character, after 3-4 months there’s only less than a handful of standout players using Joker.

Like I said, I can't actually comment on whether or not he's harder or easier to learn. The amount of game time I've personally managed to fully sink in to Joker and Hero is comparatively disproportionate. I just took issue with that particular line in question given that it's a common misconception that combo routes dictate the extent of complication, that doesn't necessarily mean anything else you said was wrong.

Personally, I can believe that Hero is easier to learn than Joker - to whatever extent - though not "he's been available for two weeks so we've already figured him out" levels of easy. The fact that Salem could only coast on Hero in Smash Con using some very egregious wi-fi looking play definitely has me thinking we're not at a point yet where people have learned their way around the character beyond "I can control this character and I know what these moves do".

 

[The_Bookworm]

I know a lot of people are talking about after Brood's impressive performance. Whether he can match that performance in the future is unknown.
However, can we all talk about the player who got 13th at the event? Another thing I didn't see coming from this event.


Japan really loves their low tiers.

 

[NairWizard]

Pokemon Trainer gets 2nd at a big event: "I always knew he was top tier."
Piranha Plant gets 2nd at a big event: "Ult is so balanced, even low tiers can do well."

MKLeo beats Samsora 3-0 second set GF: "Leo's so good at coming back!"
Abadango beats Brood second set GF: "I knew that PIranha Plant was weak."

If you go into an analysis with the presupposition that a character is good or bad, you're going to come to the conclusion that you staged the discussion with. It's called confirmation bias.

Start from 0, then watch the sets and figure out how much is Plant and how much is Brood.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Some things I wanted to talk about regarding the tournament:

- Japan as a whole continues to have a much more broad spectrum in character variety compared to the US; whereas the top 8s in US' region usually consists of the same 8-10 perceived top tier characters (i.e. ) with occasional breakouts from character specialists (), Japan's top 8 consisted of a , a , a , and a of all things, with not a single Pokemon Trainer in sight. And that's not even including the or that almost hit top 8. The only real repeat characters to show up in high-placements in Japan are looking to be and , and even in the latter's case, he isn't exactly dominating the meta as of yet. Japan as a whole kind of feels like "character specialist central", given that you have such strong representatives like Brood, KEN, T, kome, Raito, and Tea, and it really helps to shake things up.

- A lot of top players slightly underperformed contrary to their seeding, with Raito only placing 33rd, Tea placing 17th (his worst placement at a tournament yet, still not bad though), and kept placing 33rd; I think as a whole, Japan's players know how to deal with underrepresented characters such as Pac-Man, Duck Hunt, and Villager, so the playing ground between them isn't uneven due to circumstances related to unfamiliarity.

- Japan seems to be doing a pretty good job of picking up 's slight decline in the US with both Shogun and DIO performing very well overall. The one thing I wanted to talk about regarding this is that DIO's playstyle involving Snake is much different than the likes of MVD or Salem; he plays a very aggressive Snake overall, using a myriad of down aerials and dash attacks to throw the opponent off, all to set up a Nikita edgeguard. It also helps that his B reversal movement with Grenades is so on point as well.

- Lots of good performances for characters we don't see often, namely (Akira's 25th placement), (Tarakotori's 13th placement), (the talk of the town), (kome's 7th placement, when's the last time we saw a Shulk in Top 8 or even Top 16?), (Kirihara's 17th placement, I'm surprised literally no one's talked about this), and (KEN's 4th placement, why are people still on the fence about Sonic?):

- I'm not sure how to feel about Jiggs atm; I still think it suffers from a myriad of issues (in Akira's set against Some , it looked so hard for Akira to get in overall). But it's clear that Jigglypuff's innate ability to steal stocks at ludicrously low percents thanks to Sing and Rest should not be overlooked, and unlike , it has both these options on deck all the time.

- is another character whose volatile strengths (ridiculous damage output, KO punch nearly being a one hit KO) can really make him a pain the fanny, even when it feels like it shouldn't (also shielding doesn't really look like a good option against him given how potentially insane his shield stun/pressure is). I don't know if he'll be able to make it far consistently as he did here given that being thrown off stage pretty much equates to losing a stock (like what happened against DIO), but this tournament tells us that there is potential for it to happen.

- I honestly don't know much about , given that I wasn't able to view Kirihara's set; given Kirihara's performance and Dabuz's use as a secondary, it does look like there's a place for her in this meta. What it is? I have no clue atm, but hopefully we'll see some more Rosalina.

