Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Ajani]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Komo made a Tier list.


Red = Very strong

Yellow = Strong

Green = A bit strong

Blue = Normal

Purple = Lacking

Pink = IDK

Interesting things

1. Shulk and Greninja top 5

2. Bowser Jr high tier?

3. Young Link is lower then expected

4. Marth a Whole tier below Lucina. Actually he think's Marthcina as a whole is not that great.

5. Toon link is that far down when he's doing very well right now in Japan?

6. Falcon Bottom tier

Because I am new, can you tell me who Komo is?

Its a intersting tier list.

Weird question for those who main , does his side b true combo into a dtilt? Or is there something I am missing. If it is a true combo, it would seem odd to place him so low.

 

[webbedspace]

https://www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Komorikiri

 

[NotLiquid]

I need to see more Japanese players because putting Greninja in top tier seems like a big think emoji

 

[adom4]

Because I am new, can you tell me who Komo is?

Its a intersting tier list.

Weird question for those who main , does his side b true combo into a dtilt? Or is there something I am missing. If it is a true combo, it would seem odd to place him so low.

Side-B can confirm into D-tilt and iDA on everyone if they miss the tech and combos into F-tilt on almost everyone.

 

[The_Bookworm]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Komo made a Tier list.


Red = Very strong

Yellow = Strong

Green = A bit strong

Blue = Normal

Purple = Lacking

Pink = IDK

Interesting things

1. Shulk and Greninja top 5

2. Bowser Jr high tier?

3. Young Link is lower then expected

4. Marth a Whole tier below Lucina. Actually he think's Marthcina as a whole is not that great.

5. Toon link is that far down when he's doing very well right now in Japan?

6. Falcon Bottom tier

Some questionable, yet fascinating placements. The Jr. placement in particular is interesting. I personally think that he is underrated, but not THAT underrated. Want to know what he thinks.

The Falcon placement is also very interesting. I think Falcon is really strong and a sleeper-pick in this game, but he may be suffering from Sam-itus, where everyone plays him like in SSB4, without regarding that he plays much differently in this game than in any of his previous appearances (as highlighted by Fatality).


Also, this might be the first ever footage of someone in Japan putting DPit over Pit. Kinda interested also why he put DSamus over Samus as well (particularly why the noticeable tier gap between them).

 

[Lavani]

Also, this might be the first ever footage of someone in Japan putting DPit over Pit. Kinda interested also why he put DSamus over Samus as well (particularly why the noticeable tier gap between them).

The "tier gap" is due to komo using a site that lists characters alphabetically

 

[Augi]

Puppet chars are either irrelevant or polarizing, really no in between.

Icies are kinda whack rn. Nana dies way too easily. Once Nana is gone you might as well SD to get her back. Popo is useless alone. Unless u can get their insane reward combos quickly and consistently they seem pretty bad.

I've always felt they should just be treated as one character, incapable of being separated. One solid hitbox for both that just looks like two people. Sure you'd lose desync, but at least your partner would never die.

Not sure if the trade off is worth it, but at least they wouldn't be subjected to the Puppet nerfing hammer. I mean, just look at poor, useless, abysmally awful Rosalina.

A change like that would never happen, but it's interesting to think about...

I still think the Icies kit is fun to play with. Freezing people at the edge and watching them fall to their death is very satisfying.

 

[J0eyboi]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Komo made a Tier list.

The thing I find most interesting is that Pokemon Trainer wasn't ranked, but the Pokemon were.

Shulk being top 5 isn't really surprising when you consider that Japan has Kome.

Falcon being bottom tier is weird, but seems like the result of lacking character knowledge more than anything, especially because Falcon was put below Brawler, who's basically just a worse version of himself.

 

[Untouch]

Japanese tier list are commonly influenced by certain players doing really well with unorthodox characters, which explains Shulk and Greninja.
It doesn't explain Jr. though, I'd like to know why he thinks he's that good, even with the tiers not being in order.

 

[Rizen]

Japanese tier lists are a good reminder of how strong personal bias can be (not saying that other regions can't be too). At this point results are skewed towards popularity and people aren't playing the game properly so they look off too (although probably the closest to accurate with some glaring errors). If I posted a tier list there's no reason it would be any better. The game's too fresh and seemingly well balanced. The best anyone can do is speculation currently.
One thing I've noticed is the overall power level is higher but the top tier power level is closer to mid tier than in SSB4. Outrageous characters like Bayo, Cloud, Sheik and Diddy were all toned down. SSBU top tiers like Pichu have some sort of balancing weakness, in Pichu's case he dies to the drop of a hat. This gives mid tiers better viability, at least for now.

