Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Envoy of Chaos]

Actually I think from what I’ve seen is that most pros making actual tier lists they’ve put thought into and not hastly thrown together sub goals/YouTube view bait is that they are acknowledging that Bowser is a good character and it’s mostly low and mid level player lists that still rate Bowser rather average because they are too focused on the fact he’s a big character and nothing more.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Well, Sheik is a light character that dies early.
If being heavy is one argument, then this is highly superficial. A Bowser getting comboed up to 80% may look hype but for Bowser, 80% isn't much (not that he can't die from stray hits, but yeah).
In fact, feather weights have the issue of dying pretty early and Shiek, while being able to crawl, isn't as small as Pichu. Really not a big fan of her, especially when other combo-heavy characters like Pikachu or Pichu exist and they are doing their job much better from what I've seen. Some difficult MUs aside, I think VoiD will place higher with solo Pichu, simply because of the time investment.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Hrmm again what are everyone's thoughts on Pokemon trainer? We've had several pages without bringing up their results or theory or whatever. How popular are they? They're considered top tier but individually the characters are considered low high to mid low!
What do you think?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Why exactly Corrin considered bad now? What's different about her here compared to Smash 4 that makes her almost consistently considered not good?

Good Fire Emblem characters exist.

 

[SwagGuy99]

You seem a little too certain for my tastes. R.O.B.'s fate is not set yet.

Maybe not, but he's had this exact thing happen in both Brawl and Smash 4. I feel like we'll follow a similar trend, just to a lesser extent. I don't ever see him below high mid tier in this game.

 

[blackghost]

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Tsu has a new tier list. Some hot takes here, but considering how different the Japanese meta is to America/Europe it makes sense.

bayo is bad. but worse than puff, k rool,jr, and corrin? thats a reach and im extremely pessimistic on bayo.
has banjo really done that much that quickly to warrant that placement?
ROB is more like a gatekeeper to high tier than top tier.
i just found shulk. umm did i miss a bunch of Japanese results or something?
ridely and hero both seem high.

glad to see pichu still is respected.

 

[KirbySquad101]

There's that, and LeoN's not constantly telling you his character is high tier/viable compared to the copious tweets ESAM/VoiD/Dark Wizzy/Maister make about how their respective characters are the sauce lol.

On the subject of , I would agree with the sentiment that he'll fall off eventually, but the thing is... what exactly changed between 4 and Ultimate as far as R.O.B.'s weaknesses are? He's still disproportionally fat, and the only aerials that have decent coverage below him are Shulk levels of laggy. Those were pretty much's biggest issues, and to go further off of that, I'm going to go on a limb and say that the transition from to isn't nearly as big as the transition from to , especially when concerning R.O.B.'s gameplan/weaknesses. This leads me into my main point: What is there left to figure out in terms of exploiting R.O.B.'s weaknesses? At most, the only thing I can think of is being able to consistently parry his NAir, but for the most part, most players, especially Smash 4 veterans, know how Ultimate R.O.B. operates in this game.

What DID change between 4 and Ultimate is giving the dude an extremely silly punish game that makes getting beaten down by R.O.B. far scarier than it has in any other Smash game. You got grabbed at +100% and didn't read the 50/50? Well, too bad, because you're probably losing your stock from that. You got caught by a now run-cancellable down tilt? You're probably eating 30~40% damage off of that, or an additional 40% if you were unfortunate enough to be caught between a Gyro when that happened. What's that, you got caught by an NAir or Gyro at 40% by the ledge? Welp, you're probably dead from Arm Rotor unless you're a giant fatty.

These things don't make his problems in disadvantage state disappear per say, but they make it so that he can afford to not the play the game much more than he ever could in SSB4. You can treat him as your personal punching bag in the air all that you like, but if you're not going to get a kill off of it soon, there's a considerable chance he'll rip the lead you have from your hands, and we've seen this happen before (a few examples include WaDi's and Samsora's set in CEO and the multiple moments in Super Smash Con where Rafi-X took a stock off Nairo or ESAM at absurdly low percents). Long story short, R.O.B. has a much bigger baloney comeback factor in the game, which really emphasizes how insignificant percentage leads can feel in this game.

