Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Lacrimosa]

Why are we expecting a special mechanic?
Neither Banjo (Wonderwings maybe?) nor Byleth have one.

 

[Nate1080]

Yea honestly i wouldn't be too suprised that the ARMS character would also be taking a lot of time since they'd want to implement a mechanic like having different ARMS combinations, it's one of the most defining aspects about ARMS.

I feel like they'll balance out the ARM's extendable reach by either making it either SUPER slow or have extendable hurtboxes. If the ARMs char doesn't get any CQC options for the former or they get the latter then I feel like it'd be a huge detriment in viability since it's what caused chars like SSF2 Luffy to become borderline bottom tier material. I can see why it'd be hard af to balance it, they can try the byleth or belmonts approach but neither chars are really good and if Sakurai mentions that the character will be "unique", i just hope that it doesn't mean extendable hurtboxes with slow frame data.

If the character has a mechanic that allows them to switch arms on the fly (think Shulk), in terms of frame data the character will probably be able to switch between fast and slow arms. If they do that, they’ll probably balance it with arms that extend fast, but retract to neutral position slowly and arms that extend slowly but retract quickly, both of which are factors actually in ARMS.

This is also probably an answer to the possible CQC issue, as well as a neat way to showcase what makes ARMS unique as well as specific mechanics in the game in terms of arm speeds.

 

[Arthur97]

Maybe they can switch on the fly, but I think them just using them as different moves may also be likely.

 

[NotLiquid]

ARMS was one of my favorite games of the year when it came out so seeing that franchise make its way to Smash fills me with a lot of joy. The characters of that series are all well designed and fun.

Far be it necessarily the thread to speculate on how the characters will play but I think the chief difficulty of translating an ARMS character into Smash is the fact that, while a fun and elegant game, ARMS is extremely simple in terms of fundamental mechanics. Every character gets two long-range punches, a three-weapon selection that has different effects/traits, a generic super flurry attack, the ability to charge attacks (that gives the weapons unique traits), a grab and some kind of active/passive ability depending on the character. In other words; not a lot to fill out a whole move set when in the grand scheme of things, you basically have only one unique way of attacking while Smash has over a dozen. But that does make them a pretty interesting proposition because it means Sakurai is going to be expanding these characters in wholly unique ways whereas much of the previous fighters had their content laid out for them.

I think the key thing with them is despite being obvious range monsters, let it not be said that a lot of these characters are unable to fight without having to extend their limbs. I made the key mistake early in Smash speculation of assuming Inkling's entire move set would have to use every single one of her weapons (they only used five and turned her into more of a speedy footsies character rather than the zoner-like archetype more accurate to her games). By that token don't expect our mystery fighter to not have any better close-range or potential burst options. Despite these characters having long-reaches their attacks are generally fairly slow, making up for it by being able to curve punches. Will we be able to curve our attacks like Pit's arrows? Is it possible we can attack while moving? Maybe the FSmash can send off two attacks, similar to Link's? If they're strapped for close-combat moves, they're in luck if they decide to go with Min Min as the ARMS rep; she actually attacks with regular kicks and has a Samus-like BAir/NAir, which in the game even doubles as a reflector...!

Besides the obvious applications of tethers and long-range attacks I'm also left wondering about their aerial speed. ARMS characters on ground aren't very agile, despite the fact that they have the ability to dash, but characters in the game have great aerial suspension and a lot of characters have some unique gimmicks that are entirely built around their airborne capabilities (Ribbon Girl herself has a unique fast fall mechanic!). Despite how insane the prospect sounds with their operative range, I'm left thinking whether this unknown character will have some good air accel/air speed, since a key component with these characters is their ability to weave in and out of attacks; actually not too unlike the swordies we discussed earlier, in particular Lucina who uses her speed as a means of retreat.

As for the specials, those will obviously be dependent on which character they settle with (ARMS swapping is a gimmick but we saw Joker only utilize Arsene despite canonically having way more/stronger Personas; I think it's fair to say the ARMS rep will also only stick between the defaults, which can be difficult since they have three rather than two). In the grand scheme of things these will vary in sense of "one can be a projectile, the other does electric/explosive/fire/etc. damage" but many of those latter effects will be influenced only if they translate the charge mechanic, which seems like it may be a "crutch" to lean on for K.O's if they go that route (you can essentially power up your next attack after a split second wind up though some characters like Min Min can continue holding onto a charge up until they enter a hard knock down, whereas Dr. Coyle gets a third arm which..?!).

Big weakness I'm predicting this far out is probably going to be grounded mobility; initial dash is likely going to be really poor. Frame data is also going to be sus I think, we're talking a fist fighter who prefers playing mid-range, likely with good aerial control, and that's a unique archetype for sure.

Some specific tomfoolery to look out for if they go with any of the following;
- Spring Man and Max Brass have comeback mechanics when high damage, we know how people feel about those.
- Mechanica and Master Mummy... probably not making it in given that their entire gimmick is super armor on everything while the latter has healing.
- Helix and Misango are probably the two weirdest characters in the roster as far as gimmicks are concerned and probably too high maintenance for a game like Smash to do effectively, given how complicated the characters already are to translate (though Misango's gimmick specifically is basically Monado Arts).
- Twintelle has a time stop.
- Dr. Coyle can turn invisible.

 

[SwagGuy99]

The sword fighter complaints might be one of those loud minority things since, as you said, a lot of people like using sword fighters.

Ironically, now we might be getting a melee fighter with beyond sword level range. Though, what are people thinking with mobility? Generally that kind of range would come at the cost of a lot of mobility, but do you think they'll balance it out in a different way?

I'm not sure. I feel like unknown ARMS rep will probably end up being a very good character or a very bad one (For better or for worse). From what I've seen and heard of ARMS, the gameplay isn't all that solid and looks kind of slow (I could be wrong, I've never played it, don't get too mad at me), so I'm guessing this character might lack frame-data, mobility, or possibly both as a representation of this. The character having range is pretty much a given, it's just a question of how much range. Are they planning on outdoing Byleth and Simon in this regard, or will they possibly tone it down depending on how good their frame-data and mobility are? I wouldn't be surprised if this character relies heavily on grabs if their grab ends up being as a tether. Their likely long range on their moves combined with an up-throw that doesn't deal too much knockback could actually be pretty scary for characters with a bad disadvantage if their up-air or n-air ends up being a good combo extender/juggling tool or if they just have a kill move with long vertical range.

 

[Arthur97]

It's also possible that whoever it is will be made to represent the game as a whole using abilities from other characters. It's happened as far back as Ness in Smash 64 with him never using PK Fire in Earthbound (it's not the only move he uses currently that he never had, but I don't know about thunder and magnet) so it's possible they'll stick to a more generic representation.

 

[DougEfresh]

While I was a bit underwhelmed by the way the yet to be revealed ARMS character was presented in the Nintendo Direct mini this morning, I am genuinely intrigued by what they'll end up offering from a gameplay perspective. I have no familiarity at all with the series, so I can't add anything useful to the speculation of his specific design or gimmick(s), but that's my overall reaction even if I'm a bit late in sharing it.