 

[Gérard Majax]

Well its unordered, it only means Komo doesn't think Bowser Jr is bottom 15 (which he could very well be, his metagame has room to grow considering how trash and unpopular he was in 4).
Interesting tier list overall, always fun to look at the japanese point of view. Falcon bottom 3 is obviously debatable (below K Rool smh, at least falcon has a functional gameplan). Did the japanese play much falcon in Smash 4? I don't recall seeing any, and character fidelity/popularity probably still weighs a lot in a 1 month game with 70+ characters.
Samus in mid is intriguing, so is TLink in low Tier while link is in high. Also Snake in mid, G&W in mid, marth in low.

 

[Rizen]

Can Chrom combo into his kamikaze upB like he does twice here? That's disgusting. I wonder why Chrom isn't used more.

 

[Superyoshiom]

Because I am new, can you tell me who Komo is?

Its a intersting tier list.

Weird question for those who main , does his side b true combo into a dtilt? Or is there something I am missing. If it is a true combo, it would seem odd to place him so low.

Iirc Komo was a really good Cloud player in 4, and I think he had an extremely good DK but I could Ben mixing him up with someone else.

Also about the Ganon thing, I’m pretty sure you can tech the landing from the side b but since I’m pretty new I’m not too sure

 

[NotLiquid]

Komorikiri had a laundry list of Smash 4 pocket characters but the two characters he was most known for were Cloud and Sonic. KEN basically picked up the mantle when he dropped the latter. Don't think he ever had a DK though, Hikaru is the most notable DK from that region.

 

[J0eyboi]

Iirc Komo was a really good Cloud player in 4, and I think he had an extremely good DK but I could Ben mixing him up with someone else.

You're thinking of Tweek.

 

[Ajani]

Side-B can confirm into D-tilt and iDA on everyone if they miss the tech and combos into F-tilt on almost everyone.

Is anyone able to link or explain to what the "tech" terminology is referencing to?

 

[Lavani]

Is anyone able to link or explain to what the "tech" terminology is referencing to?

https://www.ssbwiki.com/Tech

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm gonna level with you guys. I . . . . I don't think Komo is far off the money with the Greninja placement.

I know it sounds kinda crazy, and I'm probably not the least biased person to be making this claim. But in SSBU, they pretty much nerfed all of Greninja's top predators and then gave him Fox's S4 dash attack.

Greninja got to keep pretty much everything that made him good in S4 and got a couple goodies on top of that. Not to mention that his main weakness is notably (but not completely) less relevant than it was in the previous game. And tbh . . . I dont think he's very hard in this game. But then again, I've solo mained Greninja for about three years now, so maybe I'm wrong.

Greninja just seems kinda . . . busted? Or maybe I talk to Venia too much and I've let him infect my brain like the rest of tristate lmao.

 

[Rizen]

I'm gonna level with you guys. I . . . . I don't think Komo is far off the money with the Greninja placement.

I know it sounds kinda crazy, and I'm probably not the least biased person to be making this claim. But in SSBU, they pretty much nerfed all of Greninja's top predators and then gave him Fox's S4 dash attack.

Greninja got to keep pretty much everything that made him good in S4 and got a couple goodies on top of that. Not to mention that his main weakness is notably (but not completely) less relevant than it was in the previous game. And tbh . . . I dont think he's very hard in this game. But then again, I've solo mained Greninja for about three years now, so maybe I'm wrong.

Greninja just seems kinda . . . busted? Or maybe I talk to Venia too much and I've let him infect my brain like the rest of tristate lmao.

Are there good Greninjas I should look up? I haven't seen many of them.

 

[Y2Kay]

Are there good Greninjas I should look up? I haven't seen many of them.

Venia, Lea, iStud, Akashic Sword, and Dr Copter are the most active rn. Haven't seen Some, yochan, or Tasty Tofu play in tourney yet but they're also good rn too.

 

[Cheryl~]

Are there good Greninjas I should look up? I haven't seen many of them.

Venia and Lea are probably the two best Greninjas around right now, there’s a couple of their sets on YouTube floating around. Lea has notably won many online Japanese tournaments and Venia has also already won a tournament beating players like Light.

