Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

Will these be on youtube?

Only those shown at stream will be at YouTube. I know that Kola vs Plup and BestNess vs Hungrybox will be there, but I am not sure about the others.

Charliedaking 3-1 Goblin
Plup 2-1 Riddles (out at 25th)

 

[Lacrimosa]

Larry Lurr 3-0 Dabuz

Wondering if this'll power up Dabuz or if he'll reconsider his character choice.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Larry Lurr 3-0 Dabuz

Wondering if this'll power up Dabuz or if he'll reconsider his character choice.

Looks like similar to Cosmos's Dabuz's May need a bit more work if they decide stick with the character. Though in Dabuz's case he may of gone YL due to his mains having losing MU's to

 

[Lacrimosa]

Looks like similar to Cosmos's Dabuz's May need a bit more work if they decide stick with the character. Though in Dabuz's case he may of gone YL due to his mains having losing MU's to

Toon-Link, not Young-Link.

Another MU chart, this time Shulk, from Tru4, one of the best players in Germany:

Here's my current Shulk MU Chart!

Note that I don't think any MU is 'free' at all (even the big adv. ones) and MU's within tiers aren't ordered except for the MU's in slight disadvantage. If you have any questions, I'm down to answer some of them! pic.twitter.com/bk51iEhfiI

— CGN Tru4 (@Tru4Smash) March 29, 2020

 

[The_Bookworm]

Larry Lurr 3-0 Dabuz

Wondering if this'll power up Dabuz or if he'll reconsider his character choice.

I have seen Dabuz experiment around with TLink lately on stream, but it seems like it needs more time in the oven.

Wrath 3-2 ESAM
Surprising literally no one, MVD 3-0 White Nova

 

[SwagGuy99]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

LeoN also made a Bowser MU Chart on stream as well recently

 

[TennisBall]

Kola 3-1 WaDi
Kola got a really nice read from an airdodge and got an FSmash after waiting for a reaction from Jab instead of doing Jair.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Cosmos 3-2 ESAM with a reverse 3-0
I am surprised that Cosmos was able to out-Pika the Pika god himself. ESAM out at 17th.

Hungrybox 3-2 Charliedaking, out at 17th.

This tournament is wacky. lol

 

[Lacrimosa]

So much for Pikachu being incredibly hard.
Even if its Wi-Fi, you won't just beat the Pika-veteran with your 1st month Pikachu.

 

[The_Bookworm]

VoiD 3-2 MkLeo
I am not sure how VoiD performs better online than offline, especially with one of the worst online characters in the game.

 

[Diddy Kong]

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?

Marth requires way more precision in this game, and since this game is played faster than Smash 4, and this isn't Melee with Marth's weird grab range and overpowered tippers, I see why Lucina gets the preference. She's just way more consistent. Kinda ironic how this is the other way around with Chrom and Roy, but Roy's explosiveness, weak hits into strong hits and better Up B have proven to be more successful than anything Chrom can do.

Also I don't agree that DK and K.Rool would be toxic if they gotten buffs. DK in Smash 4 wasn't toxic, just had weird things with the extremely specific Cargo to Up B Ding Dong combos. What DK needs is a smaller hurtbox all around, especially around his head. And ways to escape disadvantage, cause his is horrible. DK is very fun to play, but being hit just once is disastrous. Worst, he's not like Pichu, or even Mewtwo, where he can turn things around easily with a few random hits.

Either make him more explosive, and give him amongst the best advantage state of the game (faster aerials, off stage Up B cheese, increased hitstun, Down B being more ranged and breaking shields easily, Giant Punch having the strongest armour in the game) or just improve his disadvantage by a lot (armoured D Air with a bigger hitbox, armour on Up B in the air, being able to break combos with aerial Up B and decrease the end lag of the move, a faster and more ranged N Air...). I think he can also go with bigger grab range, did you see those arms?

