Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Lacrimosa]

Interesting that ZTN is seeded so low when he constantly placed top 8 at these wi-fi tournaments.

 

[NairWizard]

Seeding Leo 1st strikes me as very curious. Leo never even gets top 8 at WiFi events, and I can't see that changing easily given his playstyle.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Shana, Elegant, and Polar made a matchup chart on stream the other day.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I haven't seen the stream yet, but there are some interesting things to take note of:

• being ranked as Luigi's best matchup is interesting. I'm mixed on this personally since Ridley is probably (one of) the easiest characters to abuse in disadvantage as Luigi, but being offstage against Ridley can actually be hard for Luigi to navigate and approaching him isn't as easy as approaching some of the other characters in +2 (like or ). I personally don't think Ridley deserves his own tier of awfulness, in fact, I think he could be as low as +1 for Luigi and not even in +2.
• in +2 is something I agree with. Ken and Luigi have a decent amount of similarities IMO with Ken's overall gameplan having more of a focus on shield pressure along with better move speed and recovery while Luigi plays more similar to a grappler along with having a better projectile, being harder to combo, and having superior frame data. Those last two play a big part in this matchup because not only is Luigi hard to combo for Ken, but he has down-b and n-air to escape Ken's combos too. On top of that, Ken is also incredibly easy for Luigi to combo as well. I agree with Ken being in +2.
• being separated from Ken is fine IMO. I haven't really played against a good Ryu in Ult but I'm guessing the biggest differences between the two come down to Ryu's shoryuken being more effective (since Luigi can't exactly fall out) side-b being more effective, and Ryu having a better projectile in the matchup.
• in +1 is a hot take, but I personally agree with this one actually. Mario is a weird matchup for Luigi because Mario can usually combo and juggle Luigi kind of well until mid percents but after around 50% to 60%, Mario can't really combo Luigi that well anymore. Luigi can also use down-b to escape some of Mario's combos. However, Luigi's combo game on Mario is arguably more effective than Mario's combos and juggles are on Luigi so once Mario can't combo you anymore, Luigi can oftentimes turn around and combo Mario to 60%. Mario's kill power is also worse than Luigi so Luigi is usually more effective at taking stocks. The biggest issue in this MU for Luigi is Mario's edgeguarding, but if Luigi recovers low, he can become harder for Mario to edgeguard in some scenarios.
• in +1. TBH, I don't really know why he's there. This MU is very even IMO even with Chrom's bad recovery. I'm curious to hear the reasoning for this when I watch the stream where they went over this.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seeding Leo 1st strikes me as very curious. Leo never even gets top 8 at WiFi events, and I can't see that changing easily given his playstyle.

I assume they did it because he's still the best player in the world. Although you have a point, he was upset early by a 12 year old who wields Pichu.
MKLeo 1-2 rat . I am not kidding.

 

[Rizen]

Haven't posted here in a while, but since MVD's Snake MU Chart showed up on my Twitter timeline, figured I might as well share it:

Pls dont flame MVme
Updated Snake Match Up chart!
Next sub goal is my Tier list!, sub to me for more things like this 0.0 pic.twitter.com/rWGLx88eU3

— MVD(Free Agent) (@MVD731) April 17, 2020

This MU Chart looks drastically different from his previous one. Seems a lot more characters have the tools to keep up with Snake than previously thought which I can agree with. I've seen most of the losing MUs he placed considered that way before by other Snake Mains, but Olimar and Yink surprised me slightly. Their post-patch status may have made him shift opinions too. Seems quite stressful if the lead is lost I can acknowledge at least. I did see that he leans more towards Even for Olimar than Yink judging by his comments below the initial tweet.

I can see how could be considered -1 for , although personally I think it's even. Fire arrows shut down Snake's grenade game. YL can shoot arrows faster than Snake can arm and toss nades and the fire effect will detonate them on the ground. Snake has to approach in this MU. His DA and crawl are good tools for doing so but it's still hard for him. YL can angle boomerang down if Snake gets too crawl happy. The reason I think it's even is Snake has a really good boxing game in CQC and nikita destroys YL offstage. Utilt is a much better and faster KO tool than anything YL has. Snake is also heavier and wins trades.

 

[NairWizard]

I assume they did it because he's still the best player in the world. Although you have a point, he was upset early by a 12 year old who wields Pichu.
MKLeo 1-2 rat . I am not kidding.