 

[MartinAW4]

I need to see more Japanese players because putting Greninja in top tier seems like a big think emoji

They have Lea there, the best Greninja in the world who has been winning quite a few tournaments with him. He even 3-0ed Shuton, the winner of the first Japanese major.

This just goes to show you how influential results are on people's tier list perceptions.

I do think they are overrating Greninja in Japan though. But then again they were underrating him in the west until recently when people started to realize that he is actually really good. Just not top 3 in the game good.

But from Smash 4 he got pretty much just buffs and most of them were quite significant:
- raw kill power got significantly buffed, especially on Fair (stronger than pre-patch 3DS Greninja's now), Fsmash, Shadow Sneak and Bair
- more consistent combos and kill confirms (can now kill confirm from 6 different moves, all of which are good in neutral)
- Substitute going from worst counter in the game to one of the absolute best
- his great mobility, low profile and forced low reliance on shield ever since Smash 4 (due to terrible OoS options) synergizes perfectly with the new engine
- using tilts out of a dash is Greninja's dream come true with Dtilt being his best kill confirm and Utilt following closely after
- strong recovery, which he can mix up with different angles, water push back, Shadow Sneak and Substitute
Also the removal of footstool combos was a blessing in disguise since they were never consistent vs good opponents and often got them punished for it. The best Greninjas almost never used them in practice. Now he got much better Jab lock setups which even if teched do not get you punished.

Still, being such a mobility based character with slow and very precise aerials who cannot punish well out of shield makes him very hard to pick up. Which is why you pretty much either see him solo mained or not used at all. And these key weaknesses are what's keeping him from being top tier himself in my opinion.

 

[Vincent21]

To expand on the thing, Side B in general is an absolute joy for me to use and land now in this game, because getting that scenario is so rewarding, and I think its rewarding enough to merit discussion.

Consider the following:

You get a Side B as Ganon succesfully. What happens now?

Well, you can pretty much collect ftilt/dtilt for free in this scenario. That plus the SideB itself is really good % racking. Additionally, like every move except his jab, those are kill moves. This isn’t a true kill confirm because of the possible tech, but I mean its astoundingly close.

But now lets talk about tech chasing and/or reading options here. If you read a roll or get up attack correctly, they just died at 45~60. A succesful read/tech chase on this move means getting one of Ganon’s new and improved sword smashes on somebody. Usmash on the roll behind you, one step backwards then reverse fsmash against the get up attack in front of you, chasing their roll away from you with your massive hitbox on fsmash, or just covering an entire platform with a smash. The common theme between all of these punishes is that if ganon has touched you so much as 2-3 times this stock, YOU DIE TO THEM. He does like 20% a hit.

But... his recovery is still Ganon, and so is his speed tier, so this doesn’t exactly give him a ticket out of low tier. But basically, Smokk made me believe, so I picked the character up myself. And now that I realize I and anyone off the street willing to practice can claim random stocks at like sub-60 even against good players on just a single mistake or single succesful read post-SideB, I gotta say.

Don’t sleep on the Warlock. Having stock lead for half the game won’t save you if three touches even that out on their own.

 

[ReVerbIsSuperb]

Are there good Greninjas I should look up? I haven't seen many of them.

I keep this regularly updated playlist of notable Greninja sets in the Greninja Discord but might as well share it here since you asked. Has sets from Venia, iStudying, Akashic, Stroder, etc: SSBU Greninja Singles Playlist

As for Japanese Greninja players, they all seem to be doing quite well right now. Lea been prospering within the online ladder scene at the moment (Currently Ranked #4) so we'll see how he does offline as he has registered for Umebura SP 2.

As for the others such as Oisiitofu, he recently got 5/314 as Solo Greninja at Sumabato SP 1. Shiki and Rattsu still play the character as well. Somé I haven't seen compete but I also am not sure if he plans to solo Inkling or dual-main with Greninja in tournament yet so I'll wait and see. Would be interesting to see some of them start to travel more often; both Japanese and U.S. Greninja players.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Y2Kay]

I think as of right now, Greninja's strongest Checks are characters with comparable ground mobility with strong air to air normals such as Palutena and Inklings. But I'm not sure if they really win the matchup though, because Greninja ground game, while under utilized, is honestly better than those characters. Greninja has better AA normals than them in Up Tilt and Up smash. Greninja forward tilt has great range and good kill power, dash attack is fast, crosses up shields, and his consistenly great reward on hit, and his down tilt, while being strong for all the reasons MartinAW4 mentioned is also plus on block.

