Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Deleted member]

Changing the subject from Ike's Godlike nair is it wild to call King K Rools bair one of the best in the game it is a amazing offstage combo finisher it's also great for juggling but it's hardly ever used is there any reason why

 

[Idon]

Changing the subject from Ike's Godlike nair is it wild to call King K Rools bair one of the best in the game it is a amazing offstage combo finisher it's also great for juggling but it's hardly ever used is there any reason why

Because it's slow.
And slow more often than not equals bad.

 

[Heracr055]

I've been playing Incineroar of late and find he has quite a hard time with Palutena. He doesn't have the speed to catch her if she's being evasive, he doesn't have an answer to her nair strings, bair is quite good for keeping him at bay/beating out his attacks, and her projectile pressure makes it difficult to achieve his win condition (cornering her). I don't see this as a good MU for him. At least that's been my personal experience so far (I'll try to figure out ways to overcome her)

 

[Deleted member]

I've been playing Incineroar of late and find he has quite a hard time with Palutena. He doesn't have the speed to catch her if she's being evasive, he doesn't have an answer to her nair strings, bair is quite good for keeping him at bay/beating out his attacks, and her projectile pressure makes it difficult to achieve his win condition (cornering her). I don't see this as a good MU for him. At least that's been my personal experience so far (I'll try to figure out ways to overcome her)

Definitely a horrible match up and it's made even worse because of his bad recovery your best bet is to switch to a better matchup or shield all the projectiles and slowly creep up on her and see if you start a combo with side B but the former is the best option because this is probably one of the wost MU in the game tbh

 

[Ghidorah14]

I've been playing Incineroar of late and find he has quite a hard time with Palutena. He doesn't have the speed to catch her if she's being evasive, he doesn't have an answer to her nair strings, bair is quite good for keeping him at bay/beating out his attacks, and her projectile pressure makes it difficult to achieve his win condition (cornering her). I don't see this as a good MU for him. At least that's been my personal experience so far (I'll try to figure out ways to overcome her)

Have you tried UpBing out of shield? Eating projectiles with Revenge?

 

[TumblrFamous]

Definitely a horrible match up and it's made even worse because of his bad recovery your best bet is to switch to a better matchup or shield all the projectiles and slowly creep up on her and see if you start a combo with side B but the former is the best option because this is probably one of the wost MU in the game tbh

I agree. Incineroar is big and heavy, it's combo food for Palutena.

Nair can't reliably hit and string small fighters though, so smaller characters like Olimar or Pichu can help a lot.

As for Incineroar, I would just take advantage of her relatively slow ground attacks. Her fastest is her Jab at frame 8. If you're really up close she won't risk throwing out her tilts as they're pretty slow and situational.

 

[Deleted member]

Have you tried UpBing out of shield? Eating projectiles with Revenge?

Sounds kinda risky if he just misses Up b he risks eating a fsmash or getting hit with a combo starter

 

[Rocketjay8]

Have you tried UpBing out of shield? Eating projectiles with Revenge?

Why not dark lariat out of shield?

 

[Minordeth]

Shaya - I knew that comparison would summon you. I should have clarified that I could see Nintendo patching it into something vaguely similar to ZSS' Nair in terms of utility to the kit. And yeah, I know how much precision ZSS' Nair in Smash 4 required to even be functional. I picked her up for the last few months of the game mostly because of you.

To be more serious, I'm not arguing there's no foul to the move. There very well could be. Is Ike Nair-centric because he must be, or because MKLeo successfully seized on a paucity of MU knowledge? Could be both. I'm not attacking the idea of early identification of problematic tools. Luigi in early Smash 4 comes to mind as a poster child of over-centralized around a single move (or mechanic).

I played Ike for half of the Smash 4 meta, and I was looking forward to him in this iteration. While I think he is quite good, the nerfs to Fair, Bair, Jab, and so forth made him less interesting to me. So I guess you could say I would be in favor of reducing the efficacy of Nair if it meant that the rest of his kit got a boost.

But that also feels selfish of me, so I'm enjoying seeing long-suffering Ike mains having a day in the limelight.

 

[Kellojolly]

Seeing how scared Ike mains are from potentially having him nerfed, I'm glad Zero didn't win and get Cloud nerfed for no apparent reason lol. Ike's Nair is pretty crazy though lol. It's so weird to see a gigantic man with a gigantic great sword jumping around trying to land that NAIR haha.

 

[Shaya]

Shaya - I knew that comparison would summon you. I should have clarified that I could see Nintendo patching it into something vaguely similar to ZSS' Nair in terms of utility to the kit. And yeah, I know how much precision ZSS' Nair in Smash 4 required to even be functional. I picked her up for the last few months of the game mostly because of you.