Also wanted to share just one more thought about Lucario to wrap up my discussion of him (at least for a while). I planned to leave it be after my second post covering his MU spread, but a tweet from Jeda came out right after that I thought was worth sharing for the sake of gathering a better understanding and knowledge base about this oft-forgotten character:

https://twitter.com/xy_jeda/status/1242494740567937025?s=21

I agree very much with Jeda's statements about how best to push the limits of and it reaffirms what I have been believing more and more about improving with him as time goes on. Also thought the timing was an interesting coincidence as VodkaHaze mentioned the other day how frustrating it was to lab out various combos and follow ups at different aura and opponent % ranges. Aside from his low percent bnb combos from up throw and how aura affects that, I don't think it's a wise investment of time to lab what are otherwise very niche and impractical combos or set ups. Lucario is by far the most threatening when he is in a position where the opponent's options are limited when he has high aura and he can net stocks early, so is makes total sense that optimizing edge trapping (both ledge trapping and improving our awareness of off-stage scenarios to get the most out of edge guards) is the best way to improve his consistency that'll significantly boost his viability as a meta threat. I think most of us up to this point have been too timid and respectful of opponents when they're off-stage since we're worried (understandably, I admit) about getting reversal'd, losing our stock and hence all of (or the vast majority of) our aura, but a common quality that many of our hardest MUs have is that they have relatively poor or linear recoveries, so if we're going to mitigate that difficulty in many current meta-relevant MUs (as well as some other rather challenging, lesson common ones), we need to know which scenarios it's best to exploit this and stop being so scared.

Here's the TL;DR version: I've been increasingly thinking that is as difficult as he is largely because of how deep an understanding of fundamentals is necessary to play him at his best (particularly in neutral and edge-trapping just like Jeda stated). His aura mechanic was never meant to be used as a way to be constantly holed up in the lab testing out different set ups and combos at different % levels for both him and the opponent that likely have no practical applications in a real match or set; it's about navigating neutral with our movement options and very precise spacing to be in range and react fast enough to various offensive options so we can punish opponents and put them in disadvantage (off-stage/at the ledge in particular) and using the accumulated aura we get to exploit its greatest strength of abusing opportunities when they have a much more limited set of options. May the aura be with you!

 

[meleebrawler]

ARMS was one of my favorite games of the year when it came out so seeing that franchise make its way to Smash fills me with a lot of joy. The characters of that series are all well designed and fun.

Far be it necessarily the thread to speculate on how the characters will play but I think the chief difficulty of translating an ARMS character into Smash is the fact that, while a fun and elegant game, ARMS is extremely simple in terms of fundamental mechanics. Every character gets two long-range punches, a three-weapon selection that has different effects/traits, a generic super flurry attack, the ability to charge attacks (that gives the weapons unique traits), a grab and some kind of active/passive ability depending on the character. In other words; not a lot to fill out a whole move set when in the grand scheme of things, you basically have only one unique way of attacking while Smash has over a dozen. But that does make them a pretty interesting proposition because it means Sakurai is going to be expanding these characters in wholly unique ways whereas much of the previous fighters had their content laid out for them.

I think the key thing with them is despite being obvious range monsters, let it not be said that a lot of these characters are unable to fight without having to extend their limbs. I made the key mistake early in Smash speculation of assuming Inkling's entire move set would have to use every single one of her weapons (they only used five and turned her into more of a speedy footsies character rather than the zoner-like archetype more accurate to her games). By that token don't expect our mystery fighter to not have any better close-range or potential burst options. Despite these characters having long-reaches their attacks are generally fairly slow, making up for it by being able to curve punches. Will we be able to curve our attacks like Pit's arrows? Is it possible we can attack while moving? Maybe the FSmash can send off two attacks, similar to Link's? If they're strapped for close-combat moves, they're in luck if they decide to go with Min Min as the ARMS rep; she actually attacks with regular kicks and has a Samus-like BAir/NAir, which in the game even doubles as a reflector...!

Besides the obvious applications of tethers and long-range attacks I'm also left wondering about their aerial speed. ARMS characters on ground aren't very agile, despite the fact that they have the ability to dash, but characters in the game have great aerial suspension and a lot of characters have some unique gimmicks that are entirely built around their airborne capabilities (Ribbon Girl herself has a unique fast fall mechanic!). Despite how insane the prospect sounds with their operative range, I'm left thinking whether this unknown character will have some good air accel/air speed, since a key component with these characters is their ability to weave in and out of attacks; actually not too unlike the swordies we discussed earlier, in particular Lucina who uses her speed as a means of retreat.

As for the specials, those will obviously be dependent on which character they settle with (ARMS swapping is a gimmick but we saw Joker only utilize Arsene despite canonically having way more/stronger Personas; I think it's fair to say the ARMS rep will also only stick between the defaults, which can be difficult since they have three rather than two). In the grand scheme of things these will vary in sense of "one can be a projectile, the other does electric/explosive/fire/etc. damage" but many of those latter effects will be influenced only if they translate the charge mechanic, which seems like it may be a "crutch" to lean on for K.O's if they go that route (you can essentially power up your next attack after a split second wind up though some characters like Min Min can continue holding onto a charge up until they enter a hard knock down, whereas Dr. Coyle gets a third arm which..?!).

Big weakness I'm predicting this far out is probably going to be grounded mobility; initial dash is likely going to be really poor. Frame data is also going to be sus I think, we're talking a fist fighter who prefers playing mid-range, likely with good aerial control, and that's a unique archetype for sure.

Some specific tomfoolery to look out for if they go with any of the following;
- Spring Man and Max Brass have comeback mechanics when high damage, we know how people feel about those.
- Mechanica and Master Mummy... probably not making it in given that their entire gimmick is super armor on everything while the latter has healing.
- Helix and Misango are probably the two weirdest characters in the roster as far as gimmicks are concerned and probably too high maintenance for a game like Smash to do effectively, given how complicated the characters already are to translate (though Misango's gimmick specifically is basically Monado Arts).
- Twintelle has a time stop.
- Dr. Coyle can turn invisible.

The true tricky part about translating ARMS in Smash is just the fact it's a 3D fighter, and lots of it's mechanics taking full advantage of this. Half of the potential arms are used to curve to the side to catch strafing or avoid clashes, which you can't really do in a 2D plane. How do you translate the boomerangs, the chakrams, the birds? Or stuff like the Tri-Shot designed to hit a wide lateral area, as opposed to the Hydra hitting vertical?

I think you're selling initial dashes a bit short. For a lot characters, their dashes are actully quite quick (if short-ranged) if you don't stop to charge, especially Ninjara. Only noted slow characters and Kid Cobra have what I'd describe as bad dashes, unless the latter charges of course. He also has an airspeed that blows all the others out the water, only rivalled by Blue Misango.

Don't forget Min-Min also has a Fox up smash! Also, Coyle's true defining feature isn't invisibility or extra arms, but rather her movement, specifically the fact that she's basically in a near-permanent Peach hover state and has no actual jump, only altitude adjustment. The floatiest fighter you would ever see.

I'm not sure. I feel like unknown ARMS rep will probably end up being a very good character or a very bad one (For better or for worse). From what I've seen and heard of ARMS, the gameplay isn't all that solid and looks kind of slow (I could be wrong, I've never played it, don't get too mad at me), so I'm guessing this character might lack frame-data, mobility, or possibly both as a representation of this. The character having range is pretty much a given, it's just a question of how much range. Are they planning on outdoing Byleth and Simon in this regard, or will they possibly tone it down depending on how good their frame-data and mobility are? I wouldn't be surprised if this character relies heavily on grabs if their grab ends up being as a tether. Their likely long range on their moves combined with an up-throw that doesn't deal too much knockback could actually be pretty scary for characters with a bad disadvantage if their up-air or n-air ends up being a good combo extender/juggling tool or if they just have a kill move with long vertical range.