 

[Rizen]

I watched Venia and agree 's looking like a high tier.

On the subject of , aside from his abysmal recovery my issue is he lacks upward attacks for platform pressure and anti-airs. Utilt is still a joke at frame60, Usmash is f20 and SH Uair is still 11 frames. I find my Ganon SH>Bairing repetitively to cover platforms. Ganon needs a decent Utilt.

 

[Emblem Lord]

People should focus less on solo mains and more on a strong shell of characters that can be rotated to counter pick.

Lucina/Palutena/Snake

Solid trio that should let you cover any match.

That is just an example.

 

[Nate1080]

People should focus less on solo mains and more on a strong shell of characters that can be rotated to counter pick.

Lucina/Palutena/Snake

Solid trio that should let you cover any match.

That is just an example.

Basically everyone has to be a pokemon trainer in a sense?

I agree that people should focus less on solo maining. There’s way too many match ups (with more on the way) to solo main effectively in this Smash imo. I bet money that even down the line the eventual best player with the eventual character in this game, will have to have at least a secondary to cover a few match ups.

 

[NotLiquid]

People should focus less on solo mains and more on a strong shell of characters that can be rotated to counter pick.

Lucina/Palutena/Snake

Solid trio that should let you cover any match.

That is just an example.

On the topic of Snake I kind of feel he's gonna be way too high maintenance for people to employ for purely counterpick purposes. That's probably why I feel players like MVD and Ally are ahead of the curve right now, master that character and you've mastered the art of 4D chess.

Personally I use Inkling and Palutena for serious games at the moment but don't have much in the way of a third character yet, outside of Incineroar and Snake for casual matchups.

 

[Rizen]

How do you feel about ? He looks good but not as good as SSB4 but IDK much about him.

 

[MapleBeasts]

How do you feel about ? He looks good but not as good as SSB4 but IDK much about him.

He's not as good so far as he was in Sm4sh. Hoo-hah was nerfed and will not kill unless it's at absurdly high percents and jet pack vertical distance got absolutely gutted. Bananas are still good for stage control and ledge traps and he can still combo decently but he will die early just because of how awful jetpack is. I am not kidding when I say he's going to be gimp food at high level play. Overall power level being higher for the entire cast in the game is bad news for him. I'd say he's mid tier.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Japanese tier lists are a good reminder of how strong personal bias can be (not saying that other regions can't be too). At this point results are skewed towards popularity and people aren't playing the game properly so they look off too (although probably the closest to accurate with some glaring errors). If I posted a tier list there's no reason it would be any better. The game's too fresh and seemingly well balanced. The best anyone can do is speculation currently.
One thing I've noticed is the overall power level is higher but the top tier power level is closer to mid tier than in SSB4. Outrageous characters like Bayo, Cloud, Sheik and Diddy were all toned down. SSBU top tiers like Pichu have some sort of balancing weakness, in Pichu's case he dies to the drop of a hat. This gives mid tiers better viability, at least for now.

Idk about the other characters, but bayo is something else atm loooool. Someone would have to pay me to play that garbage.

People should focus less on solo mains and more on a strong shell of characters that can be rotated to counter pick.

Lucina/Palutena/Snake

Solid trio that should let you cover any match.

That is just an example.

This seems more like a early game strat, and having to hinge on the power of ignorance to do stuff. Though, acquring MU knowledge is a hard thing, spreading yourself among a few characters kinda limits your ability to make them flexible. Characters need time to be broken down to become clay.

Do you trust in your ability to be good in a few characters vs someone who will be great in one?

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

Idk about the other characters, but bayo is something else atm loooool. Someone would have to pay me to play that garbage.



This seems more like a early game strat, and having to hinge on the power of ignorance to do stuff. Though, acquring MU knowledge is a hard thing, spreading yourself among a few characters kinda limits your ability to make them flexible. Characters need time to be broken down to become clay.

Do you trust in your ability to be good in a few characters vs someone who will be great in one?

