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I don't have full impressions of Min Min yet, but the most surprising thing about her for me is her damage output and CQC ability.
All I've been doing (against some competent mid-level and high-level players) is playing her at close to midrange. Safe-on-shield arms point blank, one of the best d-tilts in the game, pivot grab, reverse RamRam n-air, up-tilt (hitbox behind, hits through BF platforms), up-smash (move is just hilarious), falling up-air--and the best part is you can pivot or advancing tilt to punish any kind of dash attempt at close range so people can't get away from you.
I mean, who needs ranged ARMs mixups--this character is great just played up close.
Only downside of playing her is that in the air she feels like molasses growing on the underbelly of a frozen snail, so she gets edgeguarded pretty hard and with all the new combos and kill confirms on the block she's got some stiff competition for getting to a competitive spot.
But yeah, forget zoning, go up and scrap with people.
So, are definitely next in line for buffs/QoL improvements. Maybe , too, though he has quite a bit about him that's pretty nutty, namely some of the spells and the reach of his projectiles, so they'll have to tread carefully here. Also think should be given a couple stronger kill options, assuming the infinite is for sure gone.
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.
It's just a poorly designed move. It shouldn'T be a panik button but an actual move. It has so much endlag that you get punished for reflecting YL or Samus' stuff. It fails as a reflector in these cases.
It has high risk because you just hold shield against it and if you hit someone then it does nothing. It could very well be that you get punished even if you get a hit and that's not just against Bowser.
Horrendous move. Having less endlag would at least kinda solve the issue with YL or Samus but in these cases, the Phantom is a better way to stop projectiles. Anyway, I trade some of the good attributes for less endlag so it can work as a reflector.
I feel Falco got buffs to his design, but he will probably lose to the same characters.
Ike literally has the same flaws, he is just a more fleshed out character.
Pit was already a character that could fight any character he was just mediocre. Now with overall more solid buttons and an actual kill confirm, I think he will have just enough juice to break into top tier. Falco might make it too though. I don't think Ike will.
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.
This is an oversimplification. Comparing Min and Bel is too much of an apples to oranges thing. I'll give you an example of a MU where Belmonts do better: .
In my limited impressions of the / MU K.Rool doesn't have that hard a time. Belly armor DA and crown beat her punches and Nair >jab/grab is a great approach tool. Min has a lot higher commitment on her arms than Bel's whip.
In the / MU K.Rool has a terrible time. Holy water fire traps his huge hurtbox for a free smash, whip is very hard to get past, Axe destroys his recoveries and he can't land. There's just too many hitboxes floating around all the time.
can do a lot of things can't and vice versa. I agree Min's the better character but she doesn't invalidate Bel.
early thoughts on minmin:
she is the first ever precision long distance character. she might be one of the hardest characters in the game to play up there with peach, ryu/ken, and a few others. she rewards methodical choices and isnt merely a rushdown or zoner. she is not mash friendly nor does she reward you for playing recklessly. i expect to see M2k give her a shot, dabuz to secondary her, and a few of the dying belmont mains to try her out.
Her MU with the characters that matter is gonna be rough imo. palutena, pikachu, inkling, game and watch and wolf/fox is gonna be rough for a variety of reasons. but minmin is a character that is gonna be difficult to random out in bracket with a weird character.
characters that give minmin major issues imo: pikachu, bayonetta, game and watch, palutena, spacies (including falco), and possibly zss
characters minmin will beat once optimized: all heavies (including snake), ROB (seriously this could be an awful MU long term), and FE (excluding robin)
I honestly don't see how Pika straight up beats Minmin. The combination of RamRam arcs that can cover general blind spots her archetype has and Usmash makes her suitable to combating Pika's general gameplan. Plus Pika isn't fast enough to run her over without Quick attack and even then arms can clip him in the middle of QA.
I don't have full impressions of Min Min yet, but the most surprising thing about her for me is her damage output and CQC ability.
All I've been doing (against some competent mid-level and high-level players) is playing her at close to midrange. Safe-on-shield arms point blank, one of the best d-tilts in the game, pivot grab, reverse RamRam n-air, up-tilt (hitbox behind, hits through BF platforms), up-smash (move is just hilarious), falling up-air--and the best part is you can pivot or advancing tilt to punish any kind of dash attempt at close range so people can't get away from you.
I mean, who needs ranged ARMs mixups--this character is great just played up close.
Only downside of playing her is that in the air she feels like molasses growing on the underbelly of a frozen snail, so she gets edgeguarded pretty hard and with all the new combos and kill confirms on the block she's got some stiff competition for getting to a competitive spot.
But yeah, forget zoning, go up and scrap with people.
Hey look at that. You just described the actual ARMS meta. It's all about the poking and vying for positional/state advantage until someone gets knocked down, then you stick to your opponent like glue and use your character tools and attributes to make sure they don't ever get back up.
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.
As a reflector Confusion is actually rather clunky with fairly slow startup, even if it has fairly generous range in front. This and the grab part starting up a bit faster does make it better for preemptively stopping approaches instead of reactive punishes. The uses of this and Nayru's are barely comparable.
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.
For sure. The buffs to and especially will probably impact him negatively. While I'm less confident here as with the other three, the buffs to and may make those matchups harder as well.
So, are definitely next in line for buffs/QoL improvements. Maybe , too, though he has quite a bit about him that's pretty nutty, namely some of the spells and the reach of his projectiles, so they'll have to tread carefully here. Also think should be given a couple stronger kill options, assuming the infinite is for sure gone.
and are, with the data we have, the two characters we should most expect to get some love in the future.
and possibly too, if we continue to see their last buffs be close-but-no-cigar.
are then the most likely. They are seeing better numbers than most characters buffed this patch, but almost 20 improved characters might pressure them down where a tune up is logical. too, but his numbers are noteably superior to all of the above, sort of like Wii Fit Trainer this patch. If or decline, they could end up in a similar place as Lucas.
are plausible, it's just hard to know how the balance team will regard their small-but-successful player bases moving forward.
