Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

This doesn't just apply to . There are other characters that can definitely take advantage of their low crouches in similar ways like .

General reason why he mentioned G&W is that G&W's crouch comes out frame 2, the others come out a few frames later I believe.

 

[KirbySquad101]

A lot of it has to have to do with having the fastest crouch in the game, but probably the even bigger kicker is being able to transition into a DSmash that kills at 60% and covers a metric ton of options and area.

have much slower crouches in comparison, but have frame 3 crouches, so they still get a good chunk of mileage off of it, especially in the case of Kirby with his recently buffed DSmash.

 

[Game7a1]

A lot of it has to have to do with having the fastest crouch in the game, but probably the even bigger kicker is being able to transition into a DSmash that kills at 60% and covers a metric ton of options and area.

have much slower crouches in comparison, but have frame 3 crouches, so they still get a good chunk of mileage off of it, especially in the case of Kirby with his recently buffed DSmash.

Do you happen to know where one can find crouch frame data? I could only find crouch heights but no frame data.

 

[BitBitio]

can actually crouch frame 1 if he d-tilts. This often leads to a trip which essentially is the opponent’s stock if he pulls dair loops or a different confirm.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Do you happen to know where one can find crouch frame data? I could only find crouch heights but no frame data.

Not quite, but I did do some quick test for those types of characters; Snake's crouch animation estimate around 8 frames, as did Wii Fit's.

I can compile a list of it later tonight when I'm done with work and all that. >.>

 

[Thinkaman]

This isn't a script where a hitbox is generated or disappears on a certain frame, there and not-there. This is a full animation, changing a character's skeleton between keyframes. Any "frame data" other than full animation length would be arbitrary, or a measure of an arbitrary condition.

 

[Das Koopa]

Brief commentary: Hero was the subject of ban discussion about a year ago now.

The main concerns levied around Hero shifted rapidly. Initially there was genuine commentary alluding to the idea that he was broken - he's clearly not, though, for a myriad of reasons. These became obvious very quickly (poor mobility & frame data and lacking in consistent burst options or fast moves instantly dooms most characters) so the subject of discussion went from "Oh wow he's broken" to "His RNG is scary".

The primary examples of his RNG being concerning mostly amounted to high frame, high-commitment moves on par with Ganondorf smash attack speeds (see Thwack.) The apex of how silly this became was when clips were posted of Puppeh - a player ranked 69th in 2019 on OrionRank - taking stocks using these moves against Squerk, a player that was not ranked within the top 250 for the year, at a local. Scraping an even lower barrel, clips were shared of Leffen, also a top 100 player, beating people online in Battle Arenas and/or Quickplay.

The common fear was that Hero's moves would allow him to be an upset machine, with lesser players throwing crits or Thwack or menuing magic burst at the perfect time against the right characters being hypothetically able to take down better players because of random factors. How has this transpired in the seven months of competitive play?

Well, Hero;

-Scores below 5.00 on peaks on a peaks project I posted a while back. This isn't abysmal, but 7/10 of listed peaks feature deductions relating to multimaining, several secondaries, etc.

-His main records across tournaments is middling, with an average placement score across 5 mains being at 33.72, putting him in the 40s outside of the range most would consider viable, with several characters he's ahead of having since been buffed.

-His international main usage is below 0.5%, putting him near the bottom of used characters at the relevant international level of play.

-His power rankings stats are only slightly better, making up 1% on top 3 instances, and making up a familiar 0.4% on top 1 instances (in this case, only a single instance across 250+ power rankings globally.) His overall PR usage is 0.5%.

-On the recently constructed Hidden Bosses project, only four Hero mains were used out of hundreds of mains for other characters combined. The maximum number for an individual character was 50 (no character hit this as of yet) and while this is still being worked on, the median is somewhere from 12-20. Other DLC characters sans Byleth/Minmin all outpace him in representation at the hypothetical level, including Piranha Plant, Banjo, and Terry, the last of which was very recently released for the relevant metagame.

-Most embarrassingly, out of 2072 upsets recorded across 100+ intl tier events, Hero takes up a total of 4 upsets (0.2%) meaning he scores below his representation on upsets at the national level. He has less upsets than even his representation would have you expect.

I'm not going to argue that Hero is well designed because I really think he's quite badly designed on a number of different levels. I will however say that debates about banning the character look ridiculous in hindsight as I expected them too after seeing the character's stats and actions and Salem's very, very inconsistent to occasionally poor results upon immediately picking up the character. (He would have successes with Hero - but he dropped in the rankings overall.)

