Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[$.A.F.]

When are the Orion stats getting updated?

 

[Deleted member]

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

As for , players did not think of the buffs being too helpful to their kit. Not saying it is not, but I’d express untapped cards to play at the board.

As for , even though he looked really bloody, the small buffs from patch 3.0 did not fix his more significant issues. Not to mention they gave him nothing in the next two patches.

All three of their competitive stances look the same to me, save a couple minor positive changes. It’s not going well for them, especially for , who hasn’t made any notable upsets yet.

 

[Heracr055]

No Corrin is just really poor. She lacks the mobility to chase, which affects her juggling game. She doesn't really have any sort of low risk kill options or kill confirms to speak of. As such she needs to rely on high committal raw kill options. This is really not good for her and makes it hard to seal stocks with her. The buffs have done pretty much nothing to alleviate this great weakness. The Up B buff is nice but that's really it
Edit: I am tempted to call her bottom 10 in this game

 

[Nidtendofreak]

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.

If he doesn't have enough people using him to have consistent results, then he's not really a threat in the meta and would be placed in low tier accordingly.

 

[Arthur97]

Not necessarily. Other variables such as popularity, playstyle, and skill requirements can influence usage as well.

 

[Impax]

If he doesn't have enough people using him to have consistent results, then he's not really a threat in the meta and would be placed in low tier accordingly.

By that logic characters like falco, dhd, marth, lucario, wft, and sonic are low tier.
Heck as fast as pichu is losing mains he could fall in that grouping.

 

[ReVerbIsSuperb]

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.

I feel the same way after watching Brood's incredible run at Umebura SP 4. I definitely underrated Piranha Plant's corner pressure and ability to zone control should he get the necessary time to actually set up properly. Ptooie is obnoxious! Watching Grand Finals however seemed to reinforce my opinion that there is a cap on how far the character can be pushed and the nature of his MU Spread as a result of his Neutral is full of interesting highs and lows.

I distinctly recall Plant Mains talking a lot about Ness and Olimar specifically in regards to MU tools they felt gave PP a pretty comfortable time, but I brushed it off initially as it was really early into his release. Nice to see Brood able to showcase some of it on such a high level.

As for the Mega Man MU, while I still believe it's really not a good MU for Plant in the long term, it might not be as free as I assumed it would be. I can see it being overall more preferable for Brood to face than a character who can constantly be in his face and stay there although Mega isn't without his own share of pressure either so who knows. I understand what you're saying though but I'm going to use this as an excuse to talk about the MU anyways.

The first fault I noticed on Kameme's end was a lack of respect towards PP's vertical coverage on top of him playing a lot more aggressively than he should be in certain situations. The good thing about playing as Mega Man against this type of character is the fact that smart long and mid range pressure means you don't have to be anywhere near the poison cloud or spike ball to risk getting bad trades or out-damaged. Not to mention how well you can smother Plant with projectiles and limit his already constrained mobility and approach options. Thrown LS, gMB, Crash Bomb, Retreating Fsmash and Aerials, and Pellets alternated in different patterns while dancing around the stage makes moving anywhere absolute hell.

Ptooie blocks Pellets once it's out, but before that even happens, if Plant gets hit at all while charging, the move drops at his feet and Mega doesn't have to worry about the pressure of it getting flung at him. Even it does get flung, proper positioning is key because Mega can outrange the quick fling distance pretty harshly and the further fling takes too long to setup consistently against his tools. If you are scared of Ptooie in close-range scenarios, Mega Man's quick grab can snatch plant up, and as long as you don't pummel, you can use back throw's animation frames to stall out the hitbox and be protected from the falling spike ball.

One of the big issues I saw Kameme constantly do was try to aggressively rush in on Plant to force his way out of the corner. Brood would charge up a Ptooie and Kameme would fall on top with a Fair or in with a Dtilt and eat the trade for too much damage when he was already behind in stock or percent.

I can't recall all the interactions vs Ptooie, but most of the time Mega should be in position to keep up enough consistent long range projectile pressure to prevent him from flinging. Not to mention, due to the launch angle of Ptooie, it tends to lose to horizontal projectiles that outrange fast fling anyways. I know Leaf Shield Toss goes right through at least which is another tool Kameme didn't really use much.

In regards to the ledge trap situation, I didn't see as much patience or mixups as I hoped to see on Kameme's part. Drifting away with ledge drop while rising above the Spike Ball with Up-B and utilizing double jump and airdodges to mix up landing takes care of anything Plant would try to do as long as you vary timing and drift distance to not be predictable. High Up-B with dair stall before using double jump isn't easy for Plant to challenge and Dair is really safe against Plant in general. Going high as Mega Man forces Plant to try and snipe the ascent with Ptooie (which is already hard enough as it is with proper spacing/timing). FH Ptooie helps with vertical coverage but then it loses to neutral getup mixups and the fact Plant has to account for all of this in and of itself relieves a lot of pressure that would be there normally and forces an awkward level of commitment that can be played around.

On the flip side, with Ptooie in mind, Plants ledge drop quick fling or flinging before Up-B snapping is good for clearing away melee range aggression at ledge and I saw Brood do this relatively often. It's something you have to respect but Mega Man can ledge trap without being so close and can punish re-grabs with Leaf Shield Toss among other things to safely keep distance while not letting opponents return to center stage for free.