The DLCs are very close in performance, with >>>. They all perform vaguely around that "Lucas level". Buffs are plausible, but I would bet against it at the present.
There has been no indication they are intending to balance the Miis further. All data sources suggest they should have been prime candidates for buffs in every patch, but they have not been touched except for tweaks to individual specials and some modest changes to Brawler way back in 2.0.0. It suggests to me that they are intending to balance the Miis and their specials against each other and nothing else.
is the biggest outlier. He is the 20th most played character in tournament and he has a >50% win-rate. (In tournament) Ganon is not just king of FFAs and scary online, he's also scary in pools. Ganon in broad tournament use has about the same representation and success rates as Pikachu. Ganon ceases to show results past a certain level, but that level seems to be around 0.02% of the Smash population; way higher than people talk. So who knows what they are going to do (or not do) with that.
For the record, Little Mac is similar to Ganon in this way, but much less extreme, and they have showed a willingness to buff him. The fact that Falcon got buffed this patch also suggests they are willing to control for unusual overrepresentation of the sort that Ganon enjoys.
Daabbling into, can we talk about how shielding against her feels like the worst idea ever? At least that's what I've seen
To run it down, this gal has:
- Grab range that'd make ZSS jealous, a back throw that does nearly 18 percent clean on hit (what the fudge), and an up throw that kills about as early as 's, and this is already on top of the unique reward she gets off of grabs already.
- Forward and back aerials that are plus on block because she can simply just throw out her other arm; even if the opponent anticipates that and tries to block both she can simply just... walk away.
- Potentially insane shield pressure off of the chain of arm attacks she can pull off, particularly her Megawatt which absolutely decimates shields.
She makes dealing with 's OoS look like a walk in the park with just how many answers she has to the block button.
Her kicks also feel... surprisingly decent; while I won't swap in her close up attacks anytime in place of someone else who does specializes in CQC, they also have their own perks over the close-ranged attacks of "distance demons" like or or even just other sword characters in general like .
- UAir is one of the only bicycle kicks that hits in front of her, and only has 8 frames of landing lag. There's already a lot of set-up potential for this attack and the kill power isn't even honestly that bad.
- DSmash and USmash are absurdly fast, with USmash being frame SEVEN and having range that's somehow on par with actual sword upsmashes.
- DTilt is slower than most slide kicks, but also feels way safer to use and has much more lenient combo potential. A DTilt into USmash at early percents is already an easy 25% damage right there.
The only kick moves that don't feel too remarkable are Dash Attack for its low power on both the sweetspot and sourspot, but even then, the distance she gets from it is amazing, and UTilt because of its high endlag and needing to sweetspot it to have reasonable kill power, but it's VERY fast and also has nutty range like her USmash. Not sure how good jab is as I didn't try out the 1-2-3 combo yet.
On a side note, does anyone else love how much landing DSmash and USmash with her feels? The high hitlag and sound adds so much "oomph" to these attacks and it sounds amazing.
All of the spacies suffer the same weakness against Min Min: she curbstomps their questionable disadvantage. This is especially the case with Wolf who has the most limited recovery of the three. That said he more or less makes up for it with the fact that he's got the best lasers of the trio. Both him and Falco make Min Min a little more uncomfortable on the long distance game, but with Wolf his weakness is so volatile in this particular MU that I'm pretty convinced it's going to be considered even in the long run. I think Falco will still be manageable, though it's hard to say who will have the better odds between him and Fox. With Falco, he can more or less disrupt Min Min's pace at her preferred operative distance. Fox needs to put in a little more elbow grease to approach, though that will still demand a lot of precision from the Min Min to counterplay it.
I know a lot of Min Min mains are already throwing in the towel as far as the Pikachu MU is concerned but she does have some things going for her at the very least. Pikachu likes to cross up a lot, and while up tilt doesn't have ZSS' level of instant horizontal coverage, she's capable to intercept quite a few approaches both with it and up smash. I'm also unsure of the veracity of this claim but supposedly you can intercept pancaking opponents by crouching after a dragon FTilt, so that might come in handy.
As for G&W, the fact that Min Min can actually shield pressure him alone makes me think this might be one of her more "ok" match ups among the top tiers.
Since the patch dropped late last night, I was unable to personally test any of the changes to the characters myself.
However, now that the initial hype cooled off, as well as me properly testing them myself, I am going to give out what I think are the true big winners of the update and where they potentially land now.
The stuff they gave to certain characters are absolutely disgusting.
Here are the biggest winners that are likely going to rise up the tier list a significant amount: Probably the biggest winner of the patch. This update gave him stuff that Falco mains have been asking for a long time, especially the side B changes. With faster startup and longer hit detection, this move is finally reliable for the first time since Brawl (albeit not as crazy as in Brawl).
Then there is down tilt, with faster startup and improved combo potential.
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He also got some other QoL buffs, including a stronger up smash, consistency changes to nair and up smash, and less cooldown on down air.
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What this patch did for Falco, most importantly, is give the character a neutral game, something he lacked since Brawl.
This is definitely the character people has been talking the most on Twitter rn, and is likely going to go to the high tiers from the look of things.
The second biggest winner of the patch.
Honestly, this tweet is all that needs to be said on what the developers did to Ike this patch.
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This man is back to the high tiers.
The third biggest winner of the patch. While he got no initial turnaround changes, the stuff he got instead is equally as insane.
The obvious stand-out is Raptor Boost. They buffed the living crap out of this move.
Connects much better, buffed its already great combo potential to the next dimension, and it's aerial hitbox is starting to match it's Brawl version.
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He also got some nice other toys too. Down tilt and up smash is now even stronger, and Falcon Kick got buffed again in both startup and power.
Dash attack is also safer to throw out due to its lower endlag, which also makes its low % combos more consistent.