I found myself embarrassed reading hostile comments towards Hero that invoked arguments his Hocus Pocus giant effect was too much RNG. I don't think I needed to have been a yugioh analyst for 4 years to explain to people that the risk-reward on Hocus Pocus is abysmal and that it's one of his worst moves, and that this amounted to complaining about Ganondorf's uptilt. Surely, I thought, people understand Smash Brothers enough to get that most of his instakill moves were actually very bad in most situations.

This certainly doesn't represent all pro-Hero ban arguments, but the insistence by pro-ban people on pushing these kinds of clips (Hocus Pocus, Thwack/Whack, etc.) demonstrates that the movement was doomed to fail because it set expectations so high that when things fell flat for Hero for most of season 2 of the PGR - particular the out-the-gate SSC/Shine, people immediately stopped caring.

This, of course, is now a great example of why pulling an instant ban trigger is a terrible idea, because bans on unimpactful low tiers is a silly idea if they can't consistently do the thing people are scared of. With Hero unable to even fill an Ice Climbers-like role, I feel as though this is the last nail in the coffin for pro-ban sentiment having any ground outside of language barrier debates. Even significant upset(s) now would need to come fast and be as high profile as possible in a very specific way with an immensely negative reaction.

 

[Minix0]

The character was never bottom tier before the buffs, that's the thing.

Eh? That's not what other people have been saying. They were in low tier for ages.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Re: Hero ban

He could be the worst character or least used in the game and I would still be sympathetic to people who want to ban him (I am not one of those people) because of critical hits.

There are a lot of facts and numbers being thrown around in this thread and I support that. But numbers can't really counter this kind of ideological position. If you're someone who doesn't like there being a 12% chance to die from a punish at 50% then hearing about Hero's usage rates will not convince you that he's OK because he'll always have that. Even saying it affects .05% of matches won't help because the fact that it can will always be enough.

Smash players ban a ton of stuff not because it's OP but because it adds to randomness or because we just don't like it. See: all the people vehemently opposed to the return of the moving Smashville platform.

EDIT: In fact I think smash players are probably more tolerant of RNG than other things. Hero, Peach, and G&W aren't really that controversial but predictable stage elements are because characters are sort of sacred to this community. That makes some sense since Smash is a fairly character-driven franchise and most of us are fans because we're Nintendo fans. But I still think it's hilarious that the moving Smashville platform has been easier to ban than Brawl Meta Knight, who was one of the most broken characters in the history of fighting games IMO.

 

[Krysco]

I've been seeing quite a bit of Hero talk on Twitter lately thanks to this clip:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

https://twitter.com/Samsora_/status/1293693189153607680?s=20

There was counterplay to this like being more aggro at the start than just throwing a turnip so he couldn't get Oomph and Psych Up at the same time. Even then, Hero can still get both buffs anyways if you got your shield broken or got sent far offstage/in the air or KO'd and in those cases you just shouldn't shield. Oomph has a time limit to it that you can wait out or you can just take one hit which'll remove Psych Up. Both options have their own issues as trying to avoid Hero gives him more opportunities to use his menu or charge his neutral special and getting hit is bad for obvious reasons: taking damage, getting put in disadvantage where you could possibly die to another spell, dying altogether if your percent is high enough but that's all just potential while shielding will break your shield if Hero hits you with both buffs active and that will be a guaranteed hard punish.

The points I've been seeing against Hero are just the same ones as before. 'No character should be able to inconsistently kill you at 0' when G&W and Peach have the potential to do that as well. 'RNG bad overall' when we have a number of characters already that have some RNG to them so Hero would just have to have too much RNG? Which is a weird line to draw in my opinion. And then there's the most sensible reason which is the language barrier issue but even then, people have brought up an answer to that too. Have the language set to whatever the main language is for where the tournament is being held so it's up to the Hero player to know their spells in another language.

I don't think anyone is willing to say Hero has a good design overall. He is the closest case of being 'literal dice roll the character' but given the data for Hero so far, I would say if you die to Hero RNG or lose to it, just chalk it up to bad luck, just as you would if you die to a Judge 9 or a Bob-omb pull or even a Villager triple turnip uair or dair. I personally don't think the character should be banned.

