Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[E.G.G.M.A.N.]

3 is just the ideal amount. I gave examples for what I consider overly long combos like Smash 4 Bayo or Melee wobbling and chain grabs. If one hit can lead to death, then going for anything but the safest options becomes too risky. And if your character does not have a reliable way to avoid the 0-death, they instantly become unviable.

Also the fewer neutral interactions lead to a kill, the more variation you will see in the results. Imagine you are the better player and can win neutral roughly 60% of the time vs your opponent. If there are 100 neutral exchanges in a match, you are likely to win every game even if you get unlucky and instead of winning the expected 60 exchanges you win only 55 or 52. And each game is likely to come down to the last stock for both players.
But if there are only 3 exchanges per game, you could realistically get even 3 stocked if the opponent manages to get their 40% neutral win 3 times in a row.

However too few combos are not ideal either even if they produce the most consistent results. In such a metagame comebacks become much rarer and accidental SDs can easily cost you the whole match. It's also boring to watch and unsatisfying for the players to put in so much work in winning neutral and be rewarded with just one hit.

That is why a healthy balance is the best option which I think is around 3 hits per combo. This lets you rack up a good amount of damage per combo, gives you enough room for creativity in your follow ups and gets you the stock in around 5 neutral wins. More hits is not necessarily bad as long as they are weaker and do not lead to overwhelming stage advantage. I just often see opinions that the more combos there are, the better the game will be which I disagree with.

The number of exchanges is trivial, the better player will take the set in the end, regardless(see: the majority of other fighters out there). But I'd rather have a smaller number of interactions that are all equally as impactful, rather than have a drawn out, backloaded game where the only decisions really that matter much are during "sudden death" mode at the end of each stock. a f-air that leads to another f-air into an edge guard matters a lot more than a f-air that's just a f-air and nothing else.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

It might be optimism on my part, but what I see from early Smash Ultimate is not a game that's "all about neutral" or "all about aggression" or "all about turtling." With over 70 characters and DLC on the way, my prediction is that how the game looks and plays is going to change drastically depending on the matchup.

Let's say you're Sonic and you're fighting Pichu. Sonic is faster (of course), and Pichu self-damages. Just by trying to approach, Pichu takes damage. Why wouldn't Sonic play a more defensive game, or try to camp Pichu out if he has the lead? Pichu is a terror up-close and can get early KOs.

But if it's Falco vs. Wolf, it should come as no surprise that they'll be comboing each other all the live long day. They're combo food, and they're good at combos.

In this environment (if that's how it's going to be), what I hope for is players and spectators who understand this, and refuse to enjoy anything that's not their ideal style of match.

For Simon and Richter, I think what we might be seeing is that "brainless" Belmonts falling by the wayside. People want them to be unstoppable fortresses, but based on the games they're from, they're supposed to be a thinking player's character who has to plan far in advance where and how they're going to attack. The big thing about early Castlevania games is that the whip has a very intentional delay to keep you from just spamming it without thought. It's not clear if this can translate successfully to Smash, but the future is likely to be in a heavily cerebral style.

Basically, if Ranai played a Belmont, people would have to watch the hell out.

I think the game is all about neutral. You can't really get around it tbh. However, you just can't skip neutral and get there. Once you win neutral you begin to press your advantage. When you're in disadvantage the game becomes about getting back to neutral which can be very difficult with the offensive options. To claim this game is a faster brawl shows a lack of understanding of advantage in this game and a fundamental lack of understanding of ultimate and brawl.

 

[BunbUn129]

The length of combos in itself is not an issue. Never has been. 64 and Melee are still played to this day. The majority of match-ups in those games have very few neutral interactions per stock. Think Fox vs any other fast-faller in Melee. I haven't seen any legit complaints about Fox wave-shining or Falco pillaring.

"I think the perfect balance is 2-3 hit combo strings at a time max." Arbitrary number. The statement implies that once the neutral has been won, there are no more interactions. Wrong. You have air dodging, combo breaker aerials, and even when a combo is completely true, you still have control in the form of DI. This has been true in every Smash game and the only thing changing was the power balance. 64 gave very few options to the combo'ed character, Melee expanded with DI and air dodging, Brawl and S4 went too far with safer air dodging and hitstun cancelling, and Ultimate dialed disadvantage options back some way.

The punish game is strong in most Melee match-ups but most importantly of all, the punish games are highly interactive. Fox, Falco, etc. need to read DI in order to perform longer punishes, and even more basic options like Fox's up throw > up air need a DI read. Combos become detrimental when the defending side is effectively not allowed to play the game, eg. Wobbling, IC's chain-grabs in Brawl, Brawl D3's chain-grab on a bunch of characters, Pikachu chain-grabbing fast-fallers to death. Whether the combo is 3 hits, 5 hits, or 50 really doesn't matter in itself.

