Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[VodkaHaze]

Sort of reminds me how when Samsora made a Peach MU chart, and I think he made so that Peach had losing MUs with about a quarter of the cast and went even with another quarter. Sounds like Top 10 material there.

 

[DougEfresh]

So with all these tier lists and MU charts popping up recently, I wanted to ask this thread something: What, as a general rule of thumb, are our "criteria" for evaluating characters' placements on tier lists? I understand different people will emphasize and value certain traits over others, but I think amidst all of these different opinions and tier lists (especially from top players), it's easy to forget exactly how we're basing our judgments of the cast within the overall meta.

Is it overall MU spread? How well a character does against the more common "meta-relevant" characters? Or is it instead how well a character's tools and gameplan mesh with the overall engine of Ultimate that lends itself to faster paced gameplay with more aggression and early kill options? How effectively they can deal with various situations that occur in each phase of the game with their options and moveset? A combination of all of the above and/or other factors I'm missing, perhaps?

I ask this in part because I've been thinking through the implications for in 8.0 and I've seen majority opinion now put him in low or bottom tier and while I'm still somewhat optimistic about him even in the face of the power creep that happened from this latest patch, I really would like to understand that other side a bit better by having a clearer idea of the "rubric" used to determine how good a character is on a tier list.

If I get some responses to help inform me on this matter, I hope to then make another post explaining why I'm still reluctant to put Lucario as low on the tier list as most seem to do currently, but I also think it's important to understand and even periodically re-evaluate how we're assessing characters' places in the meta through tier lists more generally. Anyway, Ik it's kind of a broad, subjective question, but I'd still like some input so thanks in advance for any clarifcations you guys can provide me!

 

[Thinkaman]

If "power creep" refers to literally any (positive) change in the "average power" of a set of elements, I think it becomes sort of a useless definition. I think it is (or ought to be) just a bit more specific.

I've always considered it as relating to the "meta". Like if you introduced DLC to Melee that was even better than Fox, or 3 new DLC who were all just as good or nearly as good as Fox, that would certainly be power creep. But if you removed Pichu from Melee, or marginally buffed Pichu (even to the point that rare people actually play him to a relevant extent), I don't think it communicates anything to call that increasing-of-the-average "power creep."


To bring this back from Semantics Land, I'm unconvinced that Kirby or K. Rool buffs affect Ganondorf's or Corrin's Lucas's relevance to an extent you could find without a microscope. You are talking about a small shift in matchups that comprise probably less than 0.5% of competitive play each.

Like, let's just say that Kirby's buff's are so big that Kirby is now 10% better, whatever that means. So Kirby is is "10% better" in 100% of matchups, aka just plain 10% better overall. And now Ganon, like every other character, is relatively "10% worse" in the 0.5% matches against Kirby players. So Kirby goes up 10%, and Ganon goes down 0.05%. Even if this happens multiple times, it doesn't add up to a meaningful change for Ganon. You'd have to buff literally every other character (including the top tiers!) for Ganon to experience an implicit nerf actually equal in magnitude to said buffs.

All this is, is a minor aspect of patch culture--people feeling left out. It has magnitudes more to do with twitter ect. than the game itself.

If we have a whopping 18 characters buffed in a way that tends to specifically open up kill options, then we might start to see a modest numerical impact on specifically Lucario. But that's an extreme case.

General allusions of "power creep" continue their trend of not holding up to scrutiny.

 

[Rizen]

I use "power creep" in the same sense as competitive pokemon. Some pokemon were good then the next generation came and brought better pokemon. Although the pokemon from the previous gen didn't get nerfed they end up in a lower tier due to the power creep. In smash it works with buffs. 's the perfect example of a character I considered mid tier when the game came out then everyone around him was substantially buffed, bumping him down to low tier. Ganon's a victim of the power creep.

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.

This is useful for the MUs; it means I'm free to snipe them with charged arrows from a distance.

So with all these tier lists and MU charts popping up recently, I wanted to ask this thread something: What, as a general rule of thumb, are our "criteria" for evaluating characters' placements on tier lists? I understand different people will emphasize and value certain traits over others, but I think amidst all of these different opinions and tier lists (especially from top players), it's easy to forget exactly how we're basing our judgments of the cast within the overall meta.

Is it overall MU spread? How well a character does against the more common "meta-relevant" characters? Or is it instead how well a character's tools and gameplan mesh with the overall engine of Ultimate that lends itself to faster paced gameplay with more aggression and early kill options? How effectively they can deal with various situations that occur in each phase of the game with their options and moveset? A combination of all of the above and/or other factors I'm missing, perhaps?

I ask this in part because I've been thinking through the implications for in 8.0 and I've seen majority opinion now put him in low or bottom tier and while I'm still somewhat optimistic about him even in the face of the power creep that happened from this latest patch, I really would like to understand that other side a bit better by having a clearer idea of the "rubric" used to determine how good a character is on a tier list.

If I get some responses to help inform me on this matter, I hope to then make another post explaining why I'm still reluctant to put Lucario as low on the tier list as most seem to do currently, but I also think it's important to understand and even periodically re-evaluate how we're assessing characters' places in the meta through tier lists more generally. Anyway, Ik it's kind of a broad, subjective question, but I'd still like some input so thanks in advance for any clarifcations you guys can provide me!

There really is no rule of thumb; it tends to be different for different people. I do several things.
1: I'll play characters vs competitive players and determine how well they hold up in different MUs. This applies to . For example I suck with ; I do not have good control over them but can still win games more easily than with Ganon of Ridley. ZSS/Lucina have fast, stupidly good buttons. It's just easier to win interactions and escape disadvantage. 1 is why I thought K.Rool is lower mid tier and not low tier. He feels a tier above Ganon. I never understood why they were considered the same low tier.
2 I'll play vs characters in tournaments and friendlies. Since I main a polarizing character sometimes I get tunnel vision and will underestimate characters YL does well against like Joker/PT or overestimate characters he struggles vs like Ike, Robin, Corin etc. But I try to get experience with all my characters. This is why 3 is especially important.
3 I'll use tournament results like Orion Stats to see if my personal views match up with who's actually dominating tournaments. They often do but not always. It's so easy to build up, or down, a character in our heads that it's important to have results as a reality check. Earlier I used the example of how a good player in my region thinks Ike is "top tier, unironically". There have been a few characters that I probably over estimated due to personal experience like DK and Ike.

 

[Thinkaman]

I use "power creep" in the same sense as competitive pokemon. Some pokemon were good then the next generation came and brought better pokemon. Although the pokemon from the previous gen didn't get nerfed they end up in a lower tier due to the power creep.

And I'm saying this is wrong. The comparison doesn't hold at all.

In Pokemon, the power creep is pretty real. The Smogon Ubers list (banned in OU) grew radically each generation:

• 2 (1.32%)
• 5 (1.99%)
• 12 (3.11%)
• 20 (4.06%)
• 22 (3.39%)
• 24 (3.33%)
• 29 (3.58%)

This was despite previous ubers creeping down in acceptability. Once powerful Pokemon like Miltank, Rhydon, or Jolteon fade into obscurity merely because the new kids on the block are that much better.