To be more serious, I'm not arguing there's no foul to the move. There very well could be. Is Ike Nair-centric because he must be, or because MKLeo successfully seized on a paucity of MU knowledge? Could be both. I'm not attacking the idea of early identification of problematic tools. Luigi in early Smash 4 comes to mind as a poster child of over-centralized around a single move (or mechanic).

I played Ike for half of the Smash 4 meta, and I was looking forward to him in this iteration. While I think he is quite good, the nerfs to Fair, Bair, Jab, and so forth made him less interesting to me. So I guess you could say I would be in favor of reducing the efficacy of Nair if it meant that the rest of his kit got a boost.

But that also feels selfish of me, so I'm enjoying seeing long-suffering Ike mains having a day in the limelight.

My apologies, while you were a name I'm fond of that came to mind in the conversation, I wasn't meaning to put words in your mouth or represent you as overtly skewed in one corner of the argument's spectrum (the spectrum spanning 'its not only completely fine, but it/the char deserves buffs' and 'omg its so broken we need to ban it immediately').

I'm thinking a lot about this move and Ike in general having his other moves worsened. If they made the hitboxes for nair very precise (I mean, it's still a sword swinging everywhere, just make it so how much space is covered in 1 frame is less so than now), then it might be in a good spot.
I think a lot of people will be trying to just replicate what MKLeo did across the world at locals and on wifi, and most will fail.

I think I'm excited about a meta defining move* actually being out there right now with a [still] large array of feasible means of dealing with it*.
When it came to Brawl it was Snake's everything and Meta Knight's everything, and Falco's everything, and Dedede's down throw. Moves which took effort to beat but invoked some sort of masochistic pride in many who walked the path of doing so ("the many" aka the Brawl community / Brawl vets you know of today).
In Smash4 it was Diddy's "everything" (but particularly Up Throw and Up Air), but most of anything ever hyped about never really amounted to anything (customs come to mind) or were nerfed before they did so. Sheik was actually the right type of meta-defining character (barring grab) but they nerfed her in the wrong ways several times before finally addressing the issue of grab.
I could start a rant on why smash4 DLC were unable to produce similar feelings, but the second half of my bold sentence gives inkling to its contents.

(*maybe because I called it day 2 after playing some Ike on wifi for 2 hours who did little but full hop nair and struggling [but overcoming it somewhat eventually even with worse-than-normal-latency] and despite the large level-of-play gap looked exactly like what MKLeo was doing to many).

Either way, could all be eating our words in mere days/weeks as the entirety of top level playerbase become parry gods (or learn to time out Ike), or the potential of match up difficulty vs heavies and zoners come to pass.

 

[KamikazePotato]

Shaya
Is Ike Nair-centric because he must be, or because MKLeo successfully seized on a paucity of MU knowledge?

I think boiling it down to MKLeo succeeding due to a lack of people's MU knowledge is selling his performance very short. He's got maybe the best fundamentals in the entire tournament and has been playing sword characters for ages, which is a perfect fit for what current Ike does. I doubt that anyone else at the tournament does as well with Ike as MKLeo did.

 

[LightLV]

I'd be willing to give you a try, depending on your location. I like to think my game stays together like glue most of the time if you get past my blaster baiting

It's slowly being shown that Wolf isn't as bad offstage/edgeguarding as we thought. At first it was concerning that you had to kill the opponent outright or just let them back to ledge for free if they try to recover low. As long as he doesn't expend his jump early offstage then he's usually fine. You can get good runoff nairs against characters that don't have overly oppressive recoveries.

It's actually more concerning for him to get kills onstage that don't involve a read of some kind before 140%.

I'm in Georgia, I usually go to the locals near my area lol

After playing a bit of Wolf, I can see why getting in on him can cause issues, with the exception of Blaster and Ftilt, his buttons all seem very....specialized. His jab has comically short range and his Utilt functions more like a Street Fighter anti-air than a smash one lol. (doesn't hit behind or inside him) He's really fun to play though.

I'd say that with the exception of very few characters (Mac), pretty much everyone has some good edgeguarding potential. It usually only takes one hit to gimp someone

Edit:

bruh

guys so the game literally hasn't been out for a day past a month and we're seeing more characters doing more crazy stuff in this iteration of Smash than we've probably ever seen before. Nobody is used to a character like Ike being this oppressive. Nobody is used to seeing characters like these actually behaving like this outside of the typical S-tiers Smash is used to seeing.

Yall remember when people were preemptively calling for Metaknight nerfs because of a training mode ladder combo????

calm downnnn


Ike isnt "nair centric"........his nair is just a good ass tool. Just like Wolf's blaster, or K. Rool's crown, or Chrom's Fair, or Lucina's Fsmash, or Ridley's plasma breath or Zelda's neutral B, or Inklings roller, or Young Link's arrows or the belmont's entire moveset

give people time to adjust to having to actually respect characters please. lol quit panicking everytime someone has to ACTUALLY deal with something. This is what we all wanted, right?????