- Nice to see have a strong breakout performance after all that talk about him being a top tier was really looking like a lot of hot air. From the sounds of, it's looking to be kome that's gonna be the frontrunner for Shulk's meta instead of Nicko; while his set with KEN highlighted his issues involving his terrible frame data, his Monado switching and canceling helps give Shulk answers to situations that look hopeless for him (using Jump to recovery, switching out of Smash and into Shield to avoid getting KO'd).

- is still looking strong, thanks to KEN's great performance with him overall; the biggest issue I noticed with Sonic is his inability to kill, which lead to characters like Shulk and Wario going up to percents like 200%; I noticed that KEN was going for the right idea by going for Nair's KO confirms, but I think he needed to mix it up, since Abadango was ready for it. Aside from that, his ability to rack up so much damage and punish the opponent for literally doing anything given how ridiculous his speed and Spin Dash continue to be, I can honestly see why they made it hard for him to take a stock.

- 's looking to be the talk of the town, and I can definitely see why: While he has problems up close against characters like , it really doesn't change the fact that Poison Cloud + Patooie is literally one of the scariest ledgeguarding options in the entire game and I won't be surprised if most people's answer to it is "What the heck do I do?". And even then, you're not completely out of the woods once you get up in his face: He's still got his F2 Jab to set-up tech chases, he's got his INTANGIBLE USmash that kills like at 70%, and he's got a grab game that deals hefty damage and kills. I don't think a loss against Abadango suddenly negates his amazing strides against Shuton, Gackt, and KAMEME (the same guy who defeated MKLeo at EVO), and I expect many more great things from Brood to come.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and good to see is still alive and kicking thanks to T; I feel he still plays a bit too much on autopilot sometimes (notably against kome during game 3), but I'm hoping he takes this 9th placement and rolls with it.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Kinda proves to me that again there are no bad characters in this game but only bad player decisions which are deciding games.
And Brood is currently up against Kameme, who for some weird reason played Wario in game 3.

If a character cannot stop the opponent from disengaging then that character is bad.

Period.

 

[Lacrimosa]

If a character cannot stop the opponent from from disengaging then that character is bad.

Period.

Are you sure?
Maybe it was the player that was actually overwhelmed here. I kinda got this feeling the longer these matches went.
Wouldn't surprise me as Samsora was also stuck with Peach against Leo...Is Peach bad, though?

What I want to express is that it's mostly the player in Ultimate, the characters are actually very evenly balanced. In other words, this game's bottom-tier would be good mid-tier in other Smash games, probably.

 

[Arthur97]

Found another difference between Roy and Chrom, particularly their forward smash:

Also here's their comparison for F-Smash i made. Roy uses some wierd interpolation on his frames, like @Meshima_ stated, while Chrom uses normal hitboxes.
This is due to Roy's animation being different because its missing a frame (As shown on the second picture). pic.twitter.com/KQlkXpV08U

— Foxyjoe (@FoxyjoeOnTweet) July 3, 2019

In other words, Chrom's forward smash has one more frame of hitbox duration (frames 13-15) than Roy's (frames 13-14).

Here's another comparison with f-tilt between Chrom and Roy.
Also i forgot to mention that Roy uses his "Boi-spot" for Fsmash as well, here it is corrected.

The boispot is wierd, because it uses different values and is either a weak sweetspot (smash) or a strong sourspot (tilt). pic.twitter.com/VUsqDeEg9Q

— Foxyjoe (@FoxyjoeOnTweet) July 4, 2019

In other words, Chrom's forward smash is stronger than Roy's in every way except for the small red spot near Roy (the sweetspot).

Is that new? Thought I saw that on the wiki.

Looking back at Umebura SP 4, there is another big thing to note.


As we all know, Dragon Quest in insanely popular in Japan. When you look at factor, you would assume that there would be numerous players in Japan that would play Hero.

However, similarly to Smash Con, there wasn't really anyone that placed well with Hero. A lot of them drowned in pools. There are only two that broke the top 48 threshold, with Vent placing 33rd. The other happens to be zackray, who is trying his hand out with mostly Hero and using a little bit of Joker. However, that ended up him underperforming, landing at 25th.

Whether this trend of mediocre showings at bigger events for a perceived high tier character will continue remains to be seen, but things are not pointing in the right direction for the character.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On that side note, this tournament shows once again why Japan is indeed the home-turf of lower tiered characters, with Brood placing 2nd, Tarakotori placing 13th, Rai placing 17th, and Arika placing 25th.