One change made in Brawl that persists until now, and one that I disagree with, is that DI doesn't apply if you're not put into tumble. I dislike that change because it removes all interaction from low-percent true combos, giving us stuff like MK's uair combos on floaties in S4. Another change was to DI in S4. The system was fine in Melee/Brawl. But they broke it on S4 release and only patched it back for vertical KB. Vectoring is a dumb idea because it makes low-percent horizontal combos more limited and less interactive. This mixture of old DI and vectoring resulted in the last game being oversaturated with ladder combos.

 

[MartinAW4]

The number of interactions per stock definitely matters. It's a basic principle of probability. The more interactions, the more consistent your results will be.

In Melee there were matches even among top players when one player would 4 stock the opponent and then get 4 stocked back in the next game. Such extreme volatility significantly decreased in the later entries where combo games were weaker with many more neutral interactions.

This is especially true when you consider that an important skill that all top players have is their adaptation. It is not rare for them to start the set losing even vs weaker players, but after a while they download them and then they barely get hit. But if each interaction or two lead to a stock, the top players might have already lost before they get enough time to adapt.

E.G.G.M.A.N. also brought up a good point about how neutral wins that lead to a stock are more important than wins that just lead to damage. And this is solved pretty cleverly in Smash thanks to the knockback increase as percents increase. This allows you to get longer combos at low % when you are unlikely to take the stock yet. And as the % (and by extension your probability of taking the stock) increases, the combo games become weaker.

BunbUn129
A combo by definition cannot be airdodged or interrupted by combo breakers. You can use DI to make the follow ups harder, but if the combo is true, you can always react to the DI and continue it. The only move that could escape true combos was Greninja's Shadow Sneak in Smash 4 but that got patched out in Ultimate.
Regarding your points about the long inescapable combos like Wobbling and chain grabs being detrimental to the game and Melee punish game being highly interactive which makes it fun and competitive for players on both ends of the strings, I completely agree.

 

[BunbUn129]

I just dislike the notion that combo length on its own affects competitive health. It all depends on the balance of power between the initiator and the character on the receiving end. Fighting games are essentially interactions and these can manifest themselves in more ways than just neutral; in Smash's context they take place in neutral, in combos, strings, juggles, and edge-guards.

Balancing punish games is delicate. You can't leave the combo'ed character without any options, and at the same time, they shouldn't be given get-out-of-jail-free cards (unless the intent is to give a specific character a strong disadvantage state, exception). That's why the old DI system was such a good mechanic: it gave you a defensive option even when stuck in hitstun, so even true combos needed constant adjustments in execution. And that's why I don't like the idea of vectoring, because it makes horizontal combo trees and strings too simplistic and repetitive.

Your ability to play neutral and consistently win it is not the sole measurement of skill. How you go about the other gameplay states matters. Just because you spend more time in neutral doesn't necessarily mean the better player is more likely to win.

 

[Ffamran]

A lot of people are beginning to believe Falco was overhyped, but I’m starting to think he has a lot more to offer in this game than Smash 4. Check out this footage:

https://youtu.be/D364Pa_FPPo

My only criticism with using this footage is that, and no offense to Kamuchi, there's a huge skill gap between Uratom and Kamuchi. Or possibly extreme lag on Kamuchi's end. The footage is still useful such as showing Falco being able to hit confirm from falling Nair and Fair, but it's not that useful when it looks like one player is severely outplaying the other and you don't know if what's happening, combos, hit confirms, how strong a character looks, is the other player making very poor decisions, reacting poorly, having a very bad day, or not being able to keep up with their opponent.

I think these videos might be better since the opponents are on a more even level with the Falco player:

Spoiler

The match between Lunamado's Bowser (first round) and Falco (rest of the game) vs. Rido's Link shows some good anti-airing with Falco's Up Smash: https://youtu.be/Vstj4iIbc_E?t=199.

One of Pikazono's recent videos has him fighting a cautious, but too cautious Chrom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMQgubZBO0. I've wondered what a Chrom who was played more as a zoning character like Ike and Marth was like and it looks pretty damn effective since Chrom can easily get in with his fast movement speeds, he has a sword, he hits fast, and he hits hard. Unfortunately, the Chrom fighting Pikazono was too passive where I feel like he gave up his advantage state too early and didn't keep up his pressure enough for neutral.

Pikazono's two other videos has him fighting Little Mac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7WngTR5Q4.