 

[Dream Cancel]

I'm in Georgia, I usually go to the locals near my area lol

-snip-

Edit:

bruh

guys so the game literally hasn't been out for a day past a month and we're seeing more characters doing more crazy stuff in this iteration of Smash than we've probably ever seen before. Nobody is used to a character like Ike being this oppressive. Nobody is used to seeing characters like these actually behaving like this outside of the typical S-tiers Smash is used to seeing.

Yall remember when people were preemptively calling for Metaknight nerfs because of a training mode ladder combo????

calm downnnn


Ike isnt "nair centric"........his nair is just a good *** tool. Just like Wolf's blaster, or K. Rool's crown, or Chrom's Fair, or Lucina's Fsmash, or Ridley's plasma breath or Zelda's neutral B, or Inklings roller, or Young Link's arrows or the belmont's entire moveset

give people time to adjust to having to actually respect characters please. lol quit panicking everytime someone has to ACTUALLY deal with something. This is what we all wanted, right?????

I've hardly played the game, but after watching the MKLeo vs. Samsora Grand Finals set at the SC United tournament, here's the evidence to support a "nair centric" playstyle:

1) Nair -> Uair (Kills)
2) Nair -> Bair (also kills)
3) Nair -> Nair (platform extension) -> aerial chase (which can kill)
4) Nair -> Grounded moves (at low %s)
5) The usual benefits of a high-quality sword. (disjointed, long hitboxes, improved frame data from previous games)

... So yeah, it's pretty good. There is counter-play, of course.

Parries will take time for great players to reliably implement. Give Mew2King's set against Tachyon (Lucina vs. Pichu) a watch. Predictable attacks can and should be parried to punish mindless aggression. There are also some good parries from Myran against MKLeo in the same tournament. Additionally, Samsora uses Peach's great movement options to punish Ike's Nair.

So, while MKLeo played really well, counter-play is at its' weakest early in the game. We should expect players' to sharpen their play as the time progresses.

 

[Nobie]

On overly centralizing moves, I want to talk a bit again about Mewtwo, which will then lead to discussion on Ike.

As stated before, Mewtwo in Smash 4 had some especially good moves that defined its play style in a big way, all of which have been filed down in certain ways. However, watching VODs of locals on YouTube, I noticed that Mewtwo players still play as if the key to the character is landing a random combo starter and hoping for the best. I saw a player try to repeatedly nair into opponents in neutral (even though it's not a great approach tool!) and get stuffed like every time, predictably.

Mewtwo, in my eyes, is shaping up to be all about having just the right move to deal with just the right situation in neutral. For example, Mewtwo can angle its forward smash now. Down-angle I believe can two-frame ledges (might be wrong) and hit short or crouching characters. Up-angle can't hit battlefield platforms, but it can function as a hard punish anti-air on jumping opponents because of how tall Mewtwo is.

Moreover, one change they've made in Ultimate is that all of Mewtwo's Smash attacks have no-rebound properties (f-smash on sweetspot only), which means the character will win a lot of direct exchanges if timed and spaced properly. Someone earlier complained that Mewtwo is too reliant on whiff-punishing now, but I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. In exchange for a couple of catch-all moves, Mewtwo has crazy-involved footsies.

That leads to Ike, who's the current center of discussion because of his nair. As demonstrated by MKLeo, it's a really good move. Is it too good? Unsure, but the basic appeal of "swing big sword as approach and get combos out of it" attracts Smash players like flies to honey. Maybe it's because of how many top tiers worked in previous games, but the idea that you can just do this One Cool Trick and beat your opponents down, or presumably boil down neutral to one or two tools, is going to make a ton of people Ike players.

This isn't a complaint about people potentially abandoning their mains. That happens. It's just that players are easily enticed by the razzle dazzle of something like an Ike nair.

As a final aside, I think I realized that I'm comfortable with the idea of a character falling from top to high tier between games, but I find a lot of people aren't. Going from having everything to just almost everything can be a hard blow, and we're likely going to see that reaction in future patches.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

Following up the talk from earlier, she's looking like Smash 4 in that she's just a complete Heavy slayer, it seems that her entire character design has an answer to anything the heavies can do. Obviously great combos, which is bad initself, her great mobility and strong projectiles makes it a struggle for the slower heavies to approach her, on top of that her mobility plus her reflector makes it tough for to get their projectile game going without getting punished for it, her edgeguarding is a real issue for , and on top of that both her air speed and teleport are fast enough so you can't even edgeguard her easily yourself, already hard enough for most heavies. She's an absolute terror to deal with for heavies, but it's not unwinnable, there's no "get grabbed and get kill combo'd at 90%" thankfully.

