Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Ziodyne 21]

Wow..Marss played like some infernal demon beating MKLeo 3-0 to win G7.

Marss pulled every crazy move and tactic available to him to beat Leo. That crazy nut was willing to suicide just to take out Arsene Joker with him and essentially reset the stock situation.

I guess aggressively ledgetrapping Aresne Joker one way to stall out that meter. Which is not impossible task considering his recovery is more exploitable with Arsene out
ESAM and Samsora attempted that a lot too in their sets vs Leo.

 

[Idon]

Holy ****, Marss not only beat MKLeo, he did it definitively.

I'm as much impressed as I am confused and shocked. What kind of devil did he have to sell his soul out to for this kind of skill, goddamn

 

[Kokiden]

Kinda disappointed Leo lost but it was a great game.

I hope this at least puts some stop to Joker being OP or broken debates. He's clearly not.

 

[Idon]

Kinda disappointed Leo lost but it was a great game.

I hope this at least puts some stop to Joker being OP or broken debates. He's clearly not.

I seriously hope you're not using the reasoning that MKLeo geting 2nd at an S-tier tournament debunks people's arguments on Joker. Past seven months still happened, I would think.

 

[NairWizard]

ZSS being ZSS a whole game later. You can say all you want about her requiring neutral finesse and spacing, and she does, but the top ZSS in both smash 4 and this game wins by making reads in advantage that lead to early KOs. We saw Marss 0 to death Leo in today's set. The right direction for ZSS is to take a lot of risks in neutral, push advantage as hard as possible, and rely on flip kicking out of things so that punishments on her risks aren't too severe.

Leo was winning a lot of neutral interactions but then losing the games, and he was really frustrated; first time I've seen that. He was sighing a lot, and at the end of game 1, he rolled his eyes so hard that his pupils disappeared from view. He had "this character is stupid" written all over his face.

Arsene Joker, of course, does the exact same thing to other characters, so give and take, I guess!

Leo's thoughts on it: https://twitter.com/Mkleosb/status/1221684501543374849?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet. He's a really good sport, despite frustration (which I imagine he redirected toward himself), and the set featured some great moments.

 

[Idon]

ZSS being ZSS a whole game later. You can say all you want about her requiring neutral finesse and spacing, and she does, but the top ZSS in both smash 4 and this game wins by making reads in advantage that lead to early KOs. We saw Marss 0 to death Leo in today's set. The right direction for ZSS is to take a lot of risks in neutral, push advantage as hard as possible, and rely on flip kicking out of things so that punishments on her risks aren't too severe.

Leo was winning a lot of neutral interactions but then losing the games.

He was really frustrated; first time I've seen that. He was sighing a lot, and at the end of game 1, he rolled his eyes so hard that his pupils disappeared from view. He had "this character is stupid" written all over his face.

Arsene Joker, of course, does the exact same thing to other characters, so give and take, I guess!

Yeah, marss's ZSS was absolutely vicious. Marss barely returned to neutral before going back to do some sort of flip jump or aerial and stuff Joker out. MKLeo could score a bunch of hits in neutral but what hits marss got lead to MKLeo continually being put on the back foot until he made a mistake, while the hits marss took just meant he needed a few well timed and well flips to get out, sometimes even reversing the situation entirely.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Marss was just on a complete tear in G7 from the get-go. From the Top 64 onward he only lost 3 games. 2 in his set vs Maister and 1 vs Samsora. The pretty decisive 3-0 victory vs MKLeo in GF topped it all off as his most impressive performance in Ultimate to date

 

[MushroomKiller]

The biggest winners and losers after the two latest S-Tiers:

WINNERS

: shky's 7th in Japan and Marrs' grand victory in Genesis should quell any doubts that she's a top tier. Her explosive advantage state is really something else entirely.

: Speaking of quelling doubts, I'm not sure if ESAM's run this time would do that for the numerous arguments pinning him at Top 3, but at the very least ESAM is achieving more consistent results you'd expect from a top tier, with 3rd at Glitch and 4th at Genesis.

: Similar to , Dark Wizzy's performance has really been putting him in contention. I think a few more Top 8 finishes are needed before I feel comfortable calling him a top tier though.

and : 3rd and 7th at EVO respectively, 13th and 17th at Genesis respectively. What were once considered mid-tier characters at the release of the game have been obtaining a slew of incredible results as time goes on, especially.

Honorable Mentions

: The perennial bag of potential in the early metagame sees his greatest performance yet, with 2nd at EVO Japan.