With edge-guarding, Mega either wants to catch Plant before his Up-B starts with Bair, ledge drop Fair if he rides the wall up, or try to intercept recovery paths with Dair or Metal Blade if out deeper. Crash Bomb stuck to the underside of the ledge or wall acts as a proximity mine if someone gets close to it and can be useful for Mega Man to fend off any of those Ptooie mixups that may be tried to help Plant get back on stage. This will in turn make being in the corner or offstage vs Mega Man a lot scarier again.

Plant being as heavy as he is makes matches take a long time but with how Mega Man's tools work, there is no need to constantly rush in with a lead. Being patient and letting the kill come to you as Mega works wonders and prevents unfortunate scenarios where you let him catch back up through poison and ptooie damage when you shouldn't be getting hit by those moves very often in the first place. Mega Man retains a lot of Metal Blade confirms even at later %s alongside his long-ranged Fsmash being quite potent should he need to worry about closing out the stock while avoiding being too close.

This was the first time I saw this MU being played at any relevant level outside of the multitude of sets between Yeti and Lucky so it was interesting to see a lot of what I theorized play itself out here and there. It seemed like Kameme really fell to a lack of MU experience at its core though (especially considering he literally asked on Twitter for Plant MU advice before the set started which I found hilarious), but Brood played well enough in general to truly capitalize on this fact.

Yeti as well tends to be an overall more aggressive Mega Man player than most which can hurt him in some matchups (his sets vs Maister's G&W come to mind) but his pressure and movement are usually good enough to cover for it anyways. Plant's OOS is quite lacking so Mega Man can get away with a lot of Leaf Shield and Metal Blade mixups on block luckily. Here's the most recent set between these two for analysis purposes. If Kameme was more prepared and also didn't end up losing a whole game to work with through his desperate Wario swap, maybe things would've been different, but alas, it wasn't meant to be:

 

[NotLiquid]

On the topic of solo viability, I feel like the cast number that reach that level is larger than previous Smash games, but in regards to Plant I'm not sure it qualifies for that distinction yet. There are quite a few MUs that become downright problematic under the scope (Villager/Isabelle is one), although to give the character some credit, the character seems more than capable of holding its own against certain "meta relevant" characters, at least those that are ubiquitous in Japan.

On another note, Armada is finally going to be entering Ultimate tournaments again, attending Mainstage and The Big House 9. Time to see if that Inkling grinding has paid off.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

By that logic characters like falco, dhd, marth, lucario, wft, and sonic are low tier.
Heck as fast as pichu is losing mains he could fall in that grouping.

A good chunk of those characters still have lasting results so they wouldn't. The exception is Marth primarily and well, I don't think anyone is heavily objecting to echo character created situations being treated differently. That would include Pichu as well with their tie to Pikachu.

Lucario very well could be low tier potentially. IIRC WFT is performing quite well for their usage (aka consistently) so probably not low tier.

 

[Impax]

A good chunk of those characters still have lasting results so they wouldn't. The exception is Marth primarily and well, I don't think anyone is heavily objecting to echo character created situations being treated differently. That would include Pichu as well with their tie to Pikachu.

Lucario very well could be low tier potentially. IIRC WFT is performing quite well for their usage (aka consistently) so probably not low tier.

Oh I think were on similar page then. I assumed you meant the character had to perform consistently at tournaments, not consistently by usage. Plants biggest issue in that department may be that Brood cant practice or attend as much as he may want to due to work. But I assume, like Raito hell continue to get plant results even if it isnt always top 5.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Oh I think were on similar page then. I assumed you meant the character had to perform consistently at tournaments, not consistently by usage. Plants biggest issue in that department may be that Brood cant practice or attend as much as he may want to due to work. But I assume, like Raito hell continue to get plant results even if it isnt always top 5.

For debating low/mid tier, nah don't need to perform consistently at tournaments. That's for top tier/upper high tier.

 

[Thinkaman]

"Solo-viable" is almost as vague as "high-tier". Solo-viable to achieve what, at what level of play, at what level of consistency?

Don't answer that, that's the point. Everyone implicitly has different assumed answers. "I know, I'll just educate everyone on what my assumptions are and why they are right!" Urrrrrrrgggggg.


Usage, Results, and Theory. Those are our three pillars, and they follow different but interconnecting rules. There is no single True List, just three different lists for each of those--and the third is an opinionated spectre that's both difficult and dubious to pin down. It's hard enough to pin down either of the first two, at even a single specific level of play.

So we spend most of our time discussing the first two, musing on the differences between them, and alluding to the etheral plane of the third.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

No Corrin is just really poor. She lacks the mobility to chase, which affects her juggling game. She doesn't really have any sort of low risk kill options or kill confirms to speak of. As such she needs to rely on high committal raw kill options. This is really not good for her and makes it hard to seal stocks with her. The buffs have done pretty much nothing to alleviate this great weakness. The Up B buff is nice but that's really it
Edit: I am tempted to call her bottom 10 in this game

Man looking back at Smash 4 you really see that the bustedness of Pin basically overcame almost all of Corrin's supposed weaknesses in. I think the closet thing to Smash 4 Pin now is ZSS Flip-Jump.

