Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

Corrin is a sword character; she doesn't "need" to get in, but rather control space and look for opportunities to get punishes in. That was the whole point of moves like Pin, which is an extremely punishing mid-range tool, but the problem with Corrin was that after she built up the damage, she extremely struggled at actually finishing her opponents off. It's true that Corrin suffers against faster characters, but that's by design. And no, the things that made her bottom 5 have absolutely addressed lmao. Her abysmal recovery (it's still mediocre, but not untenably bad at launch), her punish game being significantly stronger (Fair now converts into high damage combos and even kill setups) and her raw KO ability (fsmash charge change, pin kick killing 18% earlier~, uair KO buff and some non-gimmicky kill setups being added to her kit) absolutely address Corrin's primary flaw of being utterly redundant by other sword characters. Harping on stuff like Side B occasionally whiffing feels like missing the forest for the trees imo.

She is indeed a sword character.
A sword character that is not really mobile enough to always take advantage of said spacing tools, having lackluster grounded mobility, and while she has merely below average air speed, her air acceleration is also very lackluster.
Lets compare to say... , another not very mobile sword character. His air acceleration is just as poor as Corrin's, and his run speed and initial dash is slightly slower than her's. However, he possesses noticeably better air speed, which allows him to take better advantage of his aerials despite all (except for back air) being slightly slower, has longer reach on most of his normals (obvious exception is forward smash), more consistent hitboxes (Corrin's nair hitbox can be finicky), and stronger burst options like dash attack.

Now of course, Corrin does have her own advantages. Pin is one, being a punishing mid-range tool that comes out fast if done right. However, Pin remains to be a very committal tool, as its frame data issues has not been touched this patch. There is the fact that Pin's jump got a frame data buff, but that option is still very committal, especially since it puts Corrin above the opponent. Fortunately the reward for landing pin has improved, and I will give you that.

There is also, of course, frame data, which between her and Ike is a mixed bag. Most of Corrin's grounded normals is faster than Ike's, such f-tilt (frame 8 vs frame 12), up tilt (frame 7 vs frame 11), and down tilt (frame 5 vs frame 7). However, they usually come at the cost of having reduced range, with up tilt being very difficult to land on grounded opponents, although her down tilt is a notable advantage she has over Ike.
However, Ike's jab is frame 4: tied for the fastest sword character jab in the game alongside Byleth, Robin, Pit, Cloud, and YLink.
Corrin's is frame 5, with the move's hitbox not even fully coming out on that frame.

I am not saying that Ike simply straight up outclasses Corrin, but the point is that most of her moveset is built to be somewhat similar to that of the Marthlings, with moves that on paper has the ability to nicely control space and punish opponents actions, but her attributes makes it hard to do this consistently.

At the very least, a lack of KOing was what separated Ultimate Corrin from her "distance demon" disjointed peers. Corrin's other advantages were a tough value proposition when anyone you could compare him/her to just plain gets to kill people in fairly straightforward/accessible ways.

Except Corrin does not play like a "distance demon" at all. The only button she has that has "distance demon" properties is forward smash. The rest of her buttons is reminiscent of sword characters like the Marthlings. The Belmonts is the first true "distance demon".


That is another main thing about Corrin, she has trouble figuring out what she is supposed to be, which despite her much better consistent KO power, is still something she has issues with.
A lot of her buttons presents nice spacing tools akin to the Marthlings, but she lacks the attributes to really back this up.
Her moves also feels like an awkward middle ground between Marthling and Ike/Shulk buttons, with moves that feel just a bit too slow to function similarly to Marthling buttons (which is combined with the aforementioned attribute issues). Her mobility and playstyle seems to lead to an Ike/Shulk route. While her KO power issues has been mostly alleviated this patch (which is something I admittedly underestimated myself), her buttons still feel too weak and short reached enough to take an Ike/Shulk buttons route.

She is stuck on a awkward hybrid where her moves has properties of both sets of buttons, but her moves does not excel in any of those areas, as the properties of those two sets of buttons oppose eachother.
She suffered this issue in SSB4 as well, until people discovered how absurdly broken her pin was in that game.

So how is she supposed to play?
Her buttons are somewhat respectable in speed, so she could theoretically play out a bait-and-punish playstyle like the Marthlings, but her attributes and some areas of her frame data prevent her from taking full advantage of this.
Her buttons are mostly faster than Ike's and Shulk's while possessing respectable range, so she can play in a playstyle more akin to them, but her buttons are not quite long reached and powerful enough to take full advantage of this despite the buffs, as well as losing out on some key advantages Ike's and Shulk's buttons provide.
She cannot play a "distance demon" playstyle either, as her buttons and playstyle does not function like one at all. Don't let forward smash fool you!

Now the main move, aside from back air, that separates her from the other swordies is the pin. It is fast. It can now kill better. It has mixups. However, it is also very risky, as the cooldown of the move makes it easily punishable. So while it is a distinct advantage, unlike the neutral defining tool it was in SSB4, its advantages are not quite big enough to make her that distinct. It also doesn't help that her other special moves aside from up B is also a shell of their former selves, with neutral B being a lackluster projectile that doesn't even properly connect to the bite half of the time, and down B having below-average power for a counter but lacking the horizontal reach of most other counters.

This pretty much sums why I think Corrin is still a lackluster character in the metagame despite her KO'ing issues being, for the most part, addressed.

has also suffered from a lack of identity for a while. He is a swordie that plays like a typical all-rounder like Mario. Now while there are quite a bit of stuff he fundamentally has, such as an overall solid frame data, good grounded mobility, great edgeguarding thanks to arrows, multi-hit aerials, and the ability to go deep offstage, and an overall very solid recovery.
Now we all know the Pit issues: lack of damage output, rather poor hitboxes, difficulty KO'ing, hard time landing, and lack of a single outstanding button.