Leo's a reaction-heavy player who zones in neutral, almost always goes for ledgetrapping over edgeguarding, and carefully spaces safe hitboxes in advantage.

There's no way that type of player would ever find success online.

 

[PK Bash]

One reason for Lucina having a better Snake matchup than Marth is that Lucina edgeguards him a little better. Marth can actually struggle to break the armour Snake has on cypher. Case example is forward air, which sourspotted does 8% fresh; the armour threshold is 8% exactly, so if you're even a little stale, it's not gonna work unless you get the tipper. Lucina meanwhile is doing 10-11% or so (only slightly less than Marth's tipper). The consistency here is seriously important when edgeguarding Snake is the most direct way through him, regardless of mu.

Grabbing/grab reward and edgeguarding are king against Snake, so if your character's good at getting those, you probably do alright. The characters who beat Snake have both of those in spades and can also deal consistently with held nades through good spacing options and/or safely popping them; Mega Man, of course, is the textbook example.

 

[Tri Knight]

One reason for Lucina having a better Snake matchup than Marth is that Lucina edgeguards him a little better. Marth can actually struggle to break the armour Snake has on cypher. Case example is forward air, which sourspotted does 8% fresh; the armour threshold is 8% exactly, so if you're even a little stale, it's not gonna work unless you get the tipper. Lucina meanwhile is doing 10-11% or so (only slightly less than Marth's tipper). The consistency here is seriously important when edgeguarding Snake is the most direct way through him, regardless of mu.

Grabbing/grab reward and edgeguarding are king against Snake, so if your character's good at getting those, you probably do alright. The characters who beat Snake have both of those in spades and can also deal consistently with held nades through good spacing options and/or safely popping them; Mega Man, of course, is the textbook example.

That's interesting, had no idea about this.

 

[The_Bookworm]

This is what top 96 is looking like.

Winner's
FlashBlaziken vs Pokelam
Vinny G vs Pelca
Sonix vs Goober
Sparg0 vs Epic_Gabriel
Tweek vs ZeRo
Jayy vs Nabtah
Snormanda vs Laid
VoiD vs Aikota
Kola vs Lui$
Myran vs ESAM
Dabuz vs Benny&TheJets
BestNess vs Midnight
Glutonny vs enhancedpv
Samsora vs Plup
Maister vs Mr E
Sumgai vs LingLing


Loser's

Spoiler

colinies vs MkLeo
Weiss vs Erik
ZeroTwoNone vs Riddles
Mariguas vs Toast
Colmar vs Peabnut
Skynerd vs Sword
Jw vs yumeko
8BitMan vs Rorta
Tohru vs Raflow
holopup vs Sytonix
Bakko vs Cosmos
Teaser vs Beast
Wisdom vs Danye
Elby vs Justin
Seagull Joe vs MFA
Izaw vs LeoN
kchris vs Sylver
ABY vs Goblin
Garry2Scary vs JayC
Taoudi vs Tezii
MrConCon vs Haven
Sabito vs JustTheIce
Mj vs SuperStriker
Exodus vs Mossy
Stretch vs Capitancito
DarkStalker vs JohnY
MVD vs Atomsk
Yakumo09 vs Regi Shikimi
Quizzy vs Mekos
The6Master vs C-
SonamSlash vs Kofi
Winks vs Zomba

Upsets

Spoiler: Winner's

rat 2-1 MkLeo
Quizzy 2-1 NAKAT
Skynerd 2-0 Enki
Kain 2-0 iStudying
Black_Screen 2-1 PowPow
SonamSlash 2-1 Sonido
JohnY 2-0 8BitMan
JohnY 2-0 Peabnut
Goober 2-1 Fatality
Goober 2-1 MVD
Jayy 2-1 Cosmos
Erik 2-0 Mekos
Nabtah 2-1 MrConCon
Snormanda 2-0 Goblin
SZB 2-1 PkChris
Aikota 2-0 kchris
enhancedpv 2-1 Jw
Sumgai 2-1 Toast