And it's not just Pokemon. Each generation and seen more and more stringent restrictions placed on Sleep, Baton Pass, and trapping moves/abilities. It might look like the power creep slowed or even reversed in 5th gen just based on the size of the uber banlist, but that's not mentioning that they resorted to banning 15 moves, 5 abilities, big restriction on Baton Pass and Weather, all while conceeding to the power creep and letting powerhouses like Garchomp, Salamence, and Latios out of ubers, as well as Wobbuffet.

And 6th gen? They saw fit to ban Baton Pass entirely, 9 Mega evolutions, and gave in to Manaphy, Thundurus, and Tornadus. Nevermind Mega Reyquaza, the pokemon so good it had to be banned from Ubers.


It's like the power level of each Pokemon originally went up to 10; and then up to 11 in the next gen, with 10 becoming more common. And then 12, with 11 becoming more common and 10 being downright ordinary. And so on, ect. That's power creep.


Adding Mega Reyquaza to the game is absolutely power creep. Adding more Pokemon at or just under Mewtwo's level is debatably, probably power creep. Making Flareon almost as good as Jolteon is definitely not power creep.

Yes, if you buff Flareon into a slightly-less-garbage Pokemon, technically that makes every other Pokemon relatively weaker, including other garbage peers like idk Arbok. But man, newsflash, the Flareon matchup is not what is holding Arbok back from taking over OU. The number of times that a Arbok on an OU team has even had to fight a Flareon on an OU team in the entire history of the last 4 gens of Pokemon is probably 0. It's literally irrelevant.

(Whereas every time we get new legendaries, Mega Evolutions, hidden abilities, or former-ubers-pushed-down-into-mainstream-formats, Arbok's relevance to the game has to add another decimal place.)


Power creep describes divergence, that unbounded spiral where Gen 200 of Pokemon will go up to power level 209, and poor Arbok will be up against Triple-Gmax Hyper-Mewtwo/Kyogre Fusion EX. Whereas these Smash patches converge; they are just inching everyone towards roughly where Mario is, not towards infinity. 200 years of Xeno's Smash patches and Mario, Fox, Greninja, Lucina, Inkling, Roy, ect... will be exactly the same and just as viable as they are today.

In smash it works with buffs. 's the perfect example of a character I considered mid tier when the game came out then everyone around him was substantially buffed, bumping him down to low tier. Ganon's a victim of the power creep.

Ganon's woes have nothing to do with him getting a worse Mewtwo matchup. Ganon's usage and results began to plummet far before any of these meaningful buffs hit, and he certain loved the nerfs to Olimar, Ivysaur, Pichu, Palu, and Joker; often rated among his very worst matchups.

 

[DougEfresh]

If we have a whopping 18 characters buffed in a way that tends to specifically open up kill options, then we might start to see a modest numerical impact on specifically Lucario. But that's an extreme case.

General allusions of "power creep" continue their trend of not holding up to scrutiny.

This is a good point. I think "power creep" is more often than not one of those buzzwords that people like to throw out meaninglessly when they see a lot of buffs to other characters and assume the worst for the characters left out with no effort to dig deeper into the issue and analyze whether those changes actually create a net positive impact for the character as a whole or just a bit stronger in some very particular MUs and/or interactions (which seems to echo what your thoughts are on this subject if I'm not misunderstanding you).

And, not to mention, even with all the buffs that were given to characters in 8.0 in a way that increases kill options, most of them are uncommonly used in a competitive environment (barring some exceptions like Ike, Falco and Falcon, I think this will largely remain the case moving forward), so in a real world sense, it likely doesn't affect Lucario much. And an increase in availability of kill set ups, options, confirms, etc does not necessarily equate to an increase in killing consistency; so even characters like the 3 aforementioned ones may end up faring no better against Lucario than they did prior to this patch given enough time to more or less establish that Lucario is able to sufficiently adapt to their new gameplans and set ups and work around them.

There really is no rule of thumb; it tends to be different for different people. I do several things.
1: I'll play characters vs competitive players and determine how well they hold up in different MUs. This applies to . For example I suck with ; I do not have good control over them but can still win games more easily than with Ganon of Ridley. ZSS/Lucina have fast, stupidly good buttons. It's just easier to win interactions and escape disadvantage. 1 is why I thought K.Rool is lower mid tier and not low tier. He feels a tier above Ganon. I never understood why they were considered the same low tier.
2 I'll play vs characters in tournaments and friendlies. Since I main a polarizing character sometimes I get tunnel vision and will underestimate characters YL does well against like Joker/PT or overestimate characters he struggles vs like Ike, Robin, Corin etc. But I try to get experience with all my characters. This is why 3 is especially important.
3 I'll use tournament results like Orion Stats to see if my personal views match up with who's actually dominating tournaments. They often do but not always. It's so easy to build up, or down, a character in our heads that it's important to have results as a reality check. Earlier I used the example of how a good player in my region thinks Ike is "top tier, unironically". There have been a few characters that I probably over estimated due to personal experience like DK and Ike.

Yea agreed, I probably could've worded things better but I just wanted to get a sense on some qualities that are valued across a wide range of competitive levels and players. I generally don't let majority opinions influence my own views, but I have found it curious how vehemently negative the opinions about are these days. It seemed to be trending that way as recently as 7.0, but has gotten more pronounced to me in recent days/months. I saw he was recently seen to be in the same league as Ganon and Mac and that's something I just don't get.

Just by virtue of the fact he has the 6th best air speed and 5th best initial dash in the game (I think both of those can be generally agreed to be important character attributes to be strong in), an X factor with aura, an MU chart that has him going even with many high and top tiers and a recovery that, while exploitable if not used intelligently, has very good travel distance starting at roughly mid percents has me philosophically putting him at mid tier, even if at the lower end of it. Then you account for what player skill and character knowledge allows you to do with Luc and I just can't see him as a low/bottom tier (his flaws are currently too great to rise into either of the higher tiers for the time being even if used optimally though, I'm not that optimistic).

Using results and tournament VODs for data is definitely important to factor in as well, but a bit trickier to do with a polarizing character like Lucario who is so rarely used, so while I think it should still be considered, they're just not going to provide the same value that they usually do when assessing other characters due to a lower volume of those to study and make judgments upon (which for better or worse, seems to force a greater reliance on theorycrafting to make any type of thoughtful assessment of Luc). Anyway, thanks for giving me your thoughts. I appreciate it.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here are some other examples of powercreep within Ultimate I can think of.

Pichu's example is more of a metagame thing than a powercreep thing, but it is notable. A top regarded character at first, it feel off in terms of results as time went on, which lead directly into the 3.1 nerfs. However, after the nerfs it was seen as still a very viable character, and as seen as upper high tier at worst.
However, recently, Pichu seems to be growing more and more unpopular. The higher opinion of Pikachu, a character that isn't that popular either, combined with the increased metagame prevalence and numerous buffs to characters previously ranked below it has hurt it quite a bit. This is showing at a all time-high in 8.0, as the high tiers got new faces in the form of Falco, Ike, Falcon, and potentially Min Min. A lot of the buffs in the patch are mostly to KO options as well, which is another blow to the character in a similar vein to Lucario.
The character might still be high tier, but the character is starting to approach the lower ends of it.