Now lets take a look at his buffs in comparison, as the stuff he got in 8.0, which nicely compounds with the stuff he got in 4.0, addresses numerous different things at once with the character.
His KO ability, while not being fully fixed, has been made a lot better thanks to down tilt's new confirms, up tilt's confirms from 4.0, the KO power buffs from up smash, down smash (in both 4.0 and 8.0), and up air, which helps out with the fact he still retains his strong edgeguarding game.
He now has better than average buttons thanks to the big improvements to certain moves like down tilt, up air, and back air (in 4.0).
His damage output, while far from the worse thing about him, wasn't too great before, but it has been improved thanks to the changes to up tilt and down tilt.
His juggling is now better thanks to the change to up air, while retaining the multiple jumps.
His areas of disadvantage, such as getting of ledge and landing, received a notable buff this patch thanks to the changes to his Orbitars in 8.0. It was previously a gimmick tool, especially back in the early Ultimate metagame, but the option has been made much more reliable by reducing it's endlag by 5 frames. It has also received a stealth change akin to the Dedede's Inhale buff against projectiles, in that the time minimum amount of time they have to be help upon activation is also shorter by 5 frames, which means that that the Orbitars minimum time is short enough in that the much less likely to hit Pit after blocking one move with the Orbitars, and slower moves like Ike's up air can outright get punished.

This leads to another important difference between his and Corrin's buffs. This is all compounded with the already solid stuff Pit already has but cannot take advantage of prior to now. Solid ground speed, strong edgeguarding, good neutral game, etc. It is a lot of extra spices to an overall alright moveset and solid attributes, while fixing some weaknesses.
All of this, of course, also applies with , but it also mixed with a stronger neutral tool with his arrows and a usually stronger KO option with his side B.

I'd say the worst swordfighter currently is a close call between and . Both of them have their merits, but honestly, the both get indirectly nerfed by the buffs to characters like and others.

Mii Swordfighter is faster than Byleth, especially in the air, his zoning tools are better, he's slightly heavier giving him better survivability, but gets outranged much easier, his recovery is worse (no matter which specials he's using), and (depending on which set of customs he's using) can have trouble finding a kill sometimes.

Meanwhile, Byleth is one of the slowest characters in the game and has incredibly mediocre frame data on most of her (or his) moves as well. Byleth's defensive game (while good) is not all that better than Swordfighter's if he's using Chakram, Gale Tornado, and/or Hero's spin up-b (as an OOS option). Byleth does have better edgeguarding and recovery than Swordfighter though. It's worth noting that both characters have an amazing juggling game.

I'm personally leaning towards being worse, especially post patch. In a game where speed matters, Mii Swordfighter not only can move faster than her, but he often dies later too due to his additional weight. He's more susceptible to being edgeguarded, but his weight makes it harder for him to be edgeguarded at early percents. His zoning game is better, he has better kill confirms, his juggling game is just as good as Byleth's (maybe better) and while he does struggle with getting outranged, he still has ways to approach with projectiles or tack on damage from a distance against a larger chunk of the cast.

Aside from having a projectile game and a strong juggle game, there nothing has that is better than any other sword character.

His range is very lackluster, especially for a sword character. The only other sword character that comes to mind that has worse reach than it is YLink, but YLink has drastically faster frame data, better mobility on the ground, and a much better combo game.

However, there are other sword characters have short sword reach as well, such as YLink, MK, and Roy, and their reach is compensated by having pretty dang good frame data and mobility. Clearly that applies to Mii Swordfighter as well right?

No.
Well no, aside from having pretty good air speed, but we will see that is countered by other issues in its air game.

Its frame data is surprisingly lackluster for not having much reach. Some cruel developer decided to make its jab come out on frame 6. That is one frame slower than Marthcina's, Chroy's, and TLink's jab, two frames slower than Pit's, Ike's, Byleth's, Robin's, Cloud's, and YLink's jab, and only two frames faster than Link's jab. However, IT IS ONE FRAME SLOWER THAN IT'S OWN DOWN TILT.
The frame data on some of it's other moves are also not very good, with its forward tilt coming out on frame 10 (which is slower than the Corrin and Byleth variants), and all of it's aerials have 10+ frames of startup, with its neutral air not even starting on front of it and forward air's multihits not being very reliable, with landing lag not worth writing home about, which are the main things holding back its air game. His other moves is either having too little reach and/or too weak. Its up tilt is one frame faster than Byleth's, but it less safe on block and it covers less reach around.
Its down tilt is the main standout move, as it is frame 5 and other only move outside of up air that has respectable reach.

Now the main thing that separates it and other sword characters is having a solid set of projectiles, as well as a reflector that can answer back on opposing projectiles. Due to its lackluster normals, it finds itself using these projectiles quite a bit.
However, those said projectiles have its own issues. Gale Strike has 20 frames startup, the projectile travels slowly, and is easily punishable on whiff or block.
Chakram is easily its best projectile, as it can anti-air, travels fast, and the short version can lead into combos. However, only one can be out at a time, and blocking it will cause it to stick to the ground, unable to throw out another one until it takes it sweet time to despawn.

Now lets compare a strong aspect both possess: their up airs are pretty dang good. Mii Swordfighter's is frame 11, active for frames 11-23 (first 3 frames is sweetspot), and the sweetspot KOs well.
However, Byleth's up air not only a league above it, but it might be the single best up air in the game. It starts up on frame 10, has pretty good KO power, and is covers significantly more above Byleth than it does for Mii Swordfighter. It is also active for frames 10-23, one more frame active on top of the range it has, and the beginning hits are multi-hits that lead into the final hit, making it significantly less reliant on timing.

I would also argue that Byleth has Mii Swordfighter beat in the KO'ing department. While Mii Swordfighter has more moves that lead into KO options, those said death combo starters (the aforementioned projectiles) are quite tricky to land if the opponent knows that matchups. And if those options cannot land, Mii Swordfighter's KO options are actually very limited and weak. Byleth's better raw KO power, strong whiff punish tools, and his own selection KO confirms (like down tilt into up air, and up B shenanigans) allows Byleth to secure KOs better than Swordfighter.

Something that Mii Swordfighter undoubtedly does have above Byleth is mobility. Mii Swordighter's grounded mobility is mediocre, but it is better than Byleth's, while it's aerial mobility is significantly better than Byleth's, and actually better than most other sword characters.