To a lesser extent I think might be another real issue for heavies, but I haven't had enough match up experience to dictate that yet. She makes mincemeat of though, which doesn't bode well for the other heavies and their matchups with her.

On the topic of as well, I know everyone keeps comparing him to but there actually is something I think they're going to have in common, that you can't solo main them. It just feels like there's so many difficult matchups for Incineroar, that it seems like it's not worth the hassle of trying to beat projectile characters or characters with long range normals, and that it would be much better just to get a secondary who can deal with that. At least Mac has fast ground movement and his specials can help him out a little with projectiles, all Incineroar can do is use those to build up Revenge, which is absolutely needed. (Seriously, more Incineroar players need to start utilising Revenge) but it doesn't get him past projectile spam. If anything, all of this has me worrying about , they're supposed to be even slower than Incineroar right?

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

I've been looking at results @TDK helpfully posts for each week. Something seems weird to me. How the hell is consistently out placing other heavyweights?!
https://smashboards.com/attachments/screenshot-49-png.185930/

I really don't get it. DDD just seems bad, not that I know a lot about him :/

Full disclosure; DDD was the first character that I got into Elite. I still warm up using him.

Universal engine changes really helped that guy. Lack of matchup knowledge also helps, but this will fade with time. People walk into matches assuming DDD can't do anything meaningful or that is super easy to pressure.

Essentially, DDD is a character that will always punish impatience. It is very noticeable online where many players have rushdown as their gameplan. Its startling how many players STILL rush when they have a stock lead.

You can literally stand there and command huge amounts of space with his tilts alone. The 3 frame jump squat means you don't have to wait nearly as long to get those monstrous aerials out, either. His grab range is long, which throws a lot of people off. Many players assume they are using "safe" options and get grabbed/hit anyway.

When in neutral, his FAir and F Tilt cover so much space and doesn't have much lag. Its very comparable to swordie play. His suck option helps tremendously; you can't just spam projectiles. You have to think about it or they will just get reflected. Also, you can't shield against him reliably. He has tremendous shield pressure and a command grab of sorts. His moves last a long time too, so spotdodges aren't as reliable. So you end up having to challenge his hitboxes, which is difficult, since he has so much range.

Offstage, DDD is so heavy, has so much range and has such a good recovery that he can dive practically every time without much risk. Few characters can challenge the range of his hammer offstage. In ledge situations, he can stand well out of harms way and cover most options with a simple reactive tilt.

And good lord, if you get predictable, DDD's smashes end stocks super early.

Given, he is still a lumbering giant with many flaws, but he has tools.

 

[NotLiquid]

If anything, all of this has me worrying about , they're supposed to be even slower than Incineroar right?

Plant got buffed between patches. He's roughly as fast as ROB now.

 

[LightLV]

Okay so more about the Ike Nair talk....i just watched the tournament sets with Leo and Sam/Salem, and i was wrong.

You don't even need parry to deal with Ike's Nair. You can just block that ****.


Yall going crazy over this, I was expecting to see Ike just RIP through people in these matches but there's nothing too alarming here. Peach has no issue punishing a blocked Nair/Fair and Salem's link was actively contesting it, when Link starts walling and approaching with his Nair Ike can barely do anything about it but run, even on block.

The reason people are getting hit seems to be that they don't seem to be fully aware of his range now. People are continuously getting hit trying to maneuver under him or throw **** at him while he's approaching instead of just backing up and leaving or blocking, and they catch a combo for it.

people simply aren't aware of the matchup yet, yes Ike can play like a wall of hitbox but so many other characters in the game can too. Yes Ike can kill you off a Nair fast fall but he get punished if it's spaced incorrectly and you don't even need a parry to do that. I'm not saying it's not extremely good, but it's not nearly as good as you guys are making it out to be.


meanwhile Inkling's roller comes out in like 1.5 frames and if it's blocked she just laughs in your face and leaves

 

[TMNTSSB4]

1. One day, there’ll be more competent players who either don’t go rage mode out of nowhere...or make the most foolish and embarrassing moment in Smash Ultimate history yet
2. Not sure about (I assume Dabuz is done with her), but are absolute murderers
3. Can’t believe could all be the best FE character in the game and not the usual , while are also great. Good time to main any of the FE Heroes (except ...cause his female counterpart is obviously better)

 

[Lavani]

2. Not sure about (I assume Dabuz is done with her)

She's been dropped across the board; Nabster's the only one I know is still playing her, though I haven't watched any of their sets in Ultimate yet. All the other US Rosas went to Palu/Inkling/Olimar, Atelier's playing Wolf, afaik Kirihara hasn't settled on a new main yet but isn't impressed with Ult Rosa.