: Gackt always places well in the A Tiers of Japan, but this is definitely his best performance in Ultimate to date, with a great 9th place at an S Tier. Wanted to bring this up because people seem to love saying "lul Ness is mid tier he doesn't get results" because it's grossly not true at this point.

: While I still think the dino's "just" a really good mid-tier, Meme has a solid 17th place run this Genesis which really showed off his strength. I hope to see more of him because I was really impressed by his performance. Best play I've seen so far.

LOSERS (or more like underwhelming, really)

: After a great slew of results at Glitch the frog representation kind of died down at the bigger S Tiers, with the highest positions being 33rd at both. I don't think it really means anything, but it is a disappointing showing.

: Glutonny's 7th place is the highest the fat man reached, despite plenty of representation in Tweek, Abadango, and Kameme. Again, I doubt it means much, he's still obviously a top tier, but not his strongest performances.

: Where have all the trainers gone? I genuinely don't remember seeing a single one on stream. It seems like he's been dropping off hard lately.

If I didn't mention characters like , , or it's because we already know these are strong characters with less divided opinions.

 

[Dream Cancel]

ZSS being ZSS a whole game later. You can say all you want about her requiring neutral finesse and spacing, and she does, but the top ZSS in both smash 4 and this game wins by making reads in advantage that lead to early KOs. We saw Marss 0 to death Leo in today's set. The right direction for ZSS is to take a lot of risks in neutral, push advantage as hard as possible, and rely on flip kicking out of things so that punishments on her risks aren't too severe.

Leo was winning a lot of neutral interactions but then losing the games, and he was really frustrated; first time I've seen that. He was sighing a lot, and at the end of game 1, he rolled his eyes so hard that his pupils disappeared from view. He had "this character is stupid" written all over his face.

Arsene Joker, of course, does the exact same thing to other characters, so give and take, I guess!

Leo's thoughts on it: https://twitter.com/Mkleosb/status/1221684501543374849?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet. He's a really good sport, despite frustration (which I imagine he redirected toward himself), and the set featured some great moments.

One thing I want to add to this, but at the end screen (metascouter.gg, the one with the statistics for both players), Leo dealt over 150% more than Marss, across the course of 3 games. However, what Marss has shown is stocks are what matter, not damage dealt. Anyone who watched the set saw how much earlier Marss was taking stocks. And Leo wasn't even taking them that late either!

I would be mad too if I were Leo, lol.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Time to post some sloppy thoughts about GENESIS 7 and EVO JAPAN because... wow.

- Such a big win for this week as Marss was an absolute monster this tournament. He didn't drop a single set and only lost THREE games - and not a single one was to MKLeo. He only lost two to Maister and one to Samsora. He made the perfect call-outs and had some of the craziest punishes I haven't seen a long time (I don't think there's any other ZSS in the world who would attempt a suicide spike against MKLeo and actually have it WORK). We can't also forget sky's strong performance, placing 7th at EVO Japan and outplacing Choco (who got 33rd). Both show really good demonstrations of why ZSS continues to be such a dominate force in the meta, especially in Japan.

- It feels as though after faith in the little guy waned given Myran's consistently mediocre performances and Dabuz's insistence that the character is a mid-tier, bounced back with a HUGE first place finish by Shuton, defeating Paseriman, Tea, and even Kome, a player he's lost to before. I hope that Shuton continues to stick with the Olimar, because if there's any reason you still need to watch out for Olimar, it's because of him.

- and continue to turn up, with very impressive performances from Tea, KEN, and Kome, and they got a little bit of help in the US too with solid performances from Sinji and surprise hits Uncivil Ninja and VaLoR. Shulk has already been talked about a bit, but no mention of Sonic or Pac-Man is having my head scratching. These two characters will continue to dish out the pain, and the sooner people stop sleeping on them (ESPECIALLY Sonic), the better.

- Maister placing Top 8 at an S Tier should be a given at this point (though it is a good bounce back from his 17th placement at Glitch 8), but we've got surprisingly solid performances from two other GnW mains in the form of Take and Bulby, who placed Top 32 at EVO and GENESIS 7 respectively. Both had respectable runs, with Take taking out JILL and YOC and Bulby defeating ScAtt, and while 25th isn't the best, it's good to see others put in work with the character given that most of said work has been mostly courtesy of Maister.