As for the crouching thing, technically there still would be frames to count for each character. It's already been mentioned that G&W has a frame 2 crouch and Kirby has a frame 3 crouch but can effectively have a frame 1 crouch by dtilting. I'm sure it'd be useful for some characters to lab as an already known option for shield pressure is to hit shield and then either do another attack or a dash back or something to hurtbox shift and avoid a potential punish.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Eh, I think the difference between Hero and Peach/G&W is that their RNG is attached to special moves that have the ability to do much, much less. In the case of Peach RNG, hers is also very telegraphed. Peach pulls and throws many turnips per round, but when she's loaded up with a Saturn or Bomb you generally know what you're up against and there's plenty of counterplay during these brief windows. It adds randomness to Peach's tools in neutral for a brief moment, but not to her punishes.

Where Game&Watch is concerned, Judgment's R&G is dumb but it also has the chance to do like, nothing, or at least nothing useful. If he uses hammer in a place where he has a punish he could have done a guaranteed smash attack instead or any number of other punish options but he's instead rolling the dice for the chance at an early kill. If he rolls the dice on judgment in a combo or as a hail mary he could have done something else that's guaranteed to do damage. He's always taking a chance with Judgment. It's not great design, but Judgment isn't a smash attack which will literally always do something and be strong even if it doesn't outright kill you.

Hero's Smashes are like, this will either do a lot of damage or just kill you whenever a Smash attack is guaranteed, and that variance is just built into his existing game plan. There's no setup, no telegraph, no windows of power, no risk of failure. Nothing. Like if Hero had a glowing purple aura when the next Smash crits that would be another story but there's no indication that you're about to die, it just happens or it doesn't. It's basically tripping in attack form where you just do the thing you'd normally do and sometimes another thing happens that is really devastating.

 

[Firox]

Re: Hero ban

He could be the worst character or least used in the game and I would still be sympathetic to people who want to ban him (I am not one of those people) because of critical hits.

There are a lot of facts and numbers being thrown around in this thread and I support that. But numbers can't really counter this kind of ideological position. If you're someone who doesn't like there being a 12% chance to die from a punish at 50% then hearing about Hero's usage rates will not convince you that he's OK because he'll always have that. Even saying it affects .05% of matches won't help because the fact that it can will always be enough.

Smash players ban a ton of stuff not because it's OP but because it adds to randomness or because we just don't like it. See: all the people vehemently opposed to the return of the moving Smashville platform.

EDIT: In fact I think smash players are probably more tolerant of RNG than other things. Hero, Peach, and G&W aren't really that controversial but predictable stage elements are because characters are sort of sacred to this community. That makes some sense since Smash is a fairly character-driven franchise and most of us are fans because we're Nintendo fans. But I still think it's hilarious that the moving Smashville platform has been easier to ban than Brawl Meta Knight, who was one of the most broken characters in the history of fighting games IMO.

I'm personally on the fence as to whether Hero honestly deserves to be banned, however, in defense of the ban, I have to say that RNG alone isn't what makes him uncompetitive. It's the total sum of what he can DO with the RNG. For example, I happen to spar regularly with a Hero main and it would make you throw up in your mouth how many times I've seen people (including myself) get instantly deleted at 25% or LESS due to an off-the-cuff Whack or Thwack. Now, before people moan about counterplay, let me point out a few things:

1) Unlike other characters with potentially fatal RNG (G&W, Peach, Luigi) Whack and Thwack have far greater range than the Judgment Hammer and come out faster than Peach Bob-omb. If the Hero player is well trained, they can pick either option before you have a chance to read them yourself.

2) Zoom has a much higher chance of rolling when Hero is off-stage, allowing for a free recovery far more often than most people realize.

3) If he rolls Magical Burst at the ledge when you're off stage, there are very few characters in the game (if any) that can survive it if properly timed.

4) Despite the supposed 1/8 chance of rolling a crit, you'd be surprised how often it lands, especially with total luck gods like the Hero main I play with. (This isn't just anecdotal ranting BTW. I actually conducted a study that showed he was landing crits with about 30% of the smashes he landed.)

5) The whole language controversy for Menu list and whether players from different countries should be allowed to change the language of the game for their benefit. (Granted, this is relatively trivial since the competitive scene mostly only plays online now, but figured I'd mention it)

Granted, an argument can always be made that the tournament results don't show Hero as having particularly frightening numbers, etc. however, I would argue that few characters in Smash can be as absolutely rage-inducing as Hero. That's not really a valid reason to ban per se, but as I stated above, there are certainly anti-competitive things about him that some people would rather not entertain.