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Overall, another likely character to rise into the high tiers.
The Pits is a big winner of this patch, likely the 4th biggest winner. This is by virtue of a lot of their kit getting some significant improvements. Down tilt is a big one. It received a similar to Falco's down tilt in that it's combo capabilities have been greatly improved. It is not going to be a new neutral tool for Pit like it will be for Falco, but it is a very nice tool regardless. However, the sauce happens when you look at up air. With faster startup, ACTUAL LEGITIMATE KO POWER, and less endlag, this is now an actual tool the Pits can use to great effect.
They can now also true combo down tilt into moves like into his newly buffed up air and up smash (albeit the latter is harder to pull off) to put the opponents into a bad position. Down tilt into up air is now a reliable KO confirm for the character that is easy to do. I have heard that down throw into up air can KO, but take that with a grain of salt.
Lucky also claims that up tilt into up air is now also a KO confirm. The character in general got the Sheik treatment of granting a character usually poor in getting KOs, new KO confirms, except that Pit's KO confirms is significantly easier to do and not that difficult to land.
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As someone who has played Pit since Brawl, I am really happy for what they did this patch. The only main thing they did in previous patches was to significantly shorten bair's landing lag, which is nice, but the buffs given from 8.0 are to areas that actually matter.
He is no metagame superstar by any means, as his hitboxes definitely still needs some touch ups, but things are definitely looking up for him this time.
Overall, there is a very possible chance that they rise to mid tier this patch, but we will wait and see.
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.
That isn't actually what occurred for SSF2 Pit. The first tier list of beta had him in high tier, but then he dropped off to the low tiers in the second tier list because the universal changes to multi-hits significantly harmed his punish game. However, various universal changes and direct buffs later on buffed Pit to the mid tiers in the third, current tier list (which is as of 1.1). In the current version of 1.2, current perception has him upper mid or lower high tier.
Dedede is another big winner of the patch. It doesn't seem like so on paper, but the things he obtained in this patch is pretty dang nice.
This usually comes down to the new variety of KO options that doesn't have a hundred years of startup and endlag, which is pretty significant. Up air now kill ridiculously early, and he has ways to confirm into it. It is not quite conventional like Falco's and Pit's new confirms, but it exists, while up air by itself is a dangerous juggling tool.
Inhale buffs pretty nice as well, as it gives Dedede a better way to deal with opponents on shield.
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FruitLoop pretty much described his changes quite well, so see his posts on it.
He may have potentially returned back to the mid tiers, but if not, then he is in a much better spot in the low tiers.
Bayo is a character I definitely underestimated when it came to the significance to her buffs. Unlike 3.1, where they kind of skim around the surface while not really doing too much, the buffs from 8.0 actually help out on some of her key weaknesses.
Up tilt, ladies and gentlemen, finally works as it should. They gave the move like 4 different changes to make sure it is consistent for real this time, with the bigger hitbox above her helping out with anti-airs. This, combined with the lower SDI multiplier on up B, helps out on her main combo strings, aka the main thing she should be good at, on being consistent. She is not going to be sending ones off the top like in SSB4, unless initiated near the top blastzone, but this is very nice on the character's stability.
Forward smash is MUCH stronger than it is before. It sucks that it still has the poor priority and blindspot, but at least you are properly rewarded for actually landing the move.
Finally, Heel Slide is noticeably faster to throw out. The kick upwards version of the move, in particular, has MUCH faster cooldown. Still very unsafe on shield, but it doesn't feel like it takes an eternity.
F-tilt has less cooldown, but that is whatever. Most Bayo players never use that move, even back in SSB4 where it had a Brawl Snake up tilt hitbox.
She, of course, still has stuff unaddressed, such as her poor KO power, inconsistent moves, and poor frame data, but she at the very least now properly excels in the areas she is supposed to be good at. As someone who plays her in both SSB4 and Ultimate, I can feel the difference.
In a similar vein to Dedede, she may have potentially risen out of the low tiers, but if not, she is in a much better spot in the low tiers.
Villager is the final huge winner of the patch, and definitely the biggest sleeper winner of it alongside Pit.
Up air and up smash KOs noticeably earlier and jab connects better. That is just a little taste of what he got.
One of his bigger buffs is to his up tilt, as thanks to the consistency buff and the intangibility to arms and head, he now a better anti-air option, and no longer has to deal with RNG up air or up smash randomly dropping for the sake of anti-airing people.
The second big buff is to down air, as its reduced startup may potentially restore the move's OoS potential it lost from SSB4 to Ultimate.
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The cooldown on the first two stage of Timber is hilariously low, to the point where Villager can act before the sapling even fully spawns.
Changes to axe help out too.
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The main important thing these changes do, outside of fixing some inconsistencies, is giving Villy tools to deal with the faster engine of Ultimate, which is something he has to deal with since the beginning the game. The character probably was at the lower mid tier previously, and while I don't think the character is going to suddenly rise to high tier like with fellow mid tiers Falco, Ike, and Falcon, he is in a noticeably better spot in the mid tiers.
Not as big, but still very notable winners: While Mewtwo's buffs aren't quite as impactful as what he got in the previous few updates, the stuff he ended up getting is very saucy.
Down throw is now a more reliable combo starter. Some people on Twitter says it may lead into a KO confirm into fair, but I probably need to be fact checked on that. Either way, nice change.
Back air now KOs absurdly early, at least in comparison to how it was before. Up air receiving a similar treatment is a bit of a double edged sword, as while it does more reliably KO, it may slightly harm a few combo strings, although I don't think it is that big of a deal.
However, his biggest changes come from Shadow Ball and Teleport. The former an already powerful neutral tool and projectile, deals more damage uncharged, and has less startup/endlag, aka the Lucario Aura Sphere change we wanted, but on Mewtwo. The latter is actually borderline disgusting, as it singlehandely makes Mewtwo hard to catch for non-super fast characters, especially on certain stages. This can also apply to escaping being ledgetrapped as well.