Ike, prior to his buffs in 8.0, was probably the biggest example of powercreep in the game. After the MkLeo hype went down, he was still considered to be high tier, with some solid rep and results to back it. However, as time goes on, Ike steadily fell down the tier list to his familiar home of mid tier.
Thanks to 8.0, the character is highly seen as potentially high tier once again, but prior to the buffs, the character's metagame slowing down in comparison to almost everyone else's hurt the character for the longest time.

All four of these characters are all part of the "once a solid mid tier, but fell off due to their weaknesses being more prevalent, buffs to characters once below them, and their metagames stagnating" club.
Fell to the lower tiers noticeably sooner than everyone else, to its more polarizing weaknesses, despite receiving constant buffs from updates. However, it is in a much better position in the lower tiers thanks to these buffs.
Has recently got a handful of pretty nice buffs thanks to 8.0, which also improves its position in the lower tiers.
However, these two were probably in the upper end of low tier to begin with. However, both characters got hit really hard in 8.0, as characters like Pit, Bayonetta, Dedede, K. Rool, and more received buffs to varying degrees, while both of them got absolutely nothing.
The patch also did two things that really hurt both of them especially. In the Belmonts' case, it is the introduction of Min Min, a distance demon character that is, for the most part, superior to the Belmonts in every way. In Swordfighter's case, it is to the buffs to fellow low tier swordsman (swordswoman?) Corrin, commonly considered to be the worst sword character in the game, who got some very nice KO power buffs. While I personally don't think Corrin will rise out of low tier from these buffs, her position in the lower tiers have undoubtedly improved considerably, which may make Mii Swordfighter, once again, the worst sword character in the game.

Banjo is another notable victim of powercreep, which may rear it's ugly head especially now in 8.0.
The character when they came out initially, was considered to be mid, maybe high tier, thanks to their seemingly solid, well-rounded moveset. This would be reflected in Tweek getting 5th in Glitch 7 using mostly the character. After the Tweek hype settled down, and the character's main and secondaries has been established, the character has been seen as a solid mid tier.
However, ever since the start of this year, Banjo's metagame grew more and more stagnate. There isn't a lot of players solo-maining the character, let alone getting anything too notable in terms of results in high level play. Japan is definitely the character's best region, but the character's solo results there is still merely average at best. The best results, funnily enough, comes from Zaki and Raito, who co-mains the character with Dedede and Duck Hunt, respecitively.
Now up to this point, I have been harking to metagame stagnation and realization of the character's flaws, which is a catalyst behind why the character fell off, but the recent buffs also harmed the character quite a bit. Both 7.0 and 8.0 gave love to a lot of mid tier characters. Falcon, Ike, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Sheik, Zelda, and more, some of which got buffs to the next tier. Some lower tiers also received buffs, especially in 8.0, that have may potentially added more characters to the mid tiers.
Dabuz and Myran adding Banjo to the lower tiers, while definitely not an immediate indication considering the questionable placements in both lists (especially the former), is a bit of an indication of the character feeling the powercreep.

My point of mid tiers getting buffed in 7.0 and 8.0, also applies to who, out of all the mid tier characters, will probably feel the sting of powercreep the most due all of three character's metagames being on the stagnate side. Opinions on all three of them definitely feels lower than before.

 

[ARISTOS]

Here are some other examples of powercreep within Ultimate I can think of.

Pichu's example is more of a metagame thing than a powercreep thing, but it is notable. A top regarded character at first, it feel off in terms of results as time went on, which lead directly into the 3.1 nerfs. However, after the nerfs it was seen as still a very viable character, and as seen as upper high tier at worst.
However, recently, Pichu seems to be growing more and more unpopular. The higher opinion of Pikachu, a character that isn't that popular either, combined with the increased metagame prevalence and numerous buffs to characters previously ranked below it has hurt it quite a bit. This is showing at a all time-high in 8.0, as the high tiers got new faces in the form of Falco, Ike, Falcon, and potentially Min Min. A lot of the buffs in the patch are mostly to KO options as well, which is another blow to the character in a similar vein to Lucario.
The character might still be high tier, but the character is starting to approach the lower ends of it.

Ike, prior to his buffs in 8.0, was probably the biggest example of powercreep in the game. After the MkLeo hype went down, he was still considered to be high tier, with some solid rep and results to back it. However, as time goes on, Ike steadily fell down the tier list to his familiar home of mid tier.
Thanks to 8.0, the character is highly seen as potentially high tier once again, but prior to the buffs, the character's metagame slowing down in comparison to almost everyone else's hurt the character for the longest time.

All four of these characters are all part of the "once a solid mid tier, but fell off due to their weaknesses being more prevalent, buffs to characters once below them, and their metagames stagnating" club.
Fell to the lower tiers noticeably sooner than everyone else, to its more polarizing weaknesses, despite receiving constant buffs from updates. However, it is in a much better position in the lower tiers thanks to these buffs.
Has recently got a handful of pretty nice buffs thanks to 8.0, which also improves its position in the lower tiers.
However, these two were probably in the upper end of low tier to begin with. However, both characters got hit really hard in 8.0, as characters like Pit, Bayonetta, Dedede, K. Rool, and more received buffs to varying degrees, while both of them got absolutely nothing.
The patch also did two things that really hurt both of them especially. In the Belmonts' case, it is the introduction of Min Min, a distance demon character that is, for the most part, superior to the Belmonts in every way. In Swordfighter's case, it is to the buffs to fellow low tier swordsman (swordswoman?) Corrin, commonly considered to be the worst sword character in the game, who got some very nice KO power buffs. While I personally don't think Corrin will rise out of low tier from these buffs, her position in the lower tiers have undoubtedly improved considerably, which may make Mii Swordfighter, once again, the worst sword character in the game.

Banjo is another notable victim of powercreep, which may rear it's ugly head especially now in 8.0.
The character when they came out initially, was considered to be mid, maybe high tier, thanks to their seemingly solid, well-rounded moveset. This would be reflected in Tweek getting 5th in Glitch 7 using mostly the character. After the Tweek hype settled down, and the character's main and secondaries has been established, the character has been seen as a solid mid tier.
However, ever since the start of this year, Banjo's metagame grew more and more stagnate. There isn't a lot of players solo-maining the character, let alone getting anything too notable in terms of results in high level play. Japan is definitely the character's best region, but the character's solo results there is still merely average at best. The best results, funnily enough, comes from Zaki and Raito, who co-mains the character with Dedede and Duck Hunt, respecitively.
Now up to this point, I have been harking to metagame stagnation and realization of the character's flaws, which is a catalyst behind why the character fell off, but the recent buffs also harmed the character quite a bit. Both 7.0 and 8.0 gave love to a lot of mid tier characters. Falcon, Ike, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Sheik, Zelda, and more, some of which got buffs to the next tier. Some lower tiers also received buffs, especially in 8.0, that have may potentially added more characters to the mid tiers.
Dabuz and Myran adding Banjo to the lower tiers, while definitely not an immediate indication considering the questionable placements in both lists (especially the former), is a bit of an indication of the character feeling the powercreep.