Spoiler: Loser's

NAKAT (DQ'ed very early)
apollo 2-1 Enki (out early)
Doorstop 2-1 PkChris (out early)
Paint 2-0 PowPow (out at 128th)
Sonido (DQ'ed at 128th)
One Crit Man 2-0 Venom (out at 128th)
Izaw 2-1 Locus (out at 128th)
Izaw 2-0 Hungrybox (out at 97th)
JayC 2-0 iStudying (out at 97th)
ABY 2-1 Hackoru (out at 97th)

Making this took a lot longer than it looked. I am a tired man after this.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sorry for the double post, but since no one has replied in a long time:

Top 8

Winner's
Sparg0 vs Tweek
BestNess vs Mr E

Loser's
Kola vs Cosmos
Sonix vs Benny&TheJets



Notable Upsets for Top 96

Winner's
Mr E 3-1 Maister
Nabtah 3-2 Jayy
BestNess 3-0 Dabuz
Laid 3-2 VoiD
Mr E 3-0 Glutonny

Loser's
Quizzy 2-1 Mekos (out at 65th)
Colmar 2-0 Peabnut (out at 65th)
yumeko 3-2 8BitMan (out at 49th)
Snormanda 3-1 Riddles (out at 33rd)
SuperStriker 3-1 Plup (out at 25th)
Kola 3-1 MkLeo (out at 17th)
Lui$ 3-1 VoiD (out at 17th)
Sonix 3-2 Maister (out at 13th)
Sonix 3-0 ESAM (out at 9th)
Benny&TheJets 3-1 Glutonny (out at 9th)


Oh... and Glutonny 3-0 Samsora

 

[NairWizard]

before this tournament started, I predicted that Tweek would win it all. Let's see how that prediction holds up; seems pretty good so far

 

[The_Bookworm]

The Guaranteed Series - The April Minor
1st: BestNess
2nd: Sparg0
3rd: Tweek
4th: Kola
5th: Mr E
5th: Benny&TheJets
7th: Cosmos
7th: Sonix
9th: Vinny G
9th: Laid
9th: ESAM
9th: Glutonny
13th: Dabuz
13th: LeoN
13th: Maister
13th: Lui$
17th: MkLeo (the lowest he has ever placed in any event)
17th: Jayy
17th: Samsora
17th: LingLing
17th: Pokelam
17th: SuperStriker
17th: Nabtah
17th: VoiD
25th: Snormanda
25th: yumeko
25th: Sytonix
25th: Pelca
25th: Goblin
25th: Plup
25th: DarkStalker
25th: The6Master
33rd: Aikota
33rd: Riddles
33rd: Colmar
33rd: ZeRo
33rd: Epic_Gabriel
33rd: Goober
33rd: Justin
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: Sumgai
33rd: JayC
33rd: JustTheIce
33rd: enhancedpv
33rd: Midnight
33rd: Regi Shikimi
33rd: Myran
33rd: Zomba
49th: Weiss
49th: Toast
49th: Sword
49th: 8BitMan
49th: Raflow
49th: Teaser
49th: Wisdom
49th: Seagull Joe
49th: Sylver (DQ'ed at loser's)
49th: Taoudi
49th: MrConCon
49th: Exodus
49th: Stretch
49th: Atomsk
49th: Quizzy
49th: SonamSlash


There was so many Clouds in this tournament, either as a main or a secondary.

 

[SwagGuy99]

The Guaranteed Series - The April Minor
1st: BestNess
2nd: Sparg0
3rd: Tweek
4th: Kola
5th: Mr E
5th: Benny&TheJets
7th: Cosmos
7th: Sonix
9th: Vinny G
9th: Laid
9th: ESAM
9th: Glutonny
13th: Dabuz
13th: LeoN
13th: Maister
13th: Lui$
17th: MkLeo (the lowest he has ever placed in any event)
17th: Jayy
17th: Samsora
17th: LingLing
17th: Pokelam
17th: SuperStriker
17th: Nabtah
17th: VoiD
25th: Snormanda
25th: yumeko
25th: Sytonix
25th: Pelca
25th: Goblin
25th: Plup
25th: DarkStalker
25th: The6Master
33rd: Aikota
33rd: Riddles
33rd: Colmar
33rd: ZeRo
33rd: Epic_Gabriel
33rd: Goober
33rd: Justin
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: Sumgai
33rd: JayC
33rd: JustTheIce
33rd: enhancedpv
33rd: Midnight
33rd: Regi Shikimi
33rd: Myran
33rd: Zomba
49th: Weiss
49th: Toast
49th: Sword
49th: 8BitMan
49th: Raflow
49th: Teaser
49th: Wisdom
49th: Seagull Joe
49th: Sylver (DQ'ed at loser's)
49th: Taoudi
49th: MrConCon
49th: Exodus
49th: Stretch
49th: Atomsk
49th: Quizzy
49th: SonamSlash


There was so many Clouds in this tournament, either as a main or a secondary.