Then again Pin far far from the only tool in Corrin's kit that got completely gutted in Ultimate

 

[Avokha]

"Solo-viable" is almost as vague as "high-tier". Solo-viable to achieve what, at what level of play, at what level of consistency?

Don't answer that, that's the point. Everyone implicitly has different assumed answers. "I know, I'll just educate everyone on what my assumptions are and why they are right!" Urrrrrrrgggggg.


Usage, Results, and Theory. Those are our three pillars, and they follow different but interconnecting rules. There is no single True List, just three different lists for each of those--and the third is an opinionated spectre that's both difficult and dubious to pin down. It's hard enough to pin down either of the first two, at even a single specific level of play.

So we spend most of our time discussing the first two, musing on the differences between them, and alluding to the etheral plane of the third.

Way to sum up everything I've come to realize about tier lists and the community's often times misguided musings on the state of the meta

I feel like a huge part of the community's fixation on tier lists, solo viability and the like is in part due to a subconscious belief in the aforementioned 'TRUE Tier List' that details what the ultimate characters are to play. "It's well established that no character is created equal," says the average smash player. "Surely there is a way to learn who are the absolute best characters, period." In a relatively balanced game like Ultimate, however, the only viable reply to this is "best at what?" Still, this subconscious desire for an absolute answer to the age old question persists throughout the community.

 

[Thinkaman]

I really wish we'd just anchor our discussions in percentiles more--both in terms of the roster and levels-of-play.

As of this post:

• Smash Ultimate has probably passed 15 million in raw software sales.
• GSP suggestions lifetime player online is about 5.4 million.
• A huge percentage of (all) games are bought but never played.
• ...but a massive number of people play Smash regularly without owning it, probably more than any other game.
• There are probably about 15 million total Smash Ultimate players.

So, 15 million. And if anyone tries to chisel that down to just the "competitive" or "real" players, I will throw their gatekeeping *** into the sun.

Elite Smash is 96.5th percentile of just the online players (which is going to be a consistently-better-perfoming sample) applied to performance with an individual character. This is far from concrete but surprisingly helpful for framing things--the most good Elite Smash has ever done.

• At 90th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are probably better than all your friends and cousins, maybe everyone you have played against.
• At 95th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You can probably make it into Elite Smash with your best character on a good day.
• At 98th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are probably in Elite Smash with 1 character, maybe 2.
• At 99th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You could win a round in a typical tournament.
• At 99.5th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You could get Elite Smash with a selection of characters.
• At 99.9th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are a top 15,000 player. You could consistently win multiple rounds in tournaments.
• At 99.95th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are a top 7500 player. You could probably get Elite Smash with everyone if you cared.
• At 99.99th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are a top 1500 player. You are a top player within your city, local area, or college, probably the best if it is smaller/weaker. You have probably won a local.
• At 99.995th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are a top 750 player. You have very likely won a local or two. Odds are you're a top 10 player with your character.
• At 99.999th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. You are a top 150 player. You are a major regional threat who usually wins locals.
• At 99.99967th percentile, you are pretty good at the game. This is the PGR top 50.
• At 99.99993rd percentile, you are pretty good at the game. This is the top 10.

I refused to attribute gameplay behaviors, strengths or understanding to these because of now non-linear they can be. It's possible for a 95th percentile player to know stuff that a 99.999th percentile player doesn't, or for a 99.95th percentile player to have failed to ever master some specific basic aspect of the game. Since the only function of this would be diagnostic, better to just go by exhibited performance.

But yeah numbers are fantastic. They aren't perfect (and lead to their own arguments), but it's way better than two people saying "high-level" when one means 95th and the other means 99.995th.

 

[Arthur97]

For all your talk of numbers, you just kind of assume 15 million players without much data, and just kind of assume that two of your points (also not backed up) cancel each other out. For that matter, can GSP even be considered accurate?

 

[DungeonMaster]

The numbers are not that far off my own estimates.

The more I have played, the better GSP tracks actual good players. I've found it's really the last 30k or so players at the very high end that are essentially all *good*. You will basically not hit someone in that range that cannot be a real threat even in a bad matchup. You will encounter the pros, randomly, and the routine tournament and forum/discord experts crowd regularly.

I panned the system at launch, it really was bad, but now it's quite good. I would like to have better connection netcode, basic system is fairly solid at the high end.

 

[The_Bookworm]

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).

Where PPlant is right now after Umebura SP 4 is kind of awkward. While I don't think he is a worst character contender anymore, there is the question whether he is still low tier or not.

The issue of not considering PPlant as low tier is this: if he isn't low tier, who exactly is?


From the looks of it, people are in support of low tier in this game to be small, at least in comparison to previous games. Seems like the common characters for low tier are , and even then, the characters widely considered to be low tier is a low amount relative to the cast.


Even then, the listed characters shown here has achieved some form of success (albeit limited) or have some players backing them up as underrated.
For examples of the former:
Young Eevey's 7th at Albion 4.
Brood's 2nd at Umebura SP 4.
Tarakotori's 13th at Umebura SP 4.
Mr. L winning that Australian major (forgot its name).

For examples of the latter, such examples of this is even present right now in this thread, such as Thinkaman thinking is underrated (I know that there is some other examples, but I cannot think of others on the top of my head).


