Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DougEfresh]

So, I figure I'll share my thoughts on patch 8.0 now that it's been several hours since its release:

- Kinda disappointed in the lack of and buffs in this patch, as I felt that either character may have been due for some good fortune and QoL changes. That being said, it's great seeing some much needed buffs to other characters like and /. The fact that many of the buffs this patch were to lower tiered characters with lack of consistency in their hitboxes and/or kill power to address these issues actually makes me cautiously optimistic about potentially seeing improvements for Lucario and Banjo in a future patch(es) since it appears Nintendo is paying attention to the lesser used characters.

-Incidentally, a / JMU started today, so I was playing an Incineroar for a bit and the buffs he got make him quite scary to go up against. His whiff punishing seems to have insanely high reward now, with side b being faster, revenge being stronger, up smash killing even earlier, etc. Might also be unfamiliar with the MU though, so we'll see. Either way, it's really best not to mess up against the big cat now even if he's still too slow to notably improve as a character.

- Falcon kick appears to kill much earlier now in addition to it being faster.

-Haven't faced an Ike yet, but he also might be pretty scary to fight against now with all the improvements made to him.

- seems...interesting. I'll be curious to see what the full details are on her frame data and attributes, but for now, it seems like she has some relatively fast options, insane range, but also has some blind spots and hitboxes that aren't active for particularly long (I don't have her to test out though, and it's only day 1, so I could be wrong). Disadvantage seems to be meh at best, so I think both of my characters will be relatively alright in the Min Min MU as we get better at using movement to navigate neutral better against her and consistently whiff punish Min Min.

These are all preliminary thoughts much like the rest of yours, so it goes without saying that only time will tell. Overall a pretty decent patch for several characters though, and I'll be curious to see what shake ups to the meta happen going forward, if any.

Banjo's another character I was hoping for some buffs for. I'd like to see him either have better low % combos, or better kill power on some moves. He feels weird in his current state, and not in a good way.

This. The other Banjos and I had recently discussed buffing up throw, so that it could lead to some low percent combos outside of grenegg to fair/bair. His kill power on some other moves also leave more to be desired than I once thought, and it's unfortunate to not see a buff to his grab range at the very least. Some landing lag reductions to nair and bair would also very much be appreciated as well. Why they only changed his get up attack of all things, I have no idea. Ah well, fingers crossed for next time I suppose!

 

[Tri Knight]

Aether: Now kills ~100% from like 170+%. This is not a joke. Ike now has a good out of shield option where the reward is definitely worth the risk.

Almost spit out the coffee reading this. You think Ike's gonna be scary again with all these changes?

 

[NotLiquid]

My current exposure is limited but I think spacies are my favorite MU to play against with Min Min.

That's not to say they're necessarily even good match ups for her, especially with how much they can close the range, but she completely exposes their disadvantage state and that makes for some extremely volatile games. I'm having a lot of fun with this character, even if I think the skill floor makes it really hard to tell how good she's gonna be. I think the notable thing she really struggles with is off-stage recovery, though I do think it's somewhat underrated in one regard; she has some really fast aerials so she can already defend herself while making her way back. The designers were clearly cognizant of that fact when they made her.

 

[Untouch]

.@TheWhiskeyB beat me to it but yeah, there's a new kill confirm in town pic.twitter.com/5gZygrHVoa

— invy (@ideallyinvy) June 30, 2020

Also FAir is now -2 on shield.

 

[Damned1]

Not going for the long post, but KirbyKid has posted a little something that showcases the new and improved super armor of 's Crown:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

So basically, Crown's armor went from being rarely useful even against the weaker, faster characters to being able to tank quite an impressive bunch of moves. So while it's not "oh my gah awesome" buff, it might prove to be invaluable in some MUs.

On the side note, im still looking for the info about DAir (which was appearently buffed as well) and Belly Armor But not its HP - it's about the HP regeneration. Is it the same as before, or did they make it so the cracks heal as fast a before? Because the latter would mean that it also heals faster.