While the relatively small movesets in ARMS can make things feel spammy, if you go to watch high-level play you will find that the meta actually tends to favor, somewhat counter-intuitively, close range pressure and vortexing. The best characters in the game have tools that can severely limit wake-up options, especially once their opponents are backed into corners. Stuff like Twintelle's slow aura, Max Brass's parry shockwaves and buff armor... really almost everyone can do stuff like this to varying degrees, whether through armor, parrying or evasiveness. To say nothing of the "supers" also parrying attacks.

 

[The_Bookworm]

While the relatively small movesets in ARMS can make things feel spammy, if you go to watch high-level play you will find that the meta actually tends to favor, somewhat counter-intuitively, close range pressure and vortexing. The best characters in the game have tools that can severely limit wake-up options, especially once their opponents are backed into corners. Stuff like Twintelle's slow aura, Max Brass's parry shockwaves and buff armor... really almost everyone can do stuff like this to varying degrees, whether through armor, parrying or evasiveness. To say nothing of the "supers" also parrying attacks.

I know that this is rather unrelated to the conversation on the ARMS character's movesets, but what are the best characters in ARMS?
Does the game have a tier list or something?
Maybe this can gauge specific characters to look out for when the character is revealed.

 

[meleebrawler]

I know that this is rather unrelated to the conversation on the ARMS character's movesets, but what are the best characters in ARMS?
Does the game have a tier list or something?
Maybe this can gauge specific characters to look out for when the character is revealed.

I don't think there's really an ordered list, considering the customizable arms themselves and counterpicking those between rounds is a thing, but noted strong characters are Twintelle and Max Brass whom I just described, Kid Cobra for his strong burst movement options, and Dr. Coyle for being able to launch double-strength attacks for half the commitment and maintain a near constant height advantage, plus "air blocking" since the game always treats her as if she is "grounded" (this actually does make her more susceptible to stunning ailments, however, as most other characters would simply be knocked down in that scenario).

Conversely Misango & Byte/Barq aren't too popular, as it is relatively easy to prevent them from using their unique traits, leaving bland fighters otherwise.

 

[ARISTOS]

ARMS was a very fun game with a lot of character, so I'm super pumped to see it entered into the Smash canon.

ARMS was one of my favorite games of the year when it came out so seeing that franchise make its way to Smash fills me with a lot of joy. The characters of that series are all well designed and fun.

Far be it necessarily the thread to speculate on how the characters will play but I think the chief difficulty of translating an ARMS character into Smash is the fact that, while a fun and elegant game, ARMS is extremely simple in terms of fundamental mechanics. Every character gets two long-range punches, a three-weapon selection that has different effects/traits, a generic super flurry attack, the ability to charge attacks (that gives the weapons unique traits), a grab and some kind of active/passive ability depending on the character. In other words; not a lot to fill out a whole move set when in the grand scheme of things, you basically have only one unique way of attacking while Smash has over a dozen. But that does make them a pretty interesting proposition because it means Sakurai is going to be expanding these characters in wholly unique ways whereas much of the previous fighters had their content laid out for them.

I think the key thing with them is despite being obvious range monsters, let it not be said that a lot of these characters are unable to fight without having to extend their limbs. I made the key mistake early in Smash speculation of assuming Inkling's entire move set would have to use every single one of her weapons (they only used five and turned her into more of a speedy footsies character rather than the zoner-like archetype more accurate to her games). By that token don't expect our mystery fighter to not have any better close-range or potential burst options. Despite these characters having long-reaches their attacks are generally fairly slow, making up for it by being able to curve punches. Will we be able to curve our attacks like Pit's arrows? Is it possible we can attack while moving? Maybe the FSmash can send off two attacks, similar to Link's? If they're strapped for close-combat moves, they're in luck if they decide to go with Min Min as the ARMS rep; she actually attacks with regular kicks and has a Samus-like BAir/NAir, which in the game even doubles as a reflector...!

Besides the obvious applications of tethers and long-range attacks I'm also left wondering about their aerial speed. ARMS characters on ground aren't very agile, despite the fact that they have the ability to dash, but characters in the game have great aerial suspension and a lot of characters have some unique gimmicks that are entirely built around their airborne capabilities (Ribbon Girl herself has a unique fast fall mechanic!). Despite how insane the prospect sounds with their operative range, I'm left thinking whether this unknown character will have some good air accel/air speed, since a key component with these characters is their ability to weave in and out of attacks; actually not too unlike the swordies we discussed earlier, in particular Lucina who uses her speed as a means of retreat.

As for the specials, those will obviously be dependent on which character they settle with (ARMS swapping is a gimmick but we saw Joker only utilize Arsene despite canonically having way more/stronger Personas; I think it's fair to say the ARMS rep will also only stick between the defaults, which can be difficult since they have three rather than two). In the grand scheme of things these will vary in sense of "one can be a projectile, the other does electric/explosive/fire/etc. damage" but many of those latter effects will be influenced only if they translate the charge mechanic, which seems like it may be a "crutch" to lean on for K.O's if they go that route (you can essentially power up your next attack after a split second wind up though some characters like Min Min can continue holding onto a charge up until they enter a hard knock down, whereas Dr. Coyle gets a third arm which..?!).

Big weakness I'm predicting this far out is probably going to be grounded mobility; initial dash is likely going to be really poor. Frame data is also going to be sus I think, we're talking a fist fighter who prefers playing mid-range, likely with good aerial control, and that's a unique archetype for sure.

Some specific tomfoolery to look out for if they go with any of the following;
- Spring Man and Max Brass have comeback mechanics when high damage, we know how people feel about those.
- Mechanica and Master Mummy... probably not making it in given that their entire gimmick is super armor on everything while the latter has healing.
- Helix and Misango are probably the two weirdest characters in the roster as far as gimmicks are concerned and probably too high maintenance for a game like Smash to do effectively, given how complicated the characters already are to translate (though Misango's gimmick specifically is basically Monado Arts).
- Twintelle has a time stop.
- Dr. Coyle can turn invisible.

I think this is a good layout of mechanics but there's also the potential of ARM breaking. If the moves are strong, it may be a way of reigning the character in.

I do expect a good (and maybe unique?) initial dash as that's one of the primary and most important movements in the game.

 

[meleebrawler]

ARMS was a very fun game with a lot of character, so I'm super pumped to see it entered into the Smash canon.



I think this is a good layout of mechanics but there's also the potential of ARM breaking. If the moves are strong, it may be a way of reigning the character in.

I do expect a good (and maybe unique?) initial dash as that's one of the primary and most important movements in the game.

Arm breaking goes deeper than that. In the game proper, it also ties into your shield health. Having a damaged arm weakens your block, and likewise blocking a barrage of hits can leave the arms vulnerable.

Now normally, arms can't take damage when being used to attack, only get cancelled out by equal or greater weighted (priority) opposing moves. But since 2D planes don't really allow deliberate aiming for shoulders, an exception might have to be made here. If multiple arms choices are available, this could be a good balancing factor between the faster ones which are harder to dodge but more easily interrupted and damaged, and the heavy ones which are usually slow but require big hits to stop.

And just maybe, the shield could have some extra tricks in exchange for that arm damage weakness, that is to say it does not shrink with time (but your arms also can't heal while it is up) and you can cancel it with a dash right after blocking a move, useful for keeping ideal spacing.

 

[Nate1080]

I know that this is rather unrelated to the conversation on the ARMS character's movesets, but what are the best characters in ARMS?
Does the game have a tier list or something?
Maybe this can gauge specific characters to look out for when the character is revealed.

Contrary to the above, there’s definitely an agreed upon tier list. Yes the different arms do make a difference, but the individual characters themselves also play a Up until 6+ months ago, I used to play the game in community tournaments and such.