I kinda miss how in Smash 4 DK and Bowser played like true grapplers. Now they're just big combo food characters again. This is a downgrade for game balance, and would help characters as Ridley immensively too (I sometimes even forget Ridley is in Smash, and that's especially ironic seeing as he got a lot of hype with his reveal).

K.Rool could just work like he did on reveal, with better projectiles and maybe stronger belly armour and Up B armour. This character should be allowed to be a little cheesy I think. If everyone would've been less of a complaining ***** about him in the first few months of Ultimate, we might even have seen some niche K.Rool play in tournaments now and then. This is a fun character to watch, I wanna see more of him in high competitive play.

 

[Rizen]

In terms of showing actual character (and player) viability, I'd take this and anything wifi with a big grain of salt. Some nobody's Ganon did beat Samsora after all.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Some characters and / or players are notoriously better or worse on WiFi, so we can take it with a grain of salt indeed.

Let's just be happy there's some new Smash footage. WiFi tourneys are better than no tourneys.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Also I don't agree that DK and K.Rool would be toxic if they gotten buffs. DK in Smash 4 wasn't toxic, just had weird things with the extremely specific Cargo to Up B Ding Dong combos. What DK needs is a smaller hurtbox all around, especially around his head. And ways to escape disadvantage, cause his is horrible. DK is very fun to play, but being hit just once is disastrous. Worst, he's not like Pichu, or even Mewtwo, where he can turn things around easily with a few random hits.

Either make him more explosive, and give him amongst the best advantage state of the game (faster aerials, off stage Up B cheese, increased hitstun, Down B being more ranged and breaking shields easily, Giant Punch having the strongest armour in the game) or just improve his disadvantage by a lot (armoured D Air with a bigger hitbox, armour on Up B in the air, being able to break combos with aerial Up B and decrease the end lag of the move, a faster and more ranged N Air...). I think he can also go with bigger grab range, did you see those arms?

I kinda miss how in Smash 4 DK and Bowser played like true grapplers. Now they're just big combo food characters again. This is a downgrade for game balance, and would help characters as Ridley immensively too (I sometimes even forget Ridley is in Smash, and that's especially ironic seeing as he got a lot of hype with his reveal).

K.Rool could just work like he did on reveal, with better projectiles and maybe stronger belly armour and Up B armour. This character should be allowed to be a little cheesy I think. If everyone would've been less of a complaining ***** about him in the first few months of Ultimate, we might even have seen some niche K.Rool play in tournaments now and then. This is a fun character to watch, I wanna see more of him in high competitive play.

Except the gameplan for and was pretty much just grab and only grab, especially for Bowser who didn't really have much going for him outside of his grab. They are also kind of frustrating to fight in SSB4, due to their comeback potential. I say being more all-around rounder characters are more beneficial for the health of these characters in general.
It also helps that is already a beastly character in the metagame. Touching up on disadvantage state and making his advantage state more consistent is what Ultimate DK needs to be viable like the Koopa King, considering that DK already has a sizable playerbase that kind of gets overlooked.
As for , he was garbage at release. The only notable thing his early nerfs did was shorten the hitbox of his up B. Outside of that, if it weren't for the buffs K. Rool would receive later at 3.0, 3.1, and 6.0, he would've been a tier below everyone else in the game.

In terms of showing actual character (and player) viability, I'd take this and anything wifi with a big grain of salt. Some nobody's Ganon did beat Samsora after all.

Agreed. throughout the entirety of its Smash Bros career has been known to be an online character.
Granted that the two iterations in which the character is actually good is before online was a thing, but it is still a notably stronger character online.

 

[Frihetsanka]

So much for Pikachu being incredibly hard.
Even if its Wi-Fi, you won't just beat the Pika-veteran with your 1st month Pikachu.

To be fair, Cosmos used to be a Pikachu main in Smash 4.