While Mewtwo's changes aren't as glamorous as in previous patches, it provides another layer of sauce to Mewtwo's already saucy moveset. The character is slowly, but surely, coming together now.
Despite being greatly buffed at patch 6.0, this character continues to receive more love. Although his degree of buffs are not as high as Dedede, they are still nice to behold, especially since Kirby was likely already at the upper end of low tier. While the changes he got are not as glamorous as 6.0, they are still very notable for the character.
All the moves they said they buff the KO power? Well, they have some absurd KO power now. This is also coupled with dash attack having less cooldown, and down smash getting its startup reduced, the latter of which also granting Kirby a new KO confirm.
KirbySquad's post in the previous page pretty much sums up these changes. While these character aren't that big on a surface level, especially in comparison to the other character listed above him, these are very nice regardless.
The tipper buffs provided this patch is pretty nice. The down smash change is honestly not that practical as far as I can tell, but the tipper increases to fair, bair, and up air are nice additions to the character. The bair tipper, in particular, is noticeably bigger, which is nice since you pretty much have only one use of the move before landing due to the turaround mechanic. As such, securing KOs and better damage got a bit better.
However, he still wet noodle sourspots to deal with, as well as an inconsistent Dancing Blade. So while Marth as a whole is more consistent, there are still some work to do.
Incineroar got some sauce this patch. The grappler aspect of the character got some pretty nice buffs thanks to the decreased startup to all of its grabs, including side B. They also made side B and up smash stronger, for some reason. Forward throw, definitely its lesser throw in its arsenal, now KOs at around 110-ish% at the ledge, which of course is even stronger if Revenge is added.
However, Revenge is arguably its biggest boon this patch. Its decreased cooldown has been further decreased from 6.0, and the effect from Revenge is even. Side B near the ledge, with a good Revenge stacked up, has the potential to KO at 0%. While it is a shame that they didn't fix the core issue of Revenge, namely losing all of its Revenge when grabbed, this is still a pretty notable buff to Incineroar's advantage, and to a lesser extent, neutral game.
With the character's core flaws not really getting addressed, I do expect Incineroar to remain in the low tiers, but his position in the low tiers should notably improve.
There is currently a lot of hype for this character thanks to 8.0. While the buffs are indeed helpful, and it probably Corrin's most impactful patch so far, I find myself once again a bit disappointed with the changes.
Forward smash getting a buff to the tip is nice, especially if you are good on whiff punishing the move. It is not huge, especially since the move still has some odd priority and a noodle sourspot, but the reward can potentially be devastating.
Arguably her biggest change is to her combo game, as down tilt's increased damage and up air's improved damage AND knockback, improves her damage output a notable amount. I found it kind of dumb that her frame 9 forward air only deals 7.5% by itself, so it is nice to see that she gets properly rewarded for actually landing the move.
Up air's new KO power is borderline disgusting, especially since it is already the move are going to use in terms of juggling.
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Oh, and back air is nice too.
Pin buffs are nice as well. The pin itself has less cooldown, which could be nice in niche edgeguarding situations. When I first read that change, I thought that it meant that the cooldown of the kicks decreased, but sadly no. The jump cancel having less cooldown is also nice, but the move in itself is niche. You almost always want to do the kicks, because the jump mixup is inherently read dependent. Her most significant change to pin is that the forward kick deals more knockback. This is nice, and is probably going to score Corrin's most significant KOs.
There is still a few more things about pin that is unfortunately still left unaddressed: the backwards kick still being very weak, the kicks still having high endlag, and the kick having a tendency to whiff for no reason despite pinning the opponent.
Regardless, these buffs are pretty nice, and someone who has played Corrin in both SSB4 and Ultimate, the character definitely feels a bit more consistent. Her KO power endured a very notable buff this patch, thanks to the stronger moves and better KO confirms.
However, a lot of the same issues/inconsistencies regarding her moveset still remain in this patch, and the patch did little to aid her poor disadvantage state and poor approach. Characters with good mobility and even at least a decent projectile still gives Corrin quite a lot of troubles. As such, while these buffs definitely do improve Corrin's standing in the lower tiers, and likely now outranks Mii Swordfighter in terms of the weakest swordie in the game, I don't think the buffs will be enough to move her out of the low tier, especially since fellow low tiers Pit, Dedede, and Bayonetta received far more significant buffs.
Other characters to note: Isabelle got some new toys to use, some of which is shared with Villager. She shares the buffed power of up air and lower startup of down air, both of which may grant Isabelle to potential new options. Her main buff, as far as I can tell, is to her up smash. It now starts up on frame 9 (at least the first hitbox on the ground), making it a solid OoS option now. Isabelle never really struggled too much with OoS unless the opponent has good range, but until now, she never really got much reward at all for using an OoS option. The up smash buff now allows her better apply the move in jab stun situations.
However, outside of these few nice additions to her toolkit, the patch did very little to address the issues regarding her incoherent moveset and attributes. It also especially hurts of the fact that Villager, who is already superior to Isabelle, received far more significant buffs as well. As such, while these buffs are nice and will slightly improve her position in low tiers, I feel like Isabelle kind of got the short end of the stick this patch (quite literally if you know what they did to Villy's up tilt).
K. Rool received a nice armor buff, which allow K. Rool to throw out moves a bit more willy-nilly without the fear of getting shield-broken. His most significant buff is that the armor on side B is stronger, now having a damage threshold of 12% instead of 8%, which means that reflected side B will no longer break armor.
I also found that down throw -> dash attack is now a viable KO option that can KO at decently low percents, thanks to buffed dash attack. Back throw KO'ing a bit earlier is also a nice option to use when given the opportunity. Whenever I play as K. Rool and back throw, I always get the feeling "oh, that should be a bit stronger", especially judging the animation.