My point of mid tiers getting buffed in 7.0 and 8.0, also applies to who, out of all the mid tier characters, will probably feel the sting of powercreep the most due all of three character's metagames being on the stagnate side. Opinions on all three of them definitely feels lower than before.

Thinkaman stated it better, but those characters weren't power crept, they were either figured or people lacked interest in them from the start. It's a big difference.

Smash 4 was power crept by Cloud and Bayo, we haven't seen power creep in this game.

 

[Thinkaman]

It's just a matter of math. If I was talented enough to make a fast infographic, I would.

But I just ran the numbers, using OrionRank as a general proxy for relative character performance. Take Captain Falcon. Even if we generously say that Falcon's changes made him as good as Ken, and his general performance differential over Ganondorf almost doubles, this is still a drop in the ocean--this would account for less than 0.75% of Ganon's currently observed "performance deficiency." It is less than one-tenth of the impact of the existence of Joker; Wolf too.

And Falcon is a disproportionately highly used character with very large changes. Say, Diddy Kong? Even if the gap between him and Ganondorf has tripled, that change amounts to about 0.01% of the aggregate distance between him and each individual character--because that gap was relatively small to begin with and no one plays Diddy.


Imagine a matchup chart where each row/column is scaled to the size of that character's overall "impact" (OrionRank/Usage), so that Joker's row/columns is over 10x the size of Lucario's, and the Joker/Joker matchup is 100x the area of the Lucario/Lucario matchup. Think how tiny the Ganondorf/DDD square on that chart is, and then realize that in talking about a small change to that matchup, we are talking about a fraction of that postage stamp. Even if the DDD row/column grows, it's a postage stamp.

On the other hand, shaving off a bit of those huge boxes in the Joker/Palu/Wolf/Pichu boxes (+shrinking them slightly) actually adds up to a decent amount.

 

[Tri Knight]

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.

Yeah, there's no way this big boy beats any of the Links. Id say Toon and Young are -1 if anything.

 

[Rizen]

And I'm saying this is wrong. The comparison doesn't hold at all.

It's like the power level of each Pokemon originally went up to 10; and then up to 11 in the next gen, with 10 becoming more common. And then 12, with 11 becoming more common and 10 being downright ordinary. And so on, ect. That's power creep.

Ganon's woes have nothing to do with him getting a worse Mewtwo matchup. Ganon's usage and results began to plummet far before any of these meaningful buffs hit, and he certain loved the nerfs to Olimar, Ivysaur, Pichu, Palu, and Joker; often rated among his very worst matchups.

The comparison is perfectly apt. I'm not going to sidetrack with pokemon specifics.

"It's like the power level of each Pokemon originally went up to 10; and then up to 11 in the next gen, with 10 becoming more common. And then 12, with 11 becoming more common and 10 being downright ordinary. And so on, ect. That's power creep. "
That's what happened with mid tier. Most of the characters have a higher power level. Captain Falcon's a good example of a prrrrrroooobably mid tier who's power level kept getting increased. Ganon can't keep up anymore.

"200 years of Xeno's Smash patches and Mario, Fox, Greninja, Lucina, Inkling, Roy, ect... will be exactly the same and just as viable as they are today."
...Unless Marth is found better than Lucina after his buffs. Then Lucina's going to plummet. Or Falco becomes a top tier that Inkling hates. This is still theoretical so how about something we have data on: YL got buffed and his phase 3 Orion ranking was 21st place as compared to his phase 2 ranking of 29th place. YL is often considered a losing MU for pokemon trainer. Let's just assume this true for the sake of argument. Isn't it fare to say that YL's buffs contributed to PT's decline?

"Ganon's woes have nothing to do with him getting a worse Mewtwo matchup."
How about a worse Falco MU? He's a character who might see increased usage, time will tell. It's easy enough to say "Mewtwo or Kirby's buffs are most likely irrelevant" but good characters are getting buffed. What about a worse Cloud, YL or Samus MU (after the previous patch)?

"Ganon's usage and results began to plummet far before any of these meaningful buffs hit"
I'm not denying that the evolution of the meta has lowered Ganon's usage but it's unrealistic to say that the myriad of buffs applied over the months had no affect either. I'm not just talking about the most recent patch.

"and he certain loved the nerfs to Olimar, Ivysaur, Pichu, Palu, and Joker; often rated among his very worst matchups"
How many of said characters is he beating now? Joker's inclusion in the game hurt him, as did Min Min's. Ganon's not suddenly gaining good MUs; he's getting slightly less bad MUs in addition to much worse MUs in lesser used characters, considering the buffs generally outweigh the nerfs, and absolutely terrible MUs in new characters. I don't think he wins against any of the DLC but he hates Banjo and Min Min especially.

The current, augmented meta is not friendlier to Ganon, nor is it the same. The water is rising and he's feeling it.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Unlike smogon we use all the characters so doesnt matter if ganon fellow low tiers gets buffed he still loses to the same top tiers: pikachu, palutena, wario, etc.. characters who are already won the matchup pretty hard, unless one of the buffed characters becomes pika on steroids ganon will still have a very similar chance to win, remember ganon isnt topping tournaments because of king dedede or king k. Rool, but Joker, palutena, and pikachu.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Unless Marth is found better than Lucina after his buffs. Then Lucina's going to plummet.

How good Marth is it fairly irrelevant for Lucina (except for the Lucina vs Marth matchup, I suppose). Even if Marth turns out to be better now, Lucina will be just as good as before the Marth buffs (except in the Lucina-Marth MU). She might be picked less often and less relevant in the meta, but her viability will remain the same (except vs Marth).

Is it overall MU spread? How well a character does against the more common "meta-relevant" characters?

A combination of these two. Weighted MU spread based on the relevance. Losing to Lucina and Wario is worse than losing to Lucario and Ice Climbers. Winning against a top tier is better than winning against a low tier.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I think the fact that anyone is willing to compare Ultimate's patches to an entirely new generation of pokemon really shows how much people overrated some of these balance changes.

Every new pokemom game comes with tons of new pokemon, items, abilities and moves to work with, some of which are intentionally designed to be overpowered. Not to mention big changes in universal mechanics. Metagames between generations are barely recognizable - one gen people are running suicide leads deidicated solely to setting up rocks, and the next everyone has a Politoad of all things on their team.

In an Ultimate patch we see slight tweaks to an already fairly well balanced game. We're starting to see braver changes from the balance team but nothing to the same degree as Ding Dongs. Perhaps Falco is noticeably more viable now, but we won't be seeing him taking the metagame by total storm when quarantine ends - not to the point that your match up against him is now a major point in determining viability. He's still mostly the same Falco we had before, but this time with a little more polish here and there.

