Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NotLiquid]

The nicest thing I can say about Byleth right now is that the character's tools are decent enough that she can at least maintain a solid advantage in the event that the opponent is being forced off of the ledge. Most of her spear attacks are probably some of the more okay-ish attacks she has that could probably punish quite a few recovering opponents. SideB is also a half decent ground-to-air if the opponent is above you.

The issue really boils down to everything else. Byleth's complete lack of good OoS, escape and burst options, compounded by every meaningful move in her neutral kit being laggy on top of one of the worst average mobility spreads in the entire game means she goes down hard against characters who can play decent footsies. Sure, she can break shields, but that hardly matters when half of the cast will probably not even need to shield against her in the first place. Fox in particular is a character I can see giving this character an extremely rough time. In fact I'd wager just about most top tiers like Mario, ZSS, Inkling, Pikachu etc. stand a good chance at kicking her into the curb in terms of MUs. Down B being a better Warlock Punch doesn't change the fact that it's still just that; Warlock Punch. A meme move.

Part of this could probably have been mitigated if Byleth actually had one or two reliable confirms that can do big damage or kill but a good chunk of them are suspect to strong DI. I mean, it's obviously by design - Byleth's attacks are meant to have chunky giant hitboxes. it'd be pretty bad if you could just throw them out, but therein sorta lies the rub; it feels like they approached this character with an almost "too much of a good thing" mentality. Half of these moves have great capacity for killing but because of that you're left having to mitigate the fact by making them extremely punishable on whiff, which even extends to some of her normals. In the long term that's likely going to be a problem. I've generally been optimistic about most characters - hell including Plant - but unless she has some secret sauce to her this character is likely to be buried in the most niche of niches.

There's possibly only one top tier character I can see Byleth doing well against though, and that's Game & Watch - the character has always had to offset its lackluster mobility with its propensity for being an immaculate punisher of shield pressure, while also being able to frametrap short-to-midrange engagements. Thing is at no point does Byleth need to be approaching a character like him when having the range of the heavens means G&W is going to struggle in doing its traditional mindgame strats.

Anyway, if you pick this character up you better be a literary senior since you're going to have to make the reads of a lifetime.

 

[Planty]

Byleth is more like Ganon-meets-Belmont than any "swordy", even Corrin. Like Ness/Lucas, she might be doomed to be eternally compared to characters she doesn't actually play like.

I expect rather polarized matchups, based primarily on how much Byleth's speed and recovery weaknesses can get exploited. Like, Pikachu seems rough, I'd bet her worst matchup. She probably dislikes Wolf and Mario quite a bit.

I ballpark her as bottom third, due to severity of bad matchups against popular, strong characters. But there's a decent amount of good going on for her, especially against taller characters. SHAC fair is an enviable tool. Jab, grab, and nair are all faster than characters with this level of range normally get to enjoy. Arrow is surprisingly useful for a fixed frame 45 projectile. D-tilt, uair, and u-smash are all solid moves I'd be happy to have on most characters.

Side B is the most over- and under-rated move in all the commentary I've seen. It's almost garbage in neutral--it can decidedly stuff a variety of things and do so with solid damage/kill power, it's just that the opponent is probably enjoying a reactive stance against Byleth and is afraid to SH into fairs already. But in matchups where it can disrupt recoveries and edgeguards, and matchups where it can ward off landing traps, it's a pretty valuable move that Byleth is very happy to have around.

Up B has garbage reward, especially at low %s where it essentially puts Byleth in disadvantage. Unless you do it off-stage, where the opponent just flat out dies, even at modest %s. It's way easier to land than a spike, with a fantastic angle+range and attractive 12f startup. (Contrast with Ivysaur's f15.) I'd like to see how it plays out against Snake, which off the cuff seems like the best case for it.

I disagree with your assessment that Byleth up-b has bad reward. At low percents it combos quite well into smash input side-b or even dair. At higher percents there's some niche stuff involving spiking them off the stage and hitting them on the way up as a kill confirm. This is a bit vulnerable to DI, but Leo was making use of it on stream last night against Nairo. At mid-percents though, you are correct that there aren't too many followups. However, the move doesn't necessarily put Byleth into disadvantage. If you hold jump as she does the spike, you have much more control over her trajectory instead of floating off into the sky like she normally does.

 

[Nate1080]

Messed around with Byleth for a bit for the first time a few minutes ago.

I’m predicting them to eventually be a campy character and just always plays at a distance of 4/5 characters away. They have the range, just not the movement speed or end lag on moves (especially aerials and even tilts) to play any closer.

They’re going to love camping the center and just pushing/keeping the opponent to the edge of the stage (Byleth is probably pretty decent ledge trapper tbh). Basically Belmonts without the items.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Shoto discord doing ALOT of tests with tatsu to see what it goes over.

It's pretty nuts.

 

[SwagGuy99]

So, I think we can safely say Dr. Mario's Up-b is possibly the 2nd best OOS option in the game now. Comes out frame 3, decent range, kills opponents reliably from the ledge below 110% (even lower with rage).

Not to mention that down-tilt --> Up-b is a kill confirm now around 100%.

I also like the d-tilt and d-air buffs, they feel like they will improve his combo game quite a bit going forward.

Edit: Interesting to note that everyone in this patch that received major changes is either high tier or mid tier except Doc and maybe Zelda.

 

[NairWizard]

I'll tell you one thing: this seemingly innocent patch completely changed the metagame.

 

[BitBitio]

Characters I can see benefitting greatly from the shield buffs: , mostly because their shields are either way small and prone to poking, because they’re Mewtwo, or happen to be Rosa and have Luma.