Well, were there an abundance of Heroes in pools that just didn't do well? There potentially still could have been a lot of people using them.

 

[bc1910]

If a character cannot stop the opponent from from disengaging then that character is bad.

Period.

In a regular fighter I would agree 100%.

In Smash, with such freedom of movement afforded to all characters, particularly (most) top tiers, I wonder whether this assertion holds less weight.

Who can really stop Sonic from running away from them the whole match? Or ZSS from pressing down B and escaping any situation for free 99% of the time? I’m not sure you can define bad characters so strictly by this.

Perhaps I’m answering my own question. Perhaps it’s less about who can prevent the opponent from disengaging and more about who can freely choose to engage as they please. This would define a large majority of top tiers (ie good characters) in Smash history, aside from exceptions like Brawl ICs who struggled to force interactions but literally needed to win one interaction to take a stock.

Would be interested to hear you elaborate on this assertion.

 

[KakuCP9]

In a regular fighter I would agree 100%.

In Smash, with such freedom of movement afforded to all characters, particularly (most) top tiers, I wonder whether this assertion holds less weight.

Who can really stop Sonic from running away from them the whole match? Or ZSS from pressing down B and escaping any situation for free 99% of the time? I’m not sure you can define bad characters so strictly by this.

Perhaps I’m answering my own question. Perhaps it’s less about who can prevent the opponent from disengaging and more about who can freely choose to engage as they please. This would define a large majority of top tiers (ie good characters) in Smash history, aside from exceptions like Brawl ICs who struggled to force interactions but literally needed to win one interaction to take a stock.

Would be interested to hear you elaborate on this assertion.

I think the two scenarios are one in the same since if character can't make the opponent fight them nor effectively approach, that will lead to overextending on their part which the opponent will exploit by choosing to engage in that moment. To be honest, I think the freedom of movement supports Emblem Lord's philosophy more since that gives the character who doesn't want to engage has more leeway to play keep away with the opponent and has higher potential reward since unlike traditional fighters (bar Soul Calibur), you have the potential to net KOs regardless of how much damage you deal through edge-guarding. The only time this approach falls short is if you lack get-off me options though that's true for traditional fighters as well.

 

[Thinkaman]

I want to see the footage of these Pirahna Plant games.

This sort of thing can be like be like Bocci or Maister: "Oh, THAT's how you play this character."

...or can be like Mr. L's K. Rool victory, where when you watch the matches you see normally skilled opponents making a lot of unforced errors, missing matchup knowledge, and outright SDs. Don't get me wrong, Mr. L deserves the win (and our praise), but I think it would be a very uphill battle for him to try and repeat that accomplishment with the K Rool we saw.

 

[Call_Me_Red]

I want to see the footage of these Pirahna Plant games.

This sort of thing can be like be like Bocci or Maister: "Oh, THAT's how you play this character."

...or can be like Mr. L's K. Rool victory, where when you watch the matches you see normally skilled opponents making a lot of unforced errors, missing matchup knowledge, and outright SDs. Don't get me wrong, Mr. L deserves the win (and our praise), but I think it would be a very uphill battle for him to try and repeat that accomplishment with the K Rool we saw.

They got put on Youtube a few hours ago. Too lazy to look it up. But trust me, how he plays Plant is not how I would play Plant. It seems so...unorthodox. The entire time watching I was just confused wondering why he picked the options that he did.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I want to see the footage of these Pirahna Plant games.

This sort of thing can be like be like Bocci or Maister: "Oh, THAT's how you play this character."

...or can be like Mr. L's K. Rool victory, where when you watch the matches you see normally skilled opponents making a lot of unforced errors, missing matchup knowledge, and outright SDs. Don't get me wrong, Mr. L deserves the win (and our praise), but I think it would be a very uphill battle for him to try and repeat that accomplishment with the K Rool we saw.

Question: outside of Bocci's upset against Ally, what other notable stuff has he (or any other Isabelle player) done?
If that is what all he did, then I think people might have been (and still is) overrating the significance of the upset. Remember when Komata got the upset against Ally in Frostbite 2016 and people have released videos like this one. The comment section of that video is filled with hopes with Kirby,. saying that he is underrated or only one buff away from being good. What has SSB4 Kirby done after this upset? Pretty much nothing.