However, despite these nice new tools, K. Rool's main critical issues of slow projectiles, sluggish mobility, lackluster disadvantage, and overall poor frame data still remains. As such, while I definitely did underestimate his buffs at first, and his position in lower tiers will definitely slightly improve, his unaddressed weaknesses will continue to drag him in lower tiers.
PPlant got some nice stuff this patch. This includes increased startup to several moves, such as up tilt, down smash, and forward air. Forward air's change is going to important for PPlant's neutral, while the up tilt change allows its combo potential to flow better.
Up air also a lot stronger, and is especially scary after landing an up tilt. The changes altogether give plant a few new confirms to work with, all of which are very nice additions.
Back air also got stronger for some reason, although power far from the main issue of this move, as its frame data has not been touched at all.
PPlant overall got a few new toys to play with, although in a similar vein to Isabelle and K. Rool, none its crippling frame data and hitbox issues got touched at all, so the character will remain in the low tiers, although its position in the low tiers is likely to be slightly better by virtue of at least getting something.
Wii Fit Trainer got a few new tools to play around with. Up smash's reduced startup, as well as fair's reduced endlag and landing lag, seems to be her biggest changes. Down tilt actually having good KO power also helps too.
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Still likely a mid tier, due to none of her main weaknesses not really getting touched upon, but these changes definitely help her not fall behind on the barrage of the insane buffs other mid tiers got.
Diddy's changes are odd. Diddy players will welcome the useful new range buffs. Range is definitely one of Diddys bigger flaws in the current moment, and to have dash attack, forward tilt, and forward air have more range is very nice. The forward air range buff in particular is the most significant, and probably the biggest change Diddy received as this is one of Diddy's biggest neutral tools.
The consistency changes to dash attack is very nice too, as this move has the tendency to never work 50% of the time.
Down smash startup buff is also a welcome addition, especially since this move is already decently strong for a down smash.
One of the bigger changes he received, on the other hand, is the removal of his infinite. Although the infinite is still an incredibly niche tool, it can completely erase a stock when it does happen, so this something the character will miss.
Regardless, I do think the overall patch is a net buff to Diddy. However, his change being more mixed bag than anything, combined with other mid tiers ranked below him such as Ike, Falco, and Falcon getting significant buffs, I think Diddy's place at the top end of mid tier will remain the same for 8.0.
MK got a few nice changes. Consistency changes to his moves is always welcome, as MK is one of the bigger suspects of Ultimate's universal issue of multi-hit inconsistencies. This, combined with fair's reduced endlag, helps out the character's neutral quite a bit. I have heard that one of MK's landing forward air confirms has been removed, but a new one involving fair 2 -> down smash has risen in its place.
His most significant buffs come from Tornado and Shuttle Loop, the former of which KOs more consistently thanks to the sweetspot's longer duration, and the latter got some of its SSB4 KO abilities restored by virtue of being much more consistent. The increased range of up B's second hit will definitely catch a lot of players sleeping.
Despite these buffs, a lot of MK remains the same. MK mains on Twitter is very divided on the change, some of them saying that they don't really feel the changes aside from the Tornado change, while others says that they definitely feel the changes and welcome it with open arms.
Likely going to remain in the lower mid/upper low tiers.
Now my thoughts on Min Min. This is a tricky character to pin down, and playing as her is going to take a while to get used to. Although my opinion of her has slightly soften since her reveal, she definitely has sauce in her moveset.
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The one that is back throw -> death isn't a true combo, but it is disgusting nevertheless.
Her rapid jab also deals so much damage for no reason.
In the end, time will tell how good the character is truly, but things are looking good so far. She seems to be at worse mid tier, which is nice considering how meh Ultimate's DLC characters are in terms of metagame impact (aside from Joker and Terry of course).
is the biggest outlier. He is the 20th most played character in tournament and he has a >50% win-rate. (In tournament) Ganon is not just king of FFAs and scary online, he's also scary in pools. Ganon in tournament pools has about the same representation and success rates as Pikachu. Ganon ceases to show results past a certain level, but that level seems to be around 0.02% of the Smash population; way higher than people talk. So who knows what they are going to do (or not do) with that.
For the record, Little Mac is similar to Ganon in this way, but much less extreme, and they have showed a willingness to buff him.
That is strange to me at first, because as far as I can tell, his talented playerbase has shrunk considerably from SSB4.
Then I looked at it in a different way: this is all mostly dependent on pools, and Ganondorf is the ultimate noob steamroller of the game alongside Hero. His presence in online tournaments have also recently increased, which makes sense since online is where Ganondorf makes his home in, which a likely reason behind Nintendo's unwillingness to buff him.
Some of the changes to Falco's Dtilt, Up Smash, Dair, and Falco Phantasm incidentally have brought them closer to what they were in the past games. Dtilt is a frame slower than its original frame 7 startup in Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4, but nevertheless, it's around that speed again. The hit angle change looking very vertical hilariously enough makes it closer to Melee Fox's Dtilt. Falco's Dtilt until now has had a 75 degree hit angle for all hitboxes while in Melee, Fox's Dtilt had hit angles of 70, 80, and 90. Not sure if the actual number is known, but it's probably 80 or higher.
Up Smash regained its active frames, hit and I-frames, from 1.1.4 Smash 4 where its second hit is active from frames 13-20 instead of 13-18. Connection-wise, closer to 1.1.4 Smash 4. Might still have connection issues.
Dair's lower total frames, thus, lower recovery frames, and lower landing lag put it closer to Smash 4 and Brawl, respectively. The total frames being reduced from 51, the same as it was in Smash 4, to 43, lowered its recovery frames to 20 frames. The entire move hits from frames 10-24 with the late hit starting on frame 15, so 43 (total frames) - 24 (last active frame) + 1 (first frame you can act on) = 20. That makes it 2 frames faster on recovery than Smash 4, 9 frames faster than Brawl, and 4 frames faster than Melee. For landing lag, it being reduced to 12 frames from 14 frames returns its Brawl's landing lag and makes it tie with Ultimate Luigi's.