Byleth is cool. Ground game is decent, because jab is quick, his tilts are long ranged, Dash Attack kills really well. Aerials are okay. Nair is pretty fast and can be used in some dope dragdowns and chains. Fair and bair can chain into themselves if you hit the sourspot, auto cancel, and do another one—there’s some kill setups on tall middleweights like WFT and Cloud with them, by chaining them into the sweetspot offstage. Dair is slow but strong, coupled with a beefy hitbox and heavy shield damage. Up air has range, killpower, damage, and possible setups with dragdowns.

Smashes are fine, dsmash two-frames and kills, fsmash is strong and can get somebody offstage real quick. Up smash is a great anti air and kills. Specials are cool, down-b is cheesy and so is neutral-b, but between the platform drops, the cancels, and the turnarounds, they’re great for faking out and conditioning. Up-b starts combos, edgeguards, and juggles. Side-b has tons of reach and surprising speed as well. Overall not too shabby, great at whiff punishing and KOing unsuspecting opponents.

vs Byleth is a fun, albeit degenerate MU. Basically, you land an Inhale setup. Then, you crouch camp, shield, and use Failnaught to no end. If you can get a read with the strong arrows, good job, but otherwise, play mindgames with cancels, turnarounds, and SH to up their % until you feel like doing a rushdown Dash Attack, RAR Bair, or fair 1——>fsmash. Lol

 

[Planty]

Despite minimal changes in the patch (just a shield increase), was MASSIVELY buffed this patch and is potentially the biggest winner of the patch. Because of the shield increase, Luma can actually be protected inside Rosalina's shield. Luma being hit through block has arguably always been Rosalina's biggest issue, even back in Smash 4. Luma can still be hit through block, but he'll be defended from many more moves. This is huge near the ledge, where Luma has historically been incredibly vulnerable and against projectiles, which Rosalina has always struggled against due to the weakness of her shielding. Rosa's OoS game is significantly more dangerous now as well, because Luma is more likely to be with her for an extra strong and long-reaching Usmash.

Dabuz has been quite excited about these changes on Twitter:

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Here's a showcase of what these changes mean for :

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[ARISTOS]

This is a really neat patch.

• The shield changes are huge for and , as well as the fatties in general - a lot of them suffered due to their shields quickly being worn down and poked through even though you guessed right on the interaction. Those punishes don't happen as much any more.
• Thinkaman talked about Wario/Pikachu, but is also a net loser from the change, since nair is now less likely to randomly poke and lead into damage
• The shotos - what the ****. Absurd absurd absurd
• also seem to have gotten some really powerful options - threaten with CS and then just burst and kill with dash attack (which was a super strong option in S4). A stock cap throw in U-throw?

As for Byleth, they're a pretty interesting character.

• Arrow is really good. The arrow itself does quite a bit of shield health, which adds impetus on the opponent to jump, which gets punished by everything else. The quick cancel time means Byleth can easily threaten a number of areas at once.
• Grounded Side-B is underwhelming, it doesn't sweep quite as nicely as you might want and is punishable at any distance blocked. Ehh. Aerial side-B is fun though, strong but risky air-to-air, a good edgeguard option.
• The axe attacks are absurdly slow but the amount of shield pressure you exude by using them makes pulling them out every once in awhile worth it.
• There's a lot of kill power in the kit, but unfortunately it's focused in a lot of precise hitboxes that make confirming kills sometimes difficult. I think more than anything, that's the biggest issue with this character - sometimes you can't hit a fair when you need to, you aren't landing uair, etc. Ftilt and Jab will eventually kill but that's not what you want, you really want those 60-70% tipper fsmash kills to stay in the game.
• Luckily fsmash is solid on the ledge, down angled easily punishes ledge hang/drop, while up angled can punish jump/jump aerial. The main thing is to avoid committing too early though.
• All the tilts are very good
• Uthrow is my favorite throw - I think using that and then forcing characters to drift away/AD vs uair is what you want to do. The bad thing about uair is it has atrocious endlag, so multiple sharking attempts is weak. Outside of that it's very scary.

Overall though it's pretty ehh since most top tier characters should overwhelm the character, but I think quite a number of mid-high/below characters will match up pretty evenly against Byleth, since they don't have as good burst/pressure to get around Byleth's zone.

 

[Space thing]

I don't think the shield buffs hurt palutena that much tbh. She can still eat through shields like butter. It definitely matters, but as someone who labbed her shield pokes on different characters before the patch and plays some match ups with that as the entire gameplan, it's fine. Nair will shield poke slightly less often, but it still does and Up Tilt can still shield poke full shields against some characters. Usually you only intentionally go for it after you weaken their shield with something anyway like fair or bair, and it still only takes one of those for her moves to just poke through anyway. So it matters, but not too much imo. I think characters who shield poke less often may be hit harder just because they lose those few opportunities now tbh, but we shall see.

 

[boysilver400]

I'll tell you one thing: this seemingly innocent patch completely changed the metagame.

“seemingly innocent” you say as they buff and of all characters. None of them were bad to begin with.

I want the meta game to change(desperately) but there are more characters (cough ) that need buffs. Although Kirby shield buff helps it doesn’t fix his biggest issues with mediocre frame data, range, and killpower.

I will say that definitely deserved those buffs. I don’t know much about doc to truly judge but they seem to be mostly QOL buffs.

and got slaps on the wrist(though the latter deserved far more imo). Some people said that they’re nerfs we’re significant enough to buff zoners but I’m not sure I completely agree yet.