- One player that definitely surprised me was Meme , hailing from Mexico. I always knew he was a strong player, but he had four VERY close games with Tweek , and even took Dark Wizzy to game 5. And this is on TOP of defeating VoiD, Lui$, and Venia prior; if there's anyone who can carry this green dinosaur's meta further, I'm betting that it's him. I find this is definitely good as Yoshi's often considered to have a big playerbase but not too much meaningful results.

- has his first Top 24 placement at an S Tier thanks to Remi, who managed to defeat Uncivil Ninja, Blacktwins, and Chag, and even brought MVD to a game 5 situation. Lucas is a character I've always been curious about, and with Taiheta looking to get back into the competitive scene after being done with school, we might just be seeing more of him the future. had a similar milestone as well thanks to Shadow_PR (though he did switch to on a few occasions, namely to defeat Regi). We'll have to see if both characters have any lasting power. Lucas, I'm optimistic about, Bayo, I'm not too sure.

- I think Dark Wizzy said it best: busted.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I almost forgot, two s got Top 8 thanks to Paseriman and Light; with Paseriman suddenly emerging out of the shadows, I think it's safe to say Fox still continues to sit comfortably with the big boys.

 

[Impax]

4 Seasons Tournament: Winter 2020 (B Tier, for some reason)
1st: Elexiao
2nd: Maeda
3rd: Leon
4th: Jeda
5th: Ismael
5th: Sinogara
7th: Snixx
7th: Torynk


EVO Japan 2020 (S Tier)
1st: Shuton
2nd: Kome
3rd: Tea
4th: Paseriman
5th: Raito
5th: Zackray
7th: shky
7th: KEN
9th: Gackt
9th: ProtoBanham
9th: Jagaimo
9th: Abadango
13th: Kameme
13th: tk3
13th: Kirihara
13th: Etsuiji
17th: Compact
17th: Kie
17th: ANTi
17th: Atelier
17th: Shogun
17th: Sigma
17th: Mr.E
17th: HIKARU
25th: Nietono
25th: Munekin
25th: Masashi
25th: takera
25th: Bokinchan
25th: Natsu
25th: Ri-ma
25th: Take
33rd: Hinatoto
33rd: DoubleA
33rd: kept
33rd: Zuzuba
33rd: yuzu
33rd: Umeki
33rd: Choco
33rd: AIR
33rd: Yamanyon
33rd: Fsann
33rd: Suinoko
33rd: Keroguchi
33rd: Rattsu
33rd: AyaLin
33rd: TRIGGER
33rd: T
49th: Harasen
49th: Kishiru
49th: Manzoku
49th: Kiosk
49th: Higusaki
49th: supa
49th: Eim
49th: Nyanko
49th: Nuroitsu
49th: Lea
49th: Tsu
49th: sk
49th: Niki
49th: Tamanyaso
49th: JILL
49th: Hinawo


Genesis 7 (S Tier)
1st: Marss
2nd: MkLeo
3rd: Samsora
4th: ESAM
5th: Maister
5th: Dark Wizzy
7th: Glutonny
7th: Light
9th: Dabuz
9th: Tweek
9th: Nairo
9th: Charliedaking
13th: Sinji
13th: MVD
13th: Cosmos
13th: MuteAce
17th: Meme
17th: Bedgar
17th: Remi
17th: VaLoR
17th: Elegant
17th: Shadow_PR
17th: Prodigy
17th: King Koopa
25th: Salem
25th: Lui$
25th: BestNess
25th: Legit
25th: Uncivil ninja
25th: Dakpo
25th: Epic_Gabriel
25th: Bulby
33rd: Razo
33rd: Larry Lurr
33rd: Zenyou
33rd: Ouch?!
33rd: Joker
33rd: Venia
33rd: ven
33rd: Snoop
33rd: John Numbers
33rd: Myran
33rd: Blacktwins
33rd: LingLing
33rd: ScAtt
33rd: Zinoto
33rd: Ned
33rd: Goblin
49th: 8BitMan
49th: Derek
49th: Kofi
49th: Sparg0
49th: Chag
49th: Magister
49th: RFang
49th: GOHAN
49th: Luisfer
49th: Versed Ace
49th: Smallleft
49th: Plup
49th: Stroder
49th: Sandstorm
49th: Wal00gi
49th: colinies

Just curious. How do you find what tier a tournament is. I couldnt find anything on the french tournament..

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Just curious. How do you find what tier a tournament is. I couldnt find anything on the french tournament..

The Smash Wiki has them.

 

[NeonNote]

Hope pikachu and joker get nerfed. Not insanely though

 

[Kokiden]

I seriously hope you're not using the reasoning that MKLeo geting 2nd at an S-tier tournament debunks people's arguments on Joker. Past seven months still happened, I would think.