One last point I want to make is that it's kinda hard to imagine R.O.B. becoming irrelevant in a world where there's probably 50+ R.O.B.s running around: We have the big boys zackray and WaDi, but outside of that, there's 8BitMan, Raffi-X, OCEAN, Dill, Grayson, Mj, Somo, Benny&TheJets, KiraFlax, GwJ, etc. and probably a ton more I missed. Compare this to a character like , another character who was considered amazing early on. Yet now that Salem's dropped him, T's pretty much the only major player left to represent him. What I'm getting at is that characters like Link and Ike are far more susceptible to falling given their small playerbase compared to R.O.B., who's pretty much got an entire armada backing him up. And unless everyone suddenly decides to collectively band together to drop him Cloud style, I can't really see R.O.B. going anywhere but up.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

bayo is bad. but worse than puff, k rool,jr, and corrin? thats a reach and im extremely pessimistic on bayo.
has banjo really done that much that quickly to warrant that placement?
ROB is more like a gatekeeper to high tier than top tier.
i just found shulk. umm did i miss a bunch of Japanese results or something?
ridely and hero both seem high.

glad to see pichu still is respected.

With Shulk, it's because Kome has had a really good results with him recently.

 

[TennisBall]

Where can I watch the Big House 9 without spoilers on YouTube?

 

[Deleted member]

Where can I watch the Big House 9 without spoilers on YouTube?

Twitch streams...but there’s a discussion topic on the Big House 9 in another thread. There’s gonna be plenty of spoilers but Twitch is probably your best bet if you ignore/disable chat.

Alternatively just don’t read comments on Youtube. Just watch the set full screen

 

[TennisBall]

Twitch streams...but there’s a discussion topic on the Big House 9 in another thread. There’s gonna be plenty of spoilers but Twitch is probably your best bet if you ignore/disable chat.

Alternatively just don’t read comments on Youtube. Just watch the set full screen

Thank you for the help!

 

[Spinosaurus]

Figured I'd share this clip of a renowned Ken main playing Smash like he would Street Fighter.

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It's against a random online Ike player, but still, ground movement is important! He didn't even jump.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Big House 9 Pools are beginning.

Link to thread: https://smashboards.com/threads/the-big-house-9-discussion-topic.489980/

 

[Emblem Lord]

Figured I'd share this clip of a renowned Ken main playing Smash like he would Street Fighter.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

It's against a random online Ike player, but still, ground movement is important! He didn't even jump.

It's more impressive that he did it online.

That level of footsies, spacing AND reaction in lag?

On a Nintendo system that has an online infrastructure that is already outdated?

Subarashii.

 

[Aaron1997]

M2K and salem talking like Palu is the Best character.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

M2K and salem talking like Palu is the Best character.

Good gravy...Palutena finally wins a major and suddenly pro players say she. is top 5 or even 3. She was not even in the top 10 in most pro tier lisrs pre-Mainstage.

Then again opinions quickly changing due to one big win is old hat at this point.

 

[Frihetsanka]

M2K and salem talking like Palu is the Best character.

She might be, I've had her in top 5 for months now, the character is incredibly well-rounded and good. Inkling probably is too.

 

[Arthur97]

Let's not kneejerk people. How many "best fighters" have we had at this point?

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

While it shouldn’t had taken a major win for people to remember that Palutena is super good it does help showcase why. I really don’t know why people forgot the character was probably top 10, she has almost everything
you want in a character. When you think of well rounded but very strong she’s literally the poster child.

 

[Heracr055]

Palu has been placing exceedingly well in tourney across a variety of players for months. The one thing that made people hesitate on calling her a top X character was a huge win. The perception was that better characters could overcome her "jack of all trades, master of none" kit. This big S tier win, versus MKLeo in Grands of all things, cements that Palu is a huge threat that can go all the way.

 

[Arthur97]

Of course she's really good, but we've been through this song and dance of the best fighter in the game so many times at this point. Can you definitively say that she's the best in the game? I kind of doubt you can do that with any fighter in Ultimate.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

One thing I will say. Is that Palu's ground game cannot be too bad when she had such a threatening grab game.

The range of her grab is huge and she gets grear reward off them at all times.