Also, i would like to point one important thing about Belly Armor. This huge buff (basically +8%, to slightly more than 36%) isn't mostly important because "breaks will happen less often". Good K.Rool's were already rarely getting belly break. But here is the thing: the higher HP means doesn't necessarily have to start playing safely after tanking, say, over 20%, since 8% or less effective hp can be destroyed instantly. But now the armor can take ~16% at this point - enough to tank quite a few things. This allows to stay on offense at this point, instead of being forced to avoid using Nair, Dair, DA etc. in fear of quasi-shield break.

[Which is important because way too many ppl used to pick up K. Rool and played so damn passive they won't even try to gimp Mac at times, but that's besides the point],

Now, i don't think those fixes and buffs are as impactful by themselves as 6.0 (Nair was top 1 move to fix), but another one big fix (BA) and Crown's armor aren't "small" buffs, and DA might be a silent killer. But i am still a dumb when it comes to smash data not even gonna attempt going further than this and i still might be terribly wrong. Anyway, loving the patch aside from lack of buffs for , ... and most importantly:

 

[san.]

Almost spit out the coffee reading this. You think Ike's gonna be scary again with all these changes?

He's definitely going to be much scarier. Once people get used to it, though, I imagine that people will get used to the changes and some won't be as game-changing as we think. Most of Ike's weaknesses are still there, such as his lackluster disadvantage state and smash attacks, but a number of them have been diminished.

Ike's lacking ground-game, especially at higher %s, has been streamlined. With his dtilt being useful even at higher %s, Ike no longer is incentivized to jump to get anything going. With dash attack killing at reasonable %s for its frame data, he can look to kill with it within that 100-120% range.

Ike's lacking offstage game has also been evened out. With fair's FAF supposedly decreasing from 60->52, along with a damage increase of 11.5->13% (I still think the knockback has also slightly increased despite what the patch note says..), that has balanced out his fair for edgeguarding and returning to the stage. Ike can now jump offstage to pressure with fair, and now has enough of a frame advantage to cover recoveries with his aether if he missed.

I already talked enough about aether to show that Ike's horrible out of shield options have been made better to even out the risk of using aether.

The other changes that I haven't mentioned serves to offer Ike more of a variety of ways to kill earlier, and it's more in line with what you see from a good heavy. I think players will eventually learn to get around his most damaging setups, but he will still occasionally net those confirms at 50%.

 

[meleebrawler]

Just gonna remind people that for the great majority of smash players, "the usual ones" are exactly the modes in which Ganon is great.

Ganon doesn't really need fixing. He's bad at 1v1 competitive smash, but 1v1 competitive smash is a very tiny subset of all the ways in which people play smash.

To say nothing about people who don't restrict themselves to legal stages, allowing Little Mac to gain big advantages. Sometimes, an extreme guy like him only needs to be a trump card.

 

[B_Burg]

They buffed some of her worst match-ups.
could very well be her worst MU now (depending on the use of replaced Phantom).
, and aren't MUs I consider good for her as well.
also give her some problems already.
are probably losing now.
are whatever

So basically, they buffed her worst non-high tier match-ups in this patch which will be an issue. I don'T like this patch at first glance but I just gotta wait and see. But it'S not a patch that pulls me back into the game, most likely.

This is an interesting perspective I don't see considered as often, but I do often wonder about the power creep other characters who are generally ignored in patches face after things like this.

If you don't mind me asking, I'm most curious about your perspective on what changes to Falcon and Mewtwo in particular makes you think the matchup has possibly swung in their favor?

 

[FruitLoop]

Day 2 with DDD Buffs and I believe he's one of the biggest winners of the patch alongside Ike and Falco:

- Dedede's BIGGEST issue before the patch was that he had some of the worst abilities to deal with shield. Now it's actually REALLY threatening to shield since DDD's grab game has actual reward in it. Down-Throw to Up-Air ACTUALLY kills if the opponent doesn't properly DI out of Down-Throw properly while DI-ing out to avoid Up-Air can lead into a potential killing Forward-Air meaning that DDD can FINALLY hard punish people for grabbing. Jumping out of Down-Throw means that you are put in a more vulnerable spot without your double jump with the stronger fair knockback when DDD catches you making it significantly easier to gimp you harder at mid % or send you at a ledge trapping situation at best which DDD LOVES. Mix that with the fact that inhale is now Frame 14 instead of 17 and the fact that the move WORKS now means that it's a lot easier to deal with shield-happy people.