Now Isabelle is no where near as bad as SSB4 Kirby of course (no one in this game is), and Isabelle could potentially pull off another upset, but I don't really feel like one notable upset is enough to signify a renaissance of character growth until it is done consistently.

 

[$.A.F.]

Question: outside of Bocci's upset against Ally, what other notable stuff has he (or any other Isabelle player) done?
If that is what all he did, then I think people might have been (and still is) overrating the significance of the upset. Remember when Komata got the upset against Ally in Frostbite 2016 and people have released videos like this one. The comment section of that video is filled with hopes with Kirby,. saying that he is underrated or only one buff away from being good. What has SSB4 Kirby done after this upset? Pretty much nothing.

Now Isabelle is no where near as bad as SSB4 Kirby of course (no one in this game is), and Isabelle could potentially pull off another upset, but I don't really feel like one notable upset is enough to signify a renaissance of character growth until it is done consistently.

I get what you mean. I’m no Isabelle expert but afaik the only other Isabelle making a splash is kept who mains villager and only secondaries Isabelle. As for Plant, this wasn’t just one upset. Brood beat Ken a very short while back, At Albion Greward performed very well getting 17th, Rai at this tournament also got 17th with Plant so on. Plant results are only getting better so far.

I want to see the footage of these Pirahna Plant games.

This sort of thing can be like be like Bocci or Maister: "Oh, THAT's how you play this character."

...or can be like Mr. L's K. Rool victory, where when you watch the matches you see normally skilled opponents making a lot of unforced errors, missing matchup knowledge, and outright SDs. Don't get me wrong, Mr. L deserves the win (and our praise), but I think it would be a very uphill battle for him to try and repeat that accomplishment with the K Rool we saw.

He employed some innovative techniques regarding ledge trapping that were very effective. I haven’t seen anybody incorporating it into Plant ledge trapping but especially with the angle buff it works very well combined with cloud/Ptooie. I’ll look closely at the vods
EDIT: He never seems to go for rapid jab as Plant and always opts to gentleman. Plant’s rapid jab actually is pretty good as it’s frame 2 and does 20. However the gentleman sets up jab locks and tech chases. (Shuton Specific: He uses a lot of cloud like I initially covered when referencing the Oli-PP matchup earlier in the thread. It kills Pikmin when thrown or used in smash attacks so he threw it out here any chance he had) He uses dash attack quite a bit as it’s very fast, can cross up, and puts his opponent offstage post 4.0 which leads into plant’s amazing ledge trapping game. At 3:20 of his Shuton set, Brood was able to get 70% on Shuton during a ledgetrap. Then same stock he gets 60% and the kill by ledgetrap. Game 2 stock 2 another ledgetrap another 60%. Last stock another 70% by ledgetrap. Plant’s trap game is ludicrous. Onto Gackt the use of poison cloud oddly continues. That’s where it hits me that he’s using it to suffocate and corner his opponents. He uses it to force them into the corner, above him, and offstage which are positions Plant absolutely loves. I’ve also noticed him using quite a bit of pivot cancel f tilt or regular f tilt to catch sh height opponents. And at the end of game 2, Plant’s Brutal ledgetrap game comes into play again getting 54% and a kill. And first stock of game 3 another 80 or so off ledge trapping/advantage. Like I’ve said: Plant is very scary when he has you in disadvantage. And to end off the set another ledgetrap into an Up Smash Kill.

 

[Thinkaman]

On one hand, Brood showed us optimized ledge-trap timings (beyond the effectiveness of what I assumed) and surprisingly effective neutral options. My opinion of the character is definitely higher now.

On the other hand, Olimar, Mega Man, and Ness all seem like preferrable matchups for Plant. I'd be curious to see how Brood handles rushdown, as well as more esoteric counters like Villager/Isabelle. (Still pretty sure they are Plant's worst matchup...)

 

[SwagGuy99]

TBH, with all of the talk about going on, I figured I'd throw in my opinion on him real quick.

I actually have never thought of Plant as a low tier. He's right at the bottom of Mid Tier, but he is a bit too good to put him with the likes of and .

Ptooie is dumb. There's nothing this move can't do. I think everyone knows that though, so I won't dwell on it too much.

Something I never here people talk about with Plant are his grounded moves, which are surprisingly not as bad as one might think.