 

[Arthur97]

Why is the whole banning Heroes thing coming up again?

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Why is the whole banning Heroes thing coming up again?

I just want to be super clear that I am not advocating a Hero ban. I just understand both sides of this problem and am sympathetic to the people who don't like what he is.

But my problem does not lie with his special moves but with critical hits.

 

[Firox]

I just want to be super clear that I am not advocating a Hero ban. I just understand both sides of this problem and am sympathetic to the people who don't like what he is.

But my problem does not lie with his special moves but with critical hits.

As for myself, I'm honestly indifferent towards the ban either way. I was simply stating the logic people have proposed as to WHY he should be banned. My personal issue with him is the fact that his entire RNG kit can teeter between garbage and totally broken depending on how lucky a player is which is by definition uncompetitive. Skill definitely plays a major role with him, but if high skill and luck are combined, he's a terrifying force.

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm not going to mince words:

The Hero ban discussion is appalling. The fact that it's being discussed when the community hasn't really reckoned with how broken Peach RNG can be is straight-up unacceptable to me. The fact that it's a discussion predicated on Samsora getting RNGed at a wifi tournament is also absurd. Don't moralize about how "we should at least consider banning Hero from a principled perspective" when Peach (and to a lesser extent, G&W) have demonstrably more game-shattering RNG in their kit and nothing has really been done to address that.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

It should also be noted that Samsora was barely paying attention to his opponent's obvious attempt at command fishing as well, imo.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Hero is obviously not well suited for competitive play. If we could ban him without any other repercussions we probably should. However, banning a fighting game character is tricky, and it is obviously a controversial issue. It could be that the least bad option is to just accept that some games will be decided by RNG and try to hope that not many players play Hero (which does seem to be the case, Hero is a very rare character).

However... Maybe we should make a big deal out of Peach's turnips? If we complain loudly enough maybe they'll make it so they'll only spawn vanilla turnips when items are off? And, if we're lucky, if items are turned off maybe Hero won't randomly crit? One could hope (doesn't seem likely though). Tweek is right that Peach's turnips are a serious problem, and removing the RNG from her would make the character much better fit for competitive play. It is a bit amusing that Samsora, a Peach main, complains about the RNG, given how he sometimes wins games thanks to a lucky turnip pull.

Will this discussion lead to a Hero ban? Most likely not. Will it lead to a patch that reduces RNG for 1v1 when items are off? Probably not, but stranger things have happened.

This, of course, is now a great example of why pulling an instant ban trigger is a terrible idea, because bans on unimpactful low tiers is a silly idea if they can't consistently do the thing people are scared of. With Hero unable to even fill an Ice Climbers-like role, I feel as though this is the last nail in the coffin for pro-ban sentiment having any ground outside of language barrier debates. Even significant upset(s) now would need to come fast and be as high profile as possible in a very specific way with an immensely negative reaction.

This conclusion rests on the assumption that the pro-ban argument was that Hero would be an upset machine or something, rather than him relying on anti-competitive aspects (high amount of RNG). The competitive metagame would be better off if Hero were never added. Does that mean that he should be banned? Not necessarily, banning Hero would likely cause some controversy, and one could argue that keeping the peace is more important than removing one rarely played character.

As for instantly banning a character, well, waiting too long will make a character hard to ban too. The community will have to make a decision, although I would imagine it would take at least a few weeks to actually ban a character. And if the character is just overpowered (like Smash 4 release Bayonetta) we could always hope for a patch.

But I still think it's hilarious that the moving Smashville platform has been easier to ban than Brawl Meta Knight, who was one of the most broken characters in the history of fighting games IMO.

The moving Smashville platform would probably never be banned in itself, it's just that we run hazards off rather than mixed hazards or hazards on.

I'm personally on the fence as to whether Hero honestly deserves to be banned, however, in defense of the ban, I have to say that RNG alone isn't what makes him uncompetitive. It's the total sum of what he can DO with the RNG. For example, I happen to spar regularly with a Hero main and it would make you throw up in your mouth how many times I've seen people (including myself) get instantly deleted at 25% or LESS due to an off-the-cuff Whack or Thwack.