And an Ike, Link, Falco, and Dr. Mario: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQtBN1AFAyg. I think it was all against one player.

conso's Falco is an example of what you shouldn't let Falco do to you and that is let him gain a lot of momentum. It also shows what happens when you can shut down his gameplan or one of them at least since conso doesn't really use Falco's Blaster to zone or control space.

conso vs. Weeb's Snake (Winners Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS2gbT3Wty0.

conso's Falco and Dr. Mario vs. Linoone's Bayonetta and Peach (Winners Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ue8dappwL4.

conso vs. Seymour Butts's Inkling (Losers Quarters): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-57kzPZg5Zg.

conso vs. Bigfateli's Jigglypuff and Fox (Losers Semis): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWyWy4IZpA.

conso vs. Linoone's Peach and Daisy (Losers Finals): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwGyiCm0520.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think Falco was capable of these things in Smash 4. The string at 1:25 shows that Falco gets some powerful confirms off of FF Nair and Fair. Up tilt feels way more consistent in this game than Smash 4 as well and helps juggle people kid combo and function as a powerful anti air.

Brawl Falco was capable of using falling Nairs to confirm things if he didn't land with the last hit since it Nair had 9 landing frames, the same landing frames Ultimate Nair dropped back to from Smash 4. Smash 4 Falco couldn't really do that when Nair had 15 landing frames, but 1.0.8 Smash 4 Nair connected better and frame synced Nair allowed him to do things that Brawl and Ultimate Falco couldn't such Nair chains at low percents.

Falling Fairs on the other hand wasn't possible in Brawl or Smash 4. Part of it had to do with the landing lag at 33 frames for Brawl, 32 for launch Smash 4, and 25 for 1.0.8 Smash 4. The other part was on how Fair worked, or rather didn't work, in Brawl and Smash 4. Brawl Fair did not connect well and its loop hits 0 base knockback and 40 knockback growth compared to Smash 4 and I'm assuming Ultimate having fixed knockback where for Smash 4, it was 60. Smash 4 Fair's landing hit, at least after 1.0.4, reached further than Ultimate's and was heavily disjointed. There was a claim, however, that launch Smash 4 Fair could do it since it was 1.0.4 Smash 4 that moved the landing hitbox forward, but it probably wasn't an actual confirm and more of a mixup.

I'm not sure why people keep saying Utilt is more consistent. It still connects reliably and has done so since Brawl. If you and others mean consistent by being able to combo and follow up from it, then yeah, Utilt is more consistent when it has 14 recovery frames compared to Brawl's having 29 without IASA and 20 with IASA and Smash 4's having 21 in addition to Falco's jump being frame 3 in this game compared to 5 in Melee and 6 in Brawl and Smash 4 letting him follow up with aerials faster. It is weaker in this game, though, since it does less total damage, 7.5% instead of 9%, and the second hit does 4% instead of 5% like in the previous games. The 1% damage matters a lot when its knockback growth in Brawl and Smash 4 was 150 and I don't think it has the same knockback values in Ultimate.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

it probably got cut out off the game because its more easily to balance the game without a mechanic that favors certain moves or characters and makes things more complicated when designing and programing moves, the same way why chaingrabs and edgehog got cut too, and why now everyone has the same 3 frame jumpsquat.

 

[Game7a1]

A tournament discussion thread for the weekend is up. Just to help direct tournament discussion there.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I think Marth may wind up as the best swordie. If he's not the best he should be a close 2nd. A lot of the gripe about Marth was that he can't space properly because of the speed of the game. However, sourspot fair completely opens up his combo game allowing him to combo into all of his moves. I could be overstating this but it does open up his options would be very nice to see.

 

[Emblem Lord]

My gripe about Marth is the very high short hop.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Not sure I agree. Lucina doesn’t care about spacing and thus is more consistent, and Ike can space incredibly well with fair, nair, and dtilt, the latter of which lead into a combo.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Fine, I'll actually talk about the character I wildly defended for half of v4.

Chrom has more advantages over Roy than just a consistent sword. His ledge pressure is better, thanks to having different animations on his ftilt and jab that cause them to hit below the ledge. Then there's the fact that he can convert basically any low % hit into a stock trade, which people have been figuring out ways around, but is still an immensely powerful option.

Even with those, there are still people who think Chrom is worse, and that people aren't exploiting his flaws enough (which they definitely aren't, whether or not he's better than Roy).

As far as Roy's kill power goes, he basically needed a read to kill. He had kill setups, but none were really reliable, and the few confirms he had were hard to, well, confirm. Side-B, which would've been a great kill move, didn't ****ing work, and Bair had terrible hitbox placements that made sweetspotting it prohibitively difficult. Fair didn't kill until like 150 if you were even slightly off of the ledge, and Dash Attack was way too linear to reliably catch people.



No, that proves nothing. The idea that Roy's design is fundamentally flawed existed long before Chrom did, and very much has and will carry over into perceptions of who the better character of the two is. If Chrom continues to be considered better than Roy, that just means that most people think Roy's design is fundamentally flawed, regardless of whether or not it actually is. In other words, it means nothing has changed.

I would like to know your opinion of Roy's future in the meta.