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm gonna be an outlier and say the shield buff probably doesn't matter that much for Game & Watch. His shield size is sort of a non-issue given that the character always had the strongest out-of-shield options in the entire game to begin with. It was virtually impossible to pressure him. Having to contest a bigger shield means that spacing the shield is going to be a bit easier, and inversely a lot of characters with those better shields are probably going to be able to put up with G&W's harassment a bit better. His BAir is probably not going to be clipping those characters as much as they used to.

It's absolutely going to be a boon for characters like Rosalina, though.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It almost hillarious now Twitter and Reddit are saying RIP to . Some people really do never learn . Despite their nerfs are still going to be very strong despite not being quite as overwhelming.
I will say Palu is Top 10 and still Joker likely Top 5. But has anyone found the allthough how big his Arsene Meter nerfs are. I have heard that It can be drained out entirely if he gets hit in a paticularly long and damagimg combo

also appreciate having a bigger sheild, and with the Joker and Palu MU's being a bit less bad may help his results even more

 

[Nobie]

I think Byleth is an interesting character because the important thing in using them seems to be knowing when NOT to attack, and to punish attempts to get in. It's a very Fire Emblem strategy RPG mindset.

Also, there seems to be some stealth changes unlisted in the patch notes, such as Mewtwo down tilt being less affected by Z Axis.

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I'll come back with a full translation (to the best of my ability) later.

 

[The_Bookworm]

What do you guys think of now after the shield changes.

Basically the main thing that dropped the character out of the map (the map being top 10) is that his defense on shield is weak due to it being prone to shieldpoking. He, alongside Rosalina, seems to be the biggest benefactor of the shield size increase change.

This, combined with the fact that Shuton just won a supermajor with pre-shield buff Olimar, the character might be shot back to top 10 status.

Between this, the Rosa buff, and the PPlant change, can we call patch 7.0.0 the Dabuz patch?

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Now I will give out my first impressions on the character buffs and who are biggest winners aside from Olimar.

As people mentioned, the shield buff allows her to properly protect Luma now. It still doesn't address the fact that Luma still flies away to a sneeze, but Rosalina no longer loses Luma when simply shielding a move. A pretty big buff, and it may give Rosalina high tier potential now.
Oh boy her buffs are looking nice. Whose idea was it to give one of the strongest set-up and keepaway tools in the Phantom, even more knockback? N-air being functional multi-hit wise is also pretty dang big, considering that all of the move's big advantages where locked away from the inconsistency in the first place. Less landing lag on it is nice too.
I've considered her lower-mid tier/upper-low tier before, but she may rise up even further from this. Dabuz already regards her much more highly now as well.
Good luck Vegas scene, cause Ven is going to terrorize it even further (at least until MVD arrives).
Also, I would stay away from Quickplay for a while...
Congratulations Samus players. Your already borderline high tier character got buffed in this update! Can't wait to see quiK terrorize the Europe scene even further.
Granted that the buffs aren't really that significant, but does she really need any now? This is another reason to stay away from Quickplay now.
The Shotos got buffed further. It is not as huge as the 3.1.0 buffs (granted that they were low tier before that update), but they are meaningful regardless. Ryu, being widely considered worse than Ken and Terry by a considerable margin, benefited the most out of these changes, particularly due to the Hadoken buffs.
So yay! These two weren't bad before (Ken was upper-mid at worst), but they got even better.
Doc's buffs are a bit more meaningful than I originally anticipated. Most of his changes are moot, but the down tilt and up B buffs are pretty nice. It helps give Doc a stronger advantage state, especially since he his approach and recovery are both bottom 3 (and still does).
Probably not a bottom 3 character anymore, but I think he still stuck in the low tiers due to his glaring issues not being addressed.
YLink got some nice love in this update. The power buffs aren't very big, as he still has his issues KO'ing, but having a frame 4 jab and his Z-air being an actual tool instead of a joke is pretty nice to see.
Probably not a significant tier jump, but considering that he was upper mid-tier at worst prior to this change, YLink players are definitely not complaining.
Also another reason to stay away from Quickplay.
TLink's new buffs aren't that big either, probably less so than YLink's buffs (who was already considered better than TLink shortly before the update), but they are nice. Back air combos into up B were already a thing in the past, but now it is much more consistent.
Tbh, I am kind of underwhelmed by the Sheik buffs. A few cute new conversions might happen as a result of the down smash and aerial Needle change, but it doesn't really boost her kit to any significant level, while her numerous glaring issues where virtually untouched.
I feel like she has been left in the dust this update by her counterpart, who was in a similar tier position as her prior to the update imo, but got far more significant buffs.

Edit: Forgot about 's buffs, but they are pretty nice as well. Already considered him upper-mid/middle of the list, but the buffs will boost him further, especially up B sweetspotting better and limit charging faster.


Other characters worth noting for the shield changes:
These four big bodied characters definitely likes the changes to the shields, especially when you consider that DK pretty much spent the entirety of his Smash Bros career with an underwhelming shield.
In addition to a bigger shield, a glitch involving his shield randomly not working seems to be fixed, which is nice.
Oh, you give this character a bigger shield? More up B out-of-shields for everyone! Another reason to say away from Quickplay.
Gives the opponent less opportunity to shield poke and hit Nana. Nothing too big, but something to note.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I wonder if the sheild size increase was a small indirect nerf to most swordies. Much their threat in offense was safely pressuring shields from a good distance and well as using their disjoints to get easy sheildpokes as well.

That may be a bit less easy for those blessed with swords

 

[Tri Knight]

YLink got some nice love in this update. The power buffs aren't very big, as he still has his issues KO'ing, but having a frame 4 jab and his Z-air being an actual tool instead of a joke is pretty nice to see.
Probably not a significant tier jump, but considering that he was upper mid-tier at worst prior to this change, YLink players are definitely not complaining.