This. We obviously don't ban characters just because they have RNG, if we did we'd also have to ban characters like Peach, Luigi, Mr. Game & Watch, Villager, and Kirby (down-tilt has a chance to trip). Hero has far more RNG than any of those, however, which is what spurred the discussion in the first place.

Why is the whole banning Heroes thing coming up again?

Samsora lost a stock at 0% vs a Hero.

 

[Krysco]

I can absolutely understand not enjoying Hero's RNG and being upset over a lost stock or match due to it but people have gotten upset with considerably worse before such as Ice Climbers in Melee and Brawl and Bayo's 0 to deaths in 4. There was discussion about banning Bayo in 4 although it never ended up happening and while I don't keep up to date as much with the Melee scene, I have seen discussion on banning wobbling. Not sure if it's happened or not. Those were more consistent though and on better characters. Hero is BS sometimes while those other 2 were BS all the time.

I also think if you're not a fan of RNG then Smash overall probably isn't the best game to be playing competitively. It's been in the series since Melee and hasn't really shown many signs of going away. You've got Peach's Turnips in all 4 games she's in and her fsmash in the older games, G&W's Judge and Chef, Brawl's tripping, 4's untechable spin, Villager's uair, dair, wood chip from Timber, the balloons from his and Isabelle's recovery, Duck Hunt's down special and I believe at least in 4, the reticle position on his smash attacks were partially random, Luigi's misfire, Dedede's Gordo sticking to the ledge along with his Waddle Dee Toss in Brawl, Banjo's Grenade Egg bounce, Olimar's Pikmin pulls in Brawl, Diddy's barrels path after getting hit out of his recovery, Greninja's Substitute having different hurtboxes depending on what appears. Inkling's Splattershot has slight RNG to it, Pac-Man's Galaxia path after the loop, Rosalina's Star Bits, the path of Ivysaur's Razor Leaf. There's been RNG with legal stages too such as the Shy Guys on Yoshi's Story in Melee, Pokemon Stadium's transformations, the balloons that appear in both Smashville and Town and City, Lylat's transitions in Brawl and 4 which determined how it would tilt and while no longer legal, there's also Halberd's claw, laser cannon and bomb and where Delfino's platforms would take you. Actually Dreamland 64 and the previously legal Hyrule Castle have RNG too since Whispy will blow in a random direction if there's an equal number of players on both sides of him and the tornadoes in HC so really, RNG has been around since the very beginning.

Hero has the most BS RNG, no doubt. You can go to Palutena's Temple where a Peach Bob-omb and a Judge 9 wouldn't kill you and Whack and Thwack still can as they're the only non-Final Smash, non-item attacks that can kill regardless of percent or positioning. I just don't see the point in now specifically complaining about RNG when it's been there since the start of competitive Smash and has already affected the outcome of numerous games and will continue to do so even if Hero were to get banned.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'll just leave this here:

 

[meleebrawler]

I can absolutely understand not enjoying Hero's RNG and being upset over a lost stock or match due to it but people have gotten upset with considerably worse before such as Ice Climbers in Melee and Brawl and Bayo's 0 to deaths in 4. There was discussion about banning Bayo in 4 although it never ended up happening and while I don't keep up to date as much with the Melee scene, I have seen discussion on banning wobbling. Not sure if it's happened or not. Those were more consistent though and on better characters. Hero is BS sometimes while those other 2 were BS all the time.

I also think if you're not a fan of RNG then Smash overall probably isn't the best game to be playing competitively. It's been in the series since Melee and hasn't really shown many signs of going away. You've got Peach's Turnips in all 4 games she's in and her fsmash in the older games, G&W's Judge and Chef, Brawl's tripping, 4's untechable spin, Villager's uair, dair, wood chip from Timber, the balloons from his and Isabelle's recovery, Duck Hunt's down special and I believe at least in 4, the reticle position on his smash attacks were partially random, Luigi's misfire, Dedede's Gordo sticking to the ledge along with his Waddle Dee Toss in Brawl, Banjo's Grenade Egg bounce, Olimar's Pikmin pulls in Brawl, Diddy's barrels path after getting hit out of his recovery, Greninja's Substitute having different hurtboxes depending on what appears. Inkling's Splattershot has slight RNG to it, Pac-Man's Galaxia path after the loop, Rosalina's Star Bits, the path of Ivysaur's Razor Leaf. There's been RNG with legal stages too such as the Shy Guys on Yoshi's Story in Melee, Pokemon Stadium's transformations, the balloons that appear in both Smashville and Town and City, Lylat's transitions in Brawl and 4 which determined how it would tilt and while no longer legal, there's also Halberd's claw, laser cannon and bomb and where Delfino's platforms would take you. Actually Dreamland 64 and the previously legal Hyrule Castle have RNG too since Whispy will blow in a random direction if there's an equal number of players on both sides of him and the tornadoes in HC so really, RNG has been around since the very beginning.