Falco Phantasm on the ground had its total frames reduced to 50, the same as in Brawl. From startup to total frames, it the difference is larger since it is frame 13 on startup now compared to frame 18 in Melee and Smash 4 and frame 17 if that was correctly noted down in Brawl. The increased active frames does kind of make its recovery lower unless you consider it like a shoot and forget kind of move where you only care about when you can act again. In the air, its total frames is still 66 like in Smash 4. Can't imagine what it would have been if in the air its total frames was 59 like in Melee or even 50 like in Brawl and with the reduced startup the grounded version received.
early thoughts on minmin:
she is the first ever precision long distance character. she might be one of the hardest characters in the game to play up there with peach, ryu/ken, and a few others. she rewards methodical choices and isnt merely a rushdown or zoner. she is not mash friendly nor does she reward you for playing recklessly. i expect to see M2k give her a shot, dabuz to secondary her, and a few of the dying belmont mains to try her out.
Her MU with the characters that matter is gonna be rough imo. palutena, pikachu, inkling, game and watch and wolf/fox is gonna be rough for a variety of reasons. but minmin is a character that is gonna be difficult to random out in bracket with a weird character.
characters that give minmin major issues imo: pikachu, bayonetta, game and watch, palutena, spacies (including falco), and possibly zss
characters minmin will beat once optimized: all heavies (including snake), ROB (seriously this could be an awful MU long term), and FE (excluding robin)
She strikes me as another really hard to master character that will be tossed aside because why put in all the work when you have Palutena, Roy, Wolf, ZSS, etc.
I agree that Pit seems to be a very good character now. We'll have to wait and see how good (or rather wait and likely never see patch 8.0.0 played in any major tournament), but these are some very significant changes.
Pit's up air was my biggest gripe with the character. Why was it frame 12 on startup when it didn't even kill? It was the only move holding him back from having one of the absolute best juggle games of any character. With his new up air and other changes this patch, it might actually be the best. He has:
-Frame 7 disjointed dash attack for catching landings that bursts and can kill
-Frame 6 up smash with (buffed) kill power
-Easy platform pressure with neutral air and his new up air
-A frame 8 or 9 up air (if anyone knows the new startup please message me!) that auto-cancels from a short hop
-A disjointed frame 6 down tilt that low profiles and can catch landings
-Sufficient ground speed to tie this all together
Pit now truly excels at taking stage control. He was already pretty good at this before because of neutral air, an absurdly safe on shield all purpose move that grants him stage control on hit, either directly at higher %s or via combos at lower %s. Grab combos or neutral air spam (a real thing even in tournament play...) meant earning the stage, but his new down tilt gives him a safe ground option that does this as well, by consistently combo-ing into neutral air. Playing him this past day, it feels like I can take stage control from my opponents if they even breathe wrong. If only his ledge guarding were just a bit better...
With his combination of buffs from patch 8 and patch 4, Pit feels like a character with a strong neutral that can capitalize properly on stray hits from safe, fast moves. This is sort of a new thing for Pit, but think about it: his up and down tilts actually combo now, his down smash has been improved tremendously, and his up air may actually be a legitimate neutral option that sets up into his juggle game.
This isn't even getting into the buff to his Guardian Orbitars. They took off 10 frames of ending lag. This move could be incredible for landing and recovering, but I don't have a full opinion yet. Still, 10 frames...
Combined with some of his pre-existing strengths like his strong low % combo game, safety on shield with moves like neutral air and forward air, and his juggling and edge guarding, it seems possible that this could be the patch that puts it all together for him and puts him in at least mid tier. Maybe even higher.
I'm so glad they gave the orbitars a buff. That was always something that helped the Pits stand out, imo: they're the only characters in the game to have a second shield, and one that can be used in the air, at that!
I've been fighting lv9 CPU with all my characters to get a feel for the MU. Here are some observations:
Her punches clank with hitboxes. This is big. If she tries to punch you when recovering you can Fair it (or simply airdodge and recover low) and long lasting aerials like sex kicks are great landing options. aerial upB gives her an upward punch; this makes her surprisingly good on BF because she controls the platforms so well. Sex kicks beat this too. Bthrow's a kill throw. Her recovery is very susceptible to gimps.
Now lets talk about how my characters feel about the update.
Obviously anyone not buffed is a loser and will have worse MUs vs several characters. But how much is each character affected? got buffs last time so he's not feeling the power creep too hard. Bad MUs like Ike and Marth getting big buffs sucks for him though. As an early estamate, he probably goes even with Min Min. He's not happy but he'll be fine. hasn't ever received meaningful buffs, has he? Just a few minor things. He's been feeling the power creep for a long time now. Link probably has the best MU vs min of all my characters. Jumped, angled boomerang is really good, he wins at sword range and has an amazing landing game. So that's a crack of sunshine in cloudy skies. 's been dragged down to reasonable levels before from nerfs. He's feeling the power creep but at least they're done nerfing him. He's just sitting a little less easy at top tier. Like someone said, Wolf probably goes even with min. His disadvantage gets exploited although his sex kick Nair helps a lot. Min hates sex kicks. Blaster is transcendent and really good vs min as it's a bit faster and less awkward than her punches. a winner from some buffs that don't fix his issues but make him less underwhelming and more free to use armor. IMO he does well vs Min. Belly armor beats her laggy hit boxes and newly buffed crown's really good. got a minor buff that won't mater 95% of the time. He hates Min and a lot of characters around him got buffed much more. He is not happy. any way you look at it Ganon's a huge loser. Min is abysmally bad for him and everyone but him got significant buffs.
I feel Falco got buffs to his design, but he will probably lose to the same characters.
Ike literally has the same flaws, he is just a more fleshed out character.
