Early impressions painted the picture of a very vertical Byleth (up-b/up-air/up-smash). But this was a red herring. Byleth's a bit too slow to play the juggle game indefinitely, and up-b has a host of problems. Horizontal Byleth by comparison ends up being better than expected. Somehow, Byleth's ledgetrapping is actually much better than it looked--and it already looked pretty good! f-smash kills as early as 30-40 with near impunity against most of the cast, and at higher percents those who can punish f-smash have to worry about side-b/f-air/b-air too, which together cover every option several times over.
"Top 5 ledgetrapping game" would probably be pretty accurate--Byleth's up there with Piranha Plant as the best DLC ledgetrapper (and DLC characters are all great at ledgetrapping; this was the case even in S4).
Release Byleth also has one other important attribute that we didn't see from trailer Byleth: killing from neutral. f-air and b-air kill raw from across the stage. These are safe-on-shield moves with enormous range we're talking about--neutral staples! side-b and up-smash are heavier commitments, but some of the best options in the game bar none at calling out a jumping opponent. Essentially, if Byleth gets you to kill percent, he's got the lead. Most characters in the game would kill for this very top-tier quality.
So advantage-state Byleth turns out to look like a top 20 character.
On the flip side, Byleth's landing game features just one pretty good option: f6 n-air that curves under, simulating a d-air. The rest is pretty poor. Airdodge is slow, and overall air mobility is poor. Typically slower airdodges are paired with good air mobility--for example, Peach's airdodge is atrocious, but her air mobility is top tier. Among swordies, Byleth's air dodge is way worse than Chrom's and Roy's, ~4 frames worse than Cloud's, and 3 frames better than Lucina's--but all of these characters have better mobility. Comparisons to Ganondorf are apt; Ganon's n-air offers worse coverage below, but if you have even a few frames to drift to the side it can beat way more moves, and is more threatening than Byleth n-air.
Byleth probably has a bottom 10 disadvantage state.
The advantage and disadvantage states are so polarizing that "how good is Byleth?" will depend entirely on the evolution of Byleth's neutral. Will conditioning for f-air/b-air hits work once characters stop jumping? What can you punish with dash attack? How will parrying affect his aerials? I don't know the answers to these questions right now. I'm leaning toward "neutral game is alright; average, probably," which would make Byleth overall pretty average, or maybe slightly below.
I disagree with
B
BlackInk
that n-air and jab are "way better than swordies fast close-range options." As far as swordsman normals in close range go, Byleth's are middle of the pack. Better than some options but clearly worse than others:
- Chrom and Roy jab is only 1 frame slower than Byleth jab 1 but have more reach, disjoint, and safety (Chrom by 5 frames, Roy by 3-6); their jabs are immensely threatening, leading into aerials and kills. d-tilt also essentially functions as close-ranged for them (and leads into even more!)
- Corrin n-air is just as fast as Byleth's n-air but covers both in front of and behind her simultaneously, while also being safer on shield; Byleth's n-air covers in front on f6, but doesn't hit behind until frame 10-11. This means frame 13-14 OOS.
- Ike's jab1 has almost the same frame data as Byleth--4f startup, -15 on shield, active on 4-5. It lasts 1 frame longer but jab2 starts 1 frame earlier to compensate.
- Marth and Lucina have their wickedly strong f5 OOS Dolphin Slash (less general applicability than Byleth n-air but faster, kills, and invulnerable f4-5; 1-4 if already in the air). Jab1 has slightly worse framedata but has more range and disjoint, even being able to cover aerials; the transition to jab2 is way better. Their n-air is equally fast; the hitbox is better in some situations compared to Byleth n-air, and worse in others, but it's safer on shield.
- Cloud has Climhazzard OOS, which is probably the best thing on this list. n-air is 1 frame faster, and better for hitting opponents directly above/behind Cloud than Byleth's n-air.
- Link can have item toss situationally and one of the best n-airs (safe on shield when spaced; not so unsafe when unspaced!)
- Samus isn't a swordie, but plays like one in some matchups; her jab1 is better on paper (though weak in practice), and she has f4 up-b OOS and Charge Shot to threaten all manner of death combos up close (half-charge shot -> f-smash; small shot -> d-smash; etc).
You're talking about a frame 45 move. For comparison to another top projectile, Wolf's blaster ends on f52; Byleth's uncharged arrow ends on f80. That's 28 frames later.
But what if you choose to cancel it? The earliest you can shield cancel is f21. Dropping shield is going to take at minimum another 11 frames, 9 if Byleth chooses to OOS n-air. That means that the earliest that Byleth can do anything is f31-33. That's a
guaranteed half second of movement you've just given your opponent while you've committed to doing nothing, not even short hopping.
Fully charged arrow is 114 frames, by the way, almost 2 whole seconds. You'll be able to react to this even when you're 70 years old.
To the move's credit, it's pretty safe on shield. It's certainly not the worst projectile in the game; it has uses in advantage and when canceled in the air. But top 10 projectile in the game? I can't see it.