- Dedede's ledge sharking is ACTUALLY useful now since Up-Air kills at high %. While his ability to get off of ledge is still bad, the fact that his ledge mixup can take stocks and can condition people is HUGE.

- Since forward-air has stronger knockback when you swat someone offstage, you are given more time to throw a gordo at the opponent or throw it upwards to force a frame trap offstage which makes DDD significantly more threatening offstage which was already one of his strengths.

- The fact that Inhale is 3 frames faster in startup and the other secret shadow buff for the window of inhale to swallow projectiles being frame 17 as opposed to frame 20 makes it easier for anti-camping. The change also indirectly gave D3 3 frames less endlag on his inhale which was another issue with the move even if the move imo is still too laggy endlag-wise.

- Up-Tilt killing was probably DDD's most useless buff but it gives him an extra kill option that's noticeably stronger and is basically a frame 7 move that hurtbox shifts and kills and can anti-air. D3's Nair to Up-Tilt at lower % also indirectly is buffed due to the fact that the confirm now does overall slightly more damage and it gives DDD more time as the opponent is up in the air to wait for them to land without accidentally getting hit.

- Forward-Air is usually less unsafe on hit at lower % due to the knockback changes which fixes another issue regarding DDD's low % gameplan.

- Down-Tilt KILLING and sending at a horizontal angle is HUGE since it's DDD's fastest move in the CQC and it was useless outside of the fact that it was a frame 6 burst option that didn't do anything after the opponent got hit. The fact that it can send in LEDGE trapping scenarios means that there's real incentives to use it and it SIGNIFICANTLY improves DDD's whiff punish game on safer moves as he now gets reward for using his two quicker moves while Forward-Tilt still works as the great walling option it is.

- The knockback increases in general not only increased DDD's kill power on average but also as we saw increased the chances of putting the opponent in a ledge trapping scenario, aka DDD's win condition and his best attribute.

In general as the character has been labbed more and more. DDD might be a contender for solid mid tier. He's finally a heavyweight that hits hard and he can abuse rage SUPER hard now since down-throw up-air can kill mad early and he can send opponents in constant ledge trapping scenarios since he FINALLY has moves that send people towards the ledge instead of always the Sakurai angle. D3 prepatch basically was incapable of killing outside of 2 options + a janky dash attack so having a lot of his options overall fixed and making his gameplan less linear with the better inhale just does so much for him. I still think the character is far from meta-relevant as his fixes don't really help with his worst matchups as they're still borderline unwinnable such as , , , and potentially now. However now he has a lot of great niches vs a majority of top tiers since it's possible that he now wins or at least does well vs , , , , and .

While he might not be as talked about as Ike and probably won't go to be as meta relevant as a lot of characters that got buffed (heck, he could still be low tier due to power creep). But going from bottom 3 with barely any redeeming qualities to a character with defined strengths that can work as a great counterpick character and could be a potential contender for mid tier does say a lot on what a few patch changes can do to a little penguin. I'm genuinely hopeful for DDD's future and I'm just glad that Nintendo finally took time to fix the character.

Plz add back in prepatch gordo shield damage tho then he'd be perfect Nintendo i swear.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Ike and Incineroar killing mad early with oos options (Aether and Up Smash, respectively) B)

Banjo's another character I was hoping for some buffs for. I'd like to see him either have better low % combos, or better kill power on some moves. He feels weird in his current state, and not in a good way.

Banjo is one of the most creatively animated characters in the game with loads of fun animations, but I feel would be one of the most benefited from a simple fine tuning for his competitive abilities.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Here is already what Falco's buffed dtilt is capable of on day one

These buffs actullay do fix a lot of Falco's previous issues. Like Bookworm mentioned he actullay now has a threatening burst mid-range option with improved Phantasam. What seems like will have a much easier time actullay killing. Between his buffed up-smash and new crazy stuff with his up-tilt he can kill get kill confirms of it and up-tilt much more consistently .

 

[zeldasmash]

*stares at the low tiers getting buffs*

*Looks at Ganondorf and the Belmonts* One day, hopefully...