This adds on to the long list of reasons why there is no official tier list right now.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Honestly I think may also end up low-tier. I mean besides Nario getting that win over Light at Collison what notable results has got so far?. There also was a time when people were saying hyping him up as much as sayjng he was going to be high-tier. But seriously despite some flashy new Smash attacks and tools he still has the same crippling flaws he always had. Yeah he can potentially kill you at like 60-70%, but he could always do that since Melee.

Plus he is really starting to feel the power creep bad with many other characters at that were once considered around his level. havr gotten some notable buffs in balance patches while he has gotten nothing.

 

[Megamang]

Obligatory 'you can't give gannon too much more without it breaking FFAs / low level online.


But 'how TF do I beat this character' has a special place in my heart, it is how I ended up at smashboards and therefore competitive smash over a decade ago. So... I personally don't find there is much wrong with that, but also facing balance frustrations in a patch culture can be bad as well.

Back in my day, you got one version of the game, and if you wanted to beat a character you had to learn how to do it.

The above is a sentiment I actually disagree with the premise of, because I find that it is still overwhelmingly true. Characters are unique, and no patch has really changed fundamentals of a character except usually either giving them more options or slightly tuning down overtuned options.

If you begin winning a lot, when you were losing a lot, after a patch, either you had a mental block or you were legitimately facing an overtuned option and you were losing by that thin margin of the tool being legitimately out of line with the cast.

 

[PK Gaming]

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

Corrin is significantly better due to the recovery buff, but still not great due to character struggling to open people up, slow movement, mediocre KO options and a below-average edgeguarding ability.

It should speak to how lackluster she was prior to the buff.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Honestly I think may also end up low-tier. I mean besides Nario getting that win over Light at Collison what notable results has got so far?. There also was a time when people were saying hyping him up as much as sayjng he was going to be high-tier. But seriously despite some flashy new Smash attacks and tools he still has the same crippling flaws he always had. Yeah he can potentially kill you at like 60-70%, but he could always do that since Melee.

Plus he is really starting to feel the power creep bad with many other characters at that were once considered around his level. havr gotten some notable buffs in balance patches while he has gotten nothing.

Smook is seeded relatively high for Shine (way too high for my tastes), so maybe we'Ll get some results there.

 

[Thinkaman]

For all your talk of numbers, you just kind of assume 15 million players without much data, and just kind of assume that two of your points (also not backed up) cancel each other out. For that matter, can GSP even be considered accurate?

I'm... not really sure what's being debated here.

Nintendo posts software figures quarterly. Smash Ultimate was up to 14.73m after Q2, up from 13.81m in Q1. Even if Q3 sales have slowed to half that of Q2, the game has long passed 15m sales. That's a conservative estimate.

You seemed to take issue with the "not backed up" two points that:

• A significant % of sold software is not played.
• A significant number of people play Smash without owning it.

As for the first, this is considered common knowledge but you can also look at the achievements for any major Steam game. 90% startup telemetrics are considered on the high end. Now understand that digital distribution has a WAY higher install rate to physical retail. Still, Smash is a flagship franchise, a system seller, not indie, never on sale, and strong on the digital sales side. It's probably among the most "installed" AAA software titles by ratio, but probably still under 90%.

As for the second, don't we all personally know people who have played a Smash game without owning it? I'm going to assume that this isn't actually being disputed. The only tricky part is how to measure these people, and more particularly where to draw the line. I know lots of college roommates who play constantly, on one copy of the game. Surely they all count? But maybe the other roommate who only played 2 games that one time doesn't. It's blurry.

Back of the envelope, I'd guess the middle of that blurry zone is about 15% of players share the game frequently with a roommate, friend, or sibling. Which, as it happens, cancels out our rough guess for how many sales failed to convert to userbase.

I don't understand the objections here, nor their relation to the point being made. Everything I said was identically relevant if Smash Ultimate had 10 million or 20 million players.

 

[Arthur97]

I'm... not really sure what's being debated here.

Nintendo posts software figures quarterly. Smash Ultimate was up to 14.73m after Q2, up from 13.81m in Q1. Even if Q3 sales have slowed to half that of Q2, the game has long passed 15m sales. That's a conservative estimate.

You seemed to take issue with the "not backed up" two points that:

• A significant % of sold software is not played.
• A significant number of people play Smash without owning it.

As for the first, this is considered common knowledge but you can also look at the achievements for any major Steam game. 90% startup telemetrics are considered on the high end. Now understand that digital distribution has a WAY higher install rate to physical retail. Still, Smash is a flagship franchise, a system seller, not indie, never on sale, and strong on the digital sales side. It's probably among the most "installed" AAA software titles by ratio, but probably still under 90%.

As for the second, don't we all personally know people who have played a Smash game without owning it? I'm going to assume that this isn't actually being disputed. The only tricky part is how to measure these people, and more particularly where to draw the line. I know lots of college roommates who play constantly, on one copy of the game. Surely they all count? But maybe the other roommate who only played 2 games that one time doesn't. It's blurry.

Back of the envelope, I'd guess the middle of that blurry zone is about 15% of players share the game frequently with a roommate, friend, or sibling. Which, as it happens, cancels out our rough guess for how many sales failed to convert to userbase.

I don't understand the objections here, nor their relation to the point being made. Everything I said was identically relevant if Smash Ultimate had 10 million or 20 million players.