I think that Roy is kind of overrated. I do think that he's been the best that he's been in a smash game. However, he still has that reverse tipper mechanic. It forces him to put himself in more danger than most other of the sword characters. I hate when I get a forward smash and get a sour spot that hits like a wooden stick. Is there any reason to use Roy over any of the sword characters like Marth, Lucina, and Chrom? Especially when they have better spacing abilities.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Not sure I agree. Lucina doesn’t care about spacing and thus is more consistent, and Ike can space incredibly well with fair, nair, and dtilt, the latter of which lead into a combo.

Any of them killing at 40? Luciana can do what marth does but the biggest difference is he can confirm into kills off of sour spot fair and she can't.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Any of them killing at 40? Luciana can do what marth does but the biggest difference is he can confirm into kills off of sour spot fair and she can't.

I think being able to reliably kill near the ledge with fsmash or bair is a fair tradeoff.

Ike doesn't have confirms but he does have setups, which isnt so bad since so many of his moves kill on their own.

 

[Rizen]

I think Marth may wind up as the best swordie. If he's not the best he should be a close 2nd. A lot of the gripe about Marth was that he can't space properly because of the speed of the game. However, sourspot fair completely opens up his combo game allowing him to combo into all of his moves. I could be overstating this but it does open up his options would be very nice to see.

What combos does he have?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

What combos does he have?

Sour spot fair into imagination.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Ike doesn't have confirms but he does have setups, which isnt so bad since so many of his moves kill on their own.

Errr.... this is extremely wrong.

Nair confirms into Uair for a long period of time. At kill percents. While also being his main neutral spacing move. Also confirms into Bair at kill percents. Which is why MKLeo, Marss, and Zero have all picked him up, why he's getting great results (IIRC second for the FE characters). And why ANTI currently has him as 4th best character in the game.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Errr.... this is extremely wrong.

Nair confirms into Uair for a long period of time. At kill percents. While also being his main neutral spacing move. Also confirms into Bair at kill percents. Which is why MKLeo, Marss, and Zero have all picked him up, why he's getting great results (IIRC second for the FE characters). And why ANTI currently has him as 4th best character in the game.

My B. I was under the impression they weren't true combos.

 

[Lancerech]

I would like to know your opinion of Roy's future in the meta.

I think that Roy is kind of overrated. I do think that he's been the best that he's been in a smash game. However, he still has that reverse tipper mechanic. It forces him to put himself in more danger than most other of the sword characters. I hate when I get a forward smash and get a sour spot that hits like a wooden stick. Is there any reason to use Roy over any of the sword characters like Marth, Lucina, and Chrom? Especially when they have better spacing abilities.

Playing Roy, he has certain advantages over Chrom besides the recovery. He does have a larger amount of high damage combos at low percents that put people into kill range extremely quickly and occasional kill confirms with a couple of his tippers. That said, I don't see people picking him over Chrom for good reason. Even if Roy's close range kill power is amazing, Chrom manages to still have pretty good kill power, more range to use it, and more consistency with kill confirms that they both share like Jab-Bair. Even if the reward for your risk is good, it doesn't especially feel worth it when you can pick someone with marginally less reward and a lot less risk outside of recovering.

 

[MapleBeasts]

I would like to know your opinion of Roy's future in the meta.

I think that Roy is kind of overrated. I do think that he's been the best that he's been in a smash game. However, he still has that reverse tipper mechanic. It forces him to put himself in more danger than most other of the sword characters. I hate when I get a forward smash and get a sour spot that hits like a wooden stick. Is there any reason to use Roy over any of the sword characters like Marth, Lucina, and Chrom? Especially when they have better spacing abilities.

The reverse tipper mechanic is not all bad. Sourspot hits on his aerials let him combo at later percentages than the other swordies and the trade off for the raw kill power he has is worth it in a lot of situations. Also sourspot let's him combo for more damage at earlier percentages. He's still a fast character on the ground with good frame data and combos and it's not like sourspot is close to as bad as it was in melee for him. I agree that currently he's not as good as Chrom for the reasons stated in your original post (plus Chrom having the ability to trade stocks with soaring slash that confirms off of jab, fair, and nair at certain percents), but I would wager his standing in the meta will remain high as he still combos very well, is fast and can take stocks with ease. He's also a much safer investment as a swordie as he'll likely avoid the nerf bat with all the attention Chrom and Lucina are getting.

 

[Yonder]

Some interesting points of discussion from the 500+ Socal tournament I watched yesterday and the pools of the tournament Zero, Leo, Dabuz are at:


Pichu. The GFs of the 500+ Socal tournament was...a Pichu ditto (what a timeline!). I think in my opinion his tournament results have proven him to be superior to Pikachu at this point in the meta. Captain L took 1st with him in a large Alberta event solo, too. His explosive advantage, tiny hurtbox, insane edgeguarding, power and recovery and very good tournament results have proven him to be top tier. Even the range issue isn't as bad when his lingering attacks drag you offstage ,where Pichu thrives.