My belief is no character is in this game is OP.

Joker isn't some unstoppable character who steamrolls anyone he comes across. It certainly didn't look like MKLeo was having an easy time with anyone, same with all the other players.

Anyone who thinks Joker is OP, I'd ask them why no one else is able to replicate his kind of results. A genuinely OP character would allow multiple people replicate it with ease.

I have yet to come across someone who came up with a proper answer to this.

People who hope for nerfs just want characters destroyed out of spite instead of whether a character truly deserves it or not.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

My belief is no character is in this game is OP.

Joker isn't some unstoppable character who steamrolls anyone he comes across. It certainly didn't look like MKLeo was having an easy time with anyone, same with all the other players.

Anyone who thinks Joker is OP, I'd ask them why no one else is able to replicate his kind of results. A genuinely OP character would allow multiple people replicate it with ease.

I have yet to come across someone who came up with a proper answer to this.

People who hope for nerfs just want characters destroyed out of spite instead of whether a character truly deserves it or not.

Outside of places which trolls, very low level and non players gather (See Your average Twitter thread/Twitch Chat) I doubt the amount of people calling any character in this game OP is much at all. Most people who actually play the game or strive to understand it farther than a very basic surface level understand that the game isn’t full of overpowering characters at the top of the roster.

HOWEVER that does not mean that some tools/options some characters have aren’t overtuned. There is actually a fair bit in this game that is overtuned from the top tiers to the bottom tiers, what makes them more of a problem depends on the rest of the characters kit of course, you can’t get by with just one absurd option in smash. I think Idon’s point was that you can’t try to make a point for Joker’s power level off one MKLeo 2nd place finish (like 2nd is even a bad thing to begin with) when he has a ton of 1st places as well. MKLeo nor Joker are unbeatable but that doesn’t necessarily mean the character is perfectly fine as is.

Relax, no one is trying to gut your character. At most all anyone asks is that he doesn’t gain Aresen as easily (Like starting off a stock with meter already charged) and that his reflector and counter triggerboxes aren’t so massive he can stand on stage and counter recoveries with a counter that’s already very fast and strong as is. None of that will even make Joker fall down a spot in the tier list. No one you should be listening to is asking Aresen to be removed or for Joker to lose all his kill power or something stupid of the sorts.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Why do people in this thread lie to themselves about top tiers?

Joker is stupid. Palutena is stupid. Pikachu is stupid. Wario is stupid. ZSS is stupid. Several other characters are stupid.

And that's ok. Stupid chars make games fun. Who wants to play boring, unhype characters that aren't strong? There is a reason why Corrin sees very little play compared to his Fire Emblem brethren.

I just want Nintendo to keep rolling out strong characters that are cool, but unfortunately it seems Joker is the only one worth investing into.

Hopefully that changes.

 

[PK Bash]

- has his first Top 24 placement at an S Tier thanks to Remi, who managed to defeat Uncivil Ninja, Blacktwins, and Chag, and even brought MVD to a game situation. Lucas is a character I've always been curious about, and with Taiheta look to get back into the competitive scene after being done with school, we've might just be seeing more of him the future. had a similar milestone as well thanks to Shadow_PR (though he did switch to on a few occasions, namely to defeat Regi). We'll have to see if both characters have any lasting power. Lucas, I'm optimistic about, Bayo, I'm not too sure.

Nice work Remi. Lucas' two strongest assets from the last game, keepaway and grab reward, took a big hit in Ultimate, and those changes to the character, plus the way this game works in general, emphasise his poking game much more. He feels and plays much more like Brawl Lucas, that's not automatically a bad thing but I don't know that he's got adequate reward to back it up. He really needs a few fixes to some moves too. I personally don't feel he's very good. He's super meh at what he does, minus a few strong gimmicks situationally.

EDIT also regarding GnW, and Bulby in particular, he flew halfway round the world to play at Genesis and he only lost to Marss and Glutonny - so that 25th is actually very, very good.

My belief is no character is in this game is OP.

Joker isn't some unstoppable character who steamrolls anyone he comes across. It certainly didn't look like MKLeo was having an easy time with anyone, same with all the other players.

Anyone who thinks Joker is OP, I'd ask them why no one else is able to replicate his kind of results. A genuinely OP character would allow multiple people replicate it with ease.

I have yet to come across someone who came up with a proper answer to this.