You assumed a number very easily without solid numbers for someone who wants us to stick to the numbers. You have no solid evidence for most of this. It's guestimation. And Steam is an entirely different animal. Steam sales ensure a lot of games are bought and hardly if ever played. That is common knowledge, but we aren't talking about a Steam game which people just go "Oh, that's a good deal" buy it, and then never touch it.

And, yes, people can play it without owning it, but most of them, excluding some roommate or family situations, don't play enough to be considered a regular player. I've played a friend in a few matches, does that make him a Smash player because he's played an hour or two?

The main issue here is stuff like "I'd guess the middle of that blurry zone is about 15% of players." You're guessing. You have no proof. You have no data on this point. It's speculation just like theory, except it can at least be labbed. You talk of anchoring discussion in something more grounded while you're guessing. And without an accurate number of players (which you do not have) percentiles are kind of hard to do accurately.

 

[Megamang]

I don't think he was requiring us cite numbers, so much as use numbers from reasonable assumptions. The point of his post stands even if he is off by a factor of 10, which he 99% isn't.


I see your point, the post that says use numbers doesn't cite their numbers, but that isn't the issue. The issue is the lack of context with 'good player', which has a much much lower precision than his post.

 

[PK Gaming]

Having to fight a hero who knows what they're doing is one of the most frustrating, demoralizing experiences in Smash Bros atm

It's not because of Whack or Twack

It's not even because of Magic Burst (though that's occasionally frustrating)

It's Zoom

This skill is just... not fun to play against. The low cost and the ability to fish for it almost completely invalidates attempts at trying to pressure Hero offstage. And i'm talking about a Hero who has full understanding of the sheer terror that is his side special and doesn't mess around trying to fish for specials unless he can 100% get away with it.

Everyone's distracted by poor takes and even poorer armchairing but I think this character is incredibly strong. Perhaps not against every top tier, but an absolute threat that's just waiting to be unleashed

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

If I may for a minute, I honestly don’t how does not see more success. Pardon my ignorance on the character but when I see his full package I don’t see how it doesn’t come together enough to make him a super good character. He has everything a character wants in this game.

Good OOS? Frame three sex kick nair that he can make safe by drifting away due to his ridiculous air speed.

A means to land? Dair shreds shields, let’s him cross them up easily, bair and nair work as they are safe, not slow, and again the air speed let’s him drift enough to be out of range of a lot of OOS options. Nair also crossups up well being a sex kick and only -4 on block. He also has B reverse command grabs that let him even further weave around hitboxes.

Good normals? Ftilt leads into his up tilt which reminds me of Fox’s Smash 4 up tilt. He lands one and he gets a 60% combo off the move which has an incredibly generous hitbox that comes in front of him some. Both moves are quick and while Ftilt doesn’t have the most range it’s enough to do what it’s designed to do. Jab is a good 2 hit frame three lets him get opponent out of his face. Dash attack is Snake’s expect without the intangiblity because the move pushes him so far forward he can cross shield up and be safe easily. His only “weaker” grounded moves his smash attacks while not safe kill when they need to. Fsmash allows for some ridiculous hurtbox shifting with how he tucks back and up smash has a lot of vertical range, like a Ridley up smash just not as large.

I’ve already touched on his bair and nair but I’d be remiss to not mention up air or fair. Up air allows him to get ridiculous damage outputs his Ftilt/up tilt and it kills well. Fair is slow but a strong spike that will kill off the side just as well as it spikes so bad spacing isn’t an issues also more big time hurtbox shifting.

Projectile? Eggs do everything he could need. Incredibly versatile in the way he can throw them to prevent grounded or air approaches, he can combo off them and lead into kills and they give him a lot of protection when he’s coming back to stage. Which brings me to recovery.

The point I thought he wasn’t supposed to be good at he’s honestly fine in. His air speed and floaty nature let him drift back from just about anywhere ( this also makes him a really good edge guarder). Until you can break his DJ armor he doesn’t have to worry about getting hit out of his jump and his mentioned eggs provide plenty of protection to the point he doesn’t need to rely on DJ armor. (Not even getting into his DJ covering a good deal of diagonal space).

This grants him great survivablity which is further complement by the fact he is quite heavy and can get out of a lot of strings and situations that other characters can’t due to DJ armor. So he has that going for him as well.

I know he’s supposed to not be so great against disjoints but he has the speed both grounded and airborne, good enough range and a projectile to all help him play around them.

So I ask what is actually holding this character back? I used to think he was just alright but I don’t know anymore.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I've been curious about myself; like , the dude has a ton of representation (Snoop, Squerk, Meme, Seth, Rotsuko, Saurez are great Yoshi players, to name a few), so a lack of notable players isn't the issue. Yet as far as placements go, he has even less noteworthy placements than Mario (who seems to at least break top 16 at a major event most of the time), where most Yoshis haven't been able to even break Top 16 outside of Meme's 9th placement at Low Tier City.

I wish I could talk in depth based on the few videos I've seen of him, but I haven't seen a lot of the major Yoshi players in action; I'd say maybe his biggest issue is a lack of focused gameplan? I'm not too sure.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I've been curious about myself; like , the dude has a ton of representation (Snoop, Squerk, Meme, Seth, Saurez are great Yoshi players, to name a few), so a lack of notable players isn't the issue. Yet as far as placements go, he has even less noteworthy placements than Mario (who seems to at least break top 16 at a major event most of the time), where most Yoshis haven't been able to even break Top 16 outside of Meme's 9th placement at Low Tier City.