Top 3 are, in order:
Dr. Coyle, MaxBrass and Kid Cobra

- Coyle: Invisibility on wake up and while holding block. Perpetual hovering, almost literally able to fly around the stage at almost any altitude. And is able to spawn a 3rd Arm at will while holding charge. Has the least amount of hitstun and longest dash. She’s extremely oppressive.

- Max Brass: permacharges at low health, can deflect attacks and can have super armor (super armor in Arms is nutty btw; Brass super armor being the nuttiest and being permanent at low health). Also 3rd for highest throw damage in the game iirc. His goal is to corner and pressure you, and keep you there.

- Kid Cobra: Starts out slow, but after charging becomes a much better and much faster character. He’s a rush down character, with the ability to slide under pretty much everything for free and punish you for it. Iirc, has the second highest throw damage. Tbh, I personally don’t know too much about this character having never played with him, only played against him.

Bottom 3 are, in order:

Master Mummy (K Rool of ARMS; big and slow and just super armor the character. Has the highest throw damage and can self heal though)
Byte and Barq (dysfunctional, discount, Ice Climbers. Barq is equivalent to Nana with much worse AI. Nuff said)
Misango (basically the shulk of the game, but almost zero reward for how “difficult” he is to master)

Everyone else is mid-tier and roughly equal in terms of how good they are to one another. It should be noted that the power level difference between the best character and worst character isn’t even that big, and pretty much most characters are decently viable.

 

[meleebrawler]

Contrary to the above, there’s definitely an agreed upon tier list. Yes the different arms do make a difference, but the individual characters themselves also play a Up until 6+ months ago, I used to play the game in community tournaments and such.

Top 3 are, in order:
Dr. Coyle, MaxBrass and Kid Cobra

- Coyle: Invisibility on wake up and while holding block. Perpetual hovering, almost literally able to fly around the stage at almost any altitude. And is able to spawn a 3rd Arm at will while holding charge. Has the least amount of hitstun and longest dash. She’s extremely oppressive.

- Max Brass: permacharges at low health, can deflect attacks and can have super armor (super armor in Arms is nutty btw; Brass super armor being the nuttiest and being permanent at low health). Also 3rd for highest throw damage in the game iirc. His goal is to corner and pressure you, and keep you there.

- Kid Cobra: Starts out slow, but after charging becomes a much better and much faster character. He’s a rush down character, with the ability to slide under pretty much everything for free and punish you for it. Iirc, has the second highest throw damage. Tbh, I personally don’t know too much about this character having never played with him, only played against him.

Bottom 3 are, in order:

Master Mummy (K Rool of ARMS; big and slow and just super armor the character. Has the highest throw damage and can self heal though)
Byte and Barq (dysfunctional, discount, Ice Climbers. Barq is equivalent to Nana with much worse AI. Nuff said)
Misango (basically the shulk of the game, but almost zero reward for how “difficult” he is to master)

Everyone else is mid-tier and roughly equal in terms of how good they are to one another. It should be noted that the power level difference between the best character and worst character isn’t even that big, and pretty much most characters are decently viable.

Kid Cobra's charged dashes are all well and good, but what really pushes his mobility over the top are his jumps, which are longer and faster than anyone else. And they don't require charging, in fact they can help get those charges in case dashes are needed. At launch they were even better and harder to deal with until their distance was nerfed. Even so, once you master controlling the distance with full and short hops (yes, that is a thing in ARMS), he is very unpredictable.

Both he and Max are actually tied for third in throw damage now (170). The second highest is actually Red Misango, at 180.

How the heck is Barq comparable to an Ice Climber? He's an assist bot, not a clone of Byte. Rosalina & Luma are a more apt comparison. I also don't really think AI is the problem. Barq can be controlled by certain actions and in most situations responds well (moving in front while you block, positioning himself properly for spring jumps when you air-dash towards him and charging his punches when you do). His problems come from navigating unusual terrain with his slow jump that precludes him from other moves, and dying in one hit. Nobody accuses Luma or Pikmin of being dumb, but how good would Rosa be if Luma could really be one-shot by everything?

Arms can have a big impact in character matchups too. If you don't have a movement impairing or fire arm on you, someone like Mummy becomes significantly trickier to deal with.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Last sword post from me for a while, promise.



Here's the thing, and probably the sagest piece of wisdom I can offer on this: because it matters, it won't matter.

Because you, as Roy's opponent, know that there's a significant chance of that 1 or 2 frames mattering, you won't take the risk. The best players want consistency. They don't want to try to punish a jab that they can almost borderline punish, but may just get killed for instead. It isn't worth the risk, especially at ledge. So it doesn't really matter when it's happening, because the situation isn't happening.

You get punished once or twice for trying to punish a Roy jab and then you're like "nope never doing that again, screw losing my stock over this nonsense."

So even if the chance of it mattering is 20% or 30%, it effectively becomes 100%. Because "some schmuck" in this case happens to be the top players (I'm not belittling them, though; their approach is logical).

One other thing worth noting also is that Roy's jab side-b is actually loaded with risk-reward on the Roy side. I mean, you can die at 60. That doesn't happen with Chrom.



Don't get me wrong. Spacing still matters with Roy (maybe even more so than with other characters in some ways since you need sour hits too). Even if you're hitting with the blade, you still have to sort of "tip" the blade--you can't be on top of your opponent or you don't get the full safety. It's just not as obvious when Roy is too close compared to when Lucina is too close.

And if it makes you feel better, when MKLeo was watching Kola play Roy, he was complaining about Kola "not camping hard enough" (his words--what he meant was sword zoning, though).

Roy is utterly baffling for many swordsman mains--even goes for me in some cases. Back when I first started playing this game, I played a bit of Roy in bracket, and I had Shaya telling me to tipper d-tilt more and space attacks with the tip, like I was playing Lucina. There's this Brawl-era mentality (which I imagine is what Emblem Lord was getting at) that swords should approach neutral with safe pokes at a distance and not worry about the reward they get off of those pokes, since you can always net the reward in advantage later.

But then you have Roy players mashing hard and winning sets, and it's working. Against really good players!

Heck, even in Void's Sheik matchup chart, he was like, "Roy loses this matchup, just like all the other swords. Well, until he starts mashing. Then it can be hard."

"Roy mashing" is legit a thing in the meta right now. Sounds silly, but it's there.

Mashing is the meta with every character.

Anyway, my main point is that Chrom and Roy are not totally different in the sense of their set-ups. They create situations for Jab confirm, bair traps, and Double Edge Dance traps. Throws create tech traps. The spacing might be different, but the situations and how they start are similar. You will dtilt more with Chrom for sure. That's about it.

You can argue they have different ledge traps, but the ideal distance with a Marthling is be at dtilt distance or if that is not safe just outside get up attack range.

Yes, Roy is rewarded for playing like an ape. That's Roy in this game. Chrom can play like an ape too.

Roy cannot NOT play that way.

I think this is Roy's limit in certain matches. Because as we see time and again, there are some characters that will slap your gob for playing like a disrespectful savage.


This game has so many silverback gorilla's it hurts my soul.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Why are we expecting a special mechanic?
Neither Banjo (Wonderwings maybe?) nor Byleth have one.

Byleth's whole moveset is basically their gimmick. The fact they use the other Hero Relics along with the Sword of the Creator. At least, that's what it looks like to me.

Since they didn't mention a specific character, am thinking they'll just make the ARMS fighter a mash up of different ARMS fighters and have other characters be costumes, much like Hero and Bowser Jr.