People who hope for nerfs just want characters destroyed out of spite instead of whether a character truly deserves it or not.

You've probably never had a good answer because it's not a very good question. You need to clarify what you mean to get around both of the false equivalencies here.
False Equivalence 1: Overpowered vs Broken
"A genuinely OP character would allow multiple people to replicate it with ease"
That's not strictly true, as I'm sure you know. But you can't use "overpowered" and "broken" interchangeably - they are very different. An overpowered character is exceptionally strong in one or more particular, important areas of the game, and still pretty good in all other areas of the game. That most certainly does not equate to any old git being able to just pick up the character and start winning, you need to understand both how to play the game and how to play the character to get this capability out of them first. Some clear examples of overpowered characters in Ultimate are Snake, Palutena and, yes, Joker (from one Joker player to another). There are more.
A broken character is one which abuses an exploit they were never intended to have. Probably the most clearly obvious example is Brawl Ice Climbers. You do not need any in-depth knowledge about how to play Brawl to get deep into a Brawl bracket with Ice Climbers. That's the critical difference.

False Equivalence 2: MKLeo vs everyone else
I shouldn't need to say much here! I'll just reiterate what I said when talking about overpowered characters: you need to know both how to play the game and how to play the character if you're going to go anywhere with them. Nobody knows how to play this game better than MKLeo, and nobody knows how to play Joker half as well as MKLeo either.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seems as though more players are learning how to play Pikachu with ESAM help

For the first time...I've been hit up by other high/top level players...

They wanna play Pikachu

IT IS STARTING pic.twitter.com/62gW7FUjNh

— ESAM (@imESAM) January 27, 2020

Doesn't necessarily mean Pikachu will start getting results from anyone aside from ESAM, but this does interest me.

 

[Kokiden]

I think Idon’s point was that you can’t try to make a point for Joker’s power level off one MKLeo 2nd place finish (like 2nd is even a bad thing to begin with) when he has a ton of 1st places as well. MKLeo nor Joker are unbeatable but that doesn’t necessarily mean the character is perfectly fine as is.

That's the thing though, he's using past results to try and reinforce his idea that Joker is OP.

One player doing well with one character does not make them OP. It's why I brought up the replicating results argument.

All I see is one guy who is amazing at the game, better than anyone else actually, using a character who is also good.

I think there's a clear difference between great and overpowered.

There are a lot of good characters in the game, and they have some really great moves, but that doesn't make them easy to pick up and abuse to win.

You've probably never had a good answer because it's not a very good question. You need to clarify what you mean to get around both of the false equivalencies here.
False Equivalence 1: Overpowered vs Broken
"A genuinely OP character would allow multiple people to replicate it with ease"
That's not strictly true, as I'm sure you know. But you can't use "overpowered" and "broken" interchangeably - they are very different. An overpowered character is exceptionally strong in one or more particular, important areas of the game, and still pretty good in all other areas of the game. That most certainly does not equate to any old git being able to just pick up the character and start winning, you need to understand both how to play the game and how to play the character to get this capability out of them first. Some clear examples of overpowered characters in Ultimate are Snake, Palutena and, yes, Joker (from one Joker player to another). There are more.
A broken character is one which abuses an exploit they were never intended to have. Probably the most clearly obvious example is Brawl Ice Climbers. You do not need any in-depth knowledge about how to play Brawl to get deep into a Brawl bracket with Ice Climbers. That's the critical difference.

False Equivalence 2: MKLeo vs everyone else
I shouldn't need to say much here! I'll just reiterate what I said when talking about overpowered characters: you need to know both how to play the game and how to play the character if you're going to go anywhere with them. Nobody knows how to play this game better than MKLeo, and nobody knows how to play Joker half as well as MKLeo either.

Joker to me is the type of character who requires deep knowledge of the game to use well. He's only formidable in the right hands.

The way I view OP is akin to broken, which no one is.

I'd rather Joker remain the way he is, because he's certainly not easy to pick up and use.

If he's truly "OP" as some tend to think he is, then I'd rather that prowess be hidden behind a skill wall, which is what's happening now. It's why MKLeo is the only one doing anything substantial with him.

I just loathe the idea of nerfing things just because they're good.

 

[NotLiquid]

Seems as though more players are learning how to play Pikachu with ESAM help

For the first time...I've been hit up by other high/top level players...

They wanna play Pikachu

IT IS STARTING pic.twitter.com/62gW7FUjNh

— ESAM (@imESAM) January 27, 2020

Doesn't necessarily mean Pikachu will start getting results from anyone aside from ESAM, but this does interest me.