I wish I could talk in depth based on the few videos I've seen of him, but I haven't seen a lot of the major Yoshi players in action; I'd say maybe his biggest issue is a lack of focused gameplan? I'm not too sure.

That's easy, look at all of the moves he has. How many of them kill? The answer is not many, his range sucks on anything except eggs and downb which is audibly and visibly telegraphed, he can't shield cancel any of his grounded specials once he initiates them and that sex kick the previous poster keeps talking about is incredibly weak and doesn't do much. Almost any move he has is committal especially his dair where he has to be right on top of his opponent in order to use and if he misses or if his opponent rolls there's nothing yoshi can do except eat a devastating punish. Once yoshi gets an opponent to where he can't juggle he wants to keep his opponent in the air, only problem is if the opponent knocks HIM into the air, because of the new way air dodges work he can't air dodge and fast fall without getting caught up in landing lag.
Now i'm not denying that he has amazing tools, super armored double jump helps him tank attacks and he can cancel it out at any time, eggs work but they pop when they hit other projectiles, and his bair needs to connect with the first hit to do meaningful damage.
The reason yoshi does so poorly is that his tools, while seemingly well rounded, are beat out by options that a lot of meta-relevant characters have and are desceptively situational.

 

[The_Bookworm]

It's Zoom

This skill is just... not fun to play against. The low cost and the ability to fish for it almost completely invalidates attempts at trying to pressure Hero offstage.

I personally don't really have much trouble with Zoom. It is most of the time is going to put Hero above you or on a platform, and for characters like R.O.B. who loves opponents above them, it can sometimes turn into a "out of the frying pan and into the fire" moments.

Without Accelerate, Hero doesn't really have that many landing options unless he goes for a yolo fully charged side B or Magic Burst, and hope the opponent jumps into it.

 

[KakuCP9]

Having to fight a hero who knows what they're doing is one of the most frustrating, demoralizing experiences in Smash Bros atm

It's not because of Whack or Twack

It's not even because of Magic Burst (though that's occasionally frustrating)

It's Zoom

This skill is just... not fun to play against. The low cost and the ability to fish for it almost completely invalidates attempts at trying to pressure Hero offstage. And i'm talking about a Hero who has full understanding of the sheer terror that is his side special and doesn't mess around trying to fish for specials unless he can 100% get away with it.

Everyone's distracted by poor takes and even poorer armchairing but I think this character is incredibly strong. Perhaps not against every top tier, but an absolute threat that's just waiting to be unleashed

Magic burst is....grandiose to be sure. Though the thing is aside from burning all of Hero's MP, there's the possibility of it getting teched which Myollnir found

That's one way of cheating death I guess pic.twitter.com/Le8z3oJQIi

— Myollnir~ (@Tilted_as_fuck) August 14, 2019

The Kaswoosh edge-guards GIMR and Izaw found on the other hand have an equal level of coverage, cannot be teched and are way,way cheaper. Even if opponents recover high, Hero grabs the ledge instantly after the move so they can beat those attempts with their huge bair or spells like Frizz. Sounds way more fun right?

Zoom on the other hand is character dependent since if a character has powerful vertical coverage (i.e Flaco) , they can nail Hero before they can double jump away otherwise it can definitely be frustrating to deal with (distant angry Mac noises).

Another thing to note about Hero is their grab reward. Similar to Cloud, it's not what they gets from throws ( though with accelerate, they do get some kill confirms), its the fact they gain mana back from pummels and throws and coupled with their top tier edge-guarding, their reward from a grab is pretty high. Granted getting that grab can be difficult with their grab range and average mobility.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Magic burst is....grandiose to be sure. Though the thing is aside from burning all of Hero's MP, there's the possibility of it getting teched which Myollnir found

That's one way of cheating death I guess pic.twitter.com/Le8z3oJQIi

— Myollnir~ (@Tilted_as_fuck) August 14, 2019

I actually found this out on Twitter with Kamikazee earlier (forgot where the tweet was), but I didn't know it applied to Magic Burst as well.
The most jank moves apparently has the most jank way of countering against it (especially if your name is where you can literally Tough Guy right through Magic Burst multi-hits with no issue lmao).

 

[Myollnir]

You're not forced to tech, by the way (it's pretty strict, you have to hold down to avoid the untechable). Just airdodge towards the bottom part of the move, then DI accordingly, you won't die until something like 75% before the hit? Which is pretty legit considering there are smashes that kills a lot earlier than that and are easy to 2-frame with ().
It's a simple, global yet effective counterplay to the move. Magic Burst is still really good.
As for Magic Burst in ledgetrap situations, except if your character has a low range ledge attack (...), you can either get up attack to hit the move, or stall in the air towards the ledge, depending on their spacing.

 

[Thinkaman]

You assumed a number very easily without solid numbers for someone who wants us to stick to the numbers. You have no solid evidence for most of this. It's guestimation.

I literally linked Nintendo's Q2 results, and quoted Q1's from memory.