In the Top 64, this was the character representation (as seen in the quoted post):

 

[The_Bookworm]

I was checking around Twitter clips, and found this clip from yeti in an amusing display of shield-break spaghetti:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

While this clip is here for comedy, there was an aspect of the clip that interested me: how did the first pill miss?

Then I saw the pill hitbox....

Spoiler

Can someone please help Doc mains? All 5 of them...

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Can someone please help Doc mains?

AKA, some actual mobility...
Pill's hitbox is the least of our problems.

 

[SwagGuy99]

AKA, some actual mobility...
Pill's hitbox is the least of our problems.

As someone who's tried to use Doc as a main/secondary (and still currently was before the quarantine), I'll readily admit that he's in a much better spot than he was prior to 7.0.0 (up-b and d-tilt are now broken moves attached to a mediocre character along with his down-b). He's probably in the lower end of mid tier now IMO, but I will also acknowledge that he needs help to be any better than that.

I personally have believed for a while that the easiest change to give Doc to make him significantly better is improving his air speed significantly (ideally to be just as good as Mario's or better). Not only does this help his recovery, but this also makes him much more threatening onstage and allows him to utilize his tools much better than he can currently.

With this change, he could keep his bad ground speed, keep the terrible up-b distance, and keep the bad range, while still becoming a significantly better character that people might want to play over Mario.

 

[Notaniceperson]

Best Ness taking a major online tournament is not helping the Ness isn't THAT good online notion but nice to see a Ness do that.

 

[Megamang]

Hoo boy, if you hate getting bair'd by mario 1000x a game, then Mario-airspeed-doc would be a whole new world to handle.

On a serious note, they haven't ever really buffed basic attributes as far as I know, so I don't think it is worth discussing. It is clear they want him to be a slow bruiser, but I like the direction they have gone with giving him some quick CQC that is punishing and a uniquely good OoS. Being slow is just... bad, in a platform fighter especially. You can work around it, but better players will abuse you better and better and its gonna get tough.

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Cloud really is disgusting online. Not being able to parry him consistently makes things way harder.

 

[Notaniceperson]

Cloud really is disgusting online. Not being able to parry him consistently makes things way harder.

Characters with terrible recoverys struggle online so i think it balances things out.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Characters with terrible recoverys struggle online so i think it balances things out.

If anything the recovery gets buffed, going offstage is a detriment online. That's why Little Mac and the heavies become so much better. Notice how no one was willing to edgeguard Sparg0 or Best Ness at all, despite both Ness and Cloud having poor recoveries.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Ness’ recovery is really only a detriment online when going for precise angles or if a quick lag spike happens as your using thunder. Precise angles aren’t easy when timing is never consistent and obviously a little quick stutter can completely throw off your attempt to hit yourself with thunder.

If anything you should be edge guarding more online. It was mentioned above but you cannot ledge trap to the same effectiveness online so your most effective means of keeping people at the ledge is to edge guard. That breakdown of MkLeo’s “struggles” (when compared to when he’s playing offline and not distracted by things like running a twitch stream simultaneously.) demonstrates that point well, being a player who heavily relies on fantastic ledge play when in advantage.

I’d have to see the individual situations as to why people weren’t going off stage to edge guard BestNess but if I had to deduce a fear of being unable to tech PKT2 due to online affecting timing likely played a factor, among other things.

 

[Notaniceperson]

It's hard for Ness sometimes online because he mostly dies if hes at a weird angles and you have to take that into account when banning stages online because Yoshi and Kalos make you have to hit a risky angle and Town and citys main platform is to small to bonk and reset Pk thunder.

 

[Lacrimosa]

If anything the recovery gets buffed, going offstage is a detriment online. That's why Little Mac and the heavies become so much better. Notice how no one was willing to edgeguard Sparg0 or Best Ness at all, despite both Ness and Cloud having poor recoveries.