Definitely not complaining. A couple people have insisted that he didn't need the buffs but Uair was severely underpowered. I've seen too many late stocks missed out because that move just wasn't killing. I'm very happy with the changes.

Idk what the new KB values are to the buffed moves but I'll take what I can get when it comes to YL's kill power. It was a needed change imo and I'm sure his new changes will make a huge difference in play.

 

[FruitLoop]

https://twitter.com/JesseKumiko/status/1222570330402717696

so Palu still gets her down-throw combos... I heard that Down-Throw Neutral-Aeerial was made untrue but apparently it was never true to begin with. Her neutral-aerial now combos even better into itself compared to beforehand with the only drawback being that it kills later offstage which is a more than fair tradeoff given her access to an AMAZING ledge game and offstage bair alongside nair being super good at clipping opponents offstage still. So now we have to deal with NOT ONLY that but also a better killing up-tilt for anti-airs AND an even better down-smash. She might ACTUALLY become the best character in the game.

 

[KirbySquad101]

A few notes on Byleth:

- For a character that plays like a hodgepodge and , she's got a surprisingly expansive combo tree compared to the two; sourspot landing FAir, DTilt, NAir (both in the air and landing with it), DThrow, and reverse UTilt all net her an easy helping of 20%~50% damage at low percents; from what I tested, the following works at low percents against (DI not factored in though, also not too sure if landing NAir into grab is true or not):

• Landing 4th hit of NAir -> DTilt -> NAir -> FAir
• Sourspot FAir -> Landing 4th hit of NAir -> DThrow -> NAir -> FAir
• Sourspot FAir -> Dash Attack
• DTilt -> Landing 4th hit of NAir -> DThrow -> NAir -> FAir
• DTilt -> NAir ->NAir-> FAir
• DTilt -> NAir -> FAir (MUCH easier than the one above it)
• NAir -> NAir -> FAir
• Reverse UTilt -> NAir -> BAir
• DThrow -> FTilt
• DTilt -> FTilt
• DTilt -> UTilt
• Reverse UTilt -> UTilt

There are two problems I have come across when performing these combos:

1. The hitboxes on her attacks can be VERY inconsistent/small, with the crux of this issue being her NAir: I'm not sure how you can do worse than 's NAir, but on top of having the move having less range than what's implied, instead of having four continuously active hitboxes that cover each "quartile" of the circular arc Byleth makes (what Pit's is), they decided to just have one singular hitbox that moves along with the bow. In other words, you need to have your positioning SPOT on when combo-ing with Byleth, because there's a huge chance that you can trigger the NAir in front of the opponent, but you won't end up hitting them just because you happened to start swinging your bow too early, and now it's right below them. This can be problematic as NAir is her primary combo extender and how she nets a lot of her damage.
2. Outside of possibly DTilt and maybe sourspot FAir, I'm not sure how you're going to land a lot of this options: NAir's hitbox coverage is not very reliable, grab doesn't make for a good burst option on someone as slow as Byleth. If the opponent is too far away as well, DTilt -> FTilt is the only combo that works as NAir is too short to land reliably.

My major issues with Byleth do sort of revolve around the second issue, that being she's a VERY committal character, arguably even more than the likes of . Outside of her surprisingly good frame data on her tilts and jab... everything else is pretty hefty in the lag department. None of her aerials have landing lag below 10 frames (FAir is 11, NAir is 14, BAir is 13, UAir is 14, and DAir is 28), both BAir and FAir have above 10 frames of start-up, and the rest of her attacks barring Up B start going into the 20+ frames department in terms of start-up of endlag. This renders her very vulnerable against rushdown characters, particularly the likes of and . While having an auto-cancelable FAir could really help in those match-ups, most of said rushdown characters are too short to get hit by them anyway, even Mario.

I'm looking forward to seeing what people do with her, though, she is a very fun character to test out.

 

[NeonNote]

Good lord FINALLY they buffed Rosalina again. She still needs more though.

 

[FruitLoop]

Good lord FINALLY they buffed Rosalina again. She still needs more though.

No, not really LOL.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Ok, I think we can conclude that Samus cemented her place as a high-tier now.
Depending on how creative players like quiK, Joker and YB (or maybe someone completely else) get, she may even rise into top-tier territory.

 

[NairWizard]

What I really like about this patch is that it focused on buffing mid and high tiers instead of buffing low and bottom tiers. This may seem wrong to many of you, but this approach has by far the largest immediate impact on the competitive scene--we may have just gotten several new additional upper high and top tier characters, i.e., characters who could win or top 4 a major. Samus, Young Link, Toon Link, Ryu/Ken, Rosalina, Cloud, and a handful of others look very promising right now.

That's not to say that the patch completely ignored low tiers, though. Some of the most troubled designs in the game (e.g., DK) also got substantial buffs because of the shield changes. Don't underestimate the impact that this change has on matchups--one of DK's biggest problems in the abysmal Pikachu MU was getting shield poked and combo'd to oblivion.

The Joker gun nerf is pretty huge, though I still expect MKLeo to do very well (though maybe not win as consistently without secondaries!).

The ZSS bury nerf is pretty huge, though I still expect Marss to do as well as he's been doing (and still win as consistently, without secondaries).

Byleth looks pretty mediocre/bad, but man, who cares about a 5th DLC when we got like 10 new competitively viable characters?

At the very least, get ready to see some upsets in bracket soon.

 

[blackghost]

Shoto discord doing ALOT of tests with tatsu to see what it goes over.