However, that being said, there is something thing to note:
does not play like a traditional sword character. He is a "distance demon" character in a similar vein to and , and his frame data, while not spectacular by any means, is actually solid for the kind of playstyle he plays. While his poor mobility limits him indeed, it is not as bad as other characters with poor mobility thanks to his moveset and his playstyle.
is also somewhat unique in the type of sword character it is, relying on projectiles more often than others, but its poor frame data and mobility hurts it in it's playstyle more than it does to Byleth, especially with it's lack of range. Why play Mii Swordfighter when you can play Young Link? He has an even better projectile game, has his own share of KO confirms, and has much better frame data to boot.

I actually Byleth is in the lower mid tiers, and not in the discussion for worst sword character. I think Corrin, Hero, and Swordfighter is in a bigger discussion for it. However, Hero has his spell shenedigans that can help him out in niche matchups, while Corrin's standing in the lower tiers got much better than to the buffs to her KO power. Mii Swordfighter continues to stagnate in the meantime both metagame-wise and patch-wise.

Something to note is that Byleth's results prior to the quarantine isn't too amazing either, but he was released less than two months prior to the switch to online.

 

[SwagGuy99]

its hard for me to have an opinion on min min because i cannot tell if the minmin player or minmin's opponents would benefit more from an offline environment.

i do think bayo crushes her though. batwithin is a real issue for her to deal with on her high commital zoning and at half screen, she has to respect the 50-50 of heelslide or jump abk. guessing wrong can yield 50 percent. and witch time threatens minmin in neutral more than any other character in the game

offstage bayo has a bad time due to not ledge snapping. but i dont like to assume disadvantage state when looking at Mus. so i dont wiegh that as heavily as neutral.

Overall seems very polarizing, in a similar way to , just not as bad of a character because the way her kit is designed allows her to actually play the game against some characters.

I've fought her as a lot over the last few days and I'm fairly confident that Bowser wins the matchup. Getting in can be a struggle if you aren't patient and offstage can be hard to navigate, especially if you don't have your double jump, but Min Min is lackluster in pretty much every area of the matchup.

Her kill options are fairly lackluster against Bowser overall. Most of her stronger kill options (her various f-smash variations) are slow, reactable, and their range is fairly linear meaning that if you don't position yourself directly in front of or behind her, she will have trouble hitting you with it. Another move of hers that can kill, up-air, won't kill until above 160% - 170% unless you are already near the top blastzone. The last one she has, up-smash, I've lived against at percents past 150% when it was unstaled and slightly charged. While its uses as a reflector are niche in the matchup as she can use it against fire breath onstage if she really wants, as a kill move, it's not great. She also has back-throw but her grab is incredibly punishable, and it still won't kill Bowser until around 150%.

The other big weakness she has is the openings she leaves whenever she attacks. The openings for most moves aren't huge, but jumping around, playing on platforms, staying out of her range, and just being patient allows for you to find windows in which to punish with a n-air, f-air, side-b, grab, up-b, or d-smash a lot of the time. Spotdodge cancelled down-smash and up-b are also things I've found myself using frequently against Min Min (especially if she tries to use her grab) and it is effective as long as you wait for the right opening.

I do think I underestimated her offstage game initially since it's more obvious to me now that she's harder to edgeguard if she recovers low, but there are a lot of situations where you can still hit her with a f-air or b-air offstage safely or just wait for her to reach the ledge and ledgetrap her.

Finally, her ledgetrapping and edgeguarding, despite being very safe and good, are hard for her to initiate against Bowser for two reasons. The first reason is that if you are staying out of range for her stronger attacks, she lacks options to force you offstage until higher percents. While her back throw is arguably her safest option for getting you offstage at lower to mid percents, using her grab is still risky because spot-dodge cancel down-smash and up-b exist. Secondly, Bowser's air speed and up-b height are just good enough that there are times where you can avoid being edgeguarded if you conserve your double jump and try to recover high.

I really think Bowser could end up being one of Min Min's worst matchups. His weight and survivability give him time to adapt, read habits, and his punish game on Min Min is arguably one of the best, while her punish game on him is somewhat lackluster.

 

[Kiligar]

Despite my sadness at the Miis not being buffed again (if there are any characters which should be good it’s the Miis, they represent the largest range of franchises in the roster, with countless characters who didn’t actually get in the game getting a chance to shine through them, Viridi, Tails, Knuckles, Sans, Vault Boy, that Assasin’s Creed looking costume idk you get the point), despite that > any day. Byleth arrow is an ok projectile, I mean it exists and can be used to condition the opponent. Whereas chakram is a contender for the best projectile in the game, up there with t jolt and Zelda phantom. All you have to do is face a Mii Swordfighter who knows how to use the projectile which is surprisingly nuanced and complex and you understand. Unfortunately the Miis are rare, and good Mii players are the rare among the rare. Chakram destroys poor recoveries, it’s not funny to try to recover with a recovery like Chroys against Chakram. It is great in the neutral and also had kill confirms when ledgetrapping. It’s nice to use to prevent edgegaurds when you’re offstage. Guys, remember Mii Swordfighter is NOT a swordfighter, Mii Swordfighter is a zoner with some moves which have small “disjoints”. People have already covered how Mii Swordfighter is faster than Byleth in basically every way, as well as heavier. Mii Swordfighter also has better frame data than Byleth. Despite how good Byleth Uair is Mii Swordfighter’s Uair is no joke, I’m pretty sure it KOs earlier than Byleth’s and is faster. Mii Swordfighter has a reflector which has a busted strong damage multiplier;being reflected by that reflector is not like Mario cape at all, in fact this reflector is like Mario cape+. Now at the end of the day Mii Swordfighter is falling of hard due to Nintendo neglecting the Miis which is frustrating to me due to the above reason at the start of this post, yet the character is still better than Byleth.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I guess I'm back to say something about Dedede. Ready? Here goes!

...