 

[Kiligar]

Sick of people hating on Wrath. I hate facing Sonic too, but guess what, every character in this game is annoying, especially if they’re good. Except my main of course. I like to hate on Joker but don’t hate on MKleo, and I absolutely despise Palutena but I don’t hate on Nairo. Hate the character but not the player.

 

[Lacrimosa]

In terms of showing actual character (and player) viability, I'd take this and anything wifi with a big grain of salt. Some nobody's Ganon did beat Samsora after all.

Samsora is notorious for getting tilted super easily, especially against characters he knows he should win against with Peach/Zelda (Ganon has a bad time against both but which char doesn`t). Or he didn't take him serious.


Kinda surprised that these "nobodys" where invited and not other players that did pretty well in Wi-Fi so far (Toast, ZeroTwoNone for example). Or I just wanted to see more Zelda stuff, who knows . But still, I think actual known players would have been more exciting.

That being said, seems like Samsora is taking things seriously now, beating and eliminating Sparg0 3-2 with .

 

[Kiligar]

In terms of showing actual character (and player) viability, I'd take this and anything wifi with a big grain of salt. Some nobody's Ganon did beat Samsora after all.

Void outplayed MKleo, it’s harder to use the excuse of online considering Lucina is better online than Sheik, significantly so. I consider this match representative of showing that Void can beat MKleo’s Lucina, Leo’s Joker may have been a different story.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Either make him more explosive, and give him amongst the best advantage state of the game (faster aerials, off stage Up B cheese, increased hitstun, Down B being more ranged and breaking shields easily, Giant Punch having the strongest armour in the game) or just improve his disadvantage by a lot (armoured D Air with a bigger hitbox, armour on Up B in the air, being able to break combos with aerial Up B and decrease the end lag of the move, a faster and more ranged N Air...). I think he can also go with bigger grab range, did you see those arms?

I kinda miss how in Smash 4 DK and Bowser played like true grapplers. Now they're just big combo food characters again. This is a downgrade for game balance, and would help characters as Ridley immensively too (I sometimes even forget Ridley is in Smash, and that's especially ironic seeing as he got a lot of hype with his reveal).

K.Rool could just work like he did on reveal, with better projectiles and maybe stronger belly armour and Up B armour. This character should be allowed to be a little cheesy I think. If everyone would've been less of a complaining ***** about him in the first few months of Ultimate, we might even have seen some niche K.Rool play in tournaments now and then. This is a fun character to watch, I wanna see more of him in high competitive play.

Agree with the general idea, but Bookworm basically nailed everything I wanted to say, covered in more detail by this video.

While I don't remember who posted it here, they said that grabs were balanced very well in this game and I agree except for superheavies.
Their grab frame data is noticeably slower than most shorter characters, yet their actual grab range doesn't compare to tethers, not helped out due to grabs being 4 frames slower out of shield stun on an archetype who historically struggles with OoS options.

Personally, I think it'd be fair to give them less overall lag, example for :

-Standing Grab startup (frame 8 → 7).
-Standing Grab endlag (FAF 40 → 34).
-Dash Grab startup (frame 11 → 9).
-Dash Grab endlag (FAF 48 → 40).
-Pivot Grab startup (frame 12 → 10).
-Pivot Grab endlag (FAF 43 → 37).

It fits since they often have stronger throw games and it'd work as a cool niche for them to stick out since heavies usually dominate in the grapple style from other fighting games.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Nario 3-0'd MVD with .

Odd choice at first but Bounce really messes Snake up hard. Plus Hero's own projectiles ar pretty good at countering Snakes.
Of course the set had to end with a Crit Smash XD

 

[The_Bookworm]

I just came back from watching a movie, and I just noticed that Nairo 3-0 MVD and BestNess 3-0 MkLeo.

What even is this tournament anymore?

 

[Rizen]

Void outplayed MKleo, it’s harder to use the excuse of online considering Lucina is better online than Sheik, significantly so. I consider this match representative of showing that Void can beat MKleo’s Lucina, Leo’s Joker may have been a different story.