It's pretty nuts.

will the discord make a list of what projectiles tatsu now beats?

byleth early impressions this character will have some polarizing mus. byleth likely get deleted bysome elite characters like snake, zss, and others. but if your character doesnt like swords its gonna be a hard time.
watching nicko play a few things became pretty clear: down b is not a useless move, side b properly spaced is VERY good, and when byleth mains start knowing the fsmash spacing this character will be scary.

also congrats to zelda mains your character now exists in the scene for real now.

thanks Sakurai for adding another bad mu to the game for bayo. lol.

 

[NeonNote]

No, not really LOL.

Yeah, she does. Needs to be buffed until her mechanic makes sense again.

 

[Thinkaman]

I disagree with your assessment that Byleth up-b has bad reward. At low percents it combos quite well into smash input side-b or even dair. At higher percents there's some niche stuff involving spiking them off the stage and hitting them on the way up as a kill confirm. This is a bit vulnerable to DI, but Leo was making use of it on stream last night against Nairo.

No, it's SUPER vulnerable to DI; if you DI it, no one will end up in the same zipcode as Byleth, who has no means of control/following said DI. Nairo not DI-ing a move properly Day 0 is not a valid data point.

Shoto discord doing ALOT of tests with tatsu to see what it goes over.

It's pretty nuts.

I keep hearing non-shoto players say "This helps Ken even more than Ryu!", but I can't see how that is possibly true. The tatsu changes seem obviously more beneficial for Ryu, the fireball safety changes are nice (and exclusive to him), and all the d-smash cancels have higher reward on Ryu.

Are people just being ignorant about shotos as usual, or am I missing something?

What I really like about this patch is that it focused on buffing mid and high tiers instead of buffing low and bottom tiers.

I think this is a misleading (but popular) take.

First, part of Smash's patient/conservative patch attitudes has been not touching people again in consecutive patches, and giving changes time to settle. (In Ultimate, the only character to recieve deliberate buffs in back-to-back patches was , who got more buffs in 3.0 after small buffs in 2.0, and the only characters to get buffs after two patches were and , buffed in 2.0 and 3.1.)

So it's zero surprise to not see more direct changes this patch to , regardless of our current evaluation.

The only real "surprises" who were left out were Ganon, Little Mac, and maybe Meta Knight or DDD. These are the characters I fear won't be touched because they are online monsters. (But then again, they did just buff Samus, so YMMV.)


Second, most of these characters are EXTREMELY popular characters with disproportionately dedicated bases who have developed the characters disproportionately to their tier. Despite this, none of these characters have achieved real success, outside of quik.

• According to initial online data, was by far the most played character in the game, and is sitting on what should have been a massive headstart from Smash 4. If Cloud was equal to other characters, we should have expected top 10 results from him by default. Instead we literally only have Spargo playing him at top level, who insisted Cloud sucks. Many of us (including me) initially wrote it off as a substitution effect, like Marth--but it's equally plausible that he was just actually bad.
• is in a similar boat, minus the Smash 4 momentum. SUPER hyped when the game game out, EVERYONE was playing him. And where is he now? Barely making top 64 at Genesis as a secondary. And has been even more AWOL.
• ? We have some of the strongest, most dedicated players in the community labbing these characters like there is no tomorrow. And where are the top-tier results? Once again, we'd expect this type of character (with the type of player they attract) to be winning events. But we're not seeing that--and it's certainly not the casuals who are winning with them!
• has maybe the single most loyal player base, even more dedicated than Peach. Players like Ven are self-evidently really good, yet after a year of the game Zelda never seems to break through to real results. At what point do we have to admit that Zelda was holding these players back, because any other player-base would have been more likely to move on?
• is a lot like this too, but I really see her changes as more QoL-ish. The extent to which my wife complained about how pathetic Samus d-smash is was a threat to my marriage. It made zero sense for a move to be that weak.

Bottom line is, I don't see this as "buffs to high/mid tiers". I see this as a wake up call that these characters weren't--or at least weren't winning like high tiers.

 

[DungeonMaster]

The Samus buffs are definitely more QOL as there are no new combos or adjustments to neutral or even timings. The one notable combo buff was baby CS -> dsmash = KILL. There was little point in going for it previously over dtilt. The z-air damage adds up and the tech chases from 2nd hit of z-air are considerably easier now. Character was high tier before, and as many have suggested will likely see more results in line with that standing.

Ken is a demon now, they buffed his neutral...

 

[|RK|]

So, I said it elsewhere, but I'd like to repeat it here. It seems pretty clear that the devs are trying to improve the unique identities of characters as opposed to making them all-rounders. What do I mean?

Zelda - People are confused about the Phantom buff, but it's clear how her character is supposed to set up unique and powerful traps, while possessing crazy kill power as a reward. So while many of her other issues haven't been fixed - as in, she still won't be great up close, she still can't go in, etc. - she's a MUCH stronger zoner that will force you to play her game.

Doc - He got no improvements to mobility. His identity was as the slower, stronger Mario, so they buffed his ability to kill and convert into kills.

You can see this with previous patches as well... Incineroar's Revenge buffs, Kirby's copy ability buffs, so on. Heck, between games, Luma was nerfed up close but made more resilient when detethered - cementing Rosa's identity as a puppet char.

To that end, I'll remain saying that Kirby probably won't get his airspeed improved or anything, and Incineroar won't get significantly faster. Nothing like that - which means balance will likely remain polarizing. It's definitely not traditional fighting game balance, but it makes sense for Smash, which is extremely character-centric.

 

[NairWizard]

I think this is a misleading (but popular) take.

