Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Lacrimosa]

Zelda's case is far more confusing, as both Dabuz and Myran put her in bottom tier. When she got buffed last patch, players were considering her upper mid, maybe even high tier. Dabuz certainty did. Now she is suddenly bottom tier?

.

Hey, I'm fine with these placements if they serve as a shout-out to Sakurai to buff characters :^).
Also Dabuz made a 7.0.0 tier-list where she was ranked low as well. Not quite bottom-tier but definitely at the lower end.

Thing is, in the post 7.0.0 patch-time, only one Offline tournament happened and that was Frostbite where she placed 33rd-48th after Ven lost to Tweek and Glutonny, the latter set was a 3-2. So, there isn't much data to go by but you know, I would never consider a char bottom tier if they consistently get the same good-ish results.

 

[adom4]

Counterplay exists, but I find myself getting clipped by a projectile all the time. Maybe I'm using the wrong strategy?

What does your Ridley look like in the Snake matchup?


Yeah, Belmonts are't that bad, and they're easy to gimp too. I just put them in the archetypes for the sake of example.


It's so painful that his reveal trailer foreshadowed it.


I definitely agree on Young Link and Mii Gunner. Those matchups are painful, but I personally have more trouble against Snake with Ridley.

Samus isn't that bad, but she still wins for sure.

I don't think Inkling is that bad honestly. Why do you think they're one of Ridley's worst matchups?

For Snake mostly play around nade range with fireballs, short hop side-B and tilts & just to get him above you ASAP, he can mixup his landings with B reverses but baiting responses with moves like Uair makes landing hell for him, recovering can also be rough for him since he pretty much has to go high to be safe since Bair destroys cypher and Fsmash hits his low recovery unless he has nade protection.
Offstage can be rough for Ridley as well but he can play around nikita somewhat with Nair/Fair, also up-B can sometimes beat Nikita but it's inconsistent.
It's a super volatile and stage dependant MU imo but both blow each other up pretty hard.

Samus is hell and no one could convince me otherwise, i've played vs Quik offline for like 5 hours and i have never felt so helpless, she just outdoes Ridley in midrange so badly he can't really set up his gameplan that well, ledge is also horrid since she can hit his ledgehang reliably with bombs/Dsmash, she can somewhat struggle offstage and with landing but she controls the pace of the match overall.
Inkling is still pretty bad but it might not be HORRIBLE, not sure if it's just me being good at the MU not tho.
It's still rough because Ridley can REALLY struggle to get around Bair, it's faster than any of his aerials & is super safe, also Uthrow Uair % is enormous on him but it's mostly just Bair that can be really hard to deal with.

 

[DJ3DS]

I LOL'ed. Did Dabuz put Shulk top-tier as a troll, or is there actual reasoning? I heard the "potential" argument several patches ago, but... anything? Patch buff for Shulk? Clearly broken tech? Anything??

Shulk has had very clearly broken tech since the release of the game with the ability to switch monado in hitstun. Unless he happens to be offstage or you manage to catch him with Shield Monado still in cooldown (harder than it sounds given that he can use Speed or Jump monados to camp that cooldown timer) then he's never really in disadvantage.

This lets him do things like Forward Smash in the middle of Inklings rapid jab. It's kinda silly and if you are fighting a Shulk you have to avoid overcommitting to a punish to avoid reversals like this.

 

[Minix0]

My most played character is Ridley.

Ridley is a character who excels at edge guarding. Naturally characters who have exploitable recoveries likestruggle staying alive at higher percents. Plasma Breath also gives a unique tool that can safely edgeguard characters with drag down recoveries. There's little reason to go out against when a well placed Plasma Breath will stop them in their tracks.


Ridley struggles against rushdown, but the stubby rushdown characters like aren't so bad. Yeah they hurt like hell when they get in, but Ridley's range can help keep them at a safe distance. Instead, I find myself struggling against characters who can play the rushdown game with longer limbs or disjoints like .

Zoners can be easy or hard to fight depending on the matchup. Characters with linear projectiles like can be dealt with through Ridley's multiple jumps or even Plasma Breath if the projectile is weak enough. Characters with big meaty projectiles like can hurt, but you just have to play it super safe. Really its the characters who fill the screen with projectiles that that give Ridley trouble. He's too big to weave in and out of defensive walls. Once he's in, Ridley can usually go ham, but otherwise its a miserable experience. The more physical zoners like just seem to do their thing while Ridley does his. Really just up to player experience there.

If I had to pick Ridley's worst matchup, it'd be . She's fast, has insane combos and has enough range to poke through Ridley's defenses. Ridley needs reads to win. is another terrible matchup for him. Ridley's size allows him to get clipped by a stray projectile and that can lead to terrible situations.

Ridley's easiest matchup may be or . They hurt when they get in, but both are easy to combo and edge guard. Ridley doesn't have to take many risks in those matchups.

Call this unpopular but I don't think the Snake matchup is too terrible. Yeah, Ridley does terrible against projectiles, but Ridley outranges him pretty well (well, melee-wise) and Snake's recovery is pretty exploitable. Probably one of the easier top tiers to go against imo.

I play a pretty good Bowser fairly often with Ridley, and although by no means easy, Bowser's recovery is quite exploitable as well. On stage however, its a much more even match.

 

[Wunderwaft]

On the topic of match ups, I think 's worst matchups are . Keep in mind even though I say they're his worst match ups I still think they're doable match ups due to Wario's power and comeback potential. I don't think Wario has any -2 match ups, there is no clear match up where he obviously loses.

It is incredibly hard to approach or even combo Pikachu due to his small size. Doing a Landing up air is near impossible due to the rat's tiny hurtbox. Playing Neutral against this rat is quite painful and until you land a Waft you will mostly be landing stray hits. Pika can easily combo Wario and deal like 50-60% out of one successful neutral interaction. This is easily the worst match up for Wario compared to everyone else, including Palutena, and it's the one I and a ton of Wario players find the most struggle in, you are pretty much forced to play defensively throughout the entire match.