Cosmos posted a few tweets of Pikachu last night, and it was his OG character in Smash 4, so he may be giving the character another test run.

 

[BitBitio]

Who else thinks MKLeo is going to struggle a bit this season?
He missed Let’s Make Big Moves, Glitch, and EVO Japan, in addition to not winning Genesis. His first PRed tournament he went to all season was a little later, and his character very well may get hard nerfs tomorrow. Just early season impressions, but you never know.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Who else thinks MKLeo is going to struggle a bit this season?
He missed Let’s Make Big Moves, Glitch, and EVO Japan, in addition to not winning Genesis. His first PRed tournament he went to all season was a little later, and his character very well may get hard nerfs tomorrow. Just early season impressions, but you never know.

No, getting 2nd at a tournament is not struggling or being "washed". He got 2nd a couple times last season. It means nothing. If Joker gets nerfed he can just fall back to Lucina anyway.

 

[Cracke]

As frog main, our showing at Genesis and EVO Japan was really lackluster. Though I think it was really just situational problems maybe, Hopefully, we can see some big showing at Frostbite in February.

marss's ZSS was sick as hell.

 

[NeonNote]

It seems after patch 3.1 or something, they all of a sudden decided no significant nerfs whatsoever. That’s great if you didn’t happen to main peach, pichu, or Olimar, yet those three got the short end of the stick unfairly then. Sure they all had aspects that were overturned, but if that’s the case, then give other current top tiers the same treatment.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Gimme more buffs to weaker characters.

 

[J33nA]

Really surprised at how general opinion of Lucina has fallen despite the 3 solo Lucina's in Top 17 of EVO Japan very recently,and her still retaining an absurd MU spread,even among top tiers.

Her only possibly bad MU against the top tiers is probably Snake imo since she's forced to take the initiative there and has her BnB's ruined by F1 nade,plus Snake just outbuttons her in CQC and catches her landings amazingly, but even that's not impossible. Even Pikachu is being thought of as even-ish now,and slightly losing at worst possibly. If you think Greninja is top-tier(which he actually might be he's nuts),then that's another arguable loss,but with the way Mr.E and Venia go back and forth during their sets at Fusion,looks more like a volatile even.

Basically,I think Lucina is very close to having the best MU spread in the game and is probably tied for it along with Pikachu and Palutena. She's a jack of all trades,master of most of them with her only exploitable weakness being a bad landing disadvantage. Whiff punishing is one of them sure,but whiff punishing is counterplay that can be applied to every character,and Lucina has a good enough ground game to not let you exploit that. Plus the landing lag on her aerials are so minimal,a lot of characters can't even attempt to whiff punish her.

I think she's still possibly top 5,but #5,and if you disagree, that's obviously fine,but I think it's impossible for this character to fall out of top tier throughout the games lifespan. She's just so solid,and no,a lack of a gimmick or X-factor does not disqualify you from being a top-tier if you have a kit as solid as hers.

Marth? Who's that?

 

[BitBitio]

No, getting 2nd at a tournament is not struggling or being "washed". He got 2nd a couple times last season. It means nothing. If Joker gets nerfed he can just fall back to Lucina anyway.

I don’t mean he’s washed, but I wonder if Nairo, Marss, or Samsora will take the top spot. So far, Leo’s resumé this season is weaker than all three. Plus it might continue, with Joker nerfs.

Then again, this is Leo we’re talking about.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It seems after patch 3.1 or something, they all of a sudden decided no significant nerfs whatsoever. That’s great if you didn’t happen to main peach, pichu, or Olimar, yet those three got the short end of the stick unfairly then. Sure they all had aspects that were overturned, but if that’s the case, then give other current top tiers the same treatment.

Peach is still generally considered a top 5 character even after the nerfs

Olimar just won an S-Tier Major . So yeah he is still doing pretty alright even after the nerfs and current shieldpoke issue

Pichu seems to have fallen off the hardest yes, but there are some that argue that Pichu was starting to get figured out my players was already starting to fall off a bit even before he got smacked with the nerf bat

 

[KakuCP9]

Some clips of Maister spamming smash attacks have been making the rounds and people look at it as Game and Watch being a degenerate as usual, however it's a surprisingly optimal neutral gameplan that tries to alleviate a problem I pointed out with Game and Watch. Alot of his traditional approach tools have holes in them that at best make for high risk/return zone breaking and at worst bad approach tools so Maister decides to simply throw out attacks like d-smash and U-smash since the former is difficult to contest/ punish on the ground and the latter blows 90% of aerial approaches out the water. This allows for Maister to throw out those attacks as bait while gaining stage control to get a response from the opponent.
ZeRo also points this out:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

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[Gearkeeper-8a]

If we incluying ,(who only last year was considered low tier lol) the numbers of character that people want to nerf are very high counting 

The game already have very good diversity on tournaments, nerfing all of these would only piss off all the top players and not improve the game diversity on big majors maybe on your regional or local tournament, buff other lesser characters I would say.