The characters don't matter. Online has inconsistent lag that makes gameplay even more inconsistent. Case in point BestNess' Plant also beat MKLEO's Lucina. Wifi has some skill but a lot of variables.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Toon-Link, not Young-Link.

Another MU chart, this time Shulk, from Tru4, one of the best players in Germany:

Here's my current Shulk MU Chart!

Note that I don't think any MU is 'free' at all (even the big adv. ones) and MU's within tiers aren't ordered except for the MU's in slight disadvantage. If you have any questions, I'm down to answer some of them! pic.twitter.com/bk51iEhfiI

— CGN Tru4 (@Tru4Smash) March 29, 2020

Er, what does Tru4 mean by 'others'?

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Er, what does Tru4 mean by 'others'?

Echos and alts to other characters that don't affect the list.

 

[$.A.F.]

Plant 3-0ing Leo is probably the only good thing to happen in 2020

 

[The_Bookworm]

Quarantine Series

1st: Kola
2nd: Maister
3rd: Nairo
4th: BestNess
5th: MVD
5th: VoiD
7th: MkLeo
7th: Samsora
9th: Wrath
9th: ANTi
9th: WaDi
9th: Sparg0
13th: MuteAce
13th: Plup
13th: Cosmos
13th: Hungrybox
17th: Goblin
17th: White Nova
17th: Larry Lurr
17th: Raffi-X
17th: ESAM
17th: Dabuz (don't know what he used against WaDi)
17th: MattyG
17th: Charliedaking
25th: Steve
25th: Dark Wizzy (DQ'ed)
25th: Riddles
25th: Pandarian
25th: WhiteHusky
25th: Marss (DQ'ed at loser's)
25th: Sharp
25th: Rivers

Kola takes the tournament with some impressive Cloud play against Maister.
Another lot of money Kola obtained. Definitely proving to be one of the finest WiFi players in the world (at least in America).

 

[FruitLoop]

Quarantine Series

1st: Kola
2nd: Maister
3rd: Nairo
4th: BestNess
5th: MVD
5th: VoiD
7th: MkLeo
7th: Samsora
9th: Wrath
9th: ANTi
9th: WaDi
9th: Sparg0
13th: MuteAce
13th: Plup
13th: Cosmos
13th: Hungrybox
17th: Goblin
17th: White Nova
17th: Larry Lurr
17th: Raffi-X
17th: ESAM
17th: Dabuz (don't know what he used against WaDi)
17th: MattyG
17th: Charliedaking
25th: Steve
25th: Dark Wizzy (DQ'ed)
25th: Riddles
25th: Pandarian
25th: WhiteHusky
25th: Marss (DQ'ed at loser's)
25th: Sharp
25th: Rivers

Kola takes the tournament with some impressive Cloud play against Maister.
Another lot of money Kola obtained. Definitely proving to be one of the finest WiFi players in the world (at least in America).

Yo my boy White Nova got 17th :eyes:

Also it's interesting to see VoiD do so well with wifi Sheik and since Sharp has done well in the wifi scene despite his underwhelming performance at the first Quarantine series it's interesting to see Sheik still have some sort of dominance even on the wifi scene. While there's obviously a lot of unconventional character choices chosen for wifi and there were 2-3 ganons in this tournament ironically. Perhaps the wifi meta isn't as notably contrastable from the offline meta and it's just a case of top level players having to adjust to the slightly extra input lag. Also due to many notable wifi players usually not having the funds to travel to actual majors, it's refreshing to see new talent surface on the smash scene. Perhaps by the end of the quarantine period and tournaments eventually come up and running there will be a lot of new fresh talent and possibly a higher biodiversity of characters! I do in fact obviously agree that Ultimate's meta will NOT stagnate with the quarantine and this is a generally good sign despite all the travesty and havoc happening with you know what.