In a nutshell she doesn't have the same threatening zoning as in 4 between both Luma attack nerfs and her competition being faster and consisting heavily of swordies who now outrange her and don't need to worry about their sword dying*. Damage output even with Luma's a bit iffy too, since rapid jab's damage got gutted hard and uair's been nerfed in both startup(Luma) and endlag (and probably hitbox with the different animation). Being a large, floaty character, she isn't fond of airdodge changes when trying to land either.

She still has solid ledge trapping and edgeguarding, and even has some new tools in that regard, but most of what drew people to her in 4 is gone, and I haven't seen positive results or opinions from the people who tried to make her work.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

She's been dropped across the board; Nabster's the only one I know is still playing her, though I haven't watched any of their sets in Ultimate yet. All the other US Rosas went to Palu/Inkling/Olimar, Atelier's playing Wolf, afaik Kirihara hasn't settled on a new main yet but isn't impressed with Ult Rosa.

In a nutshell she doesn't have the same threatening zoning as in 4 between both Luma attack nerfs and her competition being faster and consisting heavily of swordies who now outrange her and don't need to worry about their sword dying*. Damage output even with Luma's a bit iffy too, since rapid jab's damage got gutted hard and uair's been nerfed in both startup(Luma) and endlag (and probably hitbox with the different animation). Being a large, floaty character, she isn't fond of airdodge changes when trying to land either.

She still has solid ledge trapping and edgeguarding, and even has some new tools in that regard, but most of what drew people to her in 4 is gone, and I haven't seen positive results or opinions from the people who tried to make her work.

She did pick up some unique quirks in that Luma both deals more damage and is more resistant to knockback when detethered. I think it's pretty clear that the intention is for her to be a true puppet fighter that uses a detethered Luma to set up small combos, instead of keeping it attached at all times to act as a pesudo-sword. That said, the execution is definitely lacking and Luma controls differently enough to feel awkward.

 

[ThrowawayBoi]

i feel like some people are overlooking luigi tbh. now im not gonna even imply that im anywhere near decent at the game but i think luigi is really good. he has his insane zero to death combos as well as just being better at combos in general. parry into up b might be a thing. his fireball is better overall and his spin attack sucks opponents into it and has invincibility. ive heard people complain about his grab but it isnt that bad I dont think. its definitely a nerf yah but i dont think the character is ruined because of it.

 

[Minordeth]

My apologies, while you were a name I'm fond of that came to mind in the conversation, I wasn't meaning to put words in your mouth or represent you as overtly skewed in one corner of the argument's spectrum (the spectrum spanning 'its not only completely fine, but it/the char deserves buffs' and 'omg its so broken we need to ban it immediately').

I'm thinking a lot about this move and Ike in general having his other moves worsened. If they made the hitboxes for nair very precise (I mean, it's still a sword swinging everywhere, just make it so how much space is covered in 1 frame is less so than now), then it might be in a good spot.
I think a lot of people will be trying to just replicate what MKLeo did across the world at locals and on wifi, and most will fail.

I think I'm excited about a meta defining move* actually being out there right now with a [still] large array of feasible means of dealing with it*.
When it came to Brawl it was Snake's everything and Meta Knight's everything, and Falco's everything, and Dedede's down throw. Moves which took effort to beat but invoked some sort of masochistic pride in many who walked the path of doing so ("the many" aka the Brawl community / Brawl vets you know of today).
In Smash4 it was Diddy's "everything" (but particularly Up Throw and Up Air), but most of anything ever hyped about never really amounted to anything (customs come to mind) or were nerfed before they did so. Sheik was actually the right type of meta-defining character (barring grab) but they nerfed her in the wrong ways several times before finally addressing the issue of grab.
I could start a rant on why smash4 DLC were unable to produce similar feelings, but the second half of my bold sentence gives inkling to its contents.

(*maybe because I called it day 2 after playing some Ike on wifi for 2 hours who did little but full hop nair and struggling [but overcoming it somewhat eventually even with worse-than-normal-latency] and despite the large level-of-play gap looked exactly like what MKLeo was doing to many).

Either way, could all be eating our words in mere days/weeks as the entirety of top level playerbase become parry gods (or learn to time out Ike), or the potential of match up difficulty vs heavies and zoners come to pass.

Oh no worries - I was still awake after a long stretch of work and read a bit too much into your post.

I suppose I’m not as concerned about something like Nair, because quite a few of our local players were investing in parrying quite early on. It really makes a difference in decision making and whether or not to throw out the typical long lasting confirm/combo starter.