I suppose Ganondorf's relative position on the hypothetical tier list might change but his overall viability will still be mostly the same as it was before.

 

[Rizen]

How good Marth is it fairly irrelevant for Lucina (except for the Lucina vs Marth matchup, I suppose). Even if Marth turns out to be better now, Lucina will be just as good as before the Marth buffs (except in the Lucina-Marth MU). She might be picked less often and less relevant in the meta, but her viability will remain the same (except vs Marth).

I was talking about her usage if she follows the same trend that Marth had before, being the worst of the two. They're arguably the only echos where one makes the other obsolete, although you could argue Roy is better than Chrom. TBH I have no idea who's better between Marth and Lucina now.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I was talking about her usage if she follows the same trend that Marth had before, being the worst of the two. They're arguably the only echos where one makes the other obsolete, although you could argue Roy is better than Chrom. TBH I have no idea who's better between Marth and Lucina now.

The context seemed to be in regards to viability, not use rate? Anyway, if Marth turns out to be significantly better than Lucina, then it does seem likely that she'll drop in usage, and significantly. However, if Marth is just a little better than Lucina, then I think Lucina will still be used quite a bit, since she's generally easier to use than Marth. My estimate right now is that Lucina is a bit better than Marth and significantly easier to use, so Marth probably won't see a ton of use, but some players who prefer Marth over Lucina might make the switch.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Captain's Quarters 3

1st: Sonix
2nd: Kola (entered the tournament as "PIKAPIZZA07")
3rd: SKITTLES!!
4th: Epic_Gabriel
5th: Maister
5th: Mr. E
7th: Mage
7th: Ray Kalm
9th: MattBro
9th: yumeko
9th: GamingHI9x9
9th: Ven
13th: Quark
13th: SlushieV1
13th: The6Master
13th: KirbyKid

So in terms of online events, nothing too eventful has happened yet. Online events seem to be progressing mostly similarly to before 8.0.

 

[Alicorn]

How good is Sonic competitively I heard he has the most fair matches in the game.

 

[Eremurus]

How good is Sonic competitively I heard he has the most fair matches in the game.

I think Sonic is probably middle/bottom of top tier. You know how people like to approach with SH + aerial, because it's not that committal, and it's safe? Well, Sonic takes that, and throws it out the window. Sonic has extremely good tools, and his moveset in general is very versatile- not to mention, that absurd mobility.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Power Creep would be observable if any character got buffed to the effectiveness of like, extremely meta central characters IMO (hypothetical example: suddenly Banjo is like Joker or something). Outside of that it's not power creep that's making a character "worse", its a matter of a metagame shaping and also other characters improving.

Ganondorf and Belmonts have been hit far harder by better understanding of the mechanics and neutral in the game than they have by characters being buffed IMO.

Someone brought up Banjo, I don't think the character's viability has conceptually changed past month 1 vs. month 2. Most people said he was like, high tier at best, mid tier most likely when he first came out, and while I have a higher view of him than a lot of people, the GENERAL consensus among players wrt Banjo is that he's around the middle, and that's been a thing since month 2.

 

[The_Bookworm]

is at the top of high tier offline, but is top tier online.

The character has a lot of really good tools in his disposal, which is reflected in his pretty great results offline. Manever with his amazing mobility, solid buttons across the board, powerful burst options, and a versatile recovery especially by Ultimate's standards.

But with online, his tools becomes straight up unreactable at times and annoying to deal with, thanks to the increased input delay. This is reflected in his results online being stronger.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Power Creep would be observable if any character got buffed to the effectiveness of like, extremely meta central characters IMO (hypothetical example: suddenly Banjo is like Joker or something). Outside of that it's not power creep that's making a character "worse", its a matter of a metagame shaping and also other characters improving.

Ganondorf and Belmonts have been hit far harder by better understanding of the mechanics and neutral in the game than they have by characters being buffed IMO.

Someone brought up Banjo, I don't think the character's viability has conceptually changed past month 1 vs. month 2. Most people said he was like, high tier at best, mid tier most likely when he first came out, and while I have a higher view of him than a lot of people, the GENERAL consensus among players wrt Banjo is that he's around the middle, and that's been a thing since month 2.

Agreed, no character yet as been buffed to the point they suddenly are in the top echelons of the roster. Falco maybe, he was already a good character pre buffs and is a popular legacy character I can see Falco’s usage increasing a lot if his buffs were as impactful as they seem but none of the characters who have received buffs since the game’s release have been buffed to the point they went from meta irrelevant to meta relevant which would indicate power creep. Lucario’s Pit MU might be worse now that Pit has reliable kill confirms limiting aura usage but Pit being better isn’t creeping on Lucario’s relevance. (And I don’t buy Pit having become that much better than before)

A good example of power creep via patches would be S4 M2 or Marth. Both two weak characters who got big boy buffs that shot them up into meta relevant threats. Your M2 and Marth MU mattered after their buffs. Likewise with Cloud and Bayo when they were added to the game.

Joker being added that’s power creep, Byleth not so much.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Agreed, no character yet as been buffed to the point they suddenly are in the top echelons of the roster. Falco maybe, he was already a good character pre buffs and is a popular legacy character I can see Falco’s usage increasing a lot if his buffs were as impactful as they seem but none of the characters who have received buffs since the game’s release have been buffed to the point they went from meta irrelevant to meta relevant which would indicate power creep. Lucario’s Pit MU might be worse now that Pit has reliable kill confirms limiting aura usage but Pit being better isn’t creeping on Lucario’s relevance. (And I don’t buy Pit having become that much better than before)

A good example of power creep via patches would be S4 M2 or Marth. Both two weak characters who got big boy buffs that shot them up into meta relevant threats. Your M2 and Marth MU mattered after their buffs. Likewise with Cloud and Bayo when they were added to the game.

Joker being added that’s power creep, Byleth not so much.

I think honestly Mewtwo is a better example than Marth in S4 but they're both great choices. Mewtwo got SUBSTANTIALLY large buffs. But the most power creep definitely came in with Cloud and Bayo I'd have to agree there, hahaha. Outside of Joker who like, could maybe be argued at that level in a statistical sense (but, eh, probably not, really?) this game hasn't really had power creep occur yet.

 

[Eremurus]

is at the top of high tier offline, but is top tier online.

The character has a lot of really good tools in his disposal, which is reflected in his pretty great results offline. Manever with his amazing mobility, solid buttons across the board, powerful burst options, and a versatile recovery especially by Ultimate's standards.

But with online, his tools becomes straight up unreactable at times and annoying to deal with, thanks to the increased input delay. This is reflected in his results online being stronger.

I mean, does KEN not exist anymore? Did Sonic not always have respectable results?

 

[The_Bookworm]

I mean, does KEN not exist anymore? Did Sonic not always have respectable results?