And Steam is an entirely different animal. Steam sales ensure a lot of games are bought and hardly if ever played. That is common knowledge, but we aren't talking about a Steam game which people just go "Oh, that's a good deal" buy it, and then never touch it.

I gaurantee you that Steam has a stronger installation funnel than retail per-title.

And, yes, people can play it without owning it, but most of them, excluding some roommate or family situations, don't play enough to be considered a regular player. I've played a friend in a few matches, does that make him a Smash player because he's played an hour or two?

This is what I posted.

The main issue here is stuff like "I'd guess the middle of that blurry zone is about 15% of players." You're guessing. You have no proof. You have no data on this point. It's speculation just like theory, except it can at least be labbed. You talk of anchoring discussion in something more grounded while you're guessing. And without an accurate number of players (which you do not have) percentiles are kind of hard to do accurately.

None of this is relevant to the point of my post. It does not matter if there are 14.87 million Smash Ultimate players or 15.43 million. Either way, it's better communication to say "99.9th percentile" than "top-level."

It's like I'm suggesting that people estimate temperatures instead of saying just "cold" and "hot", and you are yelling that we can't be sure our digital thermometers are accurate enough.

 

[TimG57867]

That's easy, look at all of the moves he has. How many of them kill? The answer is not many, his range sucks on anything except eggs and downb which is audibly and visibly telegraphed, he can't shield cancel any of his grounded specials once he initiates them and that sex kick the previous poster keeps talking about is incredibly weak and doesn't do much. Almost any move he has is committal especially his dair where he has to be right on top of his opponent in order to use and if he misses or if his opponent rolls there's nothing yoshi can do except eat a devastating punish. Once yoshi gets an opponent to where he can't juggle he wants to keep his opponent in the air, only problem is if the opponent knocks HIM into the air, because of the new way air dodges work he can't air dodge and fast fall without getting caught up in landing lag.
Now i'm not denying that he has amazing tools, super armored double jump helps him tank attacks and he can cancel it out at any time, eggs work but they pop when they hit other projectiles, and his bair needs to connect with the first hit to do meaningful damage.
The reason yoshi does so poorly is that his tools, while seemingly well rounded, are beat out by options that a lot of meta-relevant characters have and are desceptively situational.

On top of those issues, still suffers from the same issue that played a big part in 's decline: he just doesn't have a straightforward answer to shield. For all the buffs he got, his grab game is still as subpar as it's always been. Down Throw -> Up Air is true now at super low percents but can't really extend beyond that. All his other Throws give positional advantage at best with none of them killing until really high percents (like 200+ with no rage and good DI). Granted that's WAY better than how early they would kill in SSB4 (which is saying something...) but those thresholds are still way to high to make them reliable stock caps. And on top of mediocre throws, his actual grab remains as bad as ever. They did reduce the FAF on all his grab variations unlike most characters going into the game. But in turn they considerably increased the startup on his Dash and Pivot grabs, heavily nerfing them as burst and callout options. This just makes it so much easier for an opponent to hold shield at mid range against Yoshi and spot dodge any grab attmepts and punish. Yoshi does have Egg Lay to mitigate his shield issues but in the end the Yoshi still has to get the right read to actually kill off it. Yoshi has kill setups off various moves but all these need to be hit head on. He doesn't have a reliable option to directly get a stock off through shield which can be quite a problem in this game where the new modifiers make it easy for a lot of the cast to put on enough percent on you in just a few neutral exchanges to essentially make it an even game when stocks are even. HIgher level Yoshi's are often able to put on tons of percent fast but when it comes time to get a kill they usually have to either get an edgeguard, catch a foe with a stray Up Air, or otherwise get a good read or punish. If these don't pan out it can get rough.

With a couple exceptions like , most of the best performing characters in Ultimate have a strong grab game or reliable stock capping kill throws that can come off a grab. Even for all the nerfs to shield, it's still a strong option and key to living to high percents and in some ways is better for a lot of characters since it makes Up Bs and Up Smashes much easier to access OOS. Not to mention parry is will only continue to improve in how it's utilized which isn't good news for Yoshi given how much his gameplan centers on aerials and how his best one for spacing in neutral (F-Air) has a rather noticeable windup.

Yoshi got a lot of buffs to things he always excelled at but things that have historically always led to his peak performance potential getting capped have remained surprisingly intact. A lot of things Envoy pointed out are stuff he already kinda excelled at in SSB4. This game just made him better at those various things while only slightly mitigating a lot of his major issues and even exacberating a couple here and there.

 

[$.A.F.]

Plant is up to top 40 in results EDIT: #39 specifically. That puts him above Zelda, DK, and Falco by a bit, Around 15 spots above Ridley, Mac and D3, And......20 spots above Isabelle/Kirby.

 

[Megamang]

Swords haven't gone away, and they are yoshi's biggest eternal struggle.


As mentioned, the rapid advantage state doesn't help him, especially when you fair and trade with a utilt and they convert off of it because your hurtbox shifts almost as much as your hitbox.

He still has gotten a bit better at killing, getting hit with an egg up high is actually pretty terrifying now. The new airdodge helps his recovery a bit. And bair went from a pretty sad stock cap, to a relatively strong move.