 

[Arthur97]

Marth requires way more precision in this game, and since this game is played faster than Smash 4, and this isn't Melee with Marth's weird grab range and overpowered tippers, I see why Lucina gets the preference. She's just way more consistent. Kinda ironic how this is the other way around with Chrom and Roy, but Roy's explosiveness, weak hits into strong hits and better Up B have proven to be more successful than anything Chrom can do.

Also I don't agree that DK and K.Rool would be toxic if they gotten buffs. DK in Smash 4 wasn't toxic, just had weird things with the extremely specific Cargo to Up B Ding Dong combos. What DK needs is a smaller hurtbox all around, especially around his head. And ways to escape disadvantage, cause his is horrible. DK is very fun to play, but being hit just once is disastrous. Worst, he's not like Pichu, or even Mewtwo, where he can turn things around easily with a few random hits.

Either make him more explosive, and give him amongst the best advantage state of the game (faster aerials, off stage Up B cheese, increased hitstun, Down B being more ranged and breaking shields easily, Giant Punch having the strongest armour in the game) or just improve his disadvantage by a lot (armoured D Air with a bigger hitbox, armour on Up B in the air, being able to break combos with aerial Up B and decrease the end lag of the move, a faster and more ranged N Air...). I think he can also go with bigger grab range, did you see those arms?

I kinda miss how in Smash 4 DK and Bowser played like true grapplers. Now they're just big combo food characters again. This is a downgrade for game balance, and would help characters as Ridley immensively too (I sometimes even forget Ridley is in Smash, and that's especially ironic seeing as he got a lot of hype with his reveal).

K.Rool could just work like he did on reveal, with better projectiles and maybe stronger belly armour and Up B armour. This character should be allowed to be a little cheesy I think. If everyone would've been less of a complaining ***** about him in the first few months of Ultimate, we might even have seen some niche K.Rool play in tournaments now and then. This is a fun character to watch, I wanna see more of him in high competitive play.

Explosiveness is probably a very important factor, and something that would likely hurt Lucina should they be about equal.

 

[Kiligar]

Remove Pikachu’s Nair loops. Loops in general are dumb and it’s nearly impossible to escape them against a competent Pikachu player no matter how many times Pika players swear DI is counterplay. Pika can combo in a million different other ways anyway. Also add 2 frames of end lag to his Bair. Pikachu still has everything else, probably the best recovery in the game, great projectile, some of the best edgegaurding if not the best, and still does a lot of damage out of combos just not in this repetitive way which is so rewarding and has 0 counterplay once landed. In my opinion Fox is the most well balanced character in the game, just make his recovery harder to 2 frame and he’s exactly the level of balance I’m looking for. Everyone else should be nerfed or buffed to be around his level, rather than for example trying to buff everyone to Wolf’s level. Pikachu essentially invalidates half the cast so I think nerfs are warranted, also will give Pichu more viability. Other well balanced characters we have include Cloud and Lucina. Things like Wario waft should kill later and have a time limit, Arsenal should be a bit harder to build up, and Snake’s Nikita should have more endlag.

This is all conjecture at the point but this is giving you a view of my perspective of balance in Smash U. We’ll simply have to see what happens in the June patch, my expectations probably seem high but look at what happened with Ryu/Ken, as well as the significant buffs to Mewtwo.

 

[Thinkaman]

I have a very low opinion of online, but find myself yelling at people who dismiss it or act like it doesn't matter. It's just a different way of playing, and one pursued by a larger number of people.

The differences in results are not massive and sometimes contradicts common opinion on who thrives online. (Sheik has already been mentioned)

Still, 31 characters played by 31 players is delightful; now if we could just get some diversity away from this Ganon meta.

 

[FruitLoop]

I have a very low opinion of online, but find myself yelling at people who dismiss it or act like it doesn't matter. It's just a different way of playing, and one pursued by a larger number of people.

The differences in results are not massive and sometimes contradicts common opinion on who thrives online. (Sheik has already been mentioned)

Still, 31 characters played by 31 players is delightful; now if we could just get some diversity away from this Ganon meta.