's results was middling during the beginning of the game. It got to the point where a few players went as far as saying that he was low tier.
However, thanks to increasing metagame advancements, the character rose and rose until he cemented himself at the high tiers.
In other words, the character rose from a mid/lower-mid tier, into a high tier without the need for any update buffs.

As for KEN, he still plays in Japan, getting pretty good results there. He is no where near as dominant as in SSB4, but he is an important component of major events in Japan. Ever since 2018, he stopped going to USA events, or anywhere else internationally, and I doubt that will change anytime soon due to how long ago it has been since he went to a USA event.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

's results was middling during the beginning of the game. It got to the point where a few players went as far as saying that he was low tier.
However, thanks to increasing metagame advancements, the character rose and rose until he cemented himself at the high tiers.
In other words, the character rose from a mid/lower-mid tier, into a high tier without the need for any update buffs.

As for KEN, he still plays in Japan, getting pretty good results there. He is no where near as dominant as in SSB4, but he is an important component of major events in Japan. Ever since 2018, he stopped going to USA events, or anywhere else internationally, and I doubt that will change anytime soon due to how long ago it has been since he went to a USA event.

He went to Kongo Saga last year, but he flopped.

 

[Thinkaman]

was #30 in OrionRank phase 1, #24 in Phase 2, and #24 in phase 3. The smash.gg data suggests he is the 18th most used character in tournament and has the 9th most consistent matchups in the game.

Anywhay, here's a bunch of great 8.0.0 Fatality videos I really enjoyed:

Spoiler: Videos

Yes, it's just friendlies online, not exactly grand finals here, but this is still an oasis in a drought. Drink up!
The matches against ESAM's really stand out. Like... he wins. Against a player who was 38/62 ranks above him on OrionRank 2019. In a matchup that is supposedly horrible.

I think the footage is a great example of how everyone overestimate Pikcahu matchups. Like, it certainly looks absolutely horrendous for the first 50%. Pikachu hits you once, takes you to flavortown, leaves you offstage, and has 5 kill options ready for your next move. It's downright traumatizing, and unless you are patient with your double jump and deliberate with your recovery choices, you'll just lose stocks off of hits from 0%. You can see the terror on Fatality's face every time, and the exhale when he finally resets to neutral.

And then he kills Pikachu.

Sure, ESAM starts showboating, has a couple bad SDs, and has parts that are just not optimal. But ditto for Fatality--how many under-optimized knees did you see whiff? At the end, Fatality admits apropos nothing that hey, maybe this matchup is no worse than "-1" now.

I'm interested to see where Fatality takes this character. As a top 20 Smash 4 player, we don't have anyone with this tier of pedigree in a position to make a splash with one of the buffed characters (ignoring Marth), unless:

• Cosmos actually goes
• Wadi follows through on or
• We have an resurgence
• A dark horse picks up

All of those are unknown possibilities, but we know that Fatality is 100% pedal to the metal on Falcon. So at our current confidence intervals, that is our biggest anticipated top-level shakeup.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

was #30 in OrionRank phase 1, #24 in Phase 2, and #24 in phase 3. The smash.gg data suggests he is the 18th most used character in tournament and has the 9th most consistent matchups in the game.

Anywhay, here's a bunch of great 8.0.0 Fatality videos I really enjoyed:

Spoiler: Videos

Yes, it's just friendlies online, not exactly grand finals here, but this is still an oasis in a drought. Drink up!
The matches against ESAM's really stand out. Like... he wins. Against a player who was 38/62 ranks above him on OrionRank 2019. In a matchup that is supposedly horrible.

I think the footage is a great example of how everyone overestimate Pikcahu matchups. Like, it certainly looks absolutely horrendous for the first 50%. Pikachu hits you once, takes you to flavortown, leaves you offstage, and has 5 kill options ready for your next move. It's downright traumatizing, and unless you are patient with your double jump and deliberate with your recovery choices, you'll just lose stocks off of hits from 0%. You can see the terror on Fatality's face every time, and the exhale when he finally resets to neutral.

And then he kills Pikachu.

Sure, ESAM starts showboating, has a couple bad SDs, and has parts that are just not optimal. But ditto for Fatality--how many under-optimized knees did you see whiff? At the end, Fatality admits apropos nothing that hey, maybe this matchup is no worse than "-1" now.

I'm interested to see where Fatality takes this character. As a top 20 Smash 4 player, we don't have anyone with this tier of pedigree in a position to make a splash with one of the buffed characters (ignoring Marth), unless:

• Cosmos actually goes
• Wadi follows through on or
• We have an resurgence
• A dark horse picks up

All of those are unknown possibilities, but we know that Fatality is 100% pedal to the metal on Falcon. So at our current confidence intervals, that is our biggest anticipated top-level shakeup.

Cosmos is playing a lot of right now, and thinks the buffs made the character high tier.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Cosmos is playing a lot of right now, and thinks the buffs made the character high tier.

It's plausible he might play or even main Corrin, but he's also expressed interest in Inkling, Min Min, and Pikachu. I guess we'll see, really hard to predict who he'll end up playing, potentially multiple characters (though he said he prefers solo maining).

I don't think Corrin is high tier right now, but she might be around top 30 maybe.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I still stand by Pika being overrated. Still a great character, but where are the results a "best character in the game" should get? Yeah okay it's hard to play, but ESAM has been playing Pika since Brawl, has had over a year to make a big splash, and yet only has good results but always falls shy of top of the pack. Imo, Pika's on the lower end of top tier, maybe even top of high tier. It's a shame that in-person tournaments aren't going on, though. I'd be happy for Cosmos to prove me wrong on this. It's possible Pika just needs a slightly different playstyle to be taken to the top, and Cosmos has the skill to show what Pika can do. But alas, we'll have to wait as Pika is pretty heavily nerfed by online

 

[Kiligar]

Smash boards seems to have a Pikachu is bad meme going around. No one else anywhere thinks Pikachu is high tier. Pikachu has a winning matchup against 80% of the cast. Pikachu is also one of the few characters who has a winning matchup over potent top tiers such as Palutena, ZSS, Joker. Thunder jolt is the best projectile in the game, quick attack is one of the best recovery moves and is really hard to punish on stage, all of Pikachu’s aerials chain into each other over and over, and all of them are ridiculously hard to punish , the character is tiny and hard to hit, Pikachu has a reliable kill throw, pancaking. Pikachu’s only weaknesses are weight and hitboxes although Pikachu’s hitboxes aren’t that small, especially on certain moves like Dair. Pikachu can user jolt to make up for any lack of range, and Pikachu wins by t jolt alone in many matchups if the opponent isn’t a parry bot. The character is not a high tier.

Results aren’t the only thing which matters, the character is always at the tier placement they’re at regardless of who uses them, it’s simply that players discover how good characters are over time. If no one used Joker or Snake or Palu etc does it make them any worse? No it just means they aren’t used and they’re just as good even if that’s the case. Pikachu is a decently popular character at mid level afaik but not as popular at top level. Many are acting like Pikachu should be a bayonetta if they’re number one, but the gap between Pika at top 1 and the rest of the top tiers isn’t like the gap between Bayo and everyone else.