Bowser. Not too much to say, but Larry Lurr, K9, and M2K whipped out pocket Bowsers when losing. They all came close to winning or took a game, but didn't win the set. As someone who mains Bowser now, i found their Bowser play somewhat flawed (Not abusing that f6 side b killing at 90 on platformed stages, none of them used it at all). M2K's was the best with OOS up b and nair to bair conversions. They should attempt dash danced side smashes more imo...

Anyways, for someone who is never discussed, Bowser seem to be a secret pocket. Interesting. For reference i think he's high tier, but no means top. He can make top 8s but never claim first from what I've seen.

Luigi. I just can't adapt to him this game. But Elegant pulled off nice place, taking 3rd with him at Socal. But realistically...he doesn't look all that good. If it wasn't for Luigi's insane, INSANE d throw dair-nair-dair-nair-dspike-up b chain (0-80, 0-death on snake with 150% rage), I would have him in the lower tiers. Horrid recovery and watching him vs KI's snake was awful, Luigi just cant get in. But...he pulled a reverse 3-0 cause Snake dashed into him twice and lost a stock or took 80 from a grab at 0. That's crazy. So...hss a low high tier, imo. Everything else he has feels pretty ineffective. At least dash attack kills now! Tl;Dr, best grab reward in the game on a mediocre character makes him high tier. Ish.

Thoughts on these three?

 

[Tri Knight]

People are definitely sleeping on Bowser. He's high tier potential in my eyes. As a super heavy, he's gonna have one of the worst disadvantage states in the game. But he's gonna go far I think, IF people push for it.

The problem is in the past, heavyweights were just simply combo food. They didn't have the ability to come back well enough. They weren't mobile enough most of the time which made even being on the ground dangerous for them. So now I feel some people have that mindset where they're just gonna be trash.

But you know what? This game is looking a lot better for the Heavyweights in general. I mean ****, Link was one place away from top 8 in a 500+ tournament. That's noteworthy. Pocket Bowsers... still noteworthy. King K Rool and a few ROB's in the top... noteworthy. I think regardless of where they stand, heavies are bound to be more relevant in this game.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Some interesting points of discussion from the 500+ Socal tournament I watched yesterday and the pools of the tournament Zero, Leo, Dabuz are at:


Pichu. The GFs of the 500+ Socal tournament was...a Pichu ditto (what a timeline!). I think in my opinion his tournament results have proven him to be superior to Pikachu at this point in the meta. Captain L took 1st with him in a large Alberta event solo, too. His explosive advantage, tiny hurtbox, insane edgeguarding, power and recovery and very good tournament results have proven him to be top tier. Even the range issue isn't as bad when his lingering attacks drag you offstage ,where Pichu thrives.

Bowser. Not too much to say, but Larry Lurr, K9, and M2K whipped out pocket Bowsers when losing. They all came close to winning or took a game, but didn't win the set. As someone who mains Bowser now, i found their Bowser play somewhat flawed (Not abusing that f6 side b killing at 90 on platformed stages, none of them used it at all). M2K's was the best with OOS up b and nair to bair conversions. They should attempt dash danced side smashes more imo...

Anyways, for someone who is never discussed, Bowser seem to be a secret pocket. Interesting. For reference i think he's high tier, but no means top. He can make top 8s but never claim first from what I've seen.

Luigi. I just can't adapt to him this game. But Elegant pulled off nice place, taking 3rd with him at Socal. But realistically...he doesn't look all that good. If it wasn't for Luigi's insane, INSANE d throw dair-nair-dair-nair-dspike-up b chain (0-80, 0-death on snake with 150% rage), I would have him in the lower tiers. Horrid recovery and watching him vs KI's snake was awful, Luigi just cant get in. But...he pulled a reverse 3-0 cause Snake dashed into him twice and lost a stock or took 80 from a grab at 0. That's crazy. So...hss a low high tier, imo. Everything else he has feels pretty ineffective. At least dash attack kills now! Tl;Dr, best grab reward in the game on a mediocre character makes him high tier. Ish.

Thoughts on these three?

I still think the metagame will move away from Pichu when the SSB4 mindset of explosive advantage states fades away. I also think Pichu's superior tournament results from Pikachu is because he is a more popular character than Pikachu, due to said explosive advantage and his status as a joke character in Melee. Pikachu is essentially the "boring" version of Pichu in player's eyes, which is why he isn't selected as much. It is kind of the reason why some players towards the end of SSB4 think that Pit/Dark Pit are not good characters, because their honesty is unappealing to the explosive advantage state mindset.

Also, we are kind of jumping the gun of who is high/low tier judging from results on the first month of the game. Granted that is practically the only thing we have to work with, but we have to know that the metagame is still leagues away from actually developing.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

People are definitely sleeping on Bowser. He's high tier potential in my eyes. As a super heavy, he's gonna have one of the worst disadvantage states in the game. But he's gonna go far I think, IF people push for it.