Then why is FOW never getting edgeguarded, neither by Vegas (Dakpo, ven) or some SoCal players (Nicko)?

 

[NairWizard]

The biggest differentiator between online and offline Ness is that Ness takes no risk to edgeguard anyone. He has YoYo, probably the single best edgeguarding tool in the game alongside Nikita, and it's almost 0 risk for Ness to use this or PKT to edgeguard most of the cast. This makes online Ness pretty much a top 5-10 character, regardless of recovery or whatever else. It has nothing to do with PK fire or mashing. Yoyo is just leaps and bounds better than everyone else's options for maintaining advantage.

On the flipside, it takes a lot of confidence to edgeguard Ness properly, on or offline. This was true even in S4. Ness' recovery has never been free unless you're very proficient at the Ness matchup, and even then, Ness has plenty of mixups--fatal mixups, at that: if you mistime even slightly you could die for it, or Ness could return to stage before you do and then YoYo you. Ledgetrapping him is often the easier way out, especially if you have a sword (this was Nicko's approach to the matchup).

Online, you can't be sure when there'll be a sudden bit of extra lag just when you're about to land a hit and then Ness takes your stock instead. That's a huge reversal and no one wants to risk it, even if the chance is slim.

The correct thing to do, of course, is to risk it anyway, because like I said before, ledgetrapping is just way too hard online, but it's not easy to make that call and take that risk.

Put yourself in that position. Would you take that risk in grand finals, potentially losing a big lead because a bit of lag just happened to sneak its way in?

With all of that being said, it should be noted that BestNess' plays were absolutely sick, and this was a very deserved win regardless of extenuating conditions. His use of PK flash in the Cloud matchup was particularly noteworthy.

Because of Tweek's general skill online, I expected him to win this tourney. Although he was sick, he was still playing rather well, so with a few adjustments I expect him to take the next one if he enters, even with all the Kola/BestNess/Sparg0 online shenanigans (though since it's WiFi who really knows what will happen, he could end up getting 9th).

As for Cloud, don't let WiFi deceive you. Cloud's been on the rise. More precisely, Kola and Sparg0 have been on the rise. The Cloud buffs weren't nearly as relevant as they look (though they were pretty big)--the confidence that these two players got in their character is much more important, and the fact that this confidence happens to coincide with both of them maturing as players is what brings them success.

Kola may have used Roy against Nairo and Marss, but the real ace up his sleeve is Cloud. He brings Cloud out in all of the matchups where a Roy might traditionally struggle, like Game and Watch and Young Link or Olimar/Rosalina, and he absolutely wrecks those characters when he faces them, making his Roy bracket run look pretty smooth.

Way back when the game came out, Shaya and I pegged Cloud as a top 5 or even top 2 character, despite all the nerfs that he got from the transition between games. He's much harder to play with any kind of finesse than he was in S4, but he's very good. He has all the tools that he needs for success.

Be on the lookout for this character even when offline resumes, folks.

 

[VodkaHaze]

Hoo boy, if you hate getting bair'd by mario 1000x a game, then Mario-airspeed-doc would be a whole new world to handle.

On a serious note, they haven't ever really buffed basic attributes as far as I know, so I don't think it is worth discussing. It is clear they want him to be a slow bruiser, but I like the direction they have gone with giving him some quick CQC that is punishing and a uniquely good OoS. Being slow is just... bad, in a platform fighter especially. You can work around it, but better players will abuse you better and better and its gonna get tough.

They made Mewtwo as heavy as Kirby and Pikachu, and changed Mii Brawler's falling speed and fast fall before changing it back to normal, and Jigglypuff can act quicker after air dodging. They can still change basic attributes, they just focus more on moves instead.

 

[Megamang]

VodkaHaze
Sorry, I was too vague there. I meant basic movement attributes, not including weight. I think this is because feel is very important to the devs and the different attributes have a lot to do with how a character feels (see the earlier discussion of why Roy feels so much faster than Lucina). You really don't 'feel' a characters' weight when they are moving about. I mean it absolutely makes a difference in the game but if you've gotten really used to a character's movement the weight change won't change anything about navigating the stage pre-getting-hit.



I think the Brawler thing was a mistake; since they turned it back. Not sure though. I also think the slight DDD speed nerf was a bug fix for something obscure.