D-throw combos up until around 60-70% and later it can set up for a kill with bair if the opponent DI's the throw wrong. Also her b-throw is always surpisingly strong. Not like Inceroar or Doc strong but still can kill very well at the ledge .

Also still is likely the definitve exampe of beinf well rounded and very strong. But Palu does also seem to fit that bill in ny ways.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Of course she's really good, but we've been through this song and dance of the best fighter in the game so many times at this point. Can you definitively say that she's the best in the game? I kind of doubt you can do that with any fighter in Ultimate.

Of course I don’t think she is nor I don’t think anyone actually thinks she’s the number one character or even a contender for it. I just think it’s was a touch silly to see people having difficulty thinking she was even top 15 for a stretch. Character just has too much going right for her.

That does bring up the question who is the best character in ultimate. Since it’s so hotly debated and just about everyone will tell you differently. Who does everyone think is number one? I really couldn’t tell you myself come to mind but I can’t even make a solid argument why it’s one of them and not the others. Ultimate really feels more balanced than it likely is. I can’t even convince myself that some of these characters are top five.

 

[Arthur97]

Why would you think it isn't so balanced?

Also, while my personal biases would love for Wolf or Lucina to be the best, I'm not sure I can see it. Sure, their lack of results might be chalked up to them being fairly basic, but I'm not confident they are. Maybe I'm just pessimistic though.

 

[Nebunera]

I'm slowly starting to be convinced is a top tier character. Not yet, but he is super close; for now, top 20.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Of course she's really good, but we've been through this song and dance of the best fighter in the game so many times at this point. Can you definitively say that she's the best in the game? I kind of doubt you can do that with any fighter in Ultimate.

The most obvious choices currently are and those are the ones that I see the most people saying. A good argument could be made for any of these characters being the best, although (personally) I'd say Pikachu is currently the best.

Arguments could also be made for (and ?) as well, but most of these characters have weaknesses that are just a bit too much for me to personally say they are in contention.

Other than them, I have also seen put as #1 by Player-1, a Smash 4 Diddy player, but that just seems like an outlier to me.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I'm honestly surprised as to how much continues to be slept on, despite the success Kameme, Gluttony, and Tweek have had with the character. The fact that most people online (though not anyone I can think of on this thread) don't even consider him good enough to be a Top 10 contender despite him being EVERYWHERE in Japan is really causing me to scratch my head quuiiittteee a bit.

As for contenders for best character in the game, it's a hard call, but I personally think it's a toss-up between , , , , and . I've had this opinion since EVO, and not much hasn't really changed since lol.

 

[Megamang]

This just in, smash players super reactionary.

Ignoring the merits of the argument, saying things like 'X is true, we all agree X is true' isn't really evidence so much as just presuming a conclusion.

Palu is definitely amazing. What MUs does she struggle in or go basically even? The shield mechanic is a huge clutch factor, I do agree she is more clutch than people give her credit. When you are in an intense close game, and you can call out their attack with invincibility, you can quickly swing momentum in a way that others can't because they can't ignore your attacks so safely.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Honestly, I haven't really considered a best character before Wolf started to drop a little, and Pichu got nerfed. Those seemed to be the safest bets. There's no clear outstanding character yet, which is both great and a bit underwhelming...

Why underwhelming? Because there's still a clear difference between the tier fractions of characters, so balance is a thing that's still somewhat off.

I mean, there's archetypes of just about every character in every tier. Compare Bowser to say, DK, and Palutena to Zelda or Rosalina, Lucina to Marth and Corrin, Inkling to Diddy and Sheik, it's weird how they haven't bothered with patching up the weaker characters a bit more. Sure it's easy to say that on (virtual) paper, and all these characters aren't exactly homogeneous, but it's been bothering me for a bit. Especially since there's characters now who are way weaker than they used to be, and always where quite strong competitively in prior games for example; Diddy, Mewtwo (minus Melee), Sheik (minus Brawl), Meta Knight, Marth (minus Smash 4 prior buffs), Rosalina, Ice Climbers (maybe it's thanks to the wobbling being gone which is a good thing). While characters as Fox, Pikachu, Mario and Snake seem to do fine doing their old tricks.