 

[AxelVDP]

re: frame data talk (stuff like having an extra -1f on shield etc)
this is mostly a question, but I was under the impression that move staling counted towards shield safety?
as I think this is the case, shouldn't this be taken into account aswell when discussing such things? with a little bit of staling a difference of 1 frame in safety becomes really quite small , if not absent at all (due to roundings etc)

 

[Thinkaman]

Ironically, now we might be getting a melee fighter with beyond sword level range. Though, what are people thinking with mobility? Generally that kind of range would come at the cost of a lot of mobility, but do you think they'll balance it out in a different way?

I mean, our obvious baseline is the Belmonts--super long-but-narrow range, super poor mobility with a couple token burst mobility options.

But we'd expect an ARMS character to be nimble as much as we'd have a Belmont to have projectiles. And while projectiles go hand-in-hand with long-range whip normals, Little Mac or Brawler style boxer-nimbleness sure doesn't.

Movement speed + range is one of the most universally chronic balance problem across genres, from RTS to fighters to MOBAs to Skyrim. Unless literally every opponent in the game has superior burst movement options, kiting is an unavoidable issue.

 

[Lacrimosa]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Some more impressions of from Meru after 2 months.
Basically:
Phantom, Din's Fire and upAir are significant
Ftilt is decent
Nair is still doing nothing or very little
Meaning she's good now but still nowhere close to who Meru also plays, so yeah.

Can't really add much to that. That's how I experience the changes as well, although I still think that fSmash is superior in pretty much every situation.

 

[VodkaHaze]

I mean, our obvious baseline is the Belmonts--super long-but-narrow range, super poor mobility with a couple token burst mobility options.

But we'd expect an ARMS character to be nimble as much as we'd have a Belmont to have projectiles. And while projectiles go hand-in-hand with long-range whip normals, Little Mac or Brawler style boxer-nimbleness sure doesn't.

Movement speed + range is one of the most universally chronic balance problem across genres, from RTS to fighters to MOBAs to Skyrim. Unless literally every opponent in the game has superior burst movement options, kiting is an unavoidable issue.

I'd imagine if they're going with high movement speed + range, they'd have to balance it somehow by being an extreme Little Mac.

 

[meleebrawler]

I mean, our obvious baseline is the Belmonts--super long-but-narrow range, super poor mobility with a couple token burst mobility options.

But we'd expect an ARMS character to be nimble as much as we'd have a Belmont to have projectiles. And while projectiles go hand-in-hand with long-range whip normals, Little Mac or Brawler style boxer-nimbleness sure doesn't.

Movement speed + range is one of the most universally chronic balance problem across genres, from RTS to fighters to MOBAs to Skyrim. Unless literally every opponent in the game has superior burst movement options, kiting is an unavoidable issue.

Mobility-wise, sure. While there's no running in ARMS, it's probably safe to say their movement speed will only be average at best. Frame data, however, is handled somewhat unusually. Unless punches connect with something, they always extend to maximum length before returning as a general rule. What this results in is a risk-reward dynamic in playing close-range vs. long range. Punching from afar is more reactable and makes it harder to confirm combos, but you will end up recovering almost as fast from whiffs as you do from successful hits, making it safer. Up close, the instant recovery off landed punches opens up all sorts of combo potential and gives less time to react, but a whiff or blocked attack will give your opponent a much bigger opening.

Considering these fighters can't exactly have too many things flying around at once like other dedicated zoners, their frame data will likely be at least decent. In fact, they may actually blur the line between brawlers and zoners, with how dynamic their safety and reward can be depending on how they decide to play.
Their range won't necessarily be narrow either, if stuff like the Hydra or Tri-Shot gets used.

I'd imagine if they're going with high movement speed + range, they'd have to balance it somehow by being an extreme Little Mac.

Not very likely. Jumping and attacking is a very important part of ARMS fighting. Risky, but important.

 

[SwagGuy99]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Some more impressions of from Meru after 2 months.
Basically:
Phantom, Din's Fire and upAir are significant
Ftilt is decent
Nair is still doing nothing or very little
Meaning she's good now but still nowhere close to who Meru also plays, so yeah.

Can't really add much to that. That's how I experience the changes as well, although I still think that fSmash is superior in pretty much every situation.

Out of every character who was buffed in 7.0, I'd say that 's changes have definitely proven to be far more beneficial than we all thought originally, and the increase in his results (arguably much more noticeable than any other of the buffed characters) prior to when the coronavirus hit were likely a result of that.

Players of and () have also been taking advantage of the buffs their characters received, and their changes have also proven to be beneficial as well as we have seen with the labbing and increased results from these characters as well.

/ are kind of a weird case. Being able to cancel d-smash into special moves is great, but landing it is another thing. This change on paper should just lead to characters playing a much more campy or aerial game against these characters in order not to be hit by d-smash, but I think the fact that their side-b now is able to go through a lot of projectiles means that playing a campy game against these characters is a bit harder. I really don't know as much about these characters as most of the roster, and while I do think these changes are overall beneficial, to what degree (especially for Ryu) remains to be seen.

While and got solid buffs, unlike most other characters that were affected by the patch, these changes didn't seem to affect their results much. I still think that both of these characters are in a better position than they were prior to the patch (Dr. Mario more so than Toon Link), I'd still like to see more of these characters in action with their new changes to see if their I'm under or over valuing how good their changes actually were.

The arsene change for definitely mattered. Where a lot of the cast would get little reward for playing aggressively against Joker with arsene (forcing most characters to just try to play defensively), we saw at Frostbite how much more rewarding it is now than it was pre-patch (mostly in the Leo/Prodigy game) to play more aggressively against Joker with arsene. I feel like (semi)rushdown characters like and will benefit a decent amount from this change since they deal enough damage to Joker to make Arsene go away much faster. Joker isn't a bad character or anything, but I think that him being outside of the Top 5 might be a possibility now. He was definitely the most hurt by the nerfs this patch IMO.

's change doesn't matter that much. She usually still has time to go for an up-b after the bury and if she doesn't, she'll just catch you coming out of the buried animation with up-b anyways. She normally doesn't have time go for things like f-smash anymore as a punish, but this change doesn't make flip-kick a bad option or anything. She's still just as good as ever.

I'm conflicted on the changes. N-air not killing for another 15% later than it did previously offstage and making d-throw > b-air harder to perform is good, and I think these changes were justified. However, these changes allow n-air to combo even better at lower percents and the dev team also decided to buff the knockback of up-tilt (which kills now at high percents) and d-smash, which I don't think is OK. The point of nerfing her feels like it was meant to nerf her kill options and to make n-air less centralizing, and while d-smash and up-tilt aren't the most desirable kill options in her kit, they are serviceable enough for me to say that this patch failed in both regards. Like Zero Suit, I don't think she's coming out of this patch any worse than she was before it.

 

[Kiligar]

Remove ZSS down special invincibility. Marss can cry a river he had a tantrum with only the bury “nerf”. The move is simply dumb. I know they’re going to use the move, yet I still can’t punish it the majority of the time. The move should be punishable on a read. It truly carries ZSS through disadvantage, a word which doesn’t seem to exist for her.

 

[Megamang]

Top tier characters can punish her, or at least extend disadvantage / positional advantage , vs her if they call it out well enough. We even see her get edgeguarded if she loses it vs the best edgeguarders.


That said... yea once you're out of top and to some extent high, she just launches across the stage and resets for free. That is more of an issue of being slow in a platform fighter though IMO, though those things are two sides of the same coin I guess.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think many buffs did characters good. For example, Rosalina has gotten way more exposure and results as of late. Cloud too, same with results. Diddy is another character that has risen and is often seen as High Tier now. And there's Sheik, who's also still in the running. Am certain these will stay relevant in the current meta.