Ironically ganon isn't that common in top level online play, i think it was just that a few ganon mains somehow managed to qualify for the Quarantine series (White Nova used to mostly play Wolf whenever we fought and i think nowadays he plays sheik but he just went Ganon for the tournament and he sometimes went him for CBs). None of them placed particularly high so I doubt that Ganon is some HUGE dominant force on wifi that everyone hypes up to be.

Actually kind of a hot take, I don't think any character really jumps up that high on the tier list because of wifi as long as you have good connection/wifi where there's only around a few more extra frames of input lag. Input lag increase still sucks and I still want it patched and I could be biased as a DDD main but I honestly believe that the meta for Online is pretty similar to Offline and a lot of top level players are just adjusting. Not that many people have fully adjusted to playing their main (especially on wifi with more input lag) and can't access training mode with the extra input lag to practice doing their confirms on wifi making practice more trial and error. However with the fact that Sheik has been shown to be more than dominant even on a wifi setting and players like Sharp has really expanded the wifi Sheik meta (Even other seemingly "useless" online chars like Meta Knight has been shown to be successful with Urameshi scoring a place on the WWR for example).

I will argue that Online generally does require you to get a secondary since counterpicking feels more "RPS"-ey. Zoners beat Heavies WAY harder since it's harder for heavies to approach and land their hits and shield to deal with most projectiles especially with extra input lag. Heavies beats swords harder because getting kill confirms and proper spacing on bigger characters as a sword character tends to be harder on wifi and you don't have QUITE as many safe moves as rushdowns to truly pressure most heavies unless you're a psuedo-rushdown like Roy. Swords beats rushdowns harder because there's more range to work with to outspace most rushdown characters while rushdown characters tend to require a high input per second ratio and sword characters TEND to have good OoS that they can buffer. Rushdown characters beats Zoners harder on wifi because while projectiles are harder to deal with, having more input lag on Zoners to escape vs most Rushdowns while generally possessing slower haracters makes combating pressure all the more harder.

Obviously this kind of meta doesn't apply to every single character since there are definitely characters who in the long run still become better overall characters (Zelda as an example) and I'd still obviously argue that characters that are SUPER input and confirm specific like Sheik or Meta Knight are still overall hampered by wifi, however success has obviously been shown and their strengths still look to be as devastating as they are offline (Even if someone like Meta Knight isn't a great character even offline, at least the things that makes the character work offline can still be put into an online context). But the idea behind most character's worst matchups being harder and their best matchups being easier in an online meta is interesting and it allows for a lot of interesting counterpick meta. Obviously there's holes in that and I still would prefer if there was just no input lag to begin with but maybe with Quarantine going on we can see some new top level players surface and PGR'd players picking up potentially other characters as a result of the Quarantine so I'm still interested to see in how the meta goes!

 

[NairWizard]

Way back in the Brawl days, I used to be part of a small online group that played together; this group included a host of very strong New Jersey players, such as mew2king (and Inui and teh_spamerer, for those of you who remember the times). m2k would go even with some of us online--in fact, he'd even lose more than he'd win in some cases. But when we met up in person to play, he would dominate literally everyone who had gone even with him or even beaten him, and dominate them very hard.

So my opinion of online is, like Thinkaman's, quite low. But still, just like Thinkaman, I have to defend it, because people oversimplify it.

Playing online doesn't mean "heavies good; technical characters bad." In fact, it has nothing to do with archetypes at all; it's all about specific attributes. Some heavies or zoners are better online because they rely on the attributes that are stronger in online play--others are worse, because they rely on attributes that are made worse in online play. Some are neutral, because they have a mix of both.