 

[Firox]

Here is already what Falco's buffed dtilt is capable of on day one

These buffs actullay do fix a lot of Falco's previous issues. Like Bookworm mentioned he actullay now has a threatening burst mid-range option with improved Phantasam. What seems like will have a much easier time actullay killing. Between his buffed up-smash and new crazy stuff with his up-tilt he can kill get kill confirms of it and up-tilt much more consistently .

Wow, 16% off a fresh dtilt seems pretty absurd to me. That's as powerful as many other characters' smash attacks, plus you can combo and falling Fair lock off of it. Pretty broken stuff.

 

[Thinkaman]

Wanna see something neat?

Pretty uncanny. It maps almost one-to-one with our competitive data, with the few exceptions easy to explain away:

• and weren't so much "buffed" as adjusted. They aren't reflected in those counts.
• has always been heavily over-represented compared to how good he is, at every skill level in every Smash game.
• and were much more popular early but have fallen off, such that lifetime stats are inflated for them as well.
• is the most surprising buffed character according to these stats, but she has historically been one of (if not the) least consistent characters in terms of how good different stat sources suggest she is. She varies across skill levels a lot, which is a big part of it.
• is super niche and has superior results-per-user than any character buffed this patch. Not actually a surprise.
• got significant buffs last patch. 8.0.0 continues the trend of not changing characters who in 7.0.0. (Also relevant to .)
• being overlooked is also a trend. The balance team doesn't seem to consider them a priority.
• and are the only two actual surprises. Both got significant buffs back in 3.1.0 but have not risen as much as others and not been touched since.

Note that all DLCs #2-5 are all within "the Yellow zone". If you account for Byleth's limited time in this data, all 4 are actually probably very close to each other. It remains unclear if they are hesistant to change DLC quickly or if they are just considered in a borderline decent place that doesn't need any changes to begin with. (Their approach towards Joker suggests the former.)

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Man. Is is safe to say that could very well be the worst character in the game now. I mean other low-tier characters considered low-tier / all getting decent to great buffs. While Gannon once again gets nothing . Even got one someone decent Qol change and had gotten some niche appeal lately.

I think Gannon along with the Belmonts are the only characters classified mid of low tier in the games that has not gotten one, single, buff I'm the entire balance patch history

 

[Lacrimosa]

Wanna see something neat?

View attachment 276784

Pretty uncanny. It maps almost one-to-one with our competitive data, with the few exceptions easy to explain away:

• and weren't so much "buffed" as adjusted. They aren't reflected in those counts.
• has always been heavily over-represented compared to how good he is, at every skill level in every Smash game.
• and were much more popular early but have fallen off, such that lifetime stats are inflated for them as well.
• is the most surprising buffed character according to these stats, but she has historically been one of (if not the) least consistent characters in terms of how good different stat sources suggest she is. She varies across skill levels a lot, which is a big part of it.
• is super niche and has superior results-per-user than any character buffed this patch. Not actually a surprise.
• got significant buffs last patch. 8.0.0 continues the trend of not changing characters who in 7.0.0. (Also relevant to .)
• being overlooked is also a trend. The balance team doesn't seem to consider them a priority.
• and are the only two actual surprises. Both got significant buffs back in 3.1.0 but have not risen as much as others and not been touched since.

Note that all DLCs #2-5 are all within "the Yellow zone". If you account for Byleth's limited time in this data, all 4 are actually probably very close to each other. It remains unclear if they are hesistant to change DLC quickly or if they are just considered in a borderline decent place that doesn't need any changes to begin with. (Their approach towards Joker suggests the former.)

Sheik got buffed, although it'S quite the small buff.

This is an interesting perspective I don't see considered as often, but I do often wonder about the power creep other characters who are generally ignored in patches face after things like this.