Tbh the powerlevel of the top tiers in this game are midly compared past games and other fighters, just look at Tekken 7 with leroy now that a problem.

 

[Impax]

If we incluying ,(who only last year was considered low tier lol) the numbers of character that people want to nerf are very high counting 

The game already have very good diversity on tournaments, nerfing all of these would only piss off all the top players and not improve the game diversity on big majors maybe on your regional or local tournament, buff other lesser characters I would say.

Tbh the powerlevel of the top tiers in this game are midly compared past games and other fighters, just look at Tekken 7 with leroy now that a problem.

My preference would be for small nerfs. Like minor hitbox differences. Then major buffs on the low tier and mild buffs on mid tiers.

The thing is, there is no way to truly 100% balance the game as characters are going to weak against characters of different archetypes or with certain traits. Make one character stronger and another's position in the meta becomes a little weaker.

 

[NeonNote]

Peach is still generally considered a top 5 character even after the nerfs

Olimar just won an S-Tier Major . So yeah he is still doing pretty alright even after the nerfs and current shieldpoke issue

Pichu seems to have fallen off the hardest yes, but there are some that argue that Pichu was starting to get figured out my players was already starting to fall off a bit even before he got smacked with the nerf bat

Oh yea I don’t think they have to be nerfed enough to really affect their top tier status, just tweak their most overtuned tools.

 

[Megamang]

Its just... why play a heavy when joker kills the lightweights at 55% with a dair - > U-smash?

Glutto is obviously very good, but I don't think the way Nairo died was healthy. Literally hit at 0%... maybe DK or Bowser should be able to do that to you, but the character that has some of the best mobility and is quite heavy with a great recovery on top of that? We're not trying to kill the diversity, quite the opposite, and I don't think losing neutral once should be a kill with no reads involved and off an extremely quick aerial. The issue with slower characters in smash has usually been that superior mobility leads to hefty punishes, so the heavies really don't have anything. 4 showed us that with an overbearing option this can be somewhat dissuaded, though the heavies often looked lost at top top level play anyways.

Managing meter makes joker somewhat more balanced, obviously a character with permanent arsene would be absurd. ZSS was a perfect storm, but those games were engaging and interesting because Mars was taking big risks, making reads, and outplaying in neutral (not every time mind you, but when he went in it was usually through some deception or something, not just smushing you with better buttons). And honestly I would love to see that with more of the cast, no one here wants to gut a character. Either way they're certainly already finalized the build - probably before these majors - so we will see. Likely the major either reinforced their ideas or made them question them a bit.

I'd like to add that a Waft change wouldn't do anything except make Wario have to go in more, fight more, and get less from camping. Theres a difference between making an overbearing option not smash you for moving vs gutting a neutral. I don't think I've ever seen a neutral get gutted in a patch, to be honest, unless it was an abused bug they fixed or a clear mistake like 3DS greninja having unintended options.


Psst if shulk gets shield monado in combos greninja should get his SSHC back =]

Very interested to see the runback, I wish we had two sets but Mars dominating like that is certainly a good storyline.

 

[ARISTOS]

Literally hit at 0%... maybe DK or Bowser should be able to do that to you, but the character that has some of the best mobility and is quite heavy with a great recovery on top of that? We're not trying to kill the diversity, quite the opposite, and I don't think losing neutral once should be a kill with no reads involved and off an extremely quick aerial. The issue with slower characters in smash has usually been that superior mobility leads to hefty punishes, so the heavies really don't have anything. 4 showed us that with an overbearing option this can be somewhat dissuaded, though the heavies often looked lost at top top level play anyways.

Smash in general does not punish people hard enough, and I feel heavies best exemplify this.

It's too easy for characters with even slightly more mobility to drift jump away from heavies, and even when heavies do catch opponents their pressure and ability to maintain advantage is lacking compared to the more mobile characters.