The problem is in the past, heavyweights were just simply combo food. They didn't have the ability to come back well enough. They weren't mobile enough most of the time which made even being on the ground dangerous for them. So now I feel some people have that mindset where they're just gonna be trash.

But you know what? This game is looking a lot better for the Heavyweights in general. I mean ****, Link was one place away from top 8 in a 500+ tournament. That's noteworthy. Pocket Bowsers... still noteworthy. King K Rool and a few ROB's in the top... noteworthy. I think regardless of where they stand, heavies are bound to be more relevant in this game.

Ridley sitting in winners finals and I'm sure people hust said how he sucks a couple of pages ago. I definitely wouldn't rule out the super heavyweights in this game.

 

[Lavani]

I don't think there's much merit in looking to tournament results to compare Pichu and Pikachu at this point, for the previously-mentioned reason that they're similar characters but one has the benefit of being a shiny new toy people want to try out. I do think Pichu's smaller size, superior frame data, and unique moves/quirks (particularly ftilt/nair, would also like to note that Pichu's dsmash uniquely has startup intangibility and dair has twice as many spike frames [4 active frames on a spike that strong is abnormally good]) are well worth the weight and recoil tradeoffs in comparison, though.

I'd expect Bowser/DK to keep their pocket popularity from 4. Even if no longer centered on pivot grabbing, fundamentals alone make them rewarding enough choices to change up one's playstyle, so the same general mentality applies.

also ridley's pretty cool

 

[Rizen]

Some interesting points of discussion from the 500+ Socal tournament I watched yesterday and the pools of the tournament Zero, Leo, Dabuz are at:


Pichu. The GFs of the 500+ Socal tournament was...a Pichu ditto (what a timeline!). I think in my opinion his tournament results have proven him to be superior to Pikachu at this point in the meta. Captain L took 1st with him in a large Alberta event solo, too. His explosive advantage, tiny hurtbox, insane edgeguarding, power and recovery and very good tournament results have proven him to be top tier. Even the range issue isn't as bad when his lingering attacks drag you offstage ,where Pichu thrives.

Bowser. Not too much to say, but Larry Lurr, K9, and M2K whipped out pocket Bowsers when losing. They all came close to winning or took a game, but didn't win the set. As someone who mains Bowser now, i found their Bowser play somewhat flawed (Not abusing that f6 side b killing at 90 on platformed stages, none of them used it at all). M2K's was the best with OOS up b and nair to bair conversions. They should attempt dash danced side smashes more imo...

Anyways, for someone who is never discussed, Bowser seem to be a secret pocket. Interesting. For reference i think he's high tier, but no means top. He can make top 8s but never claim first from what I've seen.

Luigi. I just can't adapt to him this game. But Elegant pulled off nice place, taking 3rd with him at Socal. But realistically...he doesn't look all that good. If it wasn't for Luigi's insane, INSANE d throw dair-nair-dair-nair-dspike-up b chain (0-80, 0-death on snake with 150% rage), I would have him in the lower tiers. Horrid recovery and watching him vs KI's snake was awful, Luigi just cant get in. But...he pulled a reverse 3-0 cause Snake dashed into him twice and lost a stock or took 80 from a grab at 0. That's crazy. So...hss a low high tier, imo. Everything else he has feels pretty ineffective. At least dash attack kills now! Tl;Dr, best grab reward in the game on a mediocre character makes him high tier. Ish.

Thoughts on these three?

What was the tournament called?

I agree popularity at this point is affecting results. Characters like Toon Link for example are getting to raw end of it.

If Pikachu got quick attack cancel combos I could see him rising above Pichu (who has no hitbox on agility). ATM Pichu has the better showing. I've been watching void's Pichu and on one hand he looks like a top tier. On the other hand, you sneeze and he dies at 60%. So placing him is weird. At worst Pichu's high-high tier.

 

[L9999]

I still think the metagame will move away from Pichu when the SSB4 mindset of explosive advantage states fades away. I also think Pichu's superior tournament results from Pikachu is because he is a more popular character than Pikachu, due to said explosive advantage and his status as a joke character in Melee. Pikachu is essentially the "boring" version of Pichu in player's eyes, which is why he isn't selected as much. It is kind of the reason why some players towards the end of SSB4 think that Pit/Dark Pit are not good characters, because their honesty is unappealing to the explosive advantage state mindset.

Also, we are kind of jumping the gun of who is high/low tier judging from results on the first month of the game. Granted that is practically the only thing we have to work with, but we have to know that the metagame is still leagues away from actually developing.

Pit was a bad character tho, that is why his mains dropped him and his results went on radio silence for years.