Okay this one isn't as unfavorable as Pika but it's still a pretty bad MU overall for Wario. Palutena has enough tools to cover up Wario in both his aggressive and defensive playstyles. She can force him to interact with her if he decides to camp thanks to her projectiles. She can beat all his other moves with nair. And she can have an easy time edgeguarding Wario. Recovering low? Do a falling nair. Recovering mid? Explosive Flame. Recovering high? Up air time. Mixing things up will be necessary to respond to how Palutena can counteract everything Wario can do. At the bright side she's light and easier to combo.


If you noticed anything from these two characters it's that Wario struggles against characters that have a good rushdown that can cover his defensive game while at the same time these characters can play defensively as well. They can deal with Wario's advantage and disadvantage states, which is why they can be obnoxious match ups for the fat man.

 

[B_Burg]

Conceptually, nothing has changed about the MU from Smash 4. Megaman can chuck whatever the hell he wants at Dedede---lemons, bombs, saw blades---with so little commitment that Dedede is forced to sit back and wait for an over-extension that probably isn't coming. He can't effectively bait much with multiple jumps and his dead-in-the-water airspeed. Gordos are useless (fresh lemons send them back); Inhale to grab Megaman or reflect his projectiles is too risky (even after D3's 8.0 buff to it); D3's hammer-normals (jab, aerials except nair, f-tilt) aren't fast enough or long enough to get Megaman to respect the fact that they're disjointed; D3's horrible disadvantaged state is exacerbated by Mega's small size, plus the free big body combos he gets on him (and D3 has a helluva time keeping the pressure on when he's got advantage)...

Megaman is pure hell for Dedede, full stop. He shuts down the range where Dedede excels, which is the mid-range, a niche occupied by a lot of characters with disjointed buttons. Mega's neutral also keeps Dedede from playing counteroffensively. To put it in old FGC ratios, Mega is definitely either 7:3 or even 8:2. There is a reason why when I competed I kept a pocket character for times where I'd have to face off against one (e.g. Yeti).

Before I get to Falco: I actually don't consider Rosalina to be an awful MU for Dedede. It's in her favor for sure, but Dedede can actually fight back against her B.S. pretty handily mainly due to multiple jumps and disjoints. Rosalina doesn't completely shut down Dedede's attempts to play the game like Megaman or Falco does.

Falco, well, I honestly wouldn't have considered much of him (slightly beats Dedede?)...until this patch. Now he's nightmare fuel. The one thing Dedede kinda sorta had on him in his multiple jumps and exploiting Falco's ground movement...? Gone, especially if he takes you to a stage with triplats. Lasers will keep Dedede honest and right where he wants you. Illusion is a legit mobility tool. He is going to be bobbing and weaving out of Dedede's effective ranges a lot; most importantly, he's going to get under you and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. He's going to land a hit, any hit, and you are probably going to get carried to the blast zone unless he drops his combo/string. Falco's advantage state in this MU is oppressive.

Smooth Criminal

You played against Yeti? That's really cool. I've always liked watching his playstyle.

As for everything you said, while I can't say everything has matched my own experience in the v matchup (which admittedly has exclusively been online, and again personal character struggles factored in), I definitely appreciate the insight. I'd like to ask a few more things when you get the time.

First of all being D3's bair and basically your thoughts on it. I thought I remembered hearing that was one of his more improved moves from 4 to Ultimate, but I don't know if that was just in terms of speed or what it was that made it decent. I don't think it would hold enough wait to make the matchup particularly better for him, I was just curious.

You also say that fresh lemons reflect Gordos. You're talking about the pellets themselves and not the hitbox on the buster itself, right?

Finally a more general question, but do you think all small body characters make disadvantage more difficult for ? And if so, in what way?

As for , and even , I'm curious if you have any thoughts on why the matchup data from that post made them look so rough even before 8.0. Just by chance of the sample data just not happening to accurately represent the matchups, or could it be that your playstyle in particular made you better at handling those matchups than maybe other players that were taken for the sample were?

One last more general question, but beyond this patch, what else would you like to see changed for him going forward?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer all this. I definitely want to get some more practice in against some good D3 players.

Falco's combo game is near-infinite against big body characters. Just fighting the CPU, it feels like I can't do much if I'm playing a heavy, so I can't imagine it'd be any better against a Falco main who has the character fully-optimized. And there's also Falco's frame 1 reflector, have fun trying to use Gordos against that. It's still an awful matchup for other heavies, but at least Bowser has tough guy, K Rool has belly armor, Incineroar has intangibility on Darkest Lariat. I can't even think of anything poor Dedede has that would help.

I appreciate your insight as well. There are so many characters in this game that sometimes I don't even consider certain characters in matchups at all, and this was one of those instances. I know big bodies get hit hard by combos, and I always thought Falco was pretty good, but on watching some footage of players using him after these buffs I'm definitely seeing some of what you're saying.

 

[Nobie]

Online lag drastically changes the Mega Man vs. Dedede matchup. Offline or at least with minimal lag, Mega Man can react to a lot more, from Gordos to normals to even air dodges. Online, it becomes much more of a guessing game, and that's where Dedede excels.

 

[SwagGuy99]

SMB (one of the best mains in the world, co-mains him with ) put out an 8.0 matchup chart for Mario that might be worth discussing.

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This makes Mario look like a Top 10 character (which he is IMO). There's a lot of even matchups, but a lot of them are against meta-relevant characters, and having only 5 losing matchups is also worth noting. I'm not really sure on the placement of , since I think Mario is probably one of the best characters at weaving through her attacks and getting through her defensive game, but she does exploit one of Mario's main weaknesses (lack of range) fairly well, so that might be the logic here.