The attributes that become really bad online are typically those that depend on tight reaction time:

• ledgetrapping; most ledgetrapping involves being able to snap-react to a specific option, and it's non-negotiable.
• some forms of edgeguarding that require precise hitbox placement and timing, such as 2-framing
• grounded bait and punish playstyles, like, say, literally Samsora's entire gameplan.
• punishing landings without a disjoint or burst option; landings are already very hard to punish even offline. The extra input lag makes it impossible.
• very specific/rigid combos that require you to react to a large number of DI patterns within a few frames of getting a hit confirm (Pikachu's up-air bridges are a good example)

The attributes that become really good online are typically those that require the opponent to react:

• on-stage kill confirms that kill you if you don't DI them correctly, like some of Roy's side-b setups
• projectiles in general
  • worth noting that projectiles with both horizontal and vertical movement components are several times harder to deal with online; Ptooie in particular is painful
• whiff punishing with a safe burst option, like a dash attack
• wide string trees, so that if you miss something, you just hit with something else

Given these criteria, Sheik is actually one of the best characters to use online. She doesn't rely too hard on ledgetrapping or edgeguarding, and while she plays bait and punish, she just uses Needles to do it from a distance, or a fast dash attack, so her reaction doesn't need to be too tight to do it successfully. She's got an array of options to follow up with from a single hit regardless of your DI, and she has on-stage kill confirms just like Roy (who does very well in these online situations even if the Roy players don't think so).

As a quick example of the extremity here, I'd rather play as Sheik than as Palutena online--Palutena requires a significant amount of ledgetrapping and 2-framing to get the levels of damage output we see from Nairo.

 

[FruitLoop]

The difference between being good online and being good in live play is astronomically, unfathomably huge, and until you've been in a real live setting playing a top player and getting completely dismantled, it's hard to understand. Way back in the Brawl days, I used to be part of a small online group that played together; this group included a host of very strong New Jersey players, such as mew2king (and Inui and teh_spamerer, for those of you who remember the times). m2k would go even with some of us online--in fact, he'd even lose more than he'd win in some cases. But when we met up in person to play, he would dominate literally everyone who had gone even with him or even beaten him, and dominate them very hard.

So my opinion of online is, like Thinkaman's, quite low. But still, just like Thinkaman, I have to defend it, because people oversimplify it.

Playing online doesn't mean "heavies good; technical characters bad." In fact, it has nothing to do with archetypes at all; it's all about specific attributes. Some heavies or zoners are better online because they rely on the attributes that are stronger in online play--others are worse, because they rely on attributes that are made worse in online play. Some are neutral, because they have a mix of both.

The attributes that become really bad online are typically those that depend on tight reaction time:

• ledgetrapping; most ledgetrapping involves being able to snap-react to a specific option, and it's non-negotiable.
• some forms of edgeguarding that require precise hitbox placement and timing, such as 2-framing
• grounded bait and punish playstyles, like, say, literally Samsora's entire gameplan.
• punishing landings without a disjoint or burst option; landings are already very hard to punish even offline. The extra input lag makes it impossible.
• very specific/rigid combos that require you to react to a large number of DI patterns within a few frames of getting a hit confirm (Pikachu's up-air bridges are a good example)

The attributes that become really good online are typically those that require the opponent to react:

• on-stage kill confirms that kill you if you don't DI them correctly, like some of Roy's side-b setups
• projectiles in general
  • worth noting that projectiles with both horizontal and vertical movement components are several times harder to deal with online; Ptooie in particular is painful
• whiff punishing with a safe burst option, like a dash attack
• wide string trees, so that if you miss something, you just hit with something else

Given these criteria, Sheik is actually one of the best characters to use online. She doesn't rely too hard on ledgetrapping or edgeguarding, and while she plays bait and punish, she just uses Needles to do it from a distance, or a fast dash attack, so her reaction doesn't need to be too tight to do it successfully. She's got an array of options to follow up with from a single hit regardless of your DI, and she has on-stage kill confirms just like Roy (who does very well in these online situations even if the Roy players don't think so).

As a quick example of the extremity here, I'd rather play as Sheik than as Palutena online--Palutena requires a significant amount of ledgetrapping and 2-framing to get the levels of damage output we see from Nairo.