Rizen Toon Link doesn't lack in players getting results. Ri-Ma, Hayato, and Sigma are still playing him. Hyuga is also playing him.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Pit was a bad character tho, that is why his mains dropped him and his results went on radio silence for years.

Pits results only went radio silent for 2018, and that is because Earth attended much less (no tournament attendance in USA) and didn't really place very well for the tourneys he did participate, even with Corrin on his side.

 

[Heracr055]

The Pits were bad characters in Smash 4. They struggled to kill, had high endlag/landing lag on their aerials, had a nair that didn't work well, and lacked a polarizing "Smash 4" option. DLC really nailed their coffin when their general ability to kill early (think M2, Cloud, Ryu and Bayo) made the meta an even more dangerous place to be a Pit main.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The Pits were bad characters in Smash 4. They struggled to kill, had high endlag/landing lag on their aerials, had a nair that didn't work well, and lacked a polarizing "Smash 4" option. DLC really nailed their coffin when their general ability to kill early (think M2, Cloud, Ryu and Bayo) made the meta an even more dangerous place to be a Pit main.

Their only real notable weakness were their difficulty to KO. They had decent mobility, frame data, and combo game. Their gameplay wasn't about landing with aerials, but approaching on the ground, which they can do well. If the struggle to KO was a big liability, then why is Sheik top 5 in the game?

Not sure how we are ending up talking about SSB4 Pit of all things in a Ultimate thread lol, so lets change the subject: I am still confused on what is the general consensus is on Isabelle. Conversation on her pretty much died out after release, and I have no idea what people think of her in the current moment. Where is she in comparison to the cast and in comparison to Villager?

 

[Heracr055]

Their only real notable weakness were their difficulty to KO. They had decent mobility, frame data, and combo game. Their gameplay wasn't about landing with aerials, but approaching on the ground, which they can do well. If the struggle to KO was a big liability, then why is Sheik top 5 in the game?

Not sure how we are ending up talking about SSB4 Pit of all things in a Ultimate thread lol, so lets change the subject: I am still confused on what is the general consensus is on Isabelle. Conversation on her pretty much died out after release, and I have no idea what people think of her in the current moment. Where is she in comparison to the cast and in comparison to Villager?

Because Sheik was a neutral master, could avoid getting hit thanks to her mobility & needles to shut down approaches, and had a good disadvantage state (none of which the Pits had). She was able to shut down a significant portion of the cast with these traits. Her only real flaw was her susceptibility to getting "Smash 4'ed" (Mr. R is a great example of this). And decent frame data and above average neutral were not enough to cut it for the Pits into high/top. His best ground game tool was dash attack and dthrow tbh (his tilts were highly punishable). Also rapid jab didn't work
You spent a lot of time in the Comp Impressions thread for the previous game, so you should be aware that the dropoff for the Pits occured way before Earth stopped attending tournaments.
Former Dark Pit main btw before switching off his mediocre abilities

 

[Emblem Lord]

Pit's dtilt in Sm4sh was -13 ON SHIELD DROP!!!

HORRIBLE

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Ridley sitting in winners finals and I'm sure people hust said how he sucks a couple of pages ago. I definitely wouldn't rule out the super heavyweights in this game.

Ridley recovery is actually pretty bad. Gluttony gimped him at least 2+ times during Grand Finals that I can recall. 2 coming from just one game; can't recall if there was more. Not sure how ridley going to fare when people start to heavily take advantage of his recovery.

Their only real notable weakness were their difficulty to KO. They had decent mobility, frame data, and combo game. Their gameplay wasn't about landing with aerials, but approaching on the ground, which they can do well. If the struggle to KO was a big liability, then why is Sheik top 5 in the game?

Not sure how we are ending up talking about SSB4 Pit of all things in a Ultimate thread lol, so lets change the subject: I am still confused on what is the general consensus is on Isabelle. Conversation on her pretty much died out after release, and I have no idea what people think of her in the current moment. Where is she in comparison to the cast and in comparison to Villager?

Sheik had a far greater neutral / pressure/ better disadvantage state then the pit's ever had to accommodate for her struggle in killing.

 

[Rizen]

Ridley's recovery is weird. It seems good if you're at the right angle. If not Ridley has to flap to position himself to compensate for the limited directions upB can travel. Side note: upB travels down through pass through platforms.

 

[KakuCP9]

Sheik had a far greater neutral / pressure/ better disadvantage state then the pit's ever had to accommodate for her struggle in killing.

It's also worth noting that Sheik was way better at stealing stocks than the Pits were due her wide range of kill setups and her broken ledge-trapping was more reliable than the Pits' edge-guarding.

 

[The_Bookworm]

No seriously, what is the general consensus on Isabelle right now? Some players put her high, some players put her low.