Of course, until hitboxes and safety on shield is actually well established, it’s hard to tell exactly how good something truly is. I know the Ridleycord was surprised to find that his aerials weren’t nearly as free as they thought -Nair being something like -8 - and thus would require a bit more consideration in the future.

Then again, some stuff could end up being better, too. Fox’s ftilt being able to combo into itself at low percents is kind of disgusting, tbh.

1. One day, there’ll be more competent players who either don’t go rage mode out of nowhere...or make the most foolish and embarrassing moment in Smash Ultimate history yet
2. Not sure about (I assume Dabuz is done with her), but are absolute murderers
3. Can’t believe could all be the best FE character in the game and not the usual , while are also great. Good time to main any of the FE Heroes (except ...cause his female counterpart is obviously better)

On the subject of Corrin: character is still pretty decent, but like Mewtwo, their play style is going to be less straightforward. She can still combo for days, and the engine is certainly more friendly to her frame traps. I just don’t know if her playerbase can let go of the fact that Pin isn’t the god tier button that it was.

Also, also - Dark Samus/Samus
I feel like they are flying under the radar a little. Yeah, she isn’t fast, but have you guys seen her Zair? It’s kind of bananas. And like Shaya mentioned, Nair is bonkers, and while it feels similar to Smash 4, it’s a more brutal offstage option now.

 

[Lavani]

She did pick up some unique quirks in that Luma both deals more damage and is more resistant to knockback when detethered. I think it's pretty clear that the intention is for her to be a true puppet fighter that uses a detethered Luma to set up small combos, instead of keeping it attached at all times to act as a pesudo-sword. That said, the execution is definitely lacking and Luma controls differently enough to feel awkward.

That, and with Luma's movement being...what it is, and his base damage not being all that either (x1.5 damage on a character that rarely goes above 1~4% per hit, hooray?), it results in requiring a lot of situational awareness for gimmick combos when you could've just picked a top tier and strung a few aerials for twice the damage and a fraction of the planning. She's just a lot of effort for what you get in return currently.

 

[Kuro Koshka]

meanwhile Inkling's roller comes out in like 1.5 frames and if it's blocked she just laughs in your face and leaves

Inkling's roller is frame 16 and in addition is super negative on block or can be simply jumped over. If blocked it takes nearly a full second for it to tick again to do shield damage. As such you can literally grab and chuck an Inkling if it connects, or simply do an aerial OoS. It is a high risk high reward move so only a toddler should be hit by it unless they frame trap you in which case deal with it. In conclusion:

"roller is OP" pic.twitter.com/ZxmRGBwqzg

— geist (@geistbox) December 19, 2018

 

[J0eyboi]

On the subject of Corrin: character is still pretty decent, but like Mewtwo, their play style is going to be less straightforward. She can still combo for days, and the engine is certainly more friendly to her frame traps. I just don’t know if her playerbase can let go of the fact that Pin isn’t the god tier button that it was.

Problem is, Pin wasn't the only thing that got hit. Dragon Fang Shot got its stun duration gutted, meaning you can no longer get full-damage bites off a stun at any percent, which in turn makes it a much worse kill option that's much harder to confirm into. The shot itself is also much harder to combo and confirm out of. Counter's kill power got cut massively, making basically no longer a threat. All of those changes take Corrin from having an amazing set of specials to a pretty mediocre one.

Her kill power got nerfed, too. Dtilt has higher KBG, making confirms off of it no longer possible. Uthrow and Dthrow kill later. Uair seems like it kills later, though that could just be me. Due to the aforementioned, confirms and setups into DFS no longer work. Tipper Pin feels a lot harder to land, probably in part due to directional airdodging, and I believe the pin kicks kill later too. She can still rack up damage pretty well, but sealing stocks can be a real problem for her now, whereas in Smash 4 she basically never had to worry about it.

 

[Deleted member]

On the subject of Ms. they pretty much nerfed all of her specials into the ground
. Neutral B doesn't stun nearly as long and got a damage nerf i think
.Up B doesn't go up as much as it did in smash 4 this feels kinda unnecessary
.Side B just doesn't shred any more and doesn't combo as much
.Down B Doesn't do much more than blockade hits it lost a lot of kill in the transition between games

 

[TMNTSSB4]

She's been dropped across the board; Nabster's the only one I know is still playing her, though I haven't watched any of their sets in Ultimate yet. All the other US Rosas went to Palu/Inkling/Olimar, Atelier's playing Wolf, afaik Kirihara hasn't settled on a new main yet but isn't impressed with Ult Rosa.

In a nutshell she doesn't have the same threatening zoning as in 4 between both Luma attack nerfs and her competition being faster and consisting heavily of swordies who now outrange her and don't need to worry about their sword dying*. Damage output even with Luma's a bit iffy too, since rapid jab's damage got gutted hard and uair's been nerfed in both startup(Luma) and endlag (and probably hitbox with the different animation). Being a large, floaty character, she isn't fond of airdodge changes when trying to land either.