 

[StrangeKitten]

So uh, I just killed Little Mac at like 35 with Incineroar's jab, not because of Revenge shenanigans, but simply because I was waiting there at ledge and Mac had used all his other options.

Lord, beer this character strength

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

SMB (one of the best mains in the world, co-mains him with ) put out an 8.0 matchup chart for Mario that might be worth discussing.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

This makes Mario look like a Top 10 character (which he is IMO). There's a lot of even matchups, but a lot of them are against meta-relevant characters, and having only 5 losing matchups is also worth noting. I'm not really sure on the placement of , since I think Mario is probably one of the best characters at weaving through her attacks and getting through her defensive game, but she does exploit one of Mario's main weaknesses (lack of range) fairly well, so that might be the logic here.

I don't exactly think beats either. I know Prodigy beat Leo, but I think that's more because Prodigy fights so different to the other Mario's he goes up against like Dark Wizzy and Dark Wizzy got 3-0'd and 3 stocked in the final game. I personally think it's even.

 

[Thinkaman]

Zelda is weird because the "Zelda is bad" thesis rests on the idea that the Zelda playerbase is similar to the Falcon one: populous and obstinately loyal, both to an outlier degree, putting up a magnitude more usage and results than the character mechanically "deserves."

And... yeah? I mean, doesn't that check out?

The Zelda Social Thread I'm pretty sure is the biggest and most active non-DLC character thread on Smashboards, in some cases 10x bigger than every thread in another character's forum combined. Every Zelda main I've met plays an unusually high amount of just their main. I had a roommate who mained Zelda--he had Zelda wallpaper on his desktop, Triforce posters in his room, and plays a suspiciously sassy elfish mage in every game I can think of.

When Travis Touchdown is the most broken fighting game character of all time and 99% of the players gradually switch to him, don't we all know in our hearts that the Zelda mains will be the last holdouts?

We all accept that Falcon's usage and results are artificially inflated since he's basically America's Secondary; it's reasonable to accept that the same very well could be true for Zelda. But to be clear, this would just mean the data we have is an absence of evidence, not the evidence of absence.

 

[B_Burg]

Online lag drastically changes the Mega Man vs. Dedede matchup. Offline or at least with minimal lag, Mega Man can react to a lot more, from Gordos to normals to even air dodges. Online, it becomes much more of a guessing game, and that's where Dedede excels.

Oh I agree, I know online matchups and offline matchups look completely different, as do online vs offline tier lists.

I just still feel like I'm missing something. I looked around a bit more, found Zaki and Kameme's most recent tier lists and they both only list the matchup as being in a slight advantage for Megaman. I don't agree with that myself, I think it's a bit more comfortably in his advantage than that, though maybe not as extreme as has been discussed so far, but I'm curious about what it is they see in it that makes them say that.

Zaki being one of the best Dedede's made me wonder if it was just him being optimistic about his character, and Kameme being one of the best Megaman's possibly causing a bit of a negative look towards the character, but other matchup lists had it listed anywhere from slight to extremely in Megaman's favor with at least a decent amount of variation. The only consistent thing I found is that it's pretty much universally agreed to be in Megaman's favor.

 

[NotLiquid]

I want the record to show in advance that when I do switch over to becoming a Travis Touchdown main it will most definitely be because of my dedication to the character. Sorry Terry, Inkling and Min Min, love ya but I ain't been waiting a decade for half of these Smash kids to not even know what a Kill The Past is supposed to be.

 

[DougEfresh]

I use Shulk. I don't know who his best matchup would be.

D DougEfresh said Greninja is his worst, which I completely disagree with. While the the frame 5 bair is a fine way to call out Shulk's jumps, it's easy for Shulk to just start shielding against it. The move is -7 on shield at best. In a match you probably will never hit a perfect bair on shield; more realistically it would be maybe something like -10, which Shulk can punish with up b. This is Greninja's only way of calling out jumps, so when a player shows that they can work around it, Greninja will have to resort to either using another aerial, which will totally get eaten by any of Shulk's, or playing grounded. None of his grounded attacks are safe from air slash, though down tilt being frame 5 with such short cooldown does mean punishing it with airslash would require a read. It having no range is a significant hindrance against Shulk; I could quite easily see

I find the hardest matchups to be the ones like Pikachu, Megaman, or Banjo, where the opponent can approach behind a projectile and then mix up between using some option that discourages shielding (grabs from pika/banjo and shield pokes from megaman) or hitting me for trying to jump over it. Bonus points to Pikachu for having edgeguarding so good that Shulk can realistically die anytime he's sent offstage at an angle below about 60 degrees.

It also doesn't help that these matchups are all rare. I could very much use some more practice in them all.

About the Shulk/Gren MU: I probably do just need more experience in it, and frankly I should be putting more time into the character than I am at present. It's just been a personally difficult MU for me so far. I'll keep your perspective in mind as I practice it more.

I haven't played the Shulk/Banjo MU as much from Shulk's side of things, but I consider it a fairly even MU (if I had to choose who won though, I'd say Shulk by a slim margin). From my own experiences (which are admittedly only online, so take it with a grain of salt as always), I'll tend to use grenade eggs as a bouncing projectile for Shulk to move around in some manner, and based on that data, I'll try to punish accordingly. Speed art and jump art are good for getting in on Banjo though, and Shulk's disjointed aerials are more than big enough to negate greneggs without taking damage himself. Grenade tosses can be good mix ups, but are a bit telegraphed so not optimal to go for.