It remains to be seen if people will get good enough at parries to block the first few hits of a multihit and release parry on the last, Yoshi is still so fast he might be ok even if this becomes consistent enough to perform in a tournament set. It'd be one thing, if you got a massive punish off of this and it was worth the risk, but now you only get a few frames and the risk is dropping shield early and dying. Buuut, 5 frames is a pretty big window (for what we are used to with perfect shield variations). And with optimizations we may see that these few frames are a big difference in what punish you can pull off, this wouldn't be new territory for fighting games.

Also by the time he recognizes you are gonna hold shield, and either dairs to break/poke a weakened shield or egg drop you for committing, it isn't just spot dodge. Jumping out and nairing will beat the egg drop, trade favorably with dair… and isn't exactly a huge stretch for most people to implement.

But if I had to name one thing, its the swords. He's never liked swords, he still doesn't.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

On top of those issues, still suffers from the same issue that played a big part in 's decline: he just doesn't have a straightforward answer to shield. For all the buffs he got, his grab game is still as subpar as it's always been. Down Throw -> Up Air is true now at super low percents but can't really extend beyond that. All his other Throws give positional advantage at best with none of them killing until really high percents (like 200+ with no rage and good DI). Granted that's WAY better than how early they would kill in SSB4 (which is saying something...) but those thresholds are still way to high to make them reliable stock caps. And on top of mediocre throws, his actual grab remains as bad as ever. They did reduce the FAF on all his grab variations unlike most characters going into the game. But in turn they considerably increased the startup on his Dash and Pivot grabs, heavily nerfing them as burst and callout options. This just makes it so much easier for an opponent to hold shield at mid range against Yoshi and spot dodge any grab attmepts and punish. Yoshi does have Egg Lay to mitigate his shield issues but in the end the Yoshi still has to get the right read to actually kill off it. Yoshi has kill setups off various moves but all these need to be hit head on. He doesn't have a reliable option to directly get a stock off through shield which can be quite a problem in this game where the new modifiers make it easy for a lot of the cast to put on enough percent on you in just a few neutral exchanges to essentially make it an even game when stocks are even. HIgher level Yoshi's are often able to put on tons of percent fast but when it comes time to get a kill they usually have to either get an edgeguard, catch a foe with a stray Up Air, or otherwise get a good read or punish. If these don't pan out it can get rough.

With a couple exceptions like , most of the best performing characters in Ultimate have a strong grab game or reliable stock capping kill throws that can come off a grab. Even for all the nerfs to shield, it's still a strong option and key to living to high percents and in some ways is better for a lot of characters since it makes Up Bs and Up Smashes much easier to access OOS. Not to mention parry is will only continue to improve in how it's utilized which isn't good news for Yoshi given how much his gameplan centers on aerials and how his best one for spacing in neutral (F-Air) has a rather noticeable windup.

Yoshi got a lot of buffs to things he always excelled at but things that have historically always led to his peak performance potential getting capped have remained surprisingly intact. A lot of things Envoy pointed out are stuff he already kinda excelled at in SSB4. This game just made him better at those various things while only slightly mitigating a lot of his major issues and even exacberating a couple here and there.

I dunno. still managed to be up there despite losing her SSB4 d-throw ladder combos which were big reason she was top-tier im that game. ZSS got lots of direct and indirect buffs in the transition to Ultimate to where you need to play her differently

 

[TimG57867]

I dunno. still managed to be up there despite losing her SSB4 d-throw ladder combos which were big reason she was top-tier im that game. ZSS got lots of direct and indirect buffs in the transition to Ultimate to where you need to play her differently

She lost her ladder off D Throw but gained a straightforward and practical kill throw in turn. Not super powerful but strong enough to stop a stock from spiraling out of control when need be. I'd also say that the positional advantage she gets off her throws is far better than Yoshi's because they have less FAF and her kit seems better equipped to capitalize on the positioning. And in general, ZSS's non grab oriented kill setups (Paralyzer, D-Smash, Flip Jump Bury, etc) seem much more consistent than Yoshi's and she her disjoints make it safer for her to play the long game until she can get the foe to slip. Her possession of disjoints in general keep her from having take quite as many risks for a kill as Yoshi.

Yoshi got a lot of buffs going into this game but as I said earlier they generally just seemed to make what he was already good at better. The buffs didn't really do a ton to mitigate his long standing weaknesses directly (Poor range, lack of direct shield answers, finishers being too slow or telegraphed, etc.)

 

[ARISTOS]

Yoshi has a couple susceptible holes IMO:

1. While his aerials are good on shield, they linger for a long time while having poor range. This leaves him easy to air-to-air and trade with than most characters, especially if he's already swung in disadvantage. There are a lot of characters with disjointed and/or long range hitboxes that threaten areas Yoshi cannot hope to threaten in the air, which is why you see top Yoshi's retreat more off stage then fight back. This is bad because

2. His DJ/lack of an up-B still tanks, it's a liability and limits his recovery options especially if Egg Lay has already been used once. Lingering hitboxes, which popular characters like have in spades eats this up.

3. He lacks meaningful ways to engage opponents. Watching Yoshi play, it seems to be "I'm going to throw this move in a space where you might be and hope it hits". There's a lot of retreating fair and nair, but the character lacks strong burst options which is a huge burden where almost everyone has either a good burst options/projectile that allows entry. Yoshi has to wait for mistakes/impatience (which he blows up), but those happen less the better people become.