In all due candor, I got nothing; I can't really speak for the broader meta atm (not a lot of us can, granted, but still). A lot of Dedede's MUs have gotten either a smidge worse or a smidge better by my reckoning. This of course sounds like a big ass nothing sandwich because, well, it kind of is. I'm not trying to be dismissive of his buffs (thank God, finally), it's just...he's still a fundamentally flawed character that struggles against a lot of characters, a problem that can be summed up as simply as "he's gotta land the freaking hit." His neutral still leaves something to be desired. I'll leave this paragraph on a positive note, however. Of all the buffs he got (aside from the stealth F-Smash fix), Inhale is pretty fricking sweet. It now doesn't feel quite like a move that you reduce to half a gimmick like, say, Jet Hammer; it's actually a viable tool.

I'll admit, I'm also kinda grasping at straws here because it's so, so hard to guesstimate where these changes are gonna fall thanks to the rise of WiFi.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Thinkaman]

I do think I underestimated her offstage game initially since it's more obvious to me now that she's harder to edgeguard if she recovers low, but there are a lot of situations where you can still hit her with a f-air or b-air offstage safely or just wait for her to reach the ledge and ledgetrap her.

Fun mixup--Min Min has such a bias towards recovering low in many situations, that dair can be a great way to get down there.

 

[NotLiquid]

There is no way the Bowser MU is anything less than even for Min Min. As much as she has a problem with blind spot coverage, Bowser's large frame makes it a complete non-issue against liberal Ramram usage which, despite its overall weakness, does not get undone by his Tough Guy armor, and if she doesn't opt to jump out to contest air engagements (of which her precise hitboxes in regards to any other ARM followups are basically a moot issue in the context of a big body character) her anti-airs are already good enough at intercepting him given Bowser's air speed/accel averages out to pretty much just okay. Most of Bowser's fastest options to punish are also equally as committal as any of Min Min's. The fact that Bowser is one of those characters who should be dead 90% of the time once Min Min gets him off stage only exacerbates the issue tenfold.

Like most MUs, the assumption that Min Min loses something is wholly dependent on how much damage she sustains when put into a disadvantage state but people largely neglect the part of the equation where she doesn't let you put her into that state, and how you're liable to get robbed off your stock the moment you get forced off.

The one thing I see bringing this MU to an even situation is if Bowser takes Min Min to a triplat, which is also why a Min Min player will most likely ban this stage at every turn.

 

[Alicorn]

Most of Bowser's fastest options to punish are also equally as committal as any of Min Min's. The fact that Bowser is one of those characters who should be dead 90% of the time once Min Min gets him off stage only exacerbates the issue tenfold.

Incinroar gets cancelled hard by Min Min. Min Min couldn't ask for more in an easy win. Her play style makes Revenge useless, and Incinroar is basically dead off stage.

 

[Gleam]

I think it's be rather said well, with Min-Min, you're either winning, or you're losing, there is no in between. I don't recall if its been mentioned but with the aspect of having a relatively weak recovery, one thing I've noticed many times is that "Arm Hook" won't always snap to the ledge. You've got to be at the right distance at the right space to make it work. It may be rare but missing a ledge snap can be the difference between life and a stock.

Hang from the ledge on Battlefield and drop straight down and try to recover. Good chance is, Min-Min will just miss that initial snap and needs to do it a second time. This also means creating a strange issue where your placement won't necessarily create the reach of the hook necessary. By that I mean, in some cases Min-Min can recover very low, her hook reaching out far enough as a tether usually does. Other times though, it just does the normal animation, animation that will at times miss the ledge and at the point, you're pretty much screwed.

I find it hard to believe its intentional and could very well be patched out soon. But it's an issue I think will heavily neglect Min-Min in the long run if not addressed later.

 

[Arthur97]

Yeah, calling the Bowser MU as a clear win for him this early may be a bit premature. Especially if you're experienced with Bowser compared to your opponent's lack of Min Min experience.

 

[Nah]

Hang from the ledge on Battlefield and drop straight down and try to recover. Good chance is, Min-Min will just miss that initial snap and needs to do it a second time. This also means creating a strange issue where your placement won't necessarily create the reach of the hook necessary. By that I mean, in some cases Min-Min can recover very low, her hook reaching out far enough as a tether usually does. Other times though, it just does the normal animation, animation that will at times miss the ledge and at the point, you're pretty much screwed.

I find it hard to believe its intentional and could very well be patched out soon. But it's an issue I think will heavily neglect Min-Min in the long run if not addressed later.

It might not even be a Min Min specific thing. I've had times as Byleth where I've been very close to the bottom blast zone and the Sword of the Creator will somehow reach all the way up to the ledge and grab it, and then have times where I will be closer, but then the sword will extend and just go "lol nope *****, u ded".

But I don't know if this is just how tethers act in this game for whatever reason or if it effects all tethers or what though.

 

[PK Gaming]

Random thoughts:

-Falco is high tier, minimum. The character's ability to convert to high damage combos is frankly disgusting, and he can actually KO now.
-Min Min completely stomps King. K Rool. SH Bair (mega watt) is just way too effective against him, especially when he's on ledge. It's not hard to get some licks in via Ram Ram either.
-Incineroar... why did they buff this character
-I'm still not impressed by Pit

 

[The_Bookworm]

I think it's be rather said well, with Min-Min, you're either winning, or you're losing, there is no in between. I don't recall if its been mentioned but with the aspect of having a relatively weak recovery, one thing I've noticed many times is that "Arm Hook" won't always snap to the ledge. You've got to be at the right distance at the right space to make it work. It may be rare but missing a ledge snap can be the difference between life and a stock.

Hang from the ledge on Battlefield and drop straight down and try to recover. Good chance is, Min-Min will just miss that initial snap and needs to do it a second time. This also means creating a strange issue where your placement won't necessarily create the reach of the hook necessary. By that I mean, in some cases Min-Min can recover very low, her hook reaching out far enough as a tether usually does. Other times though, it just does the normal animation, animation that will at times miss the ledge and at the point, you're pretty much screwed.

I find it hard to believe its intentional and could very well be patched out soon. But it's an issue I think will heavily neglect Min-Min in the long run if not addressed later.