First, part of Smash's patient/conservative patch attitudes has been not touching people again in consecutive patches, and giving changes time to settle. (In Ultimate, the only character to recieve deliberate buffs in back-to-back patches was , who got more buffs in 3.0 after small buffs in 2.0, and the only characters to get buffs after two patches were and , buffed in 2.0 and 3.1.)

So it's zero surprise to not see more direct changes this patch to , regardless of our current evaluation.

That's definitely the developer intention behind it, but regardless of intention the effect on the competitive scene is the same.

Second, most of these characters are EXTREMELY popular characters with disproportionately dedicated bases who have developed the characters disproportionately to their tier. Despite this, none of these characters have achieved real success, outside of quik.

Bottom line is, I don't see this as "buffs to high/mid tiers". I see this as a wake up call that these characters weren't--or at least weren't winning like high tiers.

1) This leaves out Sheik and Rosalina, two of the biggest winners from the patch who had already enjoyed some success (Sheik was struggling with overall results in the last season, but Void had some moments of brilliance with her that demonstrated her capability). Rosalina may not have been the target of a large explicit buff, but the near-universal shield change impacted her more than most of the characters who were directly buffed.

2a) I see these characters as being in a different league from the likes of KRool or Kirby--that is to say, not just in terms of results, but functional league. The characters in "mid and high tier" are characters who employ weaker versions of playstyles already available in the top-level cast--Cloud is a typical zoning swordsman, for example, but worse than Roy, Chrom, and Lucina.

These characters don't as well as the higher-tiered characters because there are really good players who play them and go, huh, why am I not playing the evidently better version of this character? You don't see Cloud doing well since folks like MKLeo would rather use Lucina as a secondary. Or, why would Tweek invest time in Young Link's zoning when he could be using Snake or Joker? Why would Zackray play Samus when there's ROB? and so on.

The characters do have strong dedicated playerbases, but I believe that this is fundamentally not the same thing. I think players who are dedicated to an archetype are fundamentally better (on average) than players who are dedicated to a particular character, for many reasons.

Also, some of the folks I named are top players, and top player secondary has more meaning than high-level player main in many contexts.

In most cases, the characters in this group are just a couple of buffs away from being relevant alternatives.

2b) Truly low- and bottom-tier characters, on the other hand, aren't held back for the same reasons--they struggle because of too many bad matchups against their archetype (e.g., DK, KRool, Plant), without strong enough numbers to compensate. Buffing them meaningfully (to a position of competitive relevance) is considerably harder.

The notable exceptions to this categorization are Corrin and Mewtwo, as I think they're probably one or two buffs away from being truly formidable but still seem terrible when we see them in practice.

The right description, instead of high/mid tier, may be, "buffs to characters who were almost there, mechanically."

 

[Thinkaman]

Yeah, I have no idea why people are confused about the Phantom buff in particular.

Brawl Zelda was a trash character crippled by the inability to approach or make her opponent do anything.

Then one day, the good moves fairy gave her Phantom, the magical solution to all of her problems.

Except Zelda couldn't move fast enough to follow up, it was too slow, people could just jump at her anyway, and when it did hit it was weak for what it was. But it was a good move, structurally.

So slowly, the good moves fairy fixed those problems, across Smash 4 patches and the move to Ultimate. With this last buff, maybe the fairy tale is finally over, and Zelda can have her happy ending.

1) This leaves out Sheik

Oops, knew I left one out.

Sheik fits the pattern as much as anyone: "This character came in with all the momentum and is the ideal competitive player archtype; should have been easily top 25 by default, and if she isn't something was clearly wrong." The only difference was that it was a more severe case and she already had some buffs.

and Rosalina, two of the biggest winners from the patch who had already enjoyed some success (Sheik was struggling with overall results in the last season, but Void had some moments of brilliance with her that demonstrated her capability). Rosalina may not have been the target of a large explicit buff, but the near-universal shield change impacted her more than most of the characters who were directly buffed.

Agreed, but we're all on the same page in terms of intent and policy. No one is saying "Why did they buff Olimar, he's top tier?????"

2a) I see these characters as being in a different league from the likes of KRool or Kirby--that is to say, not just in terms of results, but functional league. The characters in "mid and high tier" are characters who employ weaker versions of playstyles already available in the top-level cast--Cloud is a typical zoning swordsman, for example, but worse than Roy, Chrom, and Lucina.

These characters don't as well as the higher-tiered characters because there are really good players who play them and go, huh, why am I not playing the evidently better version of this character? You don't see Cloud doing well since folks like MKLeo would rather use Lucina as a secondary. Or, why would Tweek invest time in Young Link's zoning when he could be using Snake or Joker? Why would Zackray play Samus when there's ROB? and so on.

Agreed. This is why so many of us tettered over how much of it was a substitution effect vs. raw mechanical deficiency when it came to these characters. (Whereas no one ponders this about Duck Hunt or Marth.)

The characters do have strong dedicated playerbases, but I believe that this is fundamentally not the same thing. I think players who are dedicated to an archetype are fundamentally better (on average) than players who are dedicated to a particular character, for many reasons.

Yeah, Spike >>> Johnny.

The notable exceptions to this categorization are Corrin and Mewtwo, as I think they're probably one or two buffs away from being truly formidable but still seem terrible when we see them in practice.

I think this is especially true for Mewtwo, and more so Ike than Corrin.

The right description, instead of high/mid tier, may be, "buffs to characters who were almost there, mechanically."

Yeah, mechanically and in results.

 

[StoicPhantom]

Players like Ven are self-evidently really good, yet after a year of the game Zelda never seems to break through to real results.