 

[DougEfresh]

I still stand by Pika being overrated. Still a great character, but where are the results a "best character in the game" should get? Yeah okay it's hard to play, but ESAM has been playing Pika since Brawl, has had over a year to make a big splash, and yet only has good results but always falls shy of top of the pack. Imo, Pika's on the lower end of top tier, maybe even top of high tier. It's a shame that in-person tournaments aren't going on, though. I'd be happy for Cosmos to prove me wrong on this. It's possible Pika just needs a slightly different playstyle to be taken to the top, and Cosmos has the skill to show what Pika can do. But alas, we'll have to wait as Pika is pretty heavily nerfed by online

I have to agree with this take as well. I admire ESAM's game knowledge and skill as a player, but for how much he boasts about Pika being so "busted" and all the other top players touting him as the best character in the game, the character's results overall certainly don't reflect that. He has a ton of strengths and very few weaknesses with a great MU spread, but I still think can struggle a bit with closing out stocks if you're not hitting those confirms consistently enough. His small hurtbox, pancaking, etc can only help his survivability so much Imo, especially with somewhat lacking aerial mobility (though QA is a thing and certainly does help).

For as much as people have liked to meme about and his "potential" in the past, I think represents a more current example of potentially overblown hype. With theorycrafting, both characters can be easily made out to be top 5 characters in the game, but I think their skill floors and ceilings are so high that it's a tall order for even the best reps of either Shulk or Pika atm to realistically optimize the extent of their tools and implement them consistently into high pressure tournament gameplay (at the very least w/Shulk, there are a handful of high and top level representatives for the character; whereas with Pika, it's just ESAM and...that's about it afaik. I do find this to be rather telling).

To your point though, maybe Cosmos will pick Pika up and prove us wrong or ESAM will make the adjustments and step up to actually back up the claims that he's the best character in the game. Both characters are likely to be more threatening later in the metagame due to their immense time and skill requirements, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

 

[blackghost]

not a fan of the term "powercreep" when applied to fighting games.
power creep is a term for when something becomes OBJECTIVELY better. easy example is hearthstone a card that cost 3 mana that has 3 att and 2 health and a year later a card came out that had 3 mana cost and 3 att and 3 health.
pokemon in particular is an interesting comparison to smash. Pokemon compeitively is designed to be 2v2 not1v1 as smogon tried to enforce. so it leads to interesting relationships and placements for pokemon. But on the other hand because pokemon is an RPG where turns are determined by speed and prority pokemon being faster and faster over the generations has been a problem outside of gen 6 where the speed of new pokemon didnt go up much.

figting games dont work like that. ganon was never good in ultimate. we as players had little understanding of the game and were getting hit with things we shouldnt. especially early when the playerbase was subject to the newly changed smash attack charge time. characters like lucina didnt become weaker our understanding of the game caught up and winning with luncina is ALOT more work even if her frame data hasnt changed. power creep isnt a prominet factor of fighting games meta games its players understanding and knowledge of options in fighting games.
there is no cloud or bayonetta level in ultimate powercreep isnt a part of this game.

lastly characters like banjo had a lot of doubters at launch and a lot of supporters but i remember saying that banjo was being carried by the fandom just being happy he was in and not objectively looking at his tools.

 

[Rizen]

figting games dont work like that. ganon was never good in ultimate. .

Some top players considered high tier early on. Ganon was figured out but he was also better relatively in the past.

I'm not denying the meta evolves to better or worse suit characters but as a player I can tell you buffs absolutely matter. IMO both of them are significantly better characters with better MU spreads. Don't dismiss buffs.

_____________________________
I... really don't care to talk about the rat. :/

 

[StrangeKitten]

The first set of buffs, back in 6.0 I think it was, made him finally not feel like butt to play. The Krown and belly armor buffs of 8.0 are great for him, and the belly armor is something I've been wanting for a long time.

I'm loving the buffs. Up smash being better at killing has already helped on occasion, and forward throw killing has helped almost all the time. Loving the increased reward on Revenge, too.

 

[Thinkaman]

Smash boards seems to have a Pikachu is bad meme going around. No one else anywhere thinks Pikachu is high tier. Pikachu has a winning matchup against 80% of the cast. Pikachu is also one of the few characters who has a winning matchup over potent top tiers such as Palutena, ZSS, Joker. Thunder jolt is the best projectile in the game, quick attack is one of the best recovery moves and is really hard to punish on stage, all of Pikachu’s aerials chain into each other over and over, and all of them are ridiculously hard to punish , the character is tiny and hard to hit, Pikachu has a reliable kill throw, pancaking. Pikachu’s only weaknesses are weight and hitboxes although Pikachu’s hitboxes aren’t that small, especially on certain moves like Dair. Pikachu can user jolt to make up for any lack of range, and Pikachu wins by t jolt alone in many matchups if the opponent isn’t a parry bot. The character is not a high tier.

Results aren’t the only thing which matters, the character is always at the tier placement they’re at regardless of who uses them, it’s simply that players discover how good characters are over time. If no one used Joker or Snake or Palu etc does it make them any worse? No it just means they aren’t used and they’re just as good even if that’s the case. Pikachu is a decently popular character at mid level afaik but not as popular at top level.

It's one thing to assert that Wario is actually #1, and not #6.

• He's underused for obviously attributable reasons
• He has 2 players in the top 10
  • (And kameme! And Abadango!)
• Has a hard-to-dispute theoretical basis
  • Optimal Wario combos directly confirm into the game's win condition

Pikachu...

• Barely makes top 30 in results
• Actually underperforms his general usage--there's no shortage of Pika players
• Has 0 players in the top 10
  • And maybe even just 1 in the top 50, or even 100, depending on where you rank Captain L
• The "theoretical basis" of his dominance is always just a rote regurgitation of the character's strengths

What's all the more baffling, the 1 outlier Pikachu master is clearly amazing at the game in a hoslistic sense--he outperfoms his normal results in Squad Strike on the multiple occasions I saw. This is the exact opposite result we'd expect if Pikachu was actually carrying ESAM--instead it appears to be the other way.

No one is saying Pikachu is bad. (lol what??? character is good, great even) But this circular notion that Pikachu es numero uno and all his matchups are amazing is so far removed from observable reality whilst being exactly the sort of status-signaling nonsense that thrives on Twitter, so of course we're incredibly skeptical.

Many are acting like Pikachu should be a bayonetta if they’re number one

I don't think a single person holds or has expressed this view.

Some top players considered high tier early on. Ganon was figured out but he was also better relatively in the past.

I'm not denying the meta evolves to better or worse suit characters but as a player I can tell you buffs absolutely matter. IMO both of them are significantly better characters with better MU spreads. Don't dismiss buffs.

You're missing the crux of what is being argued.

(or ) buffs impact 100% of his matchups, 100% of the games he plays, and equate to a considerable fraction of the previous aggregate performance differential between him and every previously superior character. (enough to bump him up a "tier"? very possible)

buffs, to Ganon impact 1.31% of his matchups, probably about 0.40% of the games he plays, and equates to a tiny rounding error of his aggregate performance differential. (As that 0.40% was the least mathematically significant games in defining that differential.)