Yes, absolutely...unless that one character is Peach/Daisy right now. I cannot fight them well with anybody, personally. My own fault. But for most currently common matchups, I'm finding certain counter-picks make the match far easier. The problem though is that people can counter-counter pick if they have to after losing a round, and that's really scary if you don't have total faith in each of your characters.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I keep hearing people say that this games roster size will force more counterpicks, but I'm not sure I really but that. Smash 4 also had a massive roster as well and people solo-mained characters just fine. In fact I think having secondaries in this game will be even less important because most matchups don't seem as heavily skewed as they all used to be. I mean, the slow and heavy Ike should theoretically struggle against zoners really badly at yet we just saw MKLeo manage to take out Salem's Link without having to switch to a rushdown character. Ike is combo food and has bad recovery yet he managed to go pretty even and win with a combo-heavy, turnip sniping Peach in Grand Finals. Most characters can play around their weaknesses and come out on top of a bad match up, it just takes a little extra work.

I'd say that like in most Smash games, counterpicks will only be "needed" for characters with heavily polarizing weaknesses. Not to say that I don't think counterpicking won't be viable for players with strong fundamentals who are willing to put in the extra work but I'll be very shocked if the meta turns into a game of competitive Pokémon where everything revolves around counterpicking.

 

[trickroom]

Coming back to Komorikiri's tier list, I actually really like it. I of course have issues with it but I think it's one of the more agreeable ones that good players have come out with so far.

The most immediate change I would make would be to copy about half of his high tier (namely Inklings, Fox, Cloud, Palu, Roy Pichu) and paste it into the top tier, but I think it properly deals with most characters as we can tell right now. It's the first one that I think accurately places ROB -- as a high-mid character. Placing ROB above mid tier is shortsighted, if you ask me, and ignores the fact that all of his classic weaknesses are still there.

I'm also glad that it appreciates Duck Hunt as a solid midtier -- a lot of people have seen so little of DH that they've been putting him in low tier, but DH is literally the exact same as Sm4sh (i.e. a high tier going off of results) with QoL buffs that benefit him well like smash attacks that work and an ability to act out of his upb.

I am pissed that he placed Diddy below mid-tier though. In my opinion, anyone who thinks Diddy is worse than high-tier is in denial. I'll say it again: you can't have the ability to throw a banana in neutral + a good throw combo game + that forward air and be bad.

I don't know what he's thinking with Game and Watch's placement either. This character has been gutted hard, and has a tough time with a lot of things, not to mention how hard the power creep, if you will, has hurt him. All in all though, I think if you look past the specific outliers this list will age well and shows that a prescient and smart mind for the game made it. I'm curious if he's on to something by putting Ike in that big-ass high/mid tier of his as well.

 

[Rizen]

This is out of the blue but I predict 's results will drop a little. The reasoning is he doesn't have good kill setups. He has to fish for relatively laggy Bairs, smashes and DAs. The game's new and people are running into a lot more attacks than they will with more experience. Wolf's still a good character but imo he's working off inexperience. Plus he's popular for returning.

 

[MG_3989]

I think having at least one character you feel comfortable enough with to go to as a secondary if for whatever reason your main has an awful matchup with your opponent or your opponent historically does well against your main or if you’re just not feeling it with your main on a given day is a good idea. Having 2 or 3 characters you can play at a high enough level to compete with seems ideal

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

People should focus less on solo mains and more on a strong shell of characters that can be rotated to counter pick.

Lucina/Palutena/Snake

Solid trio that should let you cover any match.

That is just an example.

Eh I kinda feel like you should solo main until you find a MU that's really dreadful. I think learning your character and your MUs is a bit more difficult considering the cast.

 

[MG_3989]

Eh I kinda feel like you should solo main until you find a MU that's really dreadful. I think learning your character and your MUs is a bit more difficult considering the cast.

I mean I already know Ness like the back of my hand. Of course I don’t know all of his MUs in this game yet but I know him as a character. I haven’t run into any horrendous MUs but I’m still thinking about putting some time into another character just because I think it’ll be good in the long run to have the versitility and I don’t think it’ll damage my game with Ness

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

I mean I already know Ness like the back of my hand. Of course I don’t know all of his MUs in this game yet but I know him as a character. I haven’t run into any horrendous MUs but I’m still thinking about putting some time into another character just because I think it’ll be good in the long run to have the versitility and I don’t think it’ll damage my game with Ness

I think that's exactly my mindset. I already have Roy down as a character, and everything else I need is just practicing fundamentals. I don't think playing Wolf, Falco, Inkling, Ridley, PKMN Trainer, etc. will hurt my Roy game. I've played him in four games now for like 15 years