Min Min has been a surprisingly buggy character so far.
The most notable glitch being a final flash glitch that sometimes makes Min Min be stuck with her arm stretched out.
I have seen an instance where she randomly t-poses.

It makes sense since a lot of her development happened during quarantine and the developers are at home when developing her.
This will be fixed soon.
However, none of Byleth's numerous up B glitches/exploits got fixed, as both the DK 0-death and Shulk instantly breaking free both haven't been fixed, so that up into interpretation if it will be fixed or not.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this is off topic, but I have been reminiscing on the old SSB4 custom moves craziness. During my days of playing SSB4 3DS, I have been fooling around with custom moves for a long time, trying out different combinations. It was pretty fun to play with, although it is obvious on why they are banned after the first year of the game (pain of unlocking them, too much variance, & some absurd moves).

At the same time, for the past year, I have been watching a lot of other FGC games go around. Something that interests me is the MKX/MK11 variation system: the ability to have most of the character's base moves, but also change around special moves in order for a very different gameplay experience with the same character.

This is where I wonder: what if SSB4 had the variation system, using the custom moves already in the game?
It would be three variations, the first one being all the default moves, and the 2nd & 3rd ones be filled in by the other custom moves.
If this was a thing, there would theoretically be no need to unlock them, as they would be unlocked from the start.
This would also fix the variance issue, as there would be three moveset sets to worry about per character.

Now I know that there was an "Official Custom Moveset Project", but in hindsight, is was both too varied and too messy.

Custom moves as a whole, in SSB4, had huge missed potential. It could've been something big for the evolution of Smash Bros as a whole, but they missed the mark. They could've potentially capitalized on it in Ultimate, by fixing a lot of aforementioned issues with it, but instead it is only relegated to the Mii Fighters, which is fine since it is just three characters and the moves are all given from the start.

Now these are all "what it?" thoughts, but would any of you be interested in me creating a thread on capitalizing on these thoughts, thinking about what it could've been, on every character including both SSB4 & Ultimate Miis?

 

[Aaron1997]

Current Tier List, SOMEWHAT ORDERED pic.twitter.com/H0WDqfEw6N

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) July 6, 2020

Dabuz's tier list is uhhh interesting

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Current Tier List, SOMEWHAT ORDERED pic.twitter.com/H0WDqfEw6N

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) July 6, 2020

Dabuz's tier list is uhhh interesting

Yeah...
That's enough Smash for today.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Current Tier List, SOMEWHAT ORDERED pic.twitter.com/H0WDqfEw6N

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) July 6, 2020

Dabuz's tier list is uhhh interesting

Is interesting a code word for "bad?"

 

[sleepy_Nex]

she still has some horrific MU in snake, palutena, and pikachu but she wont be drowned in frame data by a huge portion of the cast now.

Can you elaborate why you think Palu is a Horrific mu? If i look at the matchup-charts on that reddit post here https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/fgqncm/ultimatematchup_chart_compilation_v3/ then i can see that especially bayomains put it at even while palu's put it mostly between even to +1 for palu. That seems a bit odd.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Is interesting a code word for "bad?"

You can kinda see how well a tier-list is made by looking at the comments.
There are of course some comments saying the tier-list is bad everytime but here it's a really big amount of negative comments.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Was fighting a Ness CPU as Banjo, down throw up tilt seemed like it flat-out didn't work. Maybe Ness is really short when he gets buried but still (Ness was at 170 so even with CPUs being dummy good at mashing, I don't think that was the problem here). Nintendo please give Banjo some of that QoL love.

 

[Untouch]

idk what fantasy land dabuz lives in, but olimar and kirby on the same tier sounds like paradise (because no one would play olimar then)

 

[StrangeKitten]

idk what fantasy land dabuz lives in, but olimar and kirby on the same tier sounds like paradise (because no one would play olimar then)

And in what world is Zelda bottom tier? She was pretty decent, then 7.0.0 buffed her further. Don't see how she's not mid, maybe even upper mid

 

[VodkaHaze]

If it's ordered left-to-right, it gets even worse. Lucario is the second worst in the game? Wario is #1? Kirby is better than Ken, Samus and Duck Hunt? There's hot takes, and then there's takes that miss the mark by a light year.

 

[Lacrimosa]

And in what world is Zelda bottom tier? She was pretty decent, then 7.0.0 buffed her further. Don't see how she's not mid, maybe even upper mid

If you know Dabuz, then he said that he can't really play her the way he thinks she should be working. At least these are the vibes I got from him when he tried her after 7.0.0.
Personally I agree....She should be buffed .

 

[StrangeKitten]

If it's ordered left-to-right, it gets even worse. Lucario is the second worst in the game? Wario is #1? Kirby is better than Ken, Samus and Duck Hunt? There's hot takes, and then there's takes that miss the mark by a light year.

It says "somewhat ordered" so... who is ordered? Who isn't? Goodness this is a clusterf*** of a tier list lmao. I think Waft is overtuned as hell, and I still wouldn't call Wario the best character in the game. I'm at least assuming Dabuz thinks Wario's the best character, because top tier would probably be ordered? But "somewhat ordered" leaves room for doubt.

Also yeah, Zelda could probably stand to get QoL changes & buffs.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Among the chaos that is Dabuz's tier list, two characters are sticking out to me like a sore thumb. and .

I have no idea how they are that low. has strong matchups against several top tiers and most of high tier, has a solid kit, and while I understand that he's hard to play, I have no idea why Dabuz thinks power creep has affected him this much. Sure, and maybe and do better against him now after the last two patches, but that's only a few characters. There's no way that knocks him down two tiers from Dabuz's previous tier list.

Same with . His matchups have remained relatively unchanged during these last two patches other than and . His winning matchups are still winning or even, and his losing ones are still losing. I get it, this character has seemingly obvious counterplay and is exploitable, but just because he can be exploited doesn't mean it's easy for players to exploit him or that every character can exploit him well. At the very least, he should be in upper mid tier, but I'd still say high tier because I'd say his matchup spread overall and against top tier is good enough for him to be that high.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Was fighting a Ness CPU as Banjo, down throw up tilt seemed like it flat-out didn't work. Maybe Ness is really short when he gets buried but still (Ness was at 170 so even with CPUs being dummy good at mashing, I don't think that was the problem here). Nintendo please give Banjo some of that QoL love.