Pit was already a character that could fight any character he was just mediocre. Now with overall more solid buttons and an actual kill confirm, I think he will have just enough juice to break into top tier. Falco might make it too though. I don't think Ike will.
Agreed regarding Ike. You either need to "cheat" to offset weaknesses or have few to no weaknesses to be top tier.
Ike's flaws regarding out of shield, offstage, and ground game were alleviated, but they are still very much flaws within his kit. Aether is still tough to land and DI would prevent the most egregious kill %s outside of Kalos and Town & City. Dtilt and dash attack can't carry his ground game, they are merely robust options now. Fair is only decent to good instead of bad now.
In terms of matchups, I imagine that his matchups against non-zoners have improved as he was known to lose to others within the FE cast. However, I don't think his matchups against zoners improve that much. Dash attack being more potent helps, but he only has "decent" burst options in the form of dash attack and quick draw. Ike has to work around those moves against equally potent projectile zoning games.
I already thought that lost convincingly to pre-patch. I think it will be around the same or worse for Ike.
Ike has yet to prove with results if he is actually high tier after these changes, so I'm waiting for that before discussing top tier. It looks promising, but it involves a series of subtle changes where we aren't too certain of the exact impact - From my perspective, that's currently the potency of platform tech chases and ledge trapping.
early thoughts on minmin:
she is the first ever precision long distance character. she might be one of the hardest characters in the game to play up there with peach, ryu/ken, and a few others. she rewards methodical choices and isnt merely a rushdown or zoner. she is not mash friendly nor does she reward you for playing recklessly. i expect to see M2k give her a shot, dabuz to secondary her, and a few of the dying belmont mains to try her out.
Her MU with the characters that matter is gonna be rough imo. palutena, pikachu, inkling, game and watch and wolf/fox is gonna be rough for a variety of reasons. but minmin is a character that is gonna be difficult to random out in bracket with a weird character.
characters that give minmin major issues imo: pikachu, bayonetta, game and watch, palutena, spacies (including falco), and possibly zss
characters minmin will beat once optimized: all heavies (including snake), ROB (seriously this could be an awful MU long term), and FE (excluding robin)
She can't really be punished for throwing out smash attacks at midrange with her smash attacks and her (big ball) bair is like, absurdly effective at killing people. Her (big ball) attacks in general give her ridiculous pressure, damage and KO potential. She's a crazy tether grab that has amazing pivot potential, and an easy 18% back throw so you absolutely don't want to be grabbed by her.
She definitely has a learning curve, but once you get past that she won't be that skill-intensive imo. Not sure I want to write off her Pikachu/G&W/etc matchup just yet, and I definitely think she has the potential of beating the **** out of Wolf and Fox, but we'll see.
I've faced min min a few times and the thing is she can surprise you. Trying to shield isn't a good idea and even if you dodge roll on the initial strike she can send out her other arm. This almost always threw me off as she wasn't ever vulnerable when I thought she was.
Her offstage game is disgusting, her dragon reaches from all the way across the stage and can be angled so she can unload that when there's nothing you can do because if you air dodge you fall out of recovery range on a significant chunk of the cast.
I thought you could duck under her arms attacks, turns out she can angle those down as well as up. No crawling under her attacks for you squirtle.
In short she's hard to pin down and read. And while beatable she'll give you one hell of a fight before she goes down.
Some of the changes to Falco's Dtilt, Up Smash, Dair, and Falco Phantasm incidentally have brought them closer to what they were in the past games. Dtilt is a frame slower than its original frame 7 startup in Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4, but nevertheless, it's around that speed again. The hit angle change looking very vertical hilariously enough makes it closer to Melee Fox's Dtilt. Falco's Dtilt until now has had a 75 degree hit angle for all hitboxes while in Melee, Fox's Dtilt had hit angles of 70, 80, and 90. Not sure if the actual number is known, but it's probably 80 or higher.
Up Smash regained its active frames, hit and I-frames, from 1.1.4 Smash 4 where its second hit is active from frames 13-20 instead of 13-18. Connection-wise, closer to 1.1.4 Smash 4. Might still have connection issues.
Dair's lower total frames, thus, lower recovery frames, and lower landing lag put it closer to Smash 4 and Brawl, respectively. The total frames being reduced from 51, the same as it was in Smash 4, to 43, lowered its recovery frames to 20 frames. The entire move hits from frames 10-24 with the late hit starting on frame 15, so 43 (total frames) - 24 (last active frame) + 1 (first frame you can act on) = 20. That makes it 2 frames faster on recovery than Smash 4, 9 frames faster than Brawl, and 4 frames faster than Melee. For landing lag, it being reduced to 12 frames from 14 frames returns its Brawl's landing lag and makes it tie with Ultimate Luigi's.
Falco Phantasm on the ground had its total frames reduced to 50, the same as in Brawl. From startup to total frames, it the difference is larger since it is frame 13 on startup now compared to frame 18 in Melee and Smash 4 and frame 17 if that was correctly noted down in Brawl. The increased active frames does kind of make its recovery lower unless you consider it like a shoot and forget kind of move where you only care about when you can act again. In the air, its total frames is still 66 like in Smash 4. Can't imagine what it would have been if in the air its total frames was 59 like in Melee or even 50 like in Brawl and with the reduced startup the grounded version received.
It's like they took some of the better parts of Brawl and S4, and incorporated them into Ult.
One minor note, Falco Phantasm has the same total frames as the grounded version - if you land on the ground. If you do it off stage, you will have a total of 66 frames. The aerial version has slower startup, but it makes for a safer, better combo tool. The grounded version is just a stupid good burst option now.
So, if you do the instant aerial Phantasm, you will still benefit from drastically reduced endlag, despite slower startup.
Her offstage game is disgusting, her dragon reaches from all the way across the stage and can be angled so she can unload that when there's nothing you can do because if you air dodge you fall out of recovery range on a significant chunk of the cast.