If the Shulk player approaches aggressively, there's not much Banjo seems to be able to do (especially in speed art) besides shielding (which he tries to condition his opponent to do while he's in this art anyway) or rolling/spotdodging. The wide arc of nair and fade back fair were great ways of still punishing Banjo for using those options, and I still haven't found good answers to dealing with corner pressure from Shulk. Our really bad initial dash speed also prevents us from just running away to get out of a bad spot, and our jump height and air speed being very poor doesn't help either.

Speed and jump art also allow Shulk to really not give a damn about Banjo recovery mix ups, so he can generally edgeguard him pretty well Imo. Even with fairly decent ledge options, such as ledge drop grenegg or up air, I still find that to be difficult against Shulk as well.

What brings it back to a more legitimate fight for Banjo is just that his ledge trapping and 2-framing options are both very good, and Shulk struggles to snap to ledge or get off of it at times. If the monado art management and patience are both good though, Shulk probably makes this tough for Banjo by consistently being able to recover and making it challenging for Banjo to find an opening that allows him to push advantage in any meaningful way (there are a lot of item play mix ups to be aware of, so it could potentially stay even, but the main takeaway is to not get impatient or overzealous in your commitments, strings, etc and you'll be much better off). Not sure if you'll find any of this useful, but hopefully some of it helps.

 

[FruitLoop]

It's been over a week so let me go over some more thoughts about Dedede in 8.0.0 in the meta:

- Up-Air has actually still been shown to be easy to DI out of. The issue was more with its bad angling (which wasn't changed) rather than just the knockback. The knockback buff still served for the move to be significantly better.

- The Down-Throw Up-Air and Down-Throw Forward-Air 50/50 is honestly not as good as some are hyping it up to be now. Not only is Down-Throw obviously ridiculously easy to DI, but for you to get close enough to the opponent to forward-air them, it's a tight percent range and around that range it still doesn't kill most people even at ledge (even as lightweights) usually. So really the strategy is to down-throw the opponent and see if they DI properly or not and if they do then you just wait for the opponent to land and wish to get an Up-Tilt for a potential kill or a down-tilt for a ledge trapping scenario.

- The Down-Tilt buff was very big now that things have settled, finally having DDD's fastest move in the CQC (Down-Tilt is frame 6 and his fastest move on the ground) also be a move that kills at high % AND sets up into a ledge trap scenario even with the late hit does a ton to let DDD actually reliably get people to ledge.

- I feel like optimal DDD is no longer super air campy and is finally more reliant on using a mixture of ground and air. Playing around with Tomahawks as DDD is actually optimal now as opposed to before due to his lackluster reward on down-tilt/up-tilt and grabs if he baits someone out unless they commit to something huge. Now going for tomahawk downtilt/up-tilt or getting a grab actually has meaning. DDD can use his generally okayish initial dash to dash dance around the opponent in neutral if they choose to not camp him out and then play a more tranditional bait and punish game without having to overcommit to air camping and leave his big hurtbox as a sitting duck if he fails to properly setup his bait without the use of gordos.

- Dedede's out of shield options are still awful and even with shieldgrab giving DDD ever so slightly more reward due to down-throw up-air being threatening and setting up into actual kill scenarios (even if its not as good as thought of before) it just still remains a big issue.


- The reduced startup on Inhale again still retains as a great quality of life change to make it easier to not randomly screw up and take trades for timing b-reverse inhales differently while its easier to simply just scoop up gordos and other projectiles on reaction compared to before. The improved grabbox on inhale on the ground fixed a lot of his issues when he inhales next to an opponent and it's simply just a very helpful buff, but i don't think it determines entire mus (Though it helps for him in a lot of mus like Snake and Sonic where inhale is actually used a ton).

- Dedede still has one of the worst neutrals in the game, it's slightly better in 8.0.0 due to down-tilt being a valid option and due to up-tilt sending further away at low % for DDD to play kinda frame trappy as he gets things going. However his horizontal threat range is STILL awful and he still basically has no approach options or ways to force approaches which again still makes a lot of his bad matchups very bad.

- The power creep actually does hurt DDD a bit since eventhough his buffs were very nice, they didn't really resolve a lot of matchups meaning that DDD might actually lose to more characters than he did in 7.0.0 despite DDD being one of the worst characters in the game last patch. I do think he actually WINS matchups this time around outside of just Ganon and maybe Kirby which is a nice step-up but he still has a practical 80-20 mu vs top tiers like Pika, ZSS, and Palutena who all just don't care about his improvements.


Overall, I think Dedede is still a low tier and a bottom 10 character since a lot of characters that were bottom 15 last patch also got buffs which scaled to his own buffs and I just dont think that the buffs helped resolve some of his other glaring problems. He's definitely noticeably more functional as now he doesn't hit like a cheap toy hammer everytime unless he fishes for bairs and up-smashes and I do appreciate the fact that his high % gameplan is actually not awful. However he's still a character that's absurdly slow with no OoS/CQC, a bad disadvantage state, a big hurtbox, awful frame data, and a still painfully bad neutral while his advantage state and kill power is still just "fine" at best even with the buffs. So I definitely don't think he has a proper place in the meta just yet but he could work fine as a counterpick character to the likes of Snake and Marcina in the future. Going from bottom 3 to bottom 10 is still a nice improvement and i'd take it either way.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Hate to say it, but I just don't see Dedede rising out of low tier probably ever. I still hope he gets some frame data buffs, but even that would only help so much. His biggest problem is he lacks a burst option and out of shield options, and I'm doubtful that buffs could really help these issues. Yeah, he kinda has down tilt as a burst option, but it just doesn't seem like good enough of one to compensate for his other glaring flaws. He could really use a more normal dash attack, since dash attacks go a long way towards giving the other heavies good burst. And like, they could make his dash attack fast but it kills much later. I'm just doubtful they'd make such a big change to a move, and even then, I'm not sure how you could help his oos? Faster jab with a better hitbox I guess, but that would also only go so far.