Even if you add up every single buff to every character in the game's lifespan (including increases in usage), the mathematical relative impact to Ganon is still over a magnitude less significant than the change those characters experienced. (Because K.Rool buffs affect the Joker/K.Rool matchup, and do not affect the Ganon/Joker matchup.) It's small enough that the smaller number of top-tier nerfs could very well have affected Ganon's aggregate viability just as much! (Hard to say, given the nature of our data)

 

[Frihetsanka]

Cosmos thinks Corrin is around top 15 level. Very interesting. I think he's being a bit too optimistic, but I could see her being around top 20-30 or so. The buffs were huge. Cosmos talking about Corrin: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/674001098?t=2h48m47s

I predict we're going to get a repeat of Smash 4, to some extent. Lots of people will underestimate her because of her slow movement speed, but then it will turn out to not matter as much as you'd think. Her specials and up-throw are worse than in 4, but a lot of her other stuff is actually better. With a few changes she could be top 10, but for now, I'm thinking somewhere around top 20-30.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Cosmos thinks Corrin is around top 15 level. Very interesting. I think he's being a bit too optimistic, but I could see her being around top 20-30 or so. The buffs were huge. Cosmos talking about Corrin: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/674001098?t=2h48m47s

I predict we're going to get a repeat of Smash 4, to some extent. Lots of people will underestimate her because of her slow movement speed, but then it will turn out to not matter as much as you'd think. Her specials and up-throw are worse than in 4, but a lot of her other stuff is actually better. With a few changes she could be top 10, but for now, I'm thinking somewhere around top 20-30.

Well we won't know until we see how Cosmos and other Corrin players actually performs in tournaments, because her tournament presence still remains borderline nonexistent.

Hyping up character buffs is a common practice throughout both SSB4 and Ultimate lifespan. Sometimes, it is warranted, with SSB4 Mewtwo and Marthcina being examples, but then we have Ultimate Dr. Mario and Jigglypuff, two characters who got huge hype thanks to their recent buffs, but ended up falling flat.

We will see if K. Rool's buffs will also actually correlate to better relevant results as well.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Well we won't know until we see how Cosmos and other Corrin players actually performs in tournaments, because her tournament presence still remains borderline nonexistent.

Yeah, though technically this is the Competitive Character Impressions thread, so us giving impressions is still on-topic.

Hyping up character buffs is a common practice throughout both SSB4 and Ultimate lifespan. Sometimes, it is warranted, with SSB4 Mewtwo and Marthcina being examples, but then we have Ultimate Dr. Mario and Jigglypuff, two characters who got huge hype thanks to their recent buffs, but ended up falling flat.

I think we should keep in mind what kind of characters those are. Dr. Mario and Jigglypuff both have serious flaws that makes it hard for them to be good without having some seriously busted stuff. Corrin? We already know Corrin has the potential to be top/high tier based on Smash 4. Her getting some major buffs will likely significantly help her, I don't know if it's quite enough for high tier but she's probably not too far from it. High-mid or high tier would be my estimate, around the top 20 to 30 range. It's fully possible I'm overestimating the buffs though.

We will see if K. Rool's buffs will also actually correlate to better relevant results as well.

I think King K. Rool's archetype is hard to balance and will likely keep him in low-mid tier at best, unless he gets some major buffs.

 

[Rizen]

Pikachu...

• Barely makes top 30 in results
• Actually underperforms his general usage--there's no shortage of Pika players
• Has 0 players in the top 10
  • And maybe even just 1 in the top 50, or even 100, depending on where you rank Captain L
• The "theoretical basis" of his dominance is always just a rote regurgitation of the character's strengths

What's all the more baffling, the 1 outlier Pikachu master is clearly amazing at the game in a hoslistic sense--he outperfoms his normal results in Squad Strike on the multiple occasions I saw. This is the exact opposite result we'd expect if Pikachu was actually carrying ESAM--instead it appears to be the other way.

No one is saying Pikachu is bad. (lol what??? character is good, great even) But this circular notion that Pikachu es numero uno and all his matchups are amazing is so far removed from observable reality whilst being exactly the sort of status-signaling nonsense that thrives on Twitter, so of course we're incredibly skeptical.




I don't think a single person holds or has expressed this view.



You're missing the crux of what is being argued.

(or ) buffs impact 100% of his matchups, 100% of the games he plays, and equate to a considerable fraction of the previous aggregate performance differential between him and every previously superior character. (enough to bump him up a "tier"? very possible)

buffs, to Ganon impact 1.31% of his matchups, probably about 0.40% of the games he plays, and equates to a tiny rounding error of his aggregate performance differential. (As that 0.40% was the least mathematically significant games in defining that differential.)

Even if you add up every single buff to every character in the game's lifespan (including increases in usage), the mathematical relative impact to Ganon is still over a magnitude less significant than the change those characters experienced. (Because K.Rool buffs affect the Joker/K.Rool matchup, and do not affect the Ganon/Joker matchup.) It's small enough that the smaller number of top-tier nerfs could very well have affected Ganon's aggregate viability just as much! (Hard to say, given the nature of our data)

I agree with you on Pikachu.
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Tier lists are based on a character's power relative to other characters. When Corrin gets buffed and goes up tiers (hypothetically) other characters go down. That's where Ganon comes in. This is why Ganon went from mid to low tier. Other characters got better. Or crept up, so to speak.

Like I asked you before, what top tiers is Ganon beating? Let me tell you something about Ganon's MUs: He plays Palutena pre patch, he loses. He plays her post patch, he still loses. However, when he plays Roar, Mewtwo, Kirby pre patch: he wins. Post patch, not so much. Ganon went from having maybe 15 good MUs to possibly 0. The buffs were considerably more substantial than the nerfs- as it should be. He might be losing to Palu by .5 less but he's losing to Falco or CF by at least 1 point greater difference.

And it's very easy to say "Corrin doesn't matter" until Cosmos picks her up. Or someone picks Falco up. Light, Larry Lurr, ZD. Falco's a very bad match up what if he actually becomes top tier*? As I pointed out YL's a terrible MU for Ganon and he rose significantly in rankings after his buffs. YL's fairly relevant.

Yes top tiers are more common and get results but Ganon's not even at that point. Pools are a lot more fierce with all the buffs. A lot of characters get weeded out before they become data. This is Ganon's arena. Lets not forget the local level. If you look at Power Ranking lists they're full of lesser used characters. Yeah maybe they're not going to amount to anything on a level that matters but you can't completely discount them either. Locals are a lot friendlier to lesser used characters.

And if we're talking about the last patch there were no real nerfs. Your formula doesn't apply in this admittedly limited context.

*I am having trouble believing Falco's top tier. He's definitely better but so is YL and he didn't jump to top tier. A lot of characters got substantial buffs and didn't see much increase in usage. I'm skeptical.