But now that I think about it, I believe they have buffed run speeds in 4. But I don't think ive seen an airspeed buff. Especially not one that would make Doc move like regular Mario.

 

[ZephyrZ]

But now that I think about it, I believe they have buffed run speeds in 4. But I don't think ive seen an airspeed buff. Especially not one that would make Doc move like regular Mario.

Charizard got an airspeed buff during Smash 4's lifespan.

Still, attribute buffs are very rare and they usually just alter them slightly. We probably shouldn't expect to see too many of them.

 

[Das Koopa]

https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard/status/1252394592411893762

Info will be dripping out for a while, but

-Marth, not counting Byleth (since she's new), is the least used character in the USA at once instance among 1116 players.

-Yoshi and Bowser are top 5. Yoshi is top 3 outright. Bowser's usage stats do not carry over well to top 3 or top 1 instances, meaning he's very prevalent at 4+ positions on PRs. (relatively speaking, no one character reaches even 5% of usage overall.)

-Snake is #1, Palu is #2. R.O.B. is #4.

-Overall usage is actually pretty balanced, but Snake/Palu have a sizable lead and some characters are rarely used.

-Lucario and Ice Climbers have very poor usage stats. Lucario is particular may be third worst internationally.

-Corrin's usage stats are, as expected, abysmal.

 

[Notaniceperson]

https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard/status/1252394592411893762

Info will be dripping out for a while, but

-Marth, not counting Byleth (since she's new), is the least used character in the USA at once instance among 1116 players.

-Yoshi and Bowser are top 5. Yoshi is top 3 outright. Bowser's usage stats do not carry over well to top 3 or top 1 instances, meaning he's very prevalent at 4+ positions on PRs. (relatively speaking, no one character reaches even 5% of usage overall.)

-Snake is #1, Palu is #2. R.O.B. is #4.

-Overall usage is actually pretty balanced, but Snake/Palu have a sizable lead and some characters are rarely used.

-Lucario and Ice Climbers have very poor usage stats. Lucario is particular may be third worst internationally.

-Corrin's usage stats are, as expected, abysmal.

Very interested to see where good but rare fighters like Greninja Will fit and Duck hunt land.

 

[VodkaHaze]

https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard/status/1252394592411893762

Info will be dripping out for a while, but

-Marth, not counting Byleth (since she's new), is the least used character in the USA at once instance among 1116 players.

-Yoshi and Bowser are top 5. Yoshi is top 3 outright. Bowser's usage stats do not carry over well to top 3 or top 1 instances, meaning he's very prevalent at 4+ positions on PRs. (relatively speaking, no one character reaches even 5% of usage overall.)

-Snake is #1, Palu is #2. R.O.B. is #4.

-Overall usage is actually pretty balanced, but Snake/Palu have a sizable lead and some characters are rarely used.

-Lucario and Ice Climbers have very poor usage stats. Lucario is particular may be third worst internationally.

-Corrin's usage stats are, as expected, abysmal.

Marth doesn't surprise me at all. I don't know if he's a bad character, but he is overshadowed by Lucina in almost every regard. Their only difference is their hitboxes, and if you're going to be killing characters on average earlier with Lucina, I don't see the point of playing Marth unless you're a character loyalist or you want a challenge. Wouldn't be surprised if Byleth is played more than Marth.

Only really surprised at Yoshi and Bowser in Top 5 and Lucario being Bottom 5. I'd imagine Wolf or Joker would be Top 5, but I guess not. And while Lucario is hard to play and it takes a certain type of player to pick him up, I'd imagine he'd still have a sizable playerbase. Perhaps he also suffers the same problem of Ice Climbers: very difficult to play at high level, and the rewards aren't even that good.

 

[NotLiquid]

Yoshi's high usage matches up pretty well with what we've been observing on OrionStats over the year. The same applies for Snake. The latter is especially notable given how Snake's best top level rep is generally inconsistent at achieving Top 16 placings at majors.

 

[DougEfresh]

Frankly, I'm not shocked by how low Lucario's usage rates are. From what I remember, initial impressions of him were quite positive until patch 2.0 came around and reduced the hitlag of aura sphere charge's hitbox (rendering any follow ups from it extremely inconsistent at best or just flat out useless). Patch 3.1.0 in late May of last year was significant for him and brought him out of the lowly depths of bottom/low tier to a solid mid tier imo, but he still needs a few crucial fixes and QoL changes to make him really feel good and potentially increase the playerbase to any significant degree.