Characters like Gief/Potempkin/Machamp kill people off one good neutral win and forcing opponents to play with severely handicapped hands. Heavies should definitely play more into that design

 

[KakuCP9]

Alternatively heavies can be like KoF Daimon and... just have the mobility and tools to play with everyone else, but be thicker and with more grabs!( Bowser exemplifies this surprisingly well).

 

[Rizen]

Hope pikachu and joker get nerfed. Not insanely though

Pikachu has gotten a few good results recently thanks to ESAM but even with ESAM he couldn't get top 20 in results the last 2 entire seasons. The same thing goes for G&W; yes Maester is really good but that does not mean G&W is broken.

The smash community has become much too nerf happy lately. I'm strongly against nerfing characters who aren't dominating tournaments like (IE not getting top 18 on Orion Stats). Yes they're good but they're not broken at all. People should be improving their counterplay or picking up a secondary because sometimes a character just has a bad MU. In general people should be talking about counterplay and not nerfs so much.

I'm not one of those people who is against nerfs no matter what. There are some characters who clearly are dominating tournaments like , 3rd on O Stats with 672 points compared to 's 240 points last season. People need to look at long term results. I'm also okay with nerfing Wario's Waft and Joker's Arsene meter so it doesn't start with 20% when he respawns. But that's it.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Why do people in this thread lie to themselves about top tiers?

Joker is stupid. Palutena is stupid. Pikachu is stupid. Wario is stupid. ZSS is stupid. Several other characters are stupid.

And that's ok. Stupid chars make games fun. Who wants to play boring, unhype characters that aren't strong? There is a reason why Corrin sees very little play compared to his Fire Emblem brethren.

I just want Nintendo to keep rolling out strong characters that are cool, but unfortunately it seems Joker is the only one worth investing into.

Hopefully that changes.

Banjo’s been good too

 

[Y2Kay]

2 Greninja players in top 64 of a 1,700 man tournament is fine. Relax.

Some AND Lea losing to Ike is made weird, but Japanese Greninja's have always struggle with random "winning" MU's (see: there terrible track record against RON's Yoshi/ Mario)

 

[TennisBall]

Pikachu has gotten a few good results recently thanks to ESAM but even with ESAM he couldn't get top 20 in results the last 2 entire seasons. The same thing goes for G&W; yes Maester is really good but that does not mean G&W is broken.

The smash community has become much too nerf happy lately. I'm strongly against nerfing characters who aren't dominating tournaments like (IE not getting top 18 on Orion Stats). Yes they're good but they're not broken at all. People should be improving their counterplay or picking up a secondary because sometimes a character just has a bad MU. In general people should be talking about counterplay and not nerfs so much.

I'm not one of those people who is against nerfs no matter what. There are some characters who clearly are dominating tournaments like , 3rd on O Stats with 672 points compared to 's 240 points last season. People need to look at long term results. I'm also okay with nerfing Wario's Waft and Joker's Arsene meter so it doesn't start with 20% when he respawns. But that's it.

Ness had Top 20 Results on Orion Stats. Is he top tier. God no. Yes, people need to look at long term results, but people also need to consider what the character has outside of results and what could be implented. Yes, ESAM couldn't break Pikachu though Top 20, but he's done very good this Season 3, and with people wanting to play Pikachu more and ESAM improving, Pika's going up, up and up.

I've always personally looked at what the character can do on their own more so than tournament results but I also understand consistency in this game is extemely important, which is why the meta is the way it is.

I also, however, feel like sometimes we lean too much on results, and when the results get good, everyone likes to dogpile on them until things die down and than we shift in opinion drastically. I do understand that we need results to prove points, and I'm not sure whether or not we need nerfs on Pikachu, and we certainly don't need to nerf G&W or Shulk.

Long story short, I just feel like maybe we should look at things from a different perspective, espically with ESAM getting extremely good placements in session, maybe he has higher peaks that we'll just have to wait and see.
Oh and yes, we need more buffs than nerfs, please for the love of Arceus, make faster, I want to be able to actually play this character.

 

[Minordeth]

It's EVO, y'all.

It's probably the least representative of competitive results of any of major tournament series. Treat it like Umebura XL and you won't be as shook by these upsets.

Also, there could have been more ZSS dominance if Kuro hadn't DQ'd from EVO Japan and Choco and Shky didn't have to team kill.

As a side note, I find it interesting that Samus - with and without armor - both have this sort of of mix-up, adaptation heavy tool-kit. If Ridley's aerials were a bit safer on shield, the whole Metroid team would follow this sort of design schematic.