If you don't mind me asking, I'm most curious about your perspective on what changes to Falcon and Mewtwo in particular makes you think the matchup has possibly swung in their favor?

has always been a huge problem for her. Starting with the stunning lasers which take out her best tool in any MU, the Phantom. On top of that, she's light and floaty, so easy combo food for Falco and it seems that Falco's combo capabilities only increased in this patch. Yes, displaced Phantom helps a ton but it's still not great because Falco has very good air control and can jump around it or simply reflect it (although I wouldn't do that as the Falco player but it's an option if you catch the Zelda off-guard.
She edge-guards him well but that's really the only thing she has going for her.
(I'd rather fight a Fox or a Wolf than a Falco)
has every Zelda dislikes: Range, projectile, reflector and decent speed. Sure, Mewtwo has a huge hurtbox but Mewtwo can stay away from her and also negate the Phantom well. And they improved his camping with a shorter charge time of Shadow Ball. So, he can stay away even better and she heavily dislikes campy characters that aren't Wii-Fit. And yeah, Mewtwo dies earlier but the problem is getting damage on Mewtwo because she most likely has to approach here. Dunno, not a fan of this match-up.

 

[PK Gaming]

Woe to any character with a sketchy recovery

Min Min has categorically made them worse

Offstage Side B (especially with the ball arm) is pretty nuts too

 

[SwagGuy99]

Man. Is is safe to say that could very well be the worst character in the game now. I mean other low-tier characters considered low-tier / all getting decent to great buffs. While Gannon once again gets nothing . Even got one someone decent Qol change and had gotten some niche appeal lately.

I think Gannon along with the Belmonts are the only characters classified mid of low tier in the games that has not gotten one, single, buff I'm the entire balance patch history

I feel like it's fairly safe to say the three worst characters are currently and . None of them have received meaningful buffs in months (if at all) and all three of them are further hindered to the buffs to everyone else around them. I also think the amount of low tiers may be significantly reduced after these last two patches. and who were frequently considered low tier in the earlier patches of the game received useful buffs in 7.0, while other characters commonly considered low tier like and all received changes that positively affect them in 8.0. seems to be the overall winner here (of the low tiers), having received changes in both patches. Maybe they won't all be lifted out of low tier, but I'm struggling to think of characters that are for sure low tier after this patch. Right now, I'd argue for and for sure. I feel like needs a buff to his move speed to truly be taken out of low tier but these changes for sure take him out of contention for bottom 3. s are the only other character I don't think has much of a chance to move out of the low tier area currently.

Also, I think the overall winners of this patch are and , but if I had to pick who was the most buffed, I'd argue it's probably .

So many of Falco's issues were solved here, both from a design and gameplay perspective:

• Gained a better burst option in side-b.
• Up-smash and side-b got their hitbox issues fixed, with up-smash being a much better kill option and is able to connect reliably.
• Improving side-b may improve his neutral to an extent.
• Down-tilt's improved combo potential may take some of the focus off of up-tilt, possibly making it less overcentralizing overall.
• Falco's d-air is much better for combos, no longer feeling much laggier than it should be.

might be a top tier now. Even in the first 15 hours or so, a lot of new combos and setups have been discovered off of d-tilt, people have found more ways to combo into up-smash, and falling n-air is more reliable since people don't fall out. I have a decently high opinion of and , and I'm not willing to say he's better than either of them yet, but he's very, very good now.

Also, I can see quite a few of his matchups against becoming better now:

• He is most likely in contention for and 's worst matchup now.
• The increased combo potential of his moveset may shift the matchup into his favor.
• I can see his matchup against being easier due to Fox's poor disadvantage.
• and will likely still be hard, but up-smash connecting better against them will give him easier options for killing them now.
• He probably annihilates now.
• He will likely destroy even harder than before (this was already one of the worst matchups in the game IMO).
• I can see the matchup being easier.

I've always been a Falco optimist, but he got some extreme changes this patch, and I'm honestly considering trying him out over the next few days.

 

[Rizen]

I messed around both as and against for a bit and have concluded, barring some unforeseen future tech, she's not over powered. She's actually fairly well balanced with amazing reach yet a good amount of lag and blind spots. She can control mid and long range space in front of her better than anyone but diagonal angles and cqc give her trouble. Her air movement and disadvantage are bad.

The key to succeeding as her will be using both arms together and smart switching of her arm. The disk thing is good for building damage and then swap to the power arm when the opponent's around 90%.

 

[Nate1080]

I’d say swap to Megawatt around 40%-50%. It really can catch stocks that early, and Megawatt nair is so good.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ike and Falco got alot and are probably at the top of high tier.

But Pit.....my mans got SAUCE now.