 

[TennisBall]

The most obvious choices currently are and those are the ones that I see the most people saying. A good argument could be made for any of these characters being the best, although (personally) I'd say Pikachu is currently the best.

Arguments could also be made for (and ?) as well, but most of these characters have weaknesses that are just a bit too much for me to personally say they are in contention.

Other than them, I have also seen put as #1 by Player-1, a Smash 4 Diddy player, but that just seems like an outlier to me.

seems to be falling down due to his problems with recovery and having just exist. Don't get me wrong. Chrom is a VERY good character with his own freat strengths, but his recovery seems to be putting him slowly down into top of high tier.
That being said...
on the other hand seems to be rising up due his disgusting kill power and his neutral and advantage. His disadvantage is okay and his recovery isn't the best but it's not Chrom bad. Obvously I'm butchering these characters actual strengths and weaknesses but bear with me here. Roy also has way more representation than Chrom for some strange reason, and he seems to be bottom top tier for a couple of lists. Dabuz excluded, more top players are shifting opinions on who's the better echo, and a lot of the time it's Roy.
That's just my silly take on it though.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I can't think of a top-tier that has such an awful recovery as Chrom in top-tier.
He's a beast on-stage but every character that can reliably cover the ledge without getting hit will be a nightmare for Chrom once he's off-stage. Which will happen. Even the best Chrom with Rivers (he's an exceptionally good player on-stage) struggles with that and I expect Chrom to get edgeguarded even harder.

Of course it's not Mac-level of awfulness. A Mac was a whole stock of at TBH9 and died at 20% due to being edgeguarded by a Samus. Think it was Kwaz vs. Johann/Vorst.
At least Chrom won't get gimped so easily.

 

[Krysco]

Chrom's recovery is bad but I find it's often overblown and people often praise Roy's recovery more since they compare it to Chrom's when it too is still a flawed recovery.

Funny enough, Chrom has pretty much everything over Mac when it comes to recovery. He has a better air speed (1.302 compared to 1.208), a lower fall speed (1.8 compared to 1.95), a better double jump (28 compared to 26), more weight (95 compared to 87) disjointed, ranged, aerials that actually require respect and a recovery move that covers more distance, is scarier to contest with and has super armor starting off. All Mac has to compete is a wall jump, a side special that can only be used once and a faster up special.

Chrom is also way less telegraphed when onstage since he actually has incentive to jump and he has safer options with a dtilt that's -5 on shield, jab is -10 and all aerials sans dair are -6 or better at best. Mac in comparison has -13 down angled fsmash (better if charged) and -14 dtilt and everything else gets worse. This whole mentioning of onstage being important since in order to get either character off stage, you have to read something on stage and capitalize on it.

As for my mention of Roy's recovery, it having a ledge sweetspot is definitely a plus it has over Soaring Slash but it's a rather precise distance between not being able to reach the ledge, overshooting the ledge and actually grabbing it, at least compared to other characters. It also has a terrible ledge sweetspot behind Roy. If he overshoots the ledge and ends up under the stage, it is way harder to grab the ledge with the back of Blazer. It's also not very threatening to challenge and doesn't have much range or speed compared to other swordie up specials. Both their recoveries are crap and definite weaknesses of the characters but it only matters as often as the characters actually find themselves needing to use it. Having a poor recovery isn't the end all be all for characters

 

[Arthur97]

Seriously, are we really back to the "lol, Chrom's recovery is so bad" argument?

And I will say that just because they fall off in use doesn't always mean they're bad. Wolf and Lucina being prime examples.

 

[SwagGuy99]

seems to be falling down due to his problems with recovery and having just exist. Don't get me wrong. Chrom is a VERY good character with his own freat strengths, but his recovery seems to be putting him slowly down into top of high tier.
That being said...
on the other hand seems to be rising up due his disgusting kill power and his neutral and advantage. His disadvantage is okay and his recovery isn't the best but it's not Chrom bad. Obvously I'm butchering these characters actual strengths and weaknesses but bear with me here. Roy also has way more representation than Chrom for some strange reason, and he seems to be bottom top tier for a couple of lists. Dabuz excluded, more top players are shifting opinions on who's the better echo, and a lot of the time it's Roy.
That's just my silly take on it though.