I also wonder if Lucario will be one of the characters whose meta growth will just take considerably longer than most of the cast due to his complexity. I've seen a lot of talk about the trend towards a much more defensive and patient playstyle in the meta ( becoming a classic example of this by the day), and he doesn't have the sheer mobility to completely dictate the pace of a match like the blue blur can (or say, ZSS and greninja to a slightly lesser extent), but a who's committed to playing defensive and holding his ground is a truly scary thing and I think there's an underestimated capacity of just how much respect having high aura can get with the right strategies. I think optimizing footsies and a more grounded neutral is a big part of the solution despite his cqc being lackluster for now, and smart but frequent use of shield is great against many other his more difficult MUs because of low shield pressure or poor to mediocre reward from grabs/throws (no kill throws or won't kill till 180+). Much like sonic can, we can just wait for the opponent to approach or bait them to do so and whiff punish to keep them at bay and gradually extend the lead. We don't have the greatest frame data to do this with as much frequency or consistency, but that's somewhat compensated for due to the huge boost to damage and kill potential by holding onto aura, so we should require fewer wins in neutral overall than most characters to get the same results. In short, Lucario could very well just be another case of a fighter who is meant to be played quite differently in Ultimate compared to previous titles.

 

[Lacrimosa]

https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard/status/1252394592411893762

Info will be dripping out for a while, but

-Marth, not counting Byleth (since she's new), is the least used character in the USA at once instance among 1116 players.

-Yoshi and Bowser are top 5. Yoshi is top 3 outright. Bowser's usage stats do not carry over well to top 3 or top 1 instances, meaning he's very prevalent at 4+ positions on PRs. (relatively speaking, no one character reaches even 5% of usage overall.)

-Snake is #1, Palu is #2. R.O.B. is #4.

-Overall usage is actually pretty balanced, but Snake/Palu have a sizable lead and some characters are rarely used.

-Lucario and Ice Climbers have very poor usage stats. Lucario is particular may be third worst internationally.

-Corrin's usage stats are, as expected, abysmal.

Characters statistics from 251 power rankings across 5 continents, dozens of countries, and over 3000 players. First, here is a shorthand of percentage stats of characters used worldwide among ranked players, as up to date as possible. pic.twitter.com/SiUHDx1X04

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) April 21, 2020

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Man that Mewtwo usage... or lack there of it really. I know his old fans didn't like how he changed to this game but that just feels absurdly low for him.

Also I'm guessing about 90% of Sheik usage comes from one player in particular?

 

[Notaniceperson]

The Bowser top 5 placement makes sense because there are a lot of players who want the risk reward that heavys get you so naturally they pick the most viable one. Being Bowser probably helps too.

 

[Tri Knight]

After the top 2 tiers, these usage percentages are pretty jarring to me.

Well, except maybe Corrin, but who gives a damn

 

[SwagGuy99]

Characters statistics from 251 power rankings across 5 continents, dozens of countries, and over 3000 players. First, here is a shorthand of percentage stats of characters used worldwide among ranked players, as up to date as possible. pic.twitter.com/SiUHDx1X04

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) April 21, 2020

Here's what OrionStats currently looks like as a comparison. Interesting to see how despite large amounts of representation for some characters, they seem to lack results at larger tournaments (like Dedede) while the opposite can be said as well for others (Young Link).

Also, poor Marth

Edit: The percentages I got were just the number of points a character had divided by the total number of points between the entire cast.

 

[Nobie]

Maybe Lucario could be better, but nerfing his weight and improving air speed was the right move in the transition to Ultimate. I don't think a character with a mechanic like Aura should be even average weight.

 

[Notaniceperson]

Maybe Lucario could be better, but nerfing his weight and improving air speed was the right move in the transition to Ultimate. I don't think a character with a mechanic like Aura should be even average weight.

Lucario is wasted potential there was Top teir hype coming into the game but he's the worst character in the game imo his projectile doesn't do anything until he's at a decent Aura and a lighter than average character that is useless until he takes a lot of damage and has a terrible neutral and has almost no combo game. At least Mac is ok on fd.