I feel like he could be much, much better if Gordos weren't able to be sent back at him, or at least if they were more difficult to, but this is another change I doubt they would actually make.

 

[StoicPhantom]

The Zelda Social Thread I'm pretty sure is the biggest and most active non-DLC character thread on Smashboards, in some cases 10x bigger than every thread in another character's forum combined.

To be fair, the Zelda Social is its own beast and there's rarely any crossover between the regulars in there and the rest of the board. And I think that is a good metaphor for the rest of the base. There's a huge split between casual and competitive to the point that while there is some crossover, they are basically their own separate communities and the casuals vastly outnumber the competitive players more so than other bases. It's basically one giant cult of (character) personality with maybe a tiny fraction that branches off competitively but not that competitively. Even high level Zelda players have a natural aversion to the competitive mentality and seem more taken with the social aspects of Smash than being some gross nerd that practices tech all day in his basement.

And that I think that poses a problem for the Zelda meta. I admittedly don't know that much about the Falcon base but based on my friend who is a main and what I've seen elsewhere, they are very competitive and tend to push their character as far as he can go. The Zelda base seems to be the polar opposite where they tend to rely on their natural ability and/or specialize in one aspect of Zelda, but never seem to explore their character as much as they should.

If true, then they may be similar anomalies statistically, but the bases have different traits and mentalities that might help or impede growth. And if my take on the Zelda base is correct, then I feel that she might be less inflated than would otherwise be shown.


I'm not college educated or a stats guy, so I might be misunderstanding what is being said here. But I feel like what I said above and the fact that talent is not distributed equally among all character bases might be variables that aren't represented by the numbers. Zelda simply just does not have a Fatality or a Void that can or would be ok with being both the definitive best and labbing and pushing their character at the same time. There's definitely some naturally good players in Zelda's base but I think she is also the type of character that needs that type of dedication and attention to detail to truly flourish.

Because there's a difference between dedication to a character and dedication to a character's competitive aspect. And there's much more of the former, even among top Zelda players, than there is the latter. Most Zelda players are there to socialize and talk about the character from an aesthetic standpoint and the rest seem to have one foot in there and one foot in competition. And those who do have that competitive mindset have almost all flocked to the easy top tiers. And the very few that have both that mindset and character loyalty are obviously loyal to other characters.

Top Zelda players have and will be the first to admit they don't practice and are "just naturally good". And if their natural ability takes them as far as someone like ven, then imagine how far they and Zelda could go if actually pushed.




tl;dr: Zelda attracts the wrong crowd for competition and we probably fail her rather than her failing us.

 

[StrangeKitten]

tl;dr: Zelda attracts the wrong crowd for competition and we probably fail her rather than her failing us.

Thanks for the clarification, that gave me so much insight! I see a lot of potential in Zelda - really hope a high/top level player who mains her comes along. I know we'll unfortunately be waiting on that for a long time, since offline tournaments aren't starting up anytime remotely soon. It's such a shame, I was excited by the 7.0.0 Zelda buffs but just after they dropped, we had to halt tournaments. I dunno, maybe it's just a silly hunch but I feel like Zelda is capable of a lot. There are too many holes in her kit to keep her from top tier and probably also high tier, but I also feel like she's way better than bottom 5, and I await the day we get more demonstrations of just what she's capable of.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Thanks for the clarification, that gave me so much insight! I see a lot of potential in Zelda - really hope a high/top level player who mains her comes along. I know we'll unfortunately be waiting on that for a long time, since offline tournaments aren't starting up anytime remotely soon. It's such a shame, I was excited by the 7.0.0 Zelda buffs but just after they dropped, we had to halt tournaments. I dunno, maybe it's just a silly hunch but I feel like Zelda is capable of a lot. There are too many holes in her kit to keep her from top tier and probably also high tier, but I also feel like she's way better than bottom 5, and I await the day we get more demonstrations of just what she's capable of.

I think Zelda's decent enough. In my opinion she's a good counterpick character but is much harder to play without a secondary due to her polarizing matchups. She does fine against some good characters ( maybe ) and she can hold her own against most of mid tier (and pretty much all of low/bottom tier). I think her kit isn't the greatest, but it has enough to make her threatening, especially against zoners and slower characters. Her ability to ledgetrap and apply pressure from a distance is also really strong thanks to Phantom. While I wouldn't argue against buffing her further, I think she's a solid enough mid tier at the moment that she doesn't need them, but I can see her getting worse if more characters were to get buffed going forward.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I think Zelda's decent enough. In my opinion she's a good counterpick character but is much harder to play without a secondary due to her polarizing matchups. She does fine against some good characters ( maybe ) and she can hold her own against most of mid tier (and pretty much all of low/bottom tier). I think her kit isn't the greatest, but it has enough to make her threatening, especially against zoners and slower characters. Her ability to ledgetrap and apply pressure from a distance is also really strong thanks to Phantom. While I wouldn't argue against buffing her further, I think she's a solid enough mid tier at the moment that she doesn't need them, but I can see her getting worse if more characters were to get buffed going forward.

Yeah, I feel similarly. I ain't trying to say she's top tier or anything, just that she seems solid enough and I'm interested in seeing what she can do

 

[Smooth Criminal]

FruitLoop 's got the long and short of it. Dedede is definitely like he was in Smash 4 right now: King **** of Turd Mountain, Home of the Low Tiers.

Smooth Criminal

 

[FruitLoop]

FruitLoop 's got the long and short of it. Dedede is definitely like he was in Smash 4 right now: King **** of Turd Mountain, Home of the Low Tiers.

Smooth Criminal

Dedede is a lot like Sourdough Bread, it's bad.

 

[Nobie]

KEN went Incineroar in a Japanese online tournament.

It's interesting seeing him use what is basically the polar opposite of Sonic.