Yes! Banjo is a lot of fun to play as, and is my best character/main. But yeah, he needs a lot of tweaking.

 

[StrangeKitten]

The #1 PGR'd player who resides in California mains . I doubt Elegant would be freaking #1 with a bottom 10 character, and in a highly competitive state at that. I think Luigi lacks that special something to be a top tier, but the lowest I see him is upper mid. Dabuz I love ya but wtf are you smoking?

 

[DougEfresh]

Was fighting a Ness CPU as Banjo, down throw up tilt seemed like it flat-out didn't work. Maybe Ness is really short when he gets buried but still (Ness was at 170 so even with CPUs being dummy good at mashing, I don't think that was the problem here). Nintendo please give Banjo some of that QoL love.

Agree that dthrow should be at least a marginally better bury so that his 50/50s are more consistent at/after certain % ranges, but Ness and some other characters require you to use dsmash rather than usmash for the no mash or delayed mash option (not sure if that was the case here or if even at 170, the Ness CPU was still able to get away from utilt before it came out, in which case it really does need a buff lmao) as a result of being very short. Sometimes walking forward slightly can help utilt connect better, but then you risk losing those few frames that allow utilt to actually land if they mash. And ask Nintendo to reduce landing lag on nair and bair and make dtilt faster while you're at it, eh?

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Min Min frame data and hitboxes are up if anyone hasn’t seen them yet. She has some good hitboxes and intangiblity in areas it matters. Her ARMS surprisingly aren’t as big as i imagined and her vulnerability changes a lot depending on if she whiffs or the move gets blocked. It’s going to be quite interesting when developing counter play for other characters on how to abuse this knowledge.

https://ultimateframedata.com/minmin.php

 

[Thinkaman]

Wario being promoted by theorycraft over his usage is neither new nor all that disconnected from results. You have perhaps 2 of the top 5 players maining him, and other top players are known to dabble? His low general usage is easily explained (he's a very niche playstyle, takes a lot of work to optimize, has a very obnoxious character personality and appearance), and he doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Contrast with Pikachu's usage, results, and top representation.

Dabuz's list isn't too weird, just quite opinionated on the bottom third--and what else is new.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Min Min frame data and hitboxes are up if anyone hasn’t seen them yet. She has some good hitboxes and intangiblity in areas it matters. Her ARMS surprisingly aren’t as big as i imagined and her vulnerability changes a lot depending on if she whiffs or the move gets blocked. It’s going to be quite interesting when developing counter play for other characters on how to abuse this knowledge.

https://ultimateframedata.com/minmin.php

I am not going to lie, some of her hitboxes, particularly the kick moves, have some "DLC" hitboxes written over them.
The hitboxes of moves like her jabs, up smash, and down air are very big judging from the animations.
I do admit that the arms' hitboxes aren't as big as imagined, but are still pretty go.

Something I saw is that despite her up smash starting up on frame 7, it seems that the move reflects one frame earlier at frame 6, and the reflection detection duration lasts until the up smash hitbox is over (frame 15), in which Min Min amusingly already has her legs above her.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Shameless plug, but the thread I mentioned I would create is up now
https://smashboards.com/threads/wha...riation-system-using-its-custom-moves.506028/

 

[StrangeKitten]

I am not going to lie, some of her hitboxes, particularly the kick moves, have some "DLC" hitboxes written over them.
The hitboxes of moves like her jabs, up smash, and down air are very big judging from the animations.
I do admit that the arms' hitboxes aren't as big as imagined, but are still pretty go.

Something I saw is that despite her up smash starting up on frame 7, it seems that the move reflects one frame earlier at frame 6, and the reflection detection duration lasts until the up smash hitbox is over (frame 15), in which Min Min amusingly already has her legs above her.

Min Min in Smash is the ARMS sequel we've been waiting for: LEGS

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Among the chaos that is Dabuz's tier list, two characters are sticking out to me like a sore thumb. and .

I have no idea how they are that low. has strong matchups against several top tiers and most of high tier, has a solid kit, and while I understand that he's hard to play, I have no idea why Dabuz thinks power creep has affected him this much. Sure, and maybe and do better against him now after the last two patches, but that's only a few characters. There's no way that knocks him down two tiers from Dabuz's previous tier list.

Same with . His matchups have remained relatively unchanged during these last two patches other than and . His winning matchups are still winning or even, and his losing ones are still losing. I get it, this character has seemingly obvious counterplay and is exploitable, but just because he can be exploited doesn't mean it's easy for players to exploit him or that every character can exploit him well. At the very least, he should be in upper mid tier, but I'd still say high tier because I'd say his matchup spread overall and against top tier is good enough for him to be that high.

I think and could end up suffering due to the power creep of many low-mid tiers getting buffed in 8.0. Not as bad as say who are facing bottom-tier status, but it noticeable . Many of the buffs in 8.0.0 were characters kill power or options getting buffed and when your who already dies early of one mistake or punish, that can be a bit of a problem. fate is a bit mroe uncertain. I can imagine he has a miserable time vs where it plays similatly to the MU. Yes Luigi can body them once he gets advatage, but they have just about every tool to make him getting in an eternal struggle. Plus he is pretty much a goner once he is offstage.

Of course a poor MU vs a the new DLC character does not instantly lower you on the tier list , but as you mentioned many other characters that were buffed in 8.0 can be a bit tougher for him, and I will ad and possibly to that list as well. A characters tier placement is not just dependant on top-tier character matchups

All that being said however, I still do not thimk either of them are low tier by a longshot

 

[Thinkaman]

Realistically, at the level of balance we have, substitution effects are a far bigger factor to usage and representation than matchup dynamics. (Marth was the extreme showcase of this.)

The only matchup dynamic that probably manifests in a meaningful way is Lucario hating kill options with the fury of 1000 suns. (Maybe Terry a bit too?) Whereas Little Mac does not give 1% of a crap.