The irony here is that 90% of D3's gameplan IS his ledge trapping and optimal D3 requires frame precise ledge trapping or else things like ftilt won't hit properly and he's usually considered one of the best wifi characters. Ironically the most complained about part about D3 on wifi outside of his survivability (He's still one of the easiest characters to kill confirm in the game so even on wifi it's not AS bad as it seems to kill D3 and it's just a thing about MU Inexperience) is JUST gordo. Having a frame 29 gordo projectile that can be sent back with a HUGE reflectable hurtbox that's over twice the size of the actual hitbox that got nerfed again (This move is LITERALLY slower than K Rool's crown and has just as much endlag and you can reflect it back, even with input delay and everything I feel like the people who complain and think Gordo is broken on wifi are the same people who don't understand the D3 mu and still lose to him hard offline).

I still think he's generally a little bit of a better character on wifi, but i think the idea behind basing how characters stack up on wifi via twitlongers and complaints is both irrational and gives people a lot of direct excuses find other ways to bash on people for their mains, especially if it isn't a meta-relevant character.

 

[Thinkaman]

The attributes that become really good online are typically those that require the opponent to react:

• on-stage kill confirms that kill you if you don't DI them correctly, like some of Roy's side-b setups

Clarifying this to a specific reaction window though; obviously we're not talking about Charizard u-throw, Incineroar side-b, or Bowser slam here folks.


Online, my ledge trapping decisions change quite a bit. I can't react to what they are doing, but they can't react to me. So I do a lot more higher-reward stuff (against predicted ledge options) that would be risky offline, but carries minimal added risk online. Of course, doing mechanically punishable moves is just as punishable if they have a read, but the caculus is still changed.

 

[DougEfresh]

I share the opinion many of you have about online, though for me it's mainly directed at quickplay (granted, this is probably what is assumed to be referred to when someone says "online", since that's the only mode that's deemed "competitive" in any sense). It's all less than ideal, but even before this quarantine era, I have always gravitated more toward arenas than QP. The wait time in the lobby is a drag at times, but I find that the lag is overall much less severe and you have a better chance of playing against decent players.

The GSP system sometimes has had a toxic effect on my mentality even though it means nothing regarding actual skill so practicing in arenas has been a good way for me to practice and improve in a relatively productive way since I unfortunately have few friends who play smash to get offline practice and the closest live tournaments to me are currently over an hour away in any direction (making that a less than convenient option for me). I've also been grinding certain character MUs on discord and I also find arenas to be great for getting that knowledge on less common character match ups and I try as much as I can to keep my playstyle and habits for online/offline 1:1 so that I'll be prepared for when I'm in a better position to compete more regularly offline when life returns to normal (more or less). Online certainly has glaring flaws and limitations, but I do think it has some value as well (but hopefully one day nintendo will at the very least get a better infrastructure and net code to make online play a better experience for everyone).

 

[Lacrimosa]

Even rougher times may be incoming for as it's likely that Lucky will drop the character.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

So, I know we've discussed him, but I think it's time that Pits receives some well-earned Buffs in the next patch.

E: Or it's an April Fool's joke...you never know today.

 

[Nah]

so somebody posted a video that I think very nicely sums up Crash's viability in the current meta

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

so somebody posted a video that I think very nicely sums up Crash's viability in the current meta

Confirmed top tier, more broken than Brawl Meta Knight and Smash 4 Bayo combined.

 

[The_Bookworm]

so somebody posted a video that I think very nicely sums up Crash's viability in the current meta

It hurts to say that I actually fell for it. XD

Btw, why did SmashBoards randomly decide that today is Crash Bandicoot day?

Edit: I actually forgot that today is April Fool's.

 

[Arthur97]

I don't even remember what it was last year. Was last year Ridley?

Also, the image on the left didn't load properly, but it might actually be funnier if that was what it was supposed to be.