Calling it for Pit.

Bottom of top tier.

 

[FruitLoop]

Ike and Falco got alot and are probably at the top of high tier.

But Pit.....my mans got SAUCE now.

Calling it for Pit.

Bottom of top tier.

Who wants to take bets that Pit ends up top 5 in this game? Just like in ssf2 where he was agreed to be a contender for the worst char in the game for having absolutely nothing until he got buffed and everyone swore he was high tier at worst to begin with and is currently one of the best chars in the game. Obviously i dont think he's anywhere close to top tier but hes def a good char now.

 

[Thinkaman]

I posted that image to reddit and pointed out that, if you told it that ~16 characters were being buffed, it would have predicted them with 91% accuracy.

Reminds me of when the 5 nerfed characters were 5-for-5 the top 5 characters in the aggregate tier list released the previous day.

The balance team has been impressively accurate, and they are running out of targets. We have another ~18 months of patches ahead of us, we're only halfway through. It seems pretty dang likely that the rapidly dwindling list of lackluster characters will be taken care of.

The biggest unknown is Ganon, due to his unusual statistical nature. (Honestly, he's the same story as Little Mac but 3x as severe.) Who knows what they will do with him in the end. But if they are going to do something (with him or Little Mac), "saving him for last" seems logical--easier to tune the character the more the community has shifted to experienced competitive play. No one wants "competitively balanced Ganon" on Day 1 Quickplay.

 

[ARISTOS]

Some early thoughts:

- Someone pointed out that shielding against Min Min in mid-range was the play, but I don't think this is a good strategy long term. Doing this is asking to get grabbed, which gives Min Min an insane option in Dragon Arm. The arm hit itself get very strong with Dragon active, and the laser (which homes) sends at a nasty angle. You don't really want to let her proc this, especially since it lasts for quite a bit.

- Megawatt functionally plays the same role does for PT, which is force players to be much more careful in how they approach Min Min. Full hopping is the best direct answer to the character, but Megawatt nair will start killing lightweights ~100 and makes a full arc around the character. It also lingers once charged, catching ledge get up/some jumps and does decent shield damage and stun.

- The character seems to run on momentum a lot. When things are going well you can literally delete stocks without even breaking a sweat, but once a character gets in she takes a lot of damage and can't rely on her ARMS to get her out of bad scenarios. Min Min should be taking initiative most games, trying to passively zone out people will get you blown up.

- Rats/Mario will probably be her worst MUs due to having quick projectiles that hit her in her diagonal weakspot and allow them to transverse her zoning.

 

[PK Gaming]

Calling it for Pit.

Bottom of top tier.

0 chance

He's no longer aggressively mediocre at everything, but he doesn't have absurd damage, strong kill setups or a particularly overpowered disadvantage state. His air movement is still untenably bad as well

 

[B_Burg]

Sheik got buffed, although it'S quite the small buff.

has always been a huge problem for her. Starting with the stunning lasers which take out her best tool in any MU, the Phantom. On top of that, she's light and floaty, so easy combo food for Falco and it seems that Falco's combo capabilities only increased in this patch. Yes, displaced Phantom helps a ton but it's still not great because Falco has very good air control and can jump around it or simply reflect it (although I wouldn't do that as the Falco player but it's an option if you catch the Zelda off-guard.
She edge-guards him well but that's really the only thing she has going for her.
(I'd rather fight a Fox or a Wolf than a Falco)
has every Zelda dislikes: Range, projectile, reflector and decent speed. Sure, Mewtwo has a huge hurtbox but Mewtwo can stay away from her and also negate the Phantom well. And they improved his camping with a shorter charge time of Shadow Ball. So, he can stay away even better and she heavily dislikes campy characters that aren't Wii-Fit. And yeah, Mewtwo dies earlier but the problem is getting damage on Mewtwo because she most likely has to approach here. Dunno, not a fan of this match-up.

I appreciate the reply. I actually said Falcon as opposed to Falco, but I probably should have just said . Sorry about that. I do find it interesting that you'd prefer to fight Falco over Wolf though. Fox makes sense well enough, but you think the difference in range and speed of their blasters, combined with Falco's combo game over Wolf's pure power is enough to make that big of a difference?