Young Link and Samus have also improved tons, but where already seeing some results but now have solidified their presence even more. This changed the overall playstyle of Ultimate too in a way. It got way less aggressive, neutral is played way safer now than before. Maybe that's why the former Smash 4 Top Tiers are suddenly much stronger now. Because neutral is slowing down and their strengths get more mileage out of it.

Still hoping for certain buffs to characters as Ike, King K.Rool, DK and Mewtwo however. The archetype of power based characters hasn't been very successful in Ultimate as of yet. Unless you count Roy and Chrom. But big and strong at the cost of speed isn't working. Bowser is also dropping off because of it and he's got way more to work with. These characters lack defensive options in disadvantage, and would benefit from having more to work with in those areas.

Meta Knight is also a character I could see getting more buffs. He's underwhelming now, but the same was said before with Smash 4. A few buffs and this character can compete again. Same with Marth, Falco and hopefully Mewtwo.

 

[Arthur97]

I don't think Marth is bad per say. The problem with how they designed Lucina, is how do you make where one doesn't invalidate the other?

 

[Frihetsanka]

Still hoping for certain buffs to characters as Ike, King K.Rool, DK and Mewtwo however.

I think it would be hard to design King K. Rool and Donkey Kong in ways to make them viable at top levels without also being toxic. I could see Ike being somewhat viable and not too toxic with a few buffs (even right now he's probably high-mid and somewhat decent). We know from Smash 4 that Mewtwo has the potential to be top/high tier and not very toxic, so a few Mewtwo buffs could be really cool too.

Aaaanyway, we probably shouldn't speculate too much about buffs. If buffs happen, they happen. Our time is probably better spent discussing what is, and right now Ike is pretty decent, King K. Rool, Donkey Kong, and Mewtwo are pretty bad.

I don't think Marth is bad per say. The problem with how they designed Lucina, is how do you make where one doesn't invalidate the other?

In Smash 4 both Marth and Lucina were quite viable, with Lucina only being a little bit worse than Marth (and some, like ZeRo, even argued that Lucina was better). In Ultimate Marth got nerfed in ways that hurt him more than Lucina (like losing jab to f-tilt, and tippers being harder to land compared to the slower gameplay in Smash 4). I don't think Marth is a terrible character in Ultimate but he lost most of his main advantages over Lucina, while being harder to play and less consistent, making him the inferior version, harder to play and generally worse. He's probably a high-mid tier or high tier character, but when Lucina is a top/high tier character who is easier to play, why play Marth?

 

[Nobie]

From what little I understand about ARMS, I think you have the ability to swat away punches. Maybe that could be a fair enough weakness that the rest of the character doesn't need lopsided stats for balance's sake.

I wonder how players would feel if they took a Dhalsim approach and made the extended limbs have hurtboxes.

Mobility stats would also greatly depend on which character gets picked. It seems Ribbon Girl has multiple jumps and air dashes, and that would make for a far different character than I think what folks are generally imagining.

 

[The_Bookworm]

In Smash 4 both Marth and Lucina were quite viable, with Lucina only being a little bit worse than Marth (and some, like ZeRo, even argued that Lucina was better). In Ultimate Marth got nerfed in ways that hurt him more than Lucina (like losing jab to f-tilt, and tippers being harder to land compared to the slower gameplay in Smash 4). I don't think Marth is a terrible character in Ultimate but he lost most of his main advantages over Lucina, while being harder to play and less consistent, making him the inferior version, harder to play and generally worse. He's probably a high-mid tier or high tier character, but when Lucina is a top/high tier character who is easier to play, why play Marth?

The gameplay speed itself is actually not why it is hard to land tippers with Marth. We all know how good is.

There are instead other reasons, two of those being mechanical to Ultimate, and the third one being a direct nerf from SSB4:

1. The lack of microspacing options. Dash canceling helps him quite a bit, but without tech like perfect pivoting, getting the precise spacing for tippers can be tricky. However, this is not too much of a dealbreaker alone. It is, however, combined with the below two reasons.
2. The way the c-stick aerials work. If you input a c-stick aerial in Ultimate, the character will drift towards the direction you inputted on the c-stick, because in Ultimate, the c-stick input is tied to the normal stick in some way.
3. The biggest one is that Marth's sourspot hitboxes in Ultimate now takes priority over the sweetspot, unlike the opposite from previous Smash games. They also increased the hitbox size of the sourspots, although the sweetspot size is unchanged.

That is pretty much the gist of it.

I wonder how players would feel if they took a Dhalsim approach and made the extended limbs have hurtboxes.

That could be problematic for the character.

For those who don't know about SSF2 Luffy, he is a character with a lot of range and specializes in command grabs. However, the main issue with him is that all of his long-ranged moves extends his hurtbox. Granted that he has a bunch of other issues (dash attack randomly whiffing, laggy command grabs, a poor recovery, etc.), but that weakness really hurts the character and he currently sits in the low tiers. It used to be even worse for him in earlier versions of SSF2, as clanking against projectiles never existed (clanking in general did not exist) and command grabs did not have that much priority.

When Rayman came out recently, he basically did everything Luffy did, but better. He also has insane range in even his faster attacks (like his jab), but because he attacks using his disconnected limbs, the space between his feet/hands and body have no hurtbox. The foot on his forward air also has no hurtbox. The character also simply has a far more solid moveset overall. He also has Plum, but that is another can-of-worms.

If an ARMS character has the Dhalsim approach, he is most likely going to be a Luffy instead of a Rayman, and that could really hurt the character. That is like what would happen if all of his moves were PPlant's down B. A Dhalsim or Billy Kane like character archetype doesn't work as well in a platform fighter, especially since swords in Smash Bros does not extent the user's hurtboxes.

I do like the concept of swatting away his punches, instead of giving him polarizing stats.

 

[FruitLoop]

The gameplay speed itself is actually not why it is hard to land tippers with Marth. We all know how good is.

There are instead other reasons, two of those being mechanical to Ultimate, and the third one being a direct nerf from SSB4:

1. The lack of microspacing options. Dash canceling helps him quite a bit, but without tech like perfect pivoting, getting the precise spacing for tippers can be tricky. However, this is not too much of a dealbreaker alone. It is, however, combined with the below two reasons.
2. The way the c-stick aerials work. If you input a c-stick aerial in Ultimate, the character will drift towards the direction you inputted on the c-stick, because in Ultimate, the c-stick input is tied to the normal stick in some way.
3. The biggest one is that Marth's sourspot hitboxes in Ultimate now takes priority over the sweetspot, unlike the opposite from previous Smash games. They also increased the hitbox size of the sourspots, although the sweetspot size is unchanged.

That is pretty much the gist of it.


That could be problematic for the character.

For those who don't know about SSF2 Luffy, he is a character with a lot of range and specializes in command grabs. However, the main issue with him is that all of his long-ranged moves extends his hurtbox. Granted that he has a bunch of other issues (dash attack randomly whiffing, laggy command grabs, a poor recovery, etc.), but that weakness really hurts the character and he currently sits in the low tiers. It used to be even worse for him in earlier versions of SSF2, as clanking against projectiles never existed (clanking in general did not exist) and command grabs did not have that much priority.

When Rayman came out recently, he basically did everything Luffy did, but better. He also has insane range in even his faster attacks (like his jab), but because he attacks using his disconnected limbs, the space between his feet/hands and body have no hurtbox. The foot on his forward air also has no hurtbox. The character also simply has a far more solid moveset overall. He also has Plum, but that is another can-of-worms.