• Jab is quick and his rapid jab deals a lot of damage.
• F-tilt isn't very quick, but has good range, kills at high percents near the ledge, deals 14%, and it's faster than a smash attack.
• Down-tilt leads into some of Plant's aerials at various percents making it a fast and effective combo starter.
• Up-tilt is probably the worst of his tilts, but it still has some uses, It has very high vertical range but very poor horizontal range, meaning that it is good as an anti-air, juggling tool, and combo move (into itself at low percents) but it is hard to hit in a lot of situations.
• F-smash kills at respectable percents and has intangibility on Plant's head. It would be a much better move if it was a bit faster and killed a bit earlier on the sour-spot, but it's not the worst f-smash in the game.
• Up-smash is a great kill move on aerial opponents due to it's power, vertical range, and intangibility.
• Down-smash is Plant's fastest smash attack, kills at reasonable percents, and sends at a great angle for edgeguards. It's a great move all around, even if the hitbox leaves something to be desired.

Dash attack is actually really bad due to it's lag and lack of kill power, so I really don't have anything really good to say about it.

Plant's fast run speed compliments his good grounded moves quite well.

His air speed, is below average, as is his air acceleration, which is one reason why his air game is so notorious for being mediocre.

Speaking of Plant's air game, Plant's aerials are pretty hit or miss.

• Nair is a great combo stater (when landing with it) but oftentimes has too much lag to follow up. It is also a good edgeguarding tool.
• D-air is a hard to land meteor smash with relatively short startup lag. I don't know exactly how much endlag it has, but it when using it on the ground, it feels like it's way too much to followup with anything though.
• F-air is a great edgeguarding tool with decent range, but it has way too much landing lag to be used as a combo tool, which is a shame, because it sends at a great angle for following up with another aerial.
• B-air is slow, but very powerful. Not much else to say here.

So, Plant's aerials are pretty bad on the ground, but decent in the air, especially when he's offstage edgeguarding.

Edgeguarding is one of Plant's greatest strengths as Ptooie and his aerials are all great when used for edgeguarding.


However, Plant's aerials being good specifically for edgeguarding and not onstage means that Plant (despite having good grounded moves) is pretty bad on the ground as he can't really use his aerials to compliment his grounded moves at all. This issue is further exasperated by having a poor grab game, with his only really useful throw being up-throw, which can kill.

Plant's special moves are all niche (Except Ptooie and up-b) but can serve a purpose in specific matchups.

• Up-b is an average recovery that is somewhat unsafe, but travels quite far. This (Along with Plant's high weight) gives him decent survivability overall.
• Side-b is useful for dealing extra damage to the opponent. However, against Olimar specifically, it can be used to deal damage to Pikmin.
• Down-b has super-armor and range, but is very laggy, so it is really only useful in certain situations.

So, why did I go through all of this?

Just to show that Plant has some good things about him that I think justify keeping him out of low tier. He has some of the best edgeguarding in the game, he has a great projectile and camping game using Ptooie, and he does have more utility on most of his moves than most other low tiers do.

Having a very poor grounded game due to lack of onstage aerial presence hurts Plant a lot of course, but his strengths are too good to be ignored.

 

[Arthur97]

Wait, you say all of the Plant's special moves are niche, except half of them. That's not all of them, that's half of them.

 

[Frihetsanka]

After the initial (but expected) shock of feeling how laggy Hero’s moves are and how risky down B is (btw I love baiting approaches just by pulling up the menu), he becomes a really simple character to play.

In order to master Hero, you need to be able to know when to bring up down-B, quickly scan the options (or search for one of the options you want), and quickly decide which one is good for your current situations. That's going to take quite some time to master, most Hero mains aren't close to optimized yet.

Parappa is probably one of the best Hero mains at using down-B right now, and even he hasn't mastered it. Speaking of, Hero has some results now at smaller events.

 

[TimG57867]

I want to see the footage of these Pirahna Plant games.

This sort of thing can be like be like Bocci or Maister: "Oh, THAT's how you play this character."

...or can be like Mr. L's K. Rool victory, where when you watch the matches you see normally skilled opponents making a lot of unforced errors, missing matchup knowledge, and outright SDs. Don't get me wrong, Mr. L deserves the win (and our praise), but I think it would be a very uphill battle for him to try and repeat that accomplishment with the K Rool we saw.

On one hand, Brood showed us optimized ledge-trap timings (beyond the effectiveness of what I assumed) and surprisingly effective neutral options. My opinion of the character is definitely higher now.