What exactly are we defining "real results" as? S tier wins? Top 16 placements? Orion rankings? Consistently good placings?

At what point do we have to admit that Zelda was holding these players back, because any other player-base would have been more likely to move on?

Is she? Mystearica has been trying to switch to Palutena for a while now and hasn't been seeing better results or results better than ven.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I still wish Phantom's sword had a hitbox when the the tip is at the highest point, but don't want to sound cheeky, lol. Would be only relevant against Peach, anyway.
This move break shield in combination with Zelda attacking if you shield it, so you basically have to jump.
Thanks to the larger upAirt she can catch jumps better and this move has a lingering sourspot (pretty much like her dAir which aldso has a lingering sourspot).
That's at least the theory behind it. We'll see if this can be brought into matches.

 

[Tri Knight]

Who knows, maybe some of these buffs will motivate some players to put in more work with these characters and lead to some better results with them.

As it stands I don't see a problem with any of these buffs.

 

[Blue Banana]

What do you guys think of now after the shield changes.

Basically the main thing that dropped the character out of the map (the map being top 10) is that his defense on shield is weak due to it being prone to shieldpoking. He, alongside Rosalina, seems to be the biggest benefactor of the shield size increase change.

While having a more reliable universal defensive option is very much welcomed, I'm not sure this would change the viability of the character that much. Olimar players shouldn't try to get themselves into a shielding situation too often because he still lacks fast OoS options that help get characters who can apply a lot of shield pressure off of him. Also, although the larger size helps prevent shield poking at full, based on preliminary testing taking a decent hit on shield would reduce the size to roughly what it originally was in 6.1.1, meaning Olimar can get shield poked earlier than most characters.

 

[Thinkaman]

What exactly are we defining "real results" as? S tier wins? Top 16 placements? Orion rankings? Consistently good placings?

When I typed that, I was thinking top 32 or ideally top 16--just outside "the money".

Ven did cross into top 32 at Switchfest and Prime Saga IIRC, but I don't think anyone would characterize either as Zelda's breakout moment.

Is she? Mystearica has been trying to switch to Palutena for a while now and hasn't been seeing better results or results better than ven.

Hmm, didn't know. I knew she played Bayo in 4.

While having a more reliable universal defensive option is very much welcomed, I'm not sure this would change the viability of the character that much. Olimar players shouldn't try to get themselves into a shielding situation too often because he still lacks fast OoS options that help get characters who can apply a lot of shield pressure off of him. Also, although the larger size helps prevent shield poking at full, based on preliminary testing taking a decent hit on shield would reduce the size to roughly what it originally was in 6.1.1, meaning Olimar can get shield poked earlier than most characters.

Agreed, and agreed with popular analysis that the shield changes help Rosa more than Olimar. As much as I think the bugfix was appropriate, I never thought the issue was an actual viability problem for Olimar due to his playstyle. (I mean, It clearly made the character so non-viable that he won EVO Japan.)

I find myself agreeing with Leffen's take: The best buff this patch is to non-Olimar players, who no longer have to hear about this on Twitter everyday.

 

[BitBitio]

Honestly I agree with all of that Thinkaman because even as a Kirby main whose character has been a strugglebus to play as pretty much since Melee, in some ways I'd rather see characters become fully tournament viable , thus increasing the diversity of the top scene, instead of taking characters and making them less abysmal.

Still though, I'll take Kirby buffs any day, of any kind. Even something as a minor as a bigger shield helps.

 

[Thinkaman]

Well, as I said w.r.t. Kirby it's more a matter of them not rebalancing characters in consecutive patches.

I'm in favor of this. Move on to other characters now, and revist ones that might still be weak after the previous buffs, top tier nerfs, and global changes (shields) settle. I'm in no hurry.

 

[Vyrnx]

Here are a couple of thoughts I have on the update along with a few things I wanted to say about some characters a few weeks ago:

Sheik's landing lag buff on needles is probably the most significant buff this patch that won't receive much attention (initially, at least). To explain why, firstly, I want to point out that Ultimate Sheik pre patch was already most likely better at killing than she was in Smash 4 (probably significantly so). Compared to Smash 4: Drag down uair combos similar to Joker's exist in this game, leading to usmash on platforms and dsmash/fsmash otherwise. Dtilt combos into this, and altogether the several ways Sheik can kill off of dtilt in this game were a huge addition. Edgeguarding she's probably directly better at, having a stronger back air and keeping aerial needles to bouncing fish. Then she also had kill power buffed outright on down and forward smash, as well as dash attack, and she also has kill confirms off of dair at higher percents I suppose.

But Sheik also had falling needle kill confirms added in this game that have gone way under the radar. Falling needles could combo into usmash (difficult to do at the time) and bouncing fish off stage (different from aerial needles into bf), both leading to kills--and then below kill percents it combos into pretty much any ground move (ftilt to extend the combo is probably the best option).

The buff to landing lag on falling needles is the most fascinating buff that I've seen in Smash. It's a huge deal--needles usmash is easy now, needles fsmash is free and there's a video of VoiD killing with this at 75% posted yesterday, performing needle combos with less than full charge is significantly easier than before--I really can't even fully speculate what will come of this buff but my main takeaway is that Sheik basically has kill confirms everywhere. It's also interesting since the buff seems completely directed towards high level 1v1 gameplay, it's going to require some optimization before the buff is recognized for what it is.

This patch also buffed the startup on dsmash, making dtilt drag down uair dsmash even better. It buffed side b to a more usable option--I can't speculate on the uses it'll see now but that's good, and the patch buffed her previously pretty miserable standing grab.