I never really thought about Zelda struggling with projectiles. I mean, I know Nayru's Love far from invalidates all projectiles, but I always struggled staying out against Zelda myself as giving her time to set up Phantom combined with Din's Fire being a factor always kind of deterred me. I can see how Mewtwo reflecting Phantom could put a stop to that though, and Din's Fire on its own can't possibly make up the difference. That said I don't play Mewtwo at all so I know that it's not just having a projectile, but his specific moveset on top of having the projectile is where the trouble probably comes in.

Definitely agree about the range thing too. I always figured swordies would be a bit tough for Zelda to deal with, but large hitboxes in general are something I feel kind of get underestimated sometimes.

Thanks again for the insight. I'm curious to see how all this plays out.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Friends don't let friends play Belmont in 8.0. Just forget about it. There's literally no point. I don't see a single matchup where Belmont > Min Min. And her potential, and skill ceiling is way higher.

 

[Kapus]

The Pit buffs are good but he's still too honest to be a top tier. He's just decent right now.

Still love him tho

 

[PK Gaming]

Min Min's edge-guarding is literally "Best in Class"

Never seen anything like it before in Ultimate before, she's terrifying

 

[SwagGuy99]

Min Min's edge-guarding is literally "Best in Class"

Never seen anything like it before in Ultimate before, she's terrifying

She doesn't even have to go offstage to do it. She can sit onstage and just hit you for free unless you have a Pika level recovery or something. I've noticed that some characters like Bowser and Falcon who may win the matchup onstage just get destroyed offstage when trying to recover. Her options to get her opponent offstage actually seem to be somewhat limited, but if she can force you offstage, you're probably not coming back.

 

[Wunderwaft]

I'm really loving what they did to Falco's Phantasm. Besides d-tilt Falco's side b works well for his combo game, albeit the phantasm should be well spaced to make it a true combo.

Haha Falco nair ftilt side b works on missed techs now 🙃 pic.twitter.com/bTvhqbM4wh

— Eclipz (@EclipzSSBU) June 30, 2020

 

[Emblem Lord]

Friends don't let friends play Belmont in 8.0. Just forget about it. There's literally no point. I don't see a single matchup where Belmont > Min Min. And her potential, and skill ceiling is way higher.

A man of culture I see.

 

[Thinkaman]

Still holding off on Min Min thoughts.

They seem keen on giving characters confirms. all got meaningful new confirms (that I've seen), many of which kill. These were historically the most game-changing buffs in Smash 4, except none of these are throw confirms. (Mewtwo got a little bit of throw love but it's not exactly the ding dong.)

Edit: Yeah, I was bearish on the Belmont's future before, and am more so now. Even without Min Min factoring in to make them look extra bad. Lucario is also struggling, as this is a world where 25% of the cast now kills sooner.

Contrast with say Little Mac, who could welcome some love but his differentiating traits and gameplay are the same today as they were yesterday.

 

[PK Gaming]

Still holding off on Min Min thoughts.

They seem keen on giving characters confirms. all got meaningful new confirms (that I've seen), many of which kill. These were historically the most game-changing buffs in Smash 4, except none of these are throw confirms. (Mewtwo got a little bit of throw love but it's not exactly the ding dong.)

Yeah, it's pretty great

We saw how well things turned out when they uncritically gave a bunch of characters in Smash 4 kill confirms, without really addressing their flaws. Overall, i'm significantly more impressed with their approach to balancing Smash Ultimate (though probably not too shocking considering they have experience and former Smash 4 top players to help balance the game)

 

[Emblem Lord]

Still holding off on Min Min thoughts.

They seem keen on giving characters confirms. all got meaningful new confirms (that I've seen), many of which kill. These were historically the most game-changing buffs in Smash 4, except none of these are throw confirms. (Mewtwo got a little bit of throw love but it's not exactly the ding dong.)

Edit: Yeah, I was bearish on the Belmont's future before, and am more so now. Even without Min Min factoring in to make them look extra bad. Lucario is also struggling, as this is a world where 25% of the cast now kills sooner.

Contrast with say Little Mac, who could welcome some love but his differentiating traits and gameplay are the same today as they were yesterday.