If an ARMS character has the Dhalsim approach, he is most likely going to be a Luffy instead of a Rayman, and that could really hurt the character. That is like what would happen if all of his moves were PPlant's down B. A Dhalsim or Billy Kane like character archetype doesn't work as well in a platform fighter, especially since swords in Smash Bros does not extent the user's hurtboxes.

I do like the concept of swatting away his punches, instead of giving him polarizing stats.

Actually let me correct you on Luffy a little. Version 1.0.3.2 (Where the competitive scene was most active) had purely clanking projectiles just like 1.2, it got randomly removed in 1.1 but since the community was dead around the time due to Ultimate coming out there wasn't a huge talked about meta but the projectile change DID hurt luffy however most people ironically thought he was high tier in the beginning due to the "grabs beating attack" change.

The issue with Luffy in 1.0.3.2 actually had to do with port priority which RUINED ssf2's meta (Basically polarized the game potentially even more than brawl's tripping and smash 4 rage) because Player 1 got all of the trades. Luffy was borderline broken with port while he was COMPLETELY useless without port because you were losing every trade whenever you extended your hurtbox with slow moves and no CQC meaning that in a tournament setting you couldn't reliably get a good run as Luffy outside of a secondary making him a bottom 5 character. Luffy even with projectile clankings put intact AND the command grab change still was problematic for Luffy since most of SSF2's meta had chars with safe pressure moves that combo'd into insane juggles and confirms and since Luffy had no CQC despite his suprisingly good mobility he either had to risk trading vs most char's safe nairs that they could pressure from afar or he was stuck in shield with no good CQC and over-relied on shield grab. His recovery wasn't actually awful although you could still ledge hog vs him. I think the meta just was never kind to Luffy and SSF2's meta actually is shockingly similar to Ultimate's. It over-relies on characters either mashing safe moves to see what works to get as much damage as possible within neutral interactions and the characters who could do it successfully or the char who could anti-meta vs it (Like Ultimate G&W or SSF2 1.1 Pac-Man and especially Zelda) basically was a free ticket to high/top tier assuming you weren't extremely polarizing.

So having an ARMS character designed similarly to Luffy would tell a similar signal for the character just not working well in Ultimate's meta

Also regarding Rayman, Rayman makes up for some of his moves being suprisingly disjointed for actually having horrible blindspots on a suprising amount of his moves and his CQC and anti-zoning game is still godawful. You can still hit him out of plum and he does horrible vs the likes of Simon to the point where it makes him plain and simple NOT solo-viable. He has obviously busted tools in his kit but lately the backroom for SSF2 has been less and less kind to him. He might even drop to Mid tier but thankfully the Simon nerfs at least gave Rayman SOME slack. He's just a good noob stomper that has really dumb stuff tbh tbh. Still a better character than Luffy regardless (Ironically Luffy was seen as top tier within the first few months of SSF2 and I was one of the first people to view him as Low tier as a fun little fact lol).

 

[Krysco]

The gameplay speed itself is actually not why it is hard to land tippers with Marth. We all know how good is.

There are instead other reasons, two of those being mechanical to Ultimate, and the third one being a direct nerf from SSB4:

1. The lack of microspacing options. Dash canceling helps him quite a bit, but without tech like perfect pivoting, getting the precise spacing for tippers can be tricky. However, this is not too much of a dealbreaker alone. It is, however, combined with the below two reasons.
2. The way the c-stick aerials work. If you input a c-stick aerial in Ultimate, the character will drift towards the direction you inputted on the c-stick, because in Ultimate, the c-stick input is tied to the normal stick in some way.
3. The biggest one is that Marth's sourspot hitboxes in Ultimate now takes priority over the sweetspot, unlike the opposite from previous Smash games. They also increased the hitbox size of the sourspots, although the sweetspot size is unchanged.

That is pretty much the gist of it.

There are actually answers to the first two points you brought up although they are incredibly restrictive. The answer to the first point is wavedashing. Walking starts off slow and if you have to space back then you have to walk back and turn around if you want to use something like jab or dtilt while dashing has a set distance that can often be too far for precise spacing. Unfortunately, Ultimate's downward airdodges force the character up a bit first and they have enough landing lag that the option itself is an overall slower precise spacing option than Melee's wavedash or Smash 4's perfect pivoting. Fastfallers like Chrom are able to make better use of wavedashing for spacing but even then, it's still restrictive compared to what Melee and 4 offered.

The answer to the second point is a video I've shared before:

TL;DW inputting the c stick for only one or two frames on the second and/or third frame of jumpsquat allows you to have full control of your aerial drift while using any aerial, essentially requiring you to quickly flick the c stick (and by extension, force you to either map a shoulder button to jump or use the claw grip) to do something the past 3 games were far more lenient with.

Your third point, yeah there's no real answer to that aside from looking at his hitboxes and accepting that on every active frame of almost every move, there's an entire chunk of tipper hitbox that's just not there because it overlaps with a sourspot and learning how to work around that limitation. Or just pick Lucina since her reward per hit isn't low enough (or alternatively, Marth's isn't high enough) to warrant putting up with the flaws Marth has over her.

 

[Arthur97]

I think it would be hard to design King K. Rool and Donkey Kong in ways to make them viable at top levels without also being toxic. I could see Ike being somewhat viable and not too toxic with a few buffs (even right now he's probably high-mid and somewhat decent). We know from Smash 4 that Mewtwo has the potential to be top/high tier and not very toxic, so a few Mewtwo buffs could be really cool too.

Aaaanyway, we probably shouldn't speculate too much about buffs. If buffs happen, they happen. Our time is probably better spent discussing what is, and right now Ike is pretty decent, King K. Rool, Donkey Kong, and Mewtwo are pretty bad.

In Smash 4 both Marth and Lucina were quite viable, with Lucina only being a little bit worse than Marth (and some, like ZeRo, even argued that Lucina was better). In Ultimate Marth got nerfed in ways that hurt him more than Lucina (like losing jab to f-tilt, and tippers being harder to land compared to the slower gameplay in Smash 4). I don't think Marth is a terrible character in Ultimate but he lost most of his main advantages over Lucina, while being harder to play and less consistent, making him the inferior version, harder to play and generally worse. He's probably a high-mid tier or high tier character, but when Lucina is a top/high tier character who is easier to play, why play Marth?

Well, in Smash 4, it was essentially the opposite just less polarized. If they are about even, then Marth overshadows her. How much was Lucina used competitively in that game? They are just so similar, that is seems very hard to make it so that one just isn't considered better plain and simple making the other one more or less irrelevant. Even if they are about same, Smash 4 showed that only one will tend to be used more.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

I agree with everything here, this current patch did wonders for many off-meta counterpicks and I'm glad to see them shake things up while not gutting top tiers.

Still, my only take away was buffing kill power on , while this may not result in a new top tier, I do believe it was detrimental to Ultimate's long time health given how unhealthy his design is.
Though given how they were willing to buff , , & Zelda's Phantom, we may be seeing a more defensive meta in the coming months.

I think it would be hard to design King K. Rool and Donkey Kong in ways to make them viable at top levels without also being toxic.

Easy:


-Bring Back Sm4sh Aerial Up-B.
-Make his negative on hit moves actually safe on hit.
-Slightly buff the power of his Tilts and Smashes.
-Moderately less lag on F-Air.


-Let the weakness of his gimmicks not bite him as hard as they do now.
-Slightly more power on Dash Attack, Up-Tilt, and Inhale Back/Up-Throw.
-Moderately less lag on his Krown, Up-Smash, and all Aerials minus N-Air.
-Moderately better mobility

Done, reasonably viable DK & K. Rool ready for delivery.