She still has solid ledge trapping and edgeguarding, and even has some new tools in that regard, but most of what drew people to her in 4 is gone, and I haven't seen positive results or opinions from the people who tried to make her work.

that’s quite sad for her...how the might have fallen

 

[NairWizard]

People telling other people to calm down or to stop complaining are usually the problem, not the other way around. This series of threads (and more generally speaking smashboards in general, at least at a high theoretical level) has been known for its aversion to balance callouts since forever. It took over a full year of discussion before half the people frequenting this thread were willing to admit that Bayonetta or Cloud might be problems in smash 4, and even then some of them were not willing to accept it. People here don't like claims that game balance isn't perfect (the one exception to this was during the customs meta, which likely involved immense pressure from the rest of the community). In some ways, this aversion to complaint is a good thing; it makes this thread a safe haven for those who don't want to be exposed to twitter toxicity and the like. But it can also create a very rose-colored echo chamber, and reinforcing the echo by saying, "stop complaining; it's too early to ask for nerfs/let counterplay develop" for the 10000th time doesn't create meaningful discussion.

I feel responsible for the waves of Ike-related posts since I made the first one; however, I don't think it's entirely inappropriate to devote a few pages to it, either. It was the dominant showing at Smash United and it was the most complained-about move even before then that I saw. ZeRo and m2k friendlies are often where the meta is born and when you have ZeRo and m2k AND MKleo AND other top players all saying that Ike looks busted and dumb, there might be some merit in discussing why it appears that way to players who have access to a host of top-player options for dealing. I suggested that the reason was Ike's overreliance on n-air rather than Ike just being too good.

A good response to this claim is something like what san posted (though I don't agree with most of what was posted, it's still a reasonable, substantially articulated view; thanks san), but even more so, if people would suggest actual counterplay instead of just complaining about others complaining, there wouldn't be any long/cyclical 3-page debate.

If you just hold shield Ike can throw in tomahawks to trip you up or just perfectly space the n-air so that you can't punish OOS. One thing I did notice in the set between Samsora and MKLeo though is that sometimes Samsora would try to roll under Ike while he was in the air, or even worse, spotdodge. There's absolutely no reason to choose that option against Ike; n-air is too big. Holding shield isn't the answer and I don't think parrying is the answer either. The answer lies in punishing Ike for jumping. Something that Shaya and I were talking about is that ZeRo was losing to Peach in particular because he was allowing her to float at full-hop height above him without up-tilting. People aren't used to punishing jumps in this game yet and that could be one reason that Ike looks so strong.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

I've been playing Incineroar of late and find he has quite a hard time with Palutena. He doesn't have the speed to catch her if she's being evasive, he doesn't have an answer to her nair strings, bair is quite good for keeping him at bay/beating out his attacks, and her projectile pressure makes it difficult to achieve his win condition (cornering her). I don't see this as a good MU for him. At least that's been my personal experience so far (I'll try to figure out ways to overcome her)

As a main, I consider heavies to be the easiest match-ups. Even with Revenge, Incineroar is gonna eat parts of Explosive Flame or Auto-Reticle. Bair does a good job of keeping him out if he gets close and jab is kinda quick too. I would say sideB is your best bet to get close and Darkest Lariat is just a really solid move overall. Also, King K. Rool has got to be my favorite (easiest) match-up with her.

Speaking of match-ups as Palutena, I have trouble with the spacies (). They all do a good job of keeping her in the air and it can be a struggle to get down. They're also quick enough to avoid her projectiles. I don't think it's just me either. Nairo had a lot of trouble against Light's Fox so I think this is one of her worse match-ups.

 

[itsaxelol]

As a main, I consider heavies to be the easiest match-ups. Even with Revenge, Incineroar is gonna eat parts of Explosive Flame or Auto-Reticle. Bair does a good job of keeping him out if he gets close and jab is kinda quick too. I would say sideB is your best bet to get close and Darkest Lariat is just a really solid move overall. Also, King K. Rool has got to be my favorite (easiest) match-up with her.

Speaking of match-ups as Palutena, I have trouble with the spacies (). They all do a good job of keeping her in the air and it can be a struggle to get down. They're also quick enough to avoid her projectiles. I don't think it's just me either. Nairo had a lot of trouble against Light's Fox so I think this is one of her worse match-ups.