On the other hand, Olimar, Mega Man, and Ness all seem like preferrable matchups for Plant. I'd be curious to see how Brood handles rushdown, as well as more esoteric counters like Villager/Isabelle. (Still pretty sure they are Plant's worst matchup...)

Since you requested, here are all the sets I could find of Brood's Pirahna Plant in action from Umebura SP4:

Regarding your rushdown question specifically, I think the set against Yamanyon's displays how Brood tries to handle rusdown as .

Ptooie all on its own forces one to think carefully about how one charges in. Aside from simply spitting it out you, Plant and blow up it up and down to control the air space straight above him. Heck, Plant doesn't even need to have it out in advance. Brood frequently anti-airs with it simply spitting up quickly and this type of hit seems to lead into a variety of conversions. He made heavy use of this prevent Yamanyon from using Flip Jump from ledge willy nilly. And then along with that there's also the risk of hitting Plant as the Ptooie is floating up high. Hit him poorly and the spike ball can fall right into you and this frequently happened to Yamanyon.

More notably though, Plant uses Ptooie in tandem with Poison Cloud to create a form of area denial akin to what we saw from Isabelle's Lloid combined with Pellets. Brood frequently sets the Cloud ahead of him. From there, he either uses it for cover to make the foe wait a moment to see what he's up to or stands out behind it while putting up a Ptooie. Watching that particular set this seemed especially effective with a platform to assist. Brood frequently sets the Cloud out beneath a platform, and then gets his Ptooeie going on a side of it. The Cloud discourages running straight under the platform while the Ptooie made Yamanayon think carefully about jumping over it. And Brood wasn't just reliant on the Ptooie to deal with attempts to get around the Cloud obstabcles. He would often send Ptooie away or bait with it just right so that he could smack Yamanyon with aerial for attempting to just soar on in. Looking at the set, Yamanyon's best answer to this often was to play a spacing game of his own by stuffing the Ptooie from a distance with Z-Air or Paralyzer.

On top of the aerials, Brood also made good use of Pirahna Plant's ground buttons. Naturally Jab and F Tilt were used his main low commitment pokes to box with Yamanyon when needed. But the ground button that I think really caried especially in games 2 and 3 was Dash Attack. Brood used Dash Attack for all sorts of situations. He used instant Dash Attack to relieve pressure as well as stuffing ZSS's approaches at times with Dash Attack and punishing landing attempts with the late lingering hitbox particularly helping. And Up Smash payed major divideds for punishing aerial assaults or landings. Looking at Yamanyon's adaptation (and from the sounds of things they've played before), it does seem like ZSS is well equipped to give Plant an uphill battle. Z-Air in particular seems like quite the annoyance used right. But Brood seemed to have a coherent plan for dealing with the pressure overall. Ptooie in particular seemed paramount in warding ZSS off.

 

[Thinkaman]

but he is a bit too good to put him with the likes of [whoever] and .

triggered.jpg

Isabelle had double the phase 2 Orion results of Plant before Brood had to go and nearly triple it by himself. And her buffs were bigger! (Not that any of this matters--all of these results are skewed by how unusual/unpopular the two characters are.)

I'm pretty bullish on Isabelle. I think better of Plant than I did yesterday, but put both of them around 45-50.

Also I will take Isabelle/Plant money matches allllll day. :D :D :D It might be the worst matchup in Ultimate????? Plant without Ptooie and Poison Cloud is pretty awful.

 

[NotLiquid]

Plant's lack of any solid aerials is clearly meant to emphasize the character's focus on trapping landings. Instead of intercepting an airborne opponent by countering with your own jump option, you're expected to use moves like Ptooie instead to remain grounded. Airborne plant is an awkward sub-neutral state that Plant's only going to want to be in if you're pushing a combo in advantage.

An interesting angle for a character but then the issue is that makes Plant's neutral a tad bit linear. Not entirely unworkable, but it can easily get somewhat pigeon-holed into a situation where its options lack the flexibility you would desire, and it's kind of funny how almost deliberately calculated those negative values are when the frame data of his buttons are actually pretty solid. The problem is just how much it gets punished from the recovery frames. Unless your spacing is immaculate, then it's a character that goes down pretty easily to shield grabs.

I believe I've mentioned this before, but if Plant had a single move that actually served as a good landing option, I could see the character jumping to the higher ends of mid-tier, if not low high-tier. Instead the character is fairly decent with some solid counterpick potential, but lacking in meaningful ways to close the gap against certain characters that require a little more well rounded traits.