Might as well mention this, but I can never take the whole "Superheavies can't be both viable and fair" statements seriously, they seem to come from mindsets that either over-complicate the idea or (and not trying to step on any toes here but) lack knowledge of the characters.

At their core concept, super heavies are just bigger and harder hitting standard fighters but historically struggled when spacing against shields, attacking out of shield and recovering/getting off the ledge. All areas that smaller, faster characters don't usually have problems with.
Alleviate some/most of those issues and you have an archetype more inline with the cast.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Well, in Smash 4, it was essentially the opposite just less polarized. If they are about even, then Marth overshadows her. How much was Lucina used competitively in that game? They are just so similar, that is seems very hard to make it so that one just isn't considered better plain and simple making the other one more or less irrelevant. Even if they are about same, Smash 4 showed that only one will tend to be used more.

Towards the end of SSB4's lifespan, Lucina was being played around a little more than Marth, simply to due to how simplistic she is in comparison to Marth. ZeRo have shown that she is a nice character to at least have in the pocket.
Marth is still seen as slightly better, especially with MkLeo backing up the character.

As a result, it has been proven that the two can co-exist if the two are about even. Even if Marth is better, there are a reason to use Lucina due to her access to more aggressive play (even if optimal Lucina is more defensive play) and being easier to play.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Young Link and Samus have also improved tons, but where already seeing some results but now have solidified their presence even more. This changed the overall playstyle of Ultimate too in a way. It got way less aggressive, neutral is played way safer now than before. Maybe that's why the former Smash 4 Top Tiers are suddenly much stronger now. Because neutral is slowing down and their strengths get more mileage out of it.

I agree with this to an extent. As time has gone on, some characters who favor a more aggressive playstyle have fallen off with and being the best examples of this. At the same time, thanks to direct buffs and advancements in certain characters meta games, we've seen characters with more defensive playstyles improve over time like and However, I don't think that means aggressive characters in Ultimate are necessarily worse than defensive ones.

We've seen that some very aggressive characters like and can do really well, while some extreme defensive characters can as well like and . However, some of the top/high tier characters in Ultimate aren't purely aggressive or defensive but possess the tools to switch between each playstyle as the situation and matchup requires them to. This is likely part of the reason that opinions and results of and have improved significantly from launch to now. Despite their (somewhat apparent) weaknesses in a few areas, the fact that they can switch from offensive to defensive really well and have tools to adapt to whether their opponent is playing offensively or defensively means that they are likely to stay relevant Top Tiers/Top of High Tiers as the meta shifts around them.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well the first tournament of the online Quarintine Series has begun . A 32 Player invitational with a 10000$ pot There have been notable upsets in the first round

White Smoke 3-1 Samsora
(Yes,really)

Sparg0 3-0 Marss (Marss still refuses to use on Wifi is seems' is she THAT hard to use properly online If I was Marss would of at least tried to use her afterbeing down 2-0)

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

ZSS isn’t hard to use on WiFi, if anything the added delay causing slower reaction times and more difficulty spacing makes it easier for her to stall and makes her already safe shield pressure even safer. Flip jump is even harder to deal with online.

Online is an uncontrolled environment, unless your someone who only plays it your going to have these instances above. It is very possible to play a set that goes from 1 frame of online delay to 2 frames the next minute and I shouldn’t have to explain how much difference a frame can make especially to people who aren’t use to adjusting for it.


Point I’m trying to make is that there shouldn’t be much stock put into these WiFi tournaments we are going to be seeing for a while now. Especially over Nintendo’s infamously “well done” netcode.

 

[Kiligar]

I believe the super heavyweight class of fighter in general should get buffs. Most heavyweights don’t struggle like this, Yoshi, Ryu Ken, Mega Man, Pac Man etc but basically all super-heavyweights are bad. Also Ridley should be made the same weight as Charizard, to become a super-heavyweight. My ideas may sound pretty surprising but just want to bounce them off of you guys.
-All super heavyweights have 1 frame bigger window to parry, and have 6 frames of advantage during a parry rather than three.

Now, 6 frames of advantage during parry may sound wild, but remember what characters we’re talking about here. Most of these characters don’t have the frame data to get off the same kinds of punishes of a character like Fox, Chrom/Roy etc. Giving them a bigger window will allow them to more often get harder punishes, (and actually use their smash attacks in a match if the opponent does something stupid), and may also let them parry multi hits, a deal breaker on certain MU (looking at you Pikachu, heavyweight slayer). So I don’t think it would become too overpowered.
-Super Heavyweights take 20% less damage from projectiles.
Edit: Just in case someone freaks out, this isn’t battle percentage. Same for the next percentage related buff. For example, if a projectile did 10% damage it would now do 8%

All super heavyweights struggle against projectiles, and why should the opponent camp when they can combo the heavyweight to oblivion. This would give character like Ridley, Gabon and Incineroar for example a better chance to fight at close range, where they have improved odds rather than hopelessly staring across at a Young Link. All super heavyweight players would agree with this buff I think.

- All super heavyweights take 10% less damage from sweet spots.

This may be my most controversial one, but I want to in certain matchups increase the ability of heavyweights to survive. Facing Wolf and he sweetspot Bairs your Ganon at 95% at ledge? You can actually survive this now and hopefully get another chance. It’s nothing too drastic, and in Certain MU like against Chrom, Lucina and a plethora of other characters who don’t rely on sweet spots to kill it won’t be as effective but in certain matchups it may just save you a stock.

- Super heavyweights can tech at any %, no matter how high or strong.

This is a skill locked advantage, but given the exploitability of many super-heavyweights recovery, such as K. Rool, Ridley(after the hopes fir weight buff), and Ganon, if you are really really skilled at teaching you can extend your stock.
Now these are universal changes, others can be made to these characters I personally think should happen like:
Remove rock rocking for Ganon
Change a bit of the frame data on K.Rool’s aerials
Give Ganon a second aerial jump and much higher air speed, (but his air acceleration would remain the same to keep it fair, this would be a recovery thing and not an on stage thing). If you think it’s strange giving Ganon a second aerial jump we first have several wingless characters who can jump multiple times, and if you say that’s cuz they’re floaty Banjo is all I’m gonna say. Ganon would still be balanced as his frame data would still be poor but his recovery wouldn’t be as exploitable.
-Increase Ridley’s Air Speed and Initial Dash
-Other buffs knowledgeable super heavyweight mains know their characters need to function. Try to keep these buffs high-skill level locked as I doubt the balance team would want to make online heavies more notorious but look at Young Link buffs, who knows?
With these buffs there wouldn’t be a single low tier super-heavyweight, all would be at least mid tier and several could be lower high tier.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Cosmos is actually trying to go all this tournament. However, that ended up on him losing to Raffi-X 3-0.


Here are some other notable sets:
BestNess 3-2 Hungrybox
Kola 3-2 Plup
Maister 3-2 Rivers (both games taken with Diddy)
All three of these sets' victors are not surprising, but all are surprisingly close.

Hungrybox 2-1 Rivers (out at 25th)

 

[Rizen]

Cosmos is actually trying to go all this tournament. However, that ended up on him losing to Raffi-X 3-0.


Here are some other notable sets:
BestNess 3-2 Hungrybox
Kola 3-2 Plup
Maister 3-2 Rivers (both games taken with Diddy)
All three of these sets' victors are not surprising, but all are surprisingly close.

Hungrybox 2-1 Rivers (out at 25th)

Will these be on youtube?