.
She can't really be punished for throwing out smash attacks at midrange with her smash attacks and her (big ball) bair is like, absurdly effective at killing people. Her (big ball) attacks in general give her ridiculous pressure, damage and KO potential. She's a crazy tether grab that has amazing pivot potential, and an easy 18% back throw so you absolutely don't want to be grabbed by her.
She definitely has a learning curve, but once you get past that she won't be that skill-intensive imo. Not sure I want to write off her Pikachu/G&W/etc matchup just yet, and I definitely think she has the potential of beating the **** out of Wolf and Fox, but we'll see.
skill-intensive doesnt just mean a character has hard to execute combos, techs, or inputs. skill-intensive also can mean playing a character that will not cover your mistakes by covering the opponent in frame data.
Minmin is about precision. if you miss an opportunity to anti-air or air to air to maintain your space it is gonna hurt. im not thinking about now im thinking about months down the line because i don't care about day 1 metas they aren't permanent nor are they an indication of what true skill will look like.
i have the spacies and pikachu as a rough mu for her because as fast fallers and fast movers overall they test that precision required to play her effectively IMO. bayonetta comes at her in weird angles that everyone still has issues properly covering consistently, and is just a nightmare thanks to explosive flame and general speed.
I know this might sounds stupid, but I'm not really seeing the issue. And Always wondered that when thinking about Smashville.
How it is a big deal to have a Hazard off and Hazard on ruleset. Isn't that literally 1 press or 2 to do more? Are we speedrunning Tournaments now?
Like, players just do their ban, and if it land on smashville or hypothetically FoD, just switch ruleset in like 10 seconds
I know this might sounds stupid, but I'm not really seeing the issue. And Always wondered that when thinking about Smashville.
How it is a big deal to have a Hazard off and Hazard on ruleset. Isn't that literally 1 press or 2 to do more? Are we speedrunning Tournaments now?
Like, players just do their ban, and if it land on smashville or hypothetically FoD, just switch ruleset in like 10 seconds
Problem is, the toggle is hidden behind a couple screens (you'd be selecting a different ruleset for HOn or HOff) and would be possible to forget which was chosen. You're into your match on Kalos, suddenly the stage changes, you realize you messed up. Now you have to SD out of your match and go change it. Not only does that waste time when tournaments already often run over-schedule, but now both players are starting the next game with info on the other player's playstyle. Which could end up swaying how the rest of the set plays out.
Problem is, the toggle is hidden behind a couple screens (you'd be selecting a different ruleset for HOn or HOff) and would be possible to forget which was chosen. You're into your match on Kalos, suddenly the stage changes, you realize you messed up. Now you have to SD out of your match and go change it. Not only does that waste time when tournaments already often run over-schedule, but now both players are starting the next game with info on the other player's playstyle. Which could end up swaying how the rest of the set plays out.
So basically potential human's stupidity is the issue? Not any others big reasons?
I find it sad to lock options out for scenarios that might not always happens, and if they do happens, "c'est la vie". But I guess I'm just too chill to understand that, even in tournament-
I know this might sounds stupid, but I'm not really seeing the issue. And Always wondered that when thinking about Smashville.
How it is a big deal to have a Hazard off and Hazard on ruleset. Isn't that literally 1 press or 2 to do more? Are we speedrunning Tournaments now?
Like, players just do their ban, and if it land on smashville or hypothetically FoD, just switch ruleset in like 10 seconds
In tournaments some people use pro controllers are are supposed to disconnect them after their match. I can't begin to tell you how much time is wasted because people don't remember to disconnect them. Then you have to find the joycons, enter the home menu and manually sync each controller.
My point is: in a perfect world toggling hazards wouldn't be an issue. But in the real world people cannot follow simple instructions. It would cause a ton of exiting games to have to switch between hazards on and off.
And tournaments take a long time; I've been to tournaments that lasted well past midnight and that's nothing. We only get like 130 entrees. Imagine how long ones with thousands of people take.
You need everything to be as simple and streamlined as possible. It's just easier to not have the extra menuing. :/
You'd also have to go check the ruleset before almost every set, because you wouldn't know if HOn or HOff had been chosen prior. I guess it wouldn't matter if you started on Battlefield or Final Destination, but for the other stages...
You'd also have to go check the ruleset before almost every set, because you wouldn't know if HOn or HOff had been chosen prior. I guess it wouldn't matter if you started on Battlefield or Final Destination, but for the other stages...
i commend you for diving into this cesspool. but the fact is conservative fear-based arguments always win the stage arguments they have for every smash game ever. its truly a shame that we have access to incredible stage variety and we have in fact the worst competitive list in any game ever. its the biggest disappointment in this game and it really contributes to some character viability.
I don't have much to say about the t-jolt thing, except for that looks a little useful I guess, but I still see that matchup being awful for Falcon.
As for the (very rough) matchup chart, it reminds me a lot of the matchup chart Fataility put out right after Falcon was buffed the last time which was incredibly optimistic (compared one that followed) so I feel like this should be taken with a grain of salt.
While 's changes seem good, I have trouble seeing matchups like and being even, even with Falcon's buffs.
I do agree (at least currently) with his opinion of the / matchup being even or winning, Min Min seems to struggle a lot against fast characters and has a terrible disadvantage which Falcon can exploit fairly well.
Come to think of it, you're probably right. I forgot that existed. The chance of forgetting to look at it, though, rather than just autopilot-picking the stage, is probably something that would happen.
All things considered, that isn't too hard to miss. Especially when you're so used to that screen. Really don't know why they made changing stuff like that so convoluted in this game when before you could change rules rather handily from the fighter select menu. Then again, past games would also save your fighter after matches.
Oh so close. Turning with Wario's Bike still causes frame drops
Tbh if this is the only thing that causes lag the I would argue for FOD to be legal anyway. Nobody uses Bike Turnaround and its super punishable even in lag.