 

[B_Burg]

Realistically, at the level of balance we have, substitution effects are a far bigger factor to usage and representation than matchup dynamics. (Marth was the extreme showcase of this.)

The only matchup dynamic that probably manifests in a meaningful way is Lucario hating kill options with the fury of 1000 suns. (Maybe Terry a bit too?) Whereas Little Mac does not give 1% of a crap.

I'm sorry, this is probably gonna sound dumb, but I'm a little mind flooded at the moment so I'm having trouble fully understanding what this means.

To clarify, are you saying that things like people switching to secondaries is having more of an effect on what characters are being used, as opposed to people directly counterpicking characters they think win a matchup even if they aren't as good with that character as they would be with secondaries they actually put time into?

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm sorry, this is probably gonna sound dumb, but I'm a little mind flooded at the moment so I'm having trouble fully understanding what this means.

To clarify, are you saying that things like people switching to secondaries is having more of an effect on what characters are being used, as opposed to people directly counterpicking characters they think win a matchup even if they aren't as good with that character as they would be with secondaries they actually put time into?

The hypothesis is that power creep is a lot less of a thing you can observe and quantify in Ultimate, ergo evaluating character favorability in terms of MU spreads is a lot less of a reliable science. This is a stark contrast to a game like Brawl where 50% of the meta was essentially formed by "how can your character handle Meta Knight", whereas the other 50% was "how can your character handle Ice Climbers".

That manifests itself in some overt ways and some not so overt. Thinkaman presumably brings up Marth because looking at it in broad terms, the character is actually pretty good. 90% of what makes Lucina good is still preserved with Marth. The problem is that 10%, which stands as a notable blemish that plummets a hypothetical "good" character into the pit of irrelevancy because another character does not have to worry about that 10%. Marth is good, way better than plenty of low-tiers on the cast, but in the court of public opinion he might as well be lower than them.

And that's just a macro comparison, you obviously have the micro elements in terms of playstyles, general character "goals", specific moves, etc. Personally my favorite comparison to this day remains Terry and Wolf (and not just because of the serendipity of his namesake).

 

[B_Burg]

The hypothesis is that power creep is a lot less of a thing you can observe and quantify in Ultimate, ergo evaluating character favorability in terms of MU spreads is a lot less of a reliable science. This is a stark contrast to a game like Brawl where 50% of the meta was essentially formed by "how can your character handle Meta Knight", whereas the other 50% was "how can your character handle Ice Climbers".

That manifests itself in some overt ways and some not so overt. Thinkaman presumably brings up Marth because looking at it in broad terms, the character is actually pretty good. 90% of what makes Lucina good is still preserved with Marth. The problem is that 10%, which stands as a notable blemish that plummets a hypothetical "good" character into the pit of irrelevancy because another character does not have to worry about that 10%. Marth is good, way better than plenty of low-tiers on the cast, but in the court of public opinion he might as well be lower than them.

And that's just a macro comparison, you obviously have the micro elements in terms of playstyles, general character "goals", specific moves, etc. Personally my favorite comparison to this day remains Terry and Wolf (and not just because of the serendipity of his namesake).

Ah, I gotcha. That makes sense, thanks.

 

[Rizen]

Q for the thread: what's your character's best and worst MUs?

Best is , although the buffs might have changed that. YL's projectiles all bounce back gordos, DDD has a horrible time chasing YL down and he lacks the huge hitboxes to wall him in advantage.
Worst are generally sword characters who are both faster and have much bigger disjoint than YL like . They basically create a circle around them representing their hitboxes that destroys YL. Hitboxes beat all YL's projectiles so he has a hard time crossing them up. In some cases YL's disadvantage is excellent because Nair covers him so well and has 6f landing lag. Swords completely bypass YL's Nair and Dair. YL gets destroyed in disadvantage by swords.
Best is , generally characters he forces to approach who have a hard time breaching his walling.
Worst is . Link is a strong defensive character but not very mobile and he has a lot of trouble if he's forced to approach. These characters playing passive aggressively can really nail Link down with better projectile options and exploit openings.
Best is bad characters and yes I do think he has winning MUs. K.Rool's survival ability and f4 jab give him and edge against characters with weak options. The thing is, after all these buffs who's still a bad character? I guess.
Worst is . Vill has unique tools that shut K.Rool down hard. He can pocket krown, F/Bair walls KRool and the bowling ball FSmash means any time KRool has to recover low he's going to eat a strong smash.
Belmont walls him super hard. Whip is extremely difficult to get past even with belly armor. burning moves like holy water trap KRool's huge hurtbox and burn past his armor. Axe breaches his recoveries. KRool can't land, can't approach and gets ledge trapped for a ton of damage.
Best is, idk, generally characters with bad recoveries that can't get around his sword-like tail. Like with KRool he probably wins vs bad characters but it's hard to say who's bad anymore.
Worst is . Although both the rats are terrible IMO pichu has better tools to exploit Ridley's huge hurtbox. Pichu has better air speed, his aerials launch up for better juggling and Pichu's thunder always launches the way he's facing where with Pikachu's you can airdodge behind him and get launched back on stage. Pichu is probably the best at breaching Ridley's sword zoning and destroying him in disadvantage.
basically the same as Ridley but slightly better outlook.
Ganon doesn't exactly win MUs but generally does best vs immobile characters with poor reach that he can zone like a sword character with Nairs, Uairs, FTilt and smashes.
Worst: a ganon main once told me his worst MUs were . I can see this. With little vortexing critters they can juggle Ganon for days but he has better hitboxes and only needs to make 2 or 3 reads per stock. Critters are doable. Sword characters have the same reach as Ganon but are twice as fast. They wall Ganon hard. Personally I would also include in here for the same reasons he's bad for K.Rool. Probably too.

 

[DJ3DS]

I don't know who the best matchup for him is. I used to think K Rool, but the recent buffs have changed that matchup a fair amount (K Rools side b now armours through Nair, which means he doesn't risk being hit with a zero to death every time he uses it) to the degree I'm not sure about that anymore. Maybe DK to be honest.