Hey man, would you want to play a few games later? By coincidence, the heavies happen to be some of favorite video game characters so I use a few of them. I've only played one actual good Palutina, and I do decent enough. Would like to play another one to really see the match

 

[Ziodyne 21]

As a main, I consider heavies to be the easiest match-ups. Even with Revenge, Incineroar is gonna eat parts of Explosive Flame or Auto-Reticle. Bair does a good job of keeping him out if he gets close and jab is kinda quick too. I would say sideB is your best bet to get close and Darkest Lariat is just a really solid move overall. Also, King K. Rool has got to be my favorite (easiest) match-up with her.

Speaking of match-ups as Palutena, I have trouble with the spacies (). They all do a good job of keeping her in the air and it can be a struggle to get down. They're also quick enough to avoid her projectiles. I don't think it's just me either. Nairo had a lot of trouble against Light's Fox so I think this is one of her worse match-ups.

Yea for sure can be a struggle for her. I also think / are also difficult MU's for Palu as well. They are small and fast enough to get past Palutena's zoning options can can easily to thier combo/juggle game on her

 

[Lord Dio]

Palutena typically struggles with characters who can get in faster than she can throw out projectiles. Spacies just kidna burst in and start frametrapping.
Inklings and pichu are also bad for the same reasons, but with the additional downside being that palu really can't do much to hit either when they're crouching or dashing around, and they're generally hard to grab.

On the topic of Rosa, is falln playing her? AceStarthe3rd? RosaGetsFit? There's plenty of lower-levelled rosas in 4 who come to mind (plus falln, bc he's not low level lol).
tbh, I'm not surprised she has little to no rep, I'm just surprised she didn't gain any after that attack cancelling video MySmashCorner put up. The video even said the tech was rather easy, so it feels like Rosa's a character you'd still be seeing a bit of.

 

[Lavani]

On the topic of Rosa, is falln playing her? AceStarthe3rd? RosaGetsFit? There's plenty of lower-levelled rosas in 4 who come to mind (plus falln, bc he's not low level lol).

Falln tried her early on, but doesn't feel like she's a worthwhile tournament character and switched to Inkling.
Ace is Pichu/Incineroar/WFT
RosaGetsFit is Bayo/ZSS

 

[Lord Dio]

Falln tried her early on, but doesn't feel like she's a worthwhile tournament character and switched to Inkling.
Ace is Pichu/Incineroar/WFT
RosaGetsFit is Bayo/ZSS

Alright, onto ssbwiki then

Towa I'm p sure switched to palu

Rayquaza07
Utopian Ray
Xaltis
Yuzu
crazycolorz5
any info on those?
seriously there has to be SOMEONE willing to play the character

 

[Lavani]

Alright, onto ssbwiki then

Towa I'm p sure switched to palu

Rayquaza07
Utopian Ray
Xaltis
Yuzu
crazycolorz5
any info on those?
seriously there has to be SOMEONE willing to play the character

Ray's palu now
colorz is inkling/palu

i haven't seen/heard of anything from the rest in ultimate yet, afaik Nabster's really the only one still playing her at this point

 

[Rizen]

Falln tried her early on, but doesn't feel like she's a worthwhile tournament character and switched to Inkling.
Ace is Pichu/Incineroar/WFT
RosaGetsFit is Bayo/ZSS

Ouch. Inb4 'Rosa4lyfe' starts maining Pichu.

 

[Iridium]

Alright, onto ssbwiki then

Towa I'm p sure switched to palu

Rayquaza07
Utopian Ray
Xaltis
Yuzu
crazycolorz5
any info on those?
seriously there has to be SOMEONE willing to play the character

Atelier definitely is Wolf at least too. Did he ever mention dropping him or anything like that? Last time I saw Yuzu, I think he was Pichu, and I see he still is.

 

[J0eyboi]

They're also quick enough to avoid her projectiles.

Palutena typically struggles with characters who can get in faster than she can throw out projectiles.

Both of these statements seem to imply that Palutena's projectiles are neutral tools, which is also just a sentiment I see a lot regarding Palutena. They are not. Both are extremely committal, with FAFs hovering around 70 on both, and neither controls space well.

Autoreticle is far too linear and far too fast. It can force jumps and/or shield (unless your opponent just runs under it, which can absolutely happen), but unlike with, say, Wolf's laser or Luigi's fireball, Palu is stuck in endlag for so long that she can't take advantage of it at all.

As for Explosive Flame, it doesn't control much space at all, only covering a circular area a set distance away from Palu. The fact that it has two potential ranges would make it slightly better at threatening space, were it not for the fact that the move has a very obvious visual cue that appears on frame 1 and tells you exactly where the explosion is going to be, while the move itself doesn't come out until frame 28. Offline, this move is extremely reactable, and no one with enough matchup experience should really be getting caught by it in neutral.

Palu's projectiles do have use in advantage, where they're much harder to avoid and much better at limiting options, but using them in neutral is giving your opponent either a free punish or free stage control. They are not neutral tools.