 

[L9999]

hype died down as soon as it was known you could shield the fishing rod, not that it is a bad move, but it was expected of her to do 0 IQ plays. For her differences with I guess bowling ball, fishing rod, and lloids have applications that are MU dependent, but their core gameplan and tools aren't very different (slingshots, pocket, turnip), kept and PandaBair play both. They still have the weakness of being slow and falling apart to someone who can rush them down or force them to approach. I guess they don't like the FE gang and Cloud.

 

[KakuCP9]

Ledge-trapping with Lloid and fishing rod is broken. But without the traditional Lloid Villager has, she has difficulty controlling space and will probably make her more prone to rushdown than Villager (also her rolls go nowhere exasperating rushdown vulnerability)

 

[J0eyboi]

I would like to know your opinion of Roy's future in the meta.

I think that Roy is kind of overrated. I do think that he's been the best that he's been in a smash game. However, he still has that reverse tipper mechanic. It forces him to put himself in more danger than most other of the sword characters. I hate when I get a forward smash and get a sour spot that hits like a wooden stick. Is there any reason to use Roy over any of the sword characters like Marth, Lucina, and Chrom? Especially when they have better spacing abilities.

Roy's sourspots are more of an annoyance than an actual problem. A good Roy should be able to extend his advantage regardless of whether he hits the sweetspot or sourspot. They do, however, matter for killing, which can make them a problem in certain matchups; for example, Pichu and Inkling can be really hard to hit with sweetspots thanks to their low profiles. An argument could be made that it also hurts vs swordies, who can actually outspace his sweetspots, but Roy has the mobility to whiff-punish most of them, not to mention how well they all edgeguard Chrom which makes it less clear-cut which one should be used.

There are also matchups which are clearly better for Roy. Mario, for example, can gimp Chrom for free with smart use of Fludd, whereas Roy can still recover against him. Squirtle's a very similar case.

In all, I don't really see Roy being pushed out of the meta anytime soon. He's got nearly the same matchup spread as Chrom, being better in some places and worse in others, and he has a good number of top-level representatives right now, especially now that Sethlon and Hyper are back out of retirement.

Their only real notable weakness were their difficulty to KO. They had decent mobility, frame data, and combo game.

See, here's the thing: they really didn't. Their ground mobility was okay, but nothing spectacular, and their air mobility was really bad, having a lower airspeed than Palutena without even sharing her great air acceleration to make up for it. Their frame data wasn't great, either. They had no ground buttons that came out before frame 5, and outside of their frame 4 Nair, none of their aerials came out before frame 10. In terms of endlag, they had no safe ground moves except maybe the back hit of Dsmash (even that was -6 on drop, which is still punishable), and all of their aerials had at least 20 frames of landing lag. As far as combos go, their throw combos were decent, but nothing really special. They rarely got much more than 20% off a neutral win, which isn't exactly great. They also had next to no combo starters, with dthrow and nair being the only ones of note.

Their disadvantage was also pretty exploitable. Multiple jumps allowed them to stall in the air and offstage, but they didn't really have safe options to land with, and their recovery was linear and lacked a hitbox. I still maintain that the Pits were one of the most overrated characters on the final tier list. They should've landed solidly in low tier, but because no one knew or knows anything about them, they stayed in the middle of the pack.

Their gameplay wasn't about landing with aerials, but approaching on the ground, which they can do well.

Sure, but here's the thing: A bunch of characters could approach on the ground as well as or better than them, and got more reward off of it.

If the struggle to KO was a big liability, then why is Sheik top 5 in the game?

First of all, the Pits struggled to kill more than Sheik. Sheik had no reliable kill confirms or safe kill options, but she had plenty of strings and 50/50s into the kill moves she did have, like Uair, Vanish, and Bouncing Fish. The Pits had Bair, which was unsafe and required a tipper to kill; Ftilt, which was unsafe and required a tipper to kill (Dark Pit didn't even get that one); Fsmash, which was unsafe and had a habit of failing to connect properly; Usmash, which was unsafe and had a habit of whiffing on grounded opponents; Dsmash, which was unsafe on the front hit, usually unsafe on the back hit, and didn't even kill that well; Electroshock if you were Dark Pit, which was slow and unsafe; and Fthrow, which was pretty much their only reliable kill option and didn't even kill till ~150.

Second of all, Sheik had way more other stuff going for her, like the best frame data in the game, great mobility, great shield dash, needles, a great combo game, good edgeguarding, good ledgetrapping, and basically anything you could ever want except high damage moves and safe kill options. Even with all of that, people still disputed her top 5 position because of her struggles to kill and lack of postpatch results relative to other top tiers.

 

[Rizen]

Something the balance shuffling in SSBU has done is allow players of previously poor characters to win. We're seeing big things from players like Gluttony (Wario), T (Young Link), Seagull (Wolf), and others who use Palutena, etc. It wouldn't surprise me to see a Kid Icarus Uprising with Pit soon.