As for his worst...it was probably Bayo before the buffs and I can't see it being another after them. She comboes him incredibly hard, escapes a ton of his comboes in situations every other character can't, is hard to edgeguard, and makes gyro play uniquely dangerous thanks to Witch Time.

If the buffs make her more popular than solo ROB mains are in a lot of trouble.

 

[KirbySquad101]

(Link to Dabuz's explanations/making of tier list, because I always think that's more valuable than just charts by themselves: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/671154318 starts at the 3:01:33 mark)

To be fair to Dabuz, we just got a patch where nearly 20 characters got buffed, a new character who can potentially shake things up by a lot, and more importantly, we've gone on for months without an offline tournament to base our opinions off of. From those lens, it's not really hard to see why Dabuz's list is based off of theorycraft much more than usual, or in other words - looks more like a prediction of how things will play out (that and the usual hint of stubbornness behind placements).

On the subject of Pit, for what it's worth, he ended up 10-1'ing Maister's Wolf/Falco with Pit in a first-to-ten set, and despite the usual variables going against this bit of data (Wi-Fi being Wi-Fi and all that), I still think it's something worth considering (set starts at 1:17:39 in the link above).

 

[SwagGuy99]

Q for the thread: what's your character's best and worst MUs?

Best is , although the buffs might have changed that. YL's projectiles all bounce back gordos, DDD has a horrible time chasing YL down and he lacks the huge hitboxes to wall him in advantage.
Worst are generally sword characters who are both faster and have much bigger disjoint than YL like . They basically create a circle around them representing their hitboxes that destroys YL. Hitboxes beat all YL's projectiles so he has a hard time crossing them up. In some cases YL's disadvantage is excellent because Nair covers him so well and has 6f landing lag. Swords completely bypass YL's Nair and Dair. YL gets destroyed in disadvantage by swords.
Best is , generally characters he forces to approach who have a hard time breaching his walling.
Worst is . Link is a strong defensive character but not very mobile and he has a lot of trouble if he's forced to approach. These characters playing passive aggressively can really nail Link down with better projectile options and exploit openings.
Best is bad characters and yes I do think he has winning MUs. K.Rool's survival ability and f4 jab give him and edge against characters with weak options. The thing is, after all these buffs who's still a bad character? I guess.
Worst is . Vill has unique tools that shut K.Rool down hard. He can pocket krown, F/Bair walls KRool and the bowling ball FSmash means any time KRool has to recover low he's going to eat a strong smash.
Belmont walls him super hard. Whip is extremely difficult to get past even with belly armor. burning moves like holy water trap KRool's huge hurtbox and burn past his armor. Axe breaches his recoveries. KRool can't land, can't approach and gets ledge trapped for a ton of damage.
Best is, idk, generally characters with bad recoveries that can't get around his sword-like tail. Like with KRool he probably wins vs bad characters but it's hard to say who's bad anymore.
Worst is . Although both the rats are terrible IMO pichu has better tools to exploit Ridley's huge hurtbox. Pichu has better air speed, his aerials launch up for better juggling and Pichu's thunder always launches the way he's facing where with Pikachu's you can airdodge behind him and get launched back on stage. Pichu is probably the best at breaching Ridley's sword zoning and destroying him in disadvantage.
basically the same as Ridley but slightly better outlook.
Ganon doesn't exactly win MUs but generally does best vs immobile characters with poor reach that he can zone like a sword character with Nairs, Uairs, FTilt and smashes.
Worst: a ganon main once told me his worst MUs were . I can see this. With little vortexing critters they can juggle Ganon for days but he has better hitboxes and only needs to make 2 or 3 reads per stock. Critters are doable. Sword characters have the same reach as Ganon but are twice as fast. They wall Ganon hard. Personally I would also include in here for the same reasons he's bad for K.Rool.

Great question.

I'll start with my secondary since his best/worst matchups need little to no explanation as to why they are what they are. His best matchup is , and his worst matchup is for fairly self explanatory reasons.


So for , I can narrow it down to a few characters, but it's debatable which one is actually the worst.

Honorable Mentions: and maybe after 8.0.

So for his actual worst matchup, it's between and for sure. I've heard some Luigi players say is in contention as well and while we do lose that matchup, I'd argue that Mega Man isn't nearly as hard as any of the honorable mentions or Samus or Simon. Elegant actually thinks Luigi might win against Mega Man (which feels optimistic to me, but who knows, maybe he's right).

For both Simon and Samus, their defensive games are incredibly difficult to get around and if they get you offstage, both of them can edgeguard you and ledgetrap you fairly easily. For Simon, his disadvantage is bad if you get in, but getting in is harder than it is against Samus and while getting in on Samus is easier, her disadvantage and recovery are both much better than Simons. It's debatable which matchup is worse, and I'd lean towards it being Samus personally, but they are Luigi's only -2 matchups (IMO) outside of Mii Gunner, who's bad, but not as bad as these guys.

For his best matchup, I'd actually argue it to be by a fairly decent margin. I've seen DK mains who say it's closer to even or only slight losing for DK but I don't really think that's true. DK's disadvantage is horrible against Luigi, some of his moves are unsafe on hit at lower percents so you can punish him for hitting you with a down-b, DK gets ledgetrapped fairly easily by Luigi, and he can't use dash attack very much due to the large risk of being up-b'ed OOS. DK can edgeguard Luigi and his juggle game is good, but if Luigi's above him, he's always at risk for being n-air'ed or down-b'ed into disadvantage.


For , deciding his best/worst matchups are hard. The two contenders for his worst matchup are currently and I think. They are both very good at keeping him in disadvantage and preventing him from escaping their combo vortexes in a similar manner to Fox in Smash 4. I'd say Young Link is a safer pick for worst matchup due to his ability to pressure you from a distance and combo off of his long ranged projectiles, but Falco could end up proving to be worse as time goes on.

For his best matchup, there are a few characters who could be in the running, but as with Dr. Mario, I believe his best matchup is also . Lucario struggles to land kills and while his neutral is alright, his lack of reward for landing a hit a lot of the time is noticeable. I may be pessimistic about Lucario as a character, but Bowser's kit feels like it was designed to beat this character.