 

[The_Bookworm]

KEN went Incineroar in a Japanese online tournament.

It's interesting seeing him use what is basically the polar opposite of Sonic.

Fellow Sonic main 6WX have co-mained Incineroar with Sonic for the longest time, so this is something I am not unfamiliar with.
He doesn't really use it nowadays, as he drifted towards mainly solo Sonic and other secondaries, but it was one of his most used characters.

But yeah, playing both the fastest character and the slowest character in the game at the same time does seem like a rather strange dynamic.

 

[StrangeKitten]

You start to get a sense for how obnoxious the Samus matchup is in Ken's video there, lol

 

[SwagGuy99]

Raphy made a speculative matchup chart for this patch and I really feel like this is worth talking about because to me, this seems extremely optimistic,

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I don't know about everyone here, but I don't think this patch improved K. Rool by this much. This makes him look like a top tier which he isn't. The last few days I've seen K. Rool players acting like the armor and side-b buffs put him into high tier which (while those were good buffs) don't change him nearly enough for that to be the case. Baiting out side-b or his armor is still a strategy that works on him, and since you can grab him when his armor is active, I feel like players will end up adapting and playing a more grab-centric game against K. Rool than they already did. There are a few things I agree with about this chart, but first, I'll list the characters that I think are being the most inaccurately judged on this list:



If your thoughts are something along the line of that's a lot of characters, I don't blame you, but I really don't think K. Rools buffs did enough to solve his disadvantage state being so bad in a lot of matchups.

Now for two characters that I think are reasonably placed on this list and why I think they are:

• in even seems reasonable to me. K. Rool's neutral against her is passable, he's solid at edgeguarding her, and he can properly contest with her range. He's probably the best or second best super heavyweight against her now, and I can see him being a good counterpick against her.
• is one I can also see being close to even. Having a reflector is always nice, and I think this is one of the matchups where the Belly Armor buffs matter the most. Being able to armor through grenades with belly armor and side-b along with having camping tools of his own forces Snake to approach K. Rool where he can rack up a lot of damage on him. If Snake's CQC was worse, K. Rool might actually win the matchup, but I think Snake is just a bit too good in that regard for that to be the case.

 

[Nemesis561]

Raphy made a speculative matchup chart for this patch and I really feel like this is worth talking about because to me, this seems extremely optimistic,

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I don't know about everyone here, but I don't think this patch improved K. Rool by this much. This makes him look like a top tier which he isn't. The last few days I've seen K. Rool players acting like the armor and side-b buffs put him into high tier which (while those were good buffs) don't change him nearly enough for that to be the case. Baiting out side-b or his armor is still a strategy that works on him, and since you can grab him when his armor is active, I feel like players will end up adapting and playing a more grab-centric game against K. Rool than they already did. There are a few things I agree with about this chart, but first, I'll list the characters that I think are being the most inaccurately judged on this list:



If your thoughts are something along the line of that's a lot of characters, I don't blame you, but I really don't think K. Rools buffs did enough to solve his disadvantage state being so bad in a lot of matchups.

Now for two characters that I think are reasonably placed on this list and why I think they are:

• in even seems reasonable to me. K. Rool's neutral against her is passable, he's solid at edgeguarding her, and he can properly contest with her range. He's probably the best or second best super heavyweight against her now, and I can see him being a good counterpick against her.
• is one I can also see being close to even. Having a reflector is always nice, and I think this is one of the matchups where the Belly Armor buffs matter the most. Being able to armor through grenades with belly armor and side-b along with having camping tools of his own forces Snake to approach K. Rool where he can rack up a lot of damage on him. If Snake's CQC was worse, K. Rool might actually win the matchup, but I think Snake is just a bit too good in that regard for that to be the case.

This is why its hard to take matchup charts very seriously, that one is absolutely ridiculous. And I do think the buffs helped a lot, and K rool is possibly a lower end mid tier now. But thats the matchup chart of a top 15 character lmao

 

[Nathan Richardson]

It's the same old song when it comes to MU charts. They're never 100% accurate. Why discuss them?

 

[Rizen]

Raphy made a speculative matchup chart for this patch and I really feel like this is worth talking about because to me, this seems extremely optimistic,

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I don't know about everyone here, but I don't think this patch improved K. Rool by this much. This makes him look like a top tier which he isn't. The last few days I've seen K. Rool players acting like the armor and side-b buffs put him into high tier which (while those were good buffs) don't change him nearly enough for that to be the case. Baiting out side-b or his armor is still a strategy that works on him, and since you can grab him when his armor is active, I feel like players will end up adapting and playing a more grab-centric game against K. Rool than they already did. There are a few things I agree with about this chart, but first, I'll list the characters that I think are being the most inaccurately judged on this list:



If your thoughts are something along the line of that's a lot of characters, I don't blame you, but I really don't think K. Rools buffs did enough to solve his disadvantage state being so bad in a lot of matchups.

Now for two characters that I think are reasonably placed on this list and why I think they are:

• in even seems reasonable to me. K. Rool's neutral against her is passable, he's solid at edgeguarding her, and he can properly contest with her range. He's probably the best or second best super heavyweight against her now, and I can see him being a good counterpick against her.
• is one I can also see being close to even. Having a reflector is always nice, and I think this is one of the matchups where the Belly Armor buffs matter the most. Being able to armor through grenades with belly armor and side-b along with having camping tools of his own forces Snake to approach K. Rool where he can rack up a lot of damage on him. If Snake's CQC was worse, K. Rool might actually win the matchup, but I think Snake is just a bit too good in that regard for that to be the case.

I've been known as a optimist, saying he was lower mid tier before the buffs, but even I think that chart's ridiculous. He probably wins +1 against the characters in the +2 area and half the characters in the +1 area. He certainly does not beat .