Game is turning into Third Strike.

If you don't have a good confirm you are auto worthless.

After that it's how abusable it is, how often it works and what situations. Unless you are insanely good in the other game states.

So yeah is the worst.

 

[Thinkaman]

Game is turning into Third Strike.

If you don't have a good confirm you are auto worthless.

After that it's how abusable it is, how often it works and what situations.

Well, that was sort of the direction the more extreme Smash 4 changes went in. "Don't get grabbed" is a more dubious counterplay plan than "don't get hit by this move at these spacings at this % range", which is already how every kill option in the game behaves.

These type of less-jarring confirms make Pit neither Lucina/Joker (just a flat out great character) nor Smash 4 DK/Bowser (a flat-out bad character but he if does one specific-but-reasonable thing I guess you die). This is just Pit With A Plan. And Pit With A Plan can be a great character, all I'm saying is that I'm really happy Pit is now that and not one of those other options.

 

[NairWizard]

Ike and Falco got alot and are probably at the top of high tier.

But Pit.....my mans got SAUCE now.

Calling it for Pit.

Bottom of top tier.

Could you explain?

 

[Lacrimosa]

I appreciate the reply. I actually said Falcon as opposed to Falco, but I probably should have just said . Sorry about that. I do find it interesting that you'd prefer to fight Falco over Wolf though. Fox makes sense well enough, but you think the difference in range and speed of their blasters, combined with Falco's combo game over Wolf's pure power is enough to make that big of a difference?

I never really thought about Zelda struggling with projectiles. I mean, I know Nayru's Love far from invalidates all projectiles, but I always struggled staying out against Zelda myself as giving her time to set up Phantom combined with Din's Fire being a factor always kind of deterred me. I can see how Mewtwo reflecting Phantom could put a stop to that though, and Din's Fire on its own can't possibly make up the difference. That said I don't play Mewtwo at all so I know that it's not just having a projectile, but his specific moveset on top of having the projectile is where the trouble probably comes in.

Definitely agree about the range thing too. I always figured swordies would be a bit tough for Zelda to deal with, but large hitboxes in general are something I feel kind of get underestimated sometimes.

Thanks again for the insight. I'm curious to see how all this plays out.

Not going into to much detail because she shouldn't be the topic today, so only the part with the projectiles: Nayru has 57 total frames, of which only the first 40 reflect. It's a really horrible reflector and I wish they reduced the endlag on that move.

Compare this to 's sideB which also does damage and it has 15(?) frames less endlag.
Not sure how big the reflector window is but I would trade the active frames on the reflector with less endlag every day. It's just the better reflector and maybe even a command grab. It does damage?
Not sure about the last part with the command grab but even if not: It's straight up better.

 

[DJ3DS]

We survived the patch. I'm happy for that, but I think it'd be wrong to say ROB will be unaffected. Many of the buffed characters are relevant; noone who really beat ROB before got nerfed whilst one of his worst matchups in Bayonetta got buffed and a very volatile matchup in Falco also got it. That matchup probably isn't yet near unwinnable thanks to how ROB can blow up spacies, but he certainly won't appreciate the swing.

On the bright side, I still think ROBs tools work really well against Min Min. Edgeguarding her is a dream, smart laser play can cut straight through her ARMs zone, his air speed is just good enough to threaten a poorly timed ARM with N-air into imagination and he can go over a ton of her stuff. Lots of optimisation to come from Min Min yet but I can see this shaping up to be a difficult matchup for her.

 

[Thinkaman]

Not going into to much detail because she shouldn't be the topic today, so only the part with the projectiles: Nayru has 57 total frames, of which only the first 40 reflect.

Uh, "only"? Sure, Nayru is off the top of my head the 4th highest commitment reflector in the game, but its shtick is that it's the most active. It reflects for 37 frames, more than any other reflector in the game except the handful of held ones. (Which all offer limited utility otherwise) It's also fully intangible for 10 frames, and enjoys great startup (4f) and 16 full frames of wide get-off-me hitboxes.

I'm not saying Nayru's Love is an amazing move or that wishing it were better in some way is dumb. But complaining about active frames is barking up the wrong tree. The design of the move as the Ultimate Defensive Panic Button is pretty clear.