I agree, but I have heard people try to say that Chrom could be the best in the game and while I can see the argument, I 100% agree that the recovery is the thing holding him back from being that good.

Roy on the other hand, is really good. I'd say he's a bit better than Chrom but not everyone will agree with that. IMO, Roy is definitely a Top 10 character and there are loads of reasons as to why I believe this is true:

• Damage output from his combos is very high.
• His combo-game and juggling games are both very strong.
• His sweetspot mechanics give him a more diverse combo game.
• He has a ton of kill moves.
• He's one of the fastest characters in the game.
• His rushdown playstyle shuts down a lot of slower characters.
• Good edgeguarding.

His biggest issue is recovery but it isn't exactly horrible. I'd say Roy and Lucina are pretty equal in terms of viability with Chrom being slightly worse but still very good.

 

[$.A.F.]

Seriously, are we really back to the "lol, Chrom's recovery is so bad" argument?

And I will say that just because they fall off in use doesn't always mean they're bad. Wolf and Lucina being prime examples.

It’s a serious issue any way you spin it. Obviously he still is an amazing character but his recovery does hold him back. Obviously even a terrible recovery isn’t enough to knock him out of ~top 15, but it is definitely enough to put him back a couple spots

 

[Spinosaurus]

I'll take Chrom's recovery killing anyone that messes up the edgeguarding over Roy's being really easy to intercept, and that godlike OoS.

 

[Arthur97]

Yeah, Roy's doesn't really have much risk to at least trying to hit him off stage (it often seems to hit you back toward the stage anyway), but just today I actually killed someone offstage with Soaring Slash and still grabbed the ledge. Granted, those situations aren't abundant, but especially if Chrom is at high percent and you're at low, you have to ask yourself if you're willing to take that risk. Now, against pretty much anyone with a counter, yeah, then it's a problem.

Also, when does Blazer actually kill? I know Soaring Slash can kill on stage, but odds are with Chrom it's not the best option and their are less risky kill moves.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Roy is as good as Chrom until you get to a certain level in your footsies and boxing.

Then you will curse everytime you hit a jab from max range as Roy and you cannot get a confirm.

 

[SapphSabre777]

Interesting people are looking back and forth at Chrom and Roy on who is better or such.

On an inverse note, I'd love to propose that we have our biggest case of a character that is truly unviable in the meta: .

I've waited and waited, dabbled and dabbled, but I've come to accept that Kirby isn't just the worst character in the game by a mile, but he is actually unviable in a game where characters like Puff, K. Rool, Little Mac and others, while having their huge flaws, have enough of a kit to allow them to pull off wins and upsets at big tournaments and gatherings. That says so much about Kirby, who has never really done much other than Jesuischoq's almost breakout performance at Albion and Komota's almost win versus Void. At least other characters have had a big win under their belt or a good showing at a tournament (namely ranked), but Kirby has zilch in terms of big, determinant wins over key players, despite the fact he has points.

The truth is, even with multiple jumps, even with certain appealing aspects (tilts and strong Smashes), this character is held back by every single conceivable thing known to man. One of the worst neutrals in the game which is held back by his too-honest and too-stubby range, an advantage once feared now diminished because of the new engine guttering his combos compared to the rest of the cast, and a dreadful disadvantage that cannot be saved by having multiple jumps or magnet hands. The amount of work needed to win with this character is truly greater than any other.

No other character has this putrid mix of absent players putting up performances and a dreadful character in-play and on-paper. At least Little Mac, K. Rool, Puff, and many others have results and players or halfway decent theoretical traits that help bolster the character in-play and on-paper, but Kirby has neither, and likely won't unless he gets a big boost on his attributes and moves to actually make them meaningful. Until then, Kirby is a dead end character that really doesn't deserve any discussion.

 

[boysilver400]

My biggest gripe with Kirby is that the only changes he’s gotten so far are QoL changes. They’re...decent, but he needed so much more than that. His earlier match with iStudying shows that the Nair buff..honestly didn’t mean much because he got punished for using that slow ass move a lot. I do think he should’ve used it less but still. I was one of the more optimistic people about Kirby but at this point it’s almost a year into the game and he’s been treated too poorly and patches and on the big stage.

Meanwhile and are staying privileged...