IDK about ; I have Wolf for that MU but the MU is a real pain in the ***. Reflector doesn't really help against nades because they're often littering the stage and not a direct projectile. K.Rool can belly armor if he gets close to snake but doing so is literally navigating a minefield with the 2nd biggest hurtbox in the game. Then Snake has a really good cqc boxing game. KRool gets blown up all over the stage and has a terrible time resetting neutral. It's a bad MU. This is one where we actually have top level offline footage of MVD vs Ben Gold, pre-buffs but still.

 

[blackghost]

im convinced most of this community has no idea either how MU charts work or how to theory craft matchups in general. K rool aint that good.

 

[Nemesis561]

Top players don't realize that the reason their K rool can beat young link for example, is because they're better players than the quick play yinks they're facing. Its frustrating that so many few top players are able to set that to the side, and just objectively compare the tools in a given matchup and how they interact with each other

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

DDee decided to upload his own matchup chart for Pokemon Trainer.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Thinkaman]

Mechanical trivial of the day:

Most people know that reflectors multiply the damage and even the speeds of projectiles by different amounts. But fewer people are aware that they also modifer the lifetime/distance traveled. After all, all that normally matters is either it hits the enemy or it doesn't.

All reflectors reset the lifespan of the projectile. (Though not necessarily the timer.) But these reflectors can't successfully return max range projectiles and have them connect:

- 60%
- 75%
- 75%
- 90%

All other reflectors send back at least 104% distance; enough extra cushion to cover basic recoil from say Samus Charge shot. If the opponent has huge aerial recoil and/or starts moving backwards, could conceivably not be able to cover the distance, but realistically in any scenario you could construct the opponent could trivally just shield or jump so it's a moot point.

The longest distance reflector is actually and (200%) followed by (190%) and (160%). Basically the high-speed reflectors minus Wolf, Pit, Ness, who have up to half distance penalties.


However, not all projectiles are created equal when it comes to reflect distance! Bombs are not the only projectiles with a timer; some other projectiles also have state transitions (like Bowser Jr. Canonball dropping at a certain point) that will happen at a fixed time regardless of any change to the lifespan of the projectile. I don't have a list off the top of my head, but well, there's one example for you.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Some additional Best/Worst matchup thoughts:
My girl/alien in power armor definitely have a high tier matchup spread. She/It beats the tar out of many characters, but she loses to several key, popular ones. It also takes a long time to get good with her brawling mix of options. Specifically in ultimate the raw might of charge shot, which is quite literally "analog-dial-a-knockback-value-to-combo" takes a lot of practice.
So you can certainly play a decent Samus with a moderate time investment, having an Mkleo-level Samus to counterpick Sonic on wifi like we saw recently (being the best player in the world helps too...), however playing an excellent one at the level of Joker/Quik/YB who can take on and flip the harder matchups to even or favorable takes serious time commitment.
If you join Samus cord and you start saying "Samus is a projectile zoner" the smackdown will come pretty fast and hard. Samus is NOT a true zoner, not in the way Duck-Hunt, Rob or even Belmonts are. To understand her matchup spread, Samus actually has a fairly bad neutral for a projectile user. Because her projectiles are slow on startup, and long on endlag, as well as having quirky interactions with other projectiles/hitboxes. For most matchups her projectile neutral is not the determining factor. You're not going to out-neutral most characters, she has to scrap, often up close and personal, and scrap quite a lot, taking punishment as she goes. She's designed with a fast mixup heavy jab, excellent get-off-me out-of-shield up-B, fast aerials and reasonably fast tilts. So you will often hear her described as a "mid-range brawler" on discord, and it's the most apt description. It's only a dozen or so matchups where the characters are slow, or have worst options, that Samus' projectile zoning neutral is potent. And for those dozen or so matchups where the neutral is strong, it's hell for them, because if they get through the basic zoning there's a scrappy combo oriented character that still needs to be dealt with.

Best matchup is likely , it's borderline unfair. I can count on one hand the number of times I've lost online to Incin in the past 6 months, it's that bad. CS, missiles, bomb, SM combo/mixup into grab, so there's often no hope to benefit from his main mechanic.
Next would be . The ape has nothing in the matchup. His shield gets dented by anything at all and up-air will shield poke him, true combo for 40% every single stock and he just cannot land versus grab, CS and up-air. His recovery gets blasted, dunked, z-aired, you name it. If he makes it to ledge then can't even roll past a strategically placed bomb his frame is so large.

Although Samus is arguably the worst or one of the worst matchups for many other characters ( ) I have to settle on and as my top 2 punching bags.

Worst matchup is . No matter how much you grind this matchup, it's always bad. In the end it's not just the reflector, because there are plenty of those. It's not the frame data, because there are plenty of fast frame data characters Samus does reasonably well against, like Shiek or Ken. It's not even the playstyle, because rushdown is not Fox specific, captain falcon is not a problem (even post buffs). It's the subtle hitbox/hurtbox interactions. When and interact, even if is not perfect in his alignment, wins. Take landing on Fox with a nair as he dash attacks. You could guess that kicking Fox in the head with nair would work, just looking at the animations. But it doesn't. 99% of the time fox's foot hits Samus' dangling back leg hurtbox and he just simply wins. After hundreds (thousands?) of matches, that's the conclusion. You integrate all possible interactions at all possible angles and WINS. He just does. Many Samus mains consider Wolf even. Pre-buff Larry Lurr had Falco at even. is 6-4, equal skill. Perhaps more.

2nd worst matchup is . This character is still busted, and I don't care what the stats say. Character is busted. Ruins so much of our gameplan with reflector+counter, mid-range giant balls of combo fire, outright invincible (safe!) moves that just don't trade. Nerf this. Expert is painful and frankly painful for too many characters. This top tier remains, frankly, too easy to play and win with. Nerf this.