But the way I see it is, if someone told you last patch that Sheik couldn't kill, they were probably somewhat uninformed. She killed earlier than Peach on average. But if they still tell you that, then man they are lying. There are really very few things potentially holding Sheik back from being a top tier, the two most significant being her weight (lighter than Mewtwo and Kirby), and the fact that she struggles vs. small characters.


Here are two top tiers I have a lot of faith in right now:

There doesn't seem to be any controversy as to how good Peach is, so I just want to explain why I think she'll stay good or get better as time goes on. Peach is a character with a huge amount of room for optimization, obviously in stuff like advantage state (turnip combos, cool footstool oos --> 0 to death ideas, etc.) but more significant are the advancements that she'll see in neutral.

Peach's neutral has a lot of what I call option overlap. An example to show what I mean is Smash 4 Zero Suit nairing a shield. When S4 Zero Suit nairs a shield (or right before she nairs, more specifically), she has several options to mix up what happens during and after that 30 or so frame window. The first option is choosing whether to space the nair outside the opponent's grab range or hit the shield point blank. The second is the more aggressive option. The first trades aggression for safety. If she chooses to hit point blank, then she can enters another option layer. She can choose a defensive option like spot dodge or roll, or she can go into the most aggressive option which is jabbing. If the opponent doesn't get hit by jab, she enters yet another option layer, stopping the jab combo midway through or crossing up shield with the full combo. (to see what I'm talking about, watch late Nairo vs. ZeRo sets in Smash 4--this stuff sort of exists with Ultimate ZSS but the number of option layers here has been reduced by shield changes).

Peach in Ultimate has stuff like this all over the place and it's still somewhat unexplored--every neutral option Peach chooses can lead to a series of option layers. Take for example Peach floating above the opponent's shield with her back facing them. Option one is choosing when to release float. Option two is choosing whether to use the aerial (back or neutral air) high--this would sweet spot the opponent should they jump (and either out frame data the opponent or trade [and win cuz it's Peach]), or it would sourspot them on the ground. This in turn leads to another option select. If they get hit by a sourspot you can probably combo into something--grab, dtilt, or running rar bair for the kill at higher percents (something Samsora is doing more often). If they shield then you enter another option select (since you're safe on shield, extremely so), but instead of going further down this path let's go back now to when you first released float, because remember that there were other options you could've chosen besides aerialing high. If you aerial low on the opponent's shield (aiming to hit them on the ground with a sweetspot), then you have yet another option layer. You can space out an aerial on the front of their shield, you can hit them point blank and go into an aggressive mixup, or you can cross up (which the animations of nair and especially bair lend themselves well to). Each of these then leads to more option layers, and I think by now you see what my point is--Peach is the mixup character of mixup characters.

But yeah--when Peach aerials a shield she can do more than just mash dtilt on you, and these are the areas where her metagame will expand.

(also as an aside, Peach is an enormously fun character to play and if you're worried about the tech skill, don't be--you can learn everything you need for cool combos in two weeks. beyond that learning her fundamentals is fairly challenging, but a fun one. I picked her up this past summer and am on a really nice win streak at my university's tournaments right now!)

Not nearly as much to say here, but I think this character is extraordinarily good. to get a sense of what I mean, I personally consider him much better than Snake and Pikachu and probably somewhere just below Peach on a tier list. He doesn't want for anything. Advantage, neutral, and disadvantage? He does great in all three. Good matchup spread? Definitely. For people who think he's just a little too well rounded or average compared to other top tiers... Have you seen this character? My money is on this character winning an S tier at some point.

 

[StoicPhantom]

When I typed that, I was thinking top 32 or ideally top 16--just outside "the money".

Here's the most notable Zelda placements I can find off hand.

ven

2GG: Prime Saga 17th
Smash 'N' Splash 5 33rd
The Kid, the Goat, the Mango 13th <-- small but highly stacked
CEO 2019 33rd
Super Smash Con 2019 33rd
2GG: SwitchFest 2019 25th
2GG: Kongo Saga 33rd
GENESIS 7 33rd

Mystearica

Pound 2019 25th
Smash 'N' Splash 5 33rd
DreamHack Atlanta 2019 33rd

I know there are others, like a Zelda player by the name of AceAttorney getting 33rd at a recent S tier whose name escapes, but those are the most notable. Not quite top 16 but has some top 32 placements and a whole lot of almost. Whether you want to consider 17th and 33rd as close enough is up to you.

Mostly I just wanted to know what you defined "real results" as, so thanks for answering.

 

[Nobie]

I think Byleth is an interesting character because the important thing in using them seems to be knowing when NOT to attack, and to punish attempts to get in. It's a very Fire Emblem strategy RPG mindset.

Also, there seems to be some stealth changes unlisted in the patch notes, such as Mewtwo down tilt being less affected by Z Axis.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I'll come back with a full translation (to the best of my ability) later.

Here it is, though I may have misunderstood some things. It also includes a follow-up tweet.

Mewtwo

Frame 6 on down tilt (an active frame) can no longer be avoided via Z-axis.

Corrin

The slowdown that occurs upon a successful down b has been changed, both in terms of the slow multiplier and the overall amount of time.

If it misses, Corrin is at a 3f disadvantage?

Hit lag on down throw has been changed from a 2.5x multiplier to a 1.5x multiplier.

Isabelle

Fishing rod has a higher tether recovery ledge grab range.

Mii Swordfighter

Shuriken of Light's hitbox is smaller somehow.

Roy, Chrom, Sonic

Up Smash trip multiplier is now 1.0x (not sure what it was before), and will no longer cause the rest of the move to fail to connect.