 

[blackghost]

like someone mentioned earlier i feel like i can replace the current optimism for plant and replace it with shulk, ridley (post buffs which is virtually gone already), smash 4 Pikachu, wii fit, and others. this is a lot of hope for a character with very few significant wins. currently, only have high hopes for ken to make a drastic change in his tier placement other than that dont see much changing. Until proven otherwise im saying these wins are mostly Brood not plant.

Japan across various fighting games has players that are creative, experimental, and open to new ideas as opposed ot the western players who mainly imitate top players or go to what is easiest to do for immediate results. This is no different. I've seen this play out in SFV, SF4, melee, smash 4, marvel, and tekken. this isn't surprising. I just really doubt it can be imitated.

 

[$.A.F.]

like someone mentioned earlier i feel like i can replace the current optimism for plant and replace it with shulk, ridley (post buffs which is virtually gone already), smash 4 Pikachu, wii fit, and others. this is a lot of hope for a character with very few significant wins. currently, only have high hopes for ken to make a drastic change in his tier placement other than that dont see much changing. Until proven otherwise im saying these wins are mostly Brood not plant.

Japan across various fighting games has players that are creative, experimental, and open to new ideas as opposed ot the western players who mainly imitate top players or go to what is easiest to do for immediate results. This is no different. I've seen this play out in SFV, SF4, melee, smash 4, marvel, and tekken. this isn't surprising. I just really doubt it can be imitated.

Except This recent win along with the other great performances from other Plants (Rai , Lucky , and Greward ) at majors have been happening more and more as of late. It’s just that this is the best Plant and his best performance yet. The results across Plant Gang are only really getting better. And again two of the top 4 plants aren’t from Japan or Asia in general. And unlike Shulk or S4 Pika, these results are only being used to suggest that Plant is a mid tier which his results do sensibly indicate.

 

[Emblem Lord]

In a regular fighter I would agree 100%.

In Smash, with such freedom of movement afforded to all characters, particularly (most) top tiers, I wonder whether this assertion holds less weight.

Who can really stop Sonic from running away from them the whole match? Or ZSS from pressing down B and escaping any situation for free 99% of the time? I’m not sure you can define bad characters so strictly by this.

Perhaps I’m answering my own question. Perhaps it’s less about who can prevent the opponent from disengaging and more about who can freely choose to engage as they please. This would define a large majority of top tiers (ie good characters) in Smash history, aside from exceptions like Brawl ICs who struggled to force interactions but literally needed to win one interaction to take a stock.

Would be interested to hear you elaborate on this assertion.

They are intertwined.

Ok, so can you FORCE Sonic to fight you? Not really. But does Peach HAVE to chase Sonic? Or can she throw turnips and simply not commit that much? Can ZSS charge a paralyzer to control horizontal space and throw out a uair or a zair?

If you NEED to commit then you already lost before your opponent even had to do anything.

Unless that comittment is very rewarding in which case not all hope is lost, but you still are probbably not top tier.

 

[Djmarcus44]

What are the current opinions on the characters with 0 points on phase 2 of Orion Rank? (,, and )

 

[VodkaHaze]

Except This recent win along with the other great performances from other Plants (Rai , Lucky , and Greward ) at majors have been happening more and more as of late. It’s just that this is the best Plant and his best performance yet. The results across Plant Gang are only really getting better. And again two of the top 4 plants aren’t from Japan or Asia in general. And unlike Shulk or S4 Pika, these results are only being used to suggest that Plant is a mid tier which his results do sensibly indicate.

I'll say that might be better than we thought, especially after Greward won a doubles tournament at Albion. That said, unless the Plant Gang can get these results consistently, then this result might just be a fluke and belongs in low tier. My opinion is he's definitely not worst character and takes some time to master, but calling him mid tier seems like a stretch at this point (but I could be wrong).

 

[Impax]

I'll say that might be better than we thought, especially after Greward won a doubles tournament at Albion. That said, unless the Plant Gang can get these results consistently, then this result might just be a fluke and belongs in low tier. My opinion is he's definitely not worst character and takes some time to master, but calling him mid tier seems like a stretch at this point (but I could be wrong).

It may just be that the vast majority of the cast is solo viable and that we either need to rethink how we see low tier (that they cant be solo viable) or that we need to make mid tier bigger.

That said, I dont think it's fair to judge plant as mid or low tier based upon consistency. Plant doesnt have enough people maining him for that to ever happen.