The expert Samus community cannot agree upon the next worst, we're unanimous in agreement about as hell. It's either a combination of space animals, true zoners or akward matchup. If you check matchup charts you'll often find but the variance is pretty strong.
I have for instance a theory that beats anything with a sword. Literally any character in the game from to that uses a significant fraction of their gameplay revolves around spacing with a basic disjoint. Not destroy, but just wins, 55/45. We've seen sets of Spargo, Rivers, and many other top sword users drop to expert Samus mains in the past and so there's some proof of that. Interestingly in the big matchup plot of a week ago clearly losing to at smash gg play level. My main training partner is a sword user expert, he's been playing them for 2 decades, and I've been playing Samus for 2 decades. He feels Samus has the edge in Ultimate, and I agree, this engine is very good on the power armor girl.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Wow Raphy's MU chart is far too optimistic. I agree with what SwagGuy99 said, so I'll touch on some others:
: How in the world is this a winning MU for K Rool? Yoshi loves big bodies because they're easy to combo. Yoshi's excellent aerial maneuverability and double jump armor should help him out big time here. Imo this should be -2 (lol @ Rool having no -2 matchups), can see it being -1, but I don't see how Rool wins this one.

: I can at least understand this, because nobody plays Plant. Ptooie I would think would be difficult for K Rool to deal with due to the angle and Gut Check only covering Rool's belly. Poison Breath should do a meaty 30-40% per fully-charged use, though Plant has to be strategic with it due to Gut Check (though Gut Check reflecting it can become moot so long as Plant retreats and doesn't get hit by much/any of the reflected cloud). Long-Stem Strike needs to be used very sparingly due to Gut Check and belly armor. This is a matchup where Plant's superb ledge trapping is going to help a ton; Brood's crazy run with Plant from around a year ago comes to mind. Y'know how I love to complain about how slow Rool's recovery is? Ptooies can keep sniping it, or if Plant decides to take a more direct approach, bair kills stupid early. I kinda feel like this is -1 for Rool, to be honest.

And for the record, , , & are some of my most-played characters

 

[Lacrimosa]

Looks like he's German and if that's the case then this MU chart makes a lot more sense.
Europe doesn't really have good Zelda players besides Naskino (French) and Meru (Dutch), who uses her a secondary. But in Germany, there is not a single Zelda player coming close to even get Top 8 at locals.

So, this MU seems to be based on MU inexperience and a high confidence in that character. I don't think it's accurate at all.

 

[Damned1]

First of all, i don't think we should take seriously ANY MU charts as of now. Patch changed a lot for many characters, and even if they aren't objectively much better, those small things can still make the difference. Lack of offline tournaments for the most part doesn't help either.

Secondly, while i definitely agree that Raphy (and Plague) are at least a little too optimistic, there is also IMO na issue of ppl not realizing how plays. As i've said before, a lot of players who pick up K. Rool play him like he is a hardcore zoner that keeps running away from others. I've already mentioned running away from that was OFFSTAGE and this seems to be a running (sigh) theme, but even better players (some pros included) seem to adopt that playstyle when they try .

Now, aside from the "WHY ON EARTH ARENT YOU GOING OFFSTAGE AFTER SWORDIE/MAC/insert character with exploitable recovery THAT IS FAR FROM STAGE?", why would that matter? Well, that basically makes some MUs way worse than they should be. is a perfect example for me. Feel free to correct me, but isn't the last thing you want to do against Snake is to give him space to prepare his setups and throw grenades at you? And that's without mentioning "small" things like "DThrow ISN'T combo throw" that i see way, way too often ignored from "i try Rool randomly" players.

Again: i agree that chart is most likely way too optimistic, especially about some characters (e.g. and ) and my opinion doesn't exactly matter. Anyway, i think that discussing any MU charts at this point - even from top players - less than 2 weeks after the patch and with close to no offline competition is kinda meaningless, aside from "discussion" and laugh factors.

 

[ZephyrZ]

One pet peeve of mine when people boil down a superheavy match up to just how easily they get comboed. It's like when people say they beat Ness because they can edgeguard him - sure, they can, but how easy is it for them to put him into a situation where he's forced to up b to recover in the first place?

As far as vs goes, I can see K.Rool actually having a few advantages here. Now I'm no expert in either character - I have light experience playing K.Rool and very little with Yoshi, but in theory Yoshi is a mobile character with good buttons but a slow grab, and I think that's something K.Rool can actually do kind of well against. K.Rool's armor demands respect from more mashy characters, as his weight and armor makes him happy to trade.

Not to say Yoshi doesn't have advantages here. Aside from his damage output which was already touched upon, his aerial mobility is key as he has little issues navigating his way around Krool's crown and cannon ball, and limits K.Rool's ability to control the midrange. Yoshi also has some solid kill moves in his repertoire and can edgeguard him pretty well with Fair, which keeps K.Rool from surviving forever.

I'm not sure I'd say the match up is winning or even for K.Rool, but I can at least see a case to be made here. Probably not K.Rool's worst match up, at least.

Not that agree at all with Raphy's tier list. I really don't know how K.Rool can go "even" with Joker, an evasive, mobile character with a rewarding grab and strong edeguarding. And I don't have the energy to go into my thoughts on the PT match up right now, aside from how I think Ivysaur hates crown and Zard doesn't actually do as bad in that match up as he does on paper.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

One pet peeve of mine when people boil down a superheavy match up to just how easily they get comboed

I think this is part of the community's obsession with combos. Combos are highlighted by the community so much that if often overshadows other aspects of the game like neutral and disadvantage.

Smash fans love flashiness above all else and we tend to think its a larger part of the game then it really is.

 

[Lacrimosa]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Well, just dropping this in here.
Guess it could be directed at the K. Rool MU chart above, but I can't be too sure.