Hero has the most BS RNG, no doubt. You can go to Palutena's Temple where a Peach Bob-omb and a Judge 9 wouldn't kill you and Whack and Thwack still can as they're the only non-Final Smash, non-item attacks that can kill regardless of percent or positioning. I just don't see the point in now specifically complaining about RNG when it's been there since the start of competitive Smash and has already affected the outcome of numerous games and will continue to do so even if Hero were to get banned.

Fighting games in general have lots of uncertain things that affect outcomes without needing anything explicit from the characters themselves. Trying to predict an opponent's actions isn't an exact science even when fighting a Falcon who ledge-jumps 80% of the time, the whole genre generally has a rock-paper-scissors mechanic of attack -> throw -> guard at it's core, then of course there's talk of bracket luck depending on who or what you face.

But of course, saying you were lucky when the opponent jumped when you decided to also jump and use your back air doesn't sound as cool as saying you psychologically manipulated them into doing that.

 

[Slime Master]

I'm obviously very biased, but because I never see this brought up and want to know what kind of holes exist in this argument I'll bring it up: A higher raw number of RNG rolls actually leads to more consistency, not less. If I'm pressing down-B on the ledge every time I send you off stage, odds are I will get magic burst eventually; so when I do, did I really get "lucky"?

Meanwhile, G&W is probably not throwing out judge more than once per match (or something, I don't watch G&W much), if he does get the 9, that was pretty lucky, a true 1/9 chance of that happening in that game. Likewise with zoom, if I don't want to recover against you, I will re-roll twice to try and get it. I don't know the exact chances but I do know I have more than a 90% chance of getting zoom if I try 3 times close enough to the blastzone, so am I really "lucky" forgetting it?

I won't defend crits though, dair usmash is actually the stupidest combo in the game.

 

[Idon]

As much as I very much hate Hero and all that he and his design stands for, there is no possibly way on God's green Earth that anyone is going to convince the entirety of the global Smash community to come together to ban this character, so discussion on a hypothetical "should we/shouldn't we ban him" to be a fairly moot point. I doubly doubt it considering everything's online nowadays and we really can't take any of this "seriously." It's all really just a waste of time.

And on a side note, can we stop comparing other characters' instances of RNG to be even remotely comparable to Hero's? They're obviously so different in utility, versatility, risk/reward, reliance, hell the only thing comparable about them is some aspect of them is randomized. It honest to god feels like comparing smash 4 bayo zero-to-deaths with smash 4 roy fully charged flare blade and saying "See? They both kill at 0!" It's intellectually dishonest and only serves to distract from what people are arguing about. Worse still are people calling the latent predictions of fighting games "RNG."

 

[The_Bookworm]

I love how discussion on and if he should be banned, just randomly decides to show up after the clip of Samsora getting bodied by one.

It is almost like we have all pretended, for the past year, that we didn't know Hero is capable of that.
There was the ban talk during the first month of release, into people widely agreeing that the ban talk on a mediocre and rare character was silly, into the character going into complete obscurity outside of low-level play and the occasional Salem.

.... then more than a year passed ...

But nope, all it takes is for a clip of Samsora getting bodied by a random netplay Hero for people to discuss about the character's legality again.

Do I really need to say anything else on how silly and ridiculous this talk on a Hero ban is?

Brief commentary: Hero was the subject of ban discussion about a year ago now.

The main concerns levied around Hero shifted rapidly. Initially there was genuine commentary alluding to the idea that he was broken - he's clearly not, though, for a myriad of reasons. These became obvious very quickly (poor mobility & frame data and lacking in consistent burst options or fast moves instantly dooms most characters) so the subject of discussion went from "Oh wow he's broken" to "His RNG is scary".

The primary examples of his RNG being concerning mostly amounted to high frame, high-commitment moves on par with Ganondorf smash attack speeds (see Thwack.) The apex of how silly this became was when clips were posted of Puppeh - a player ranked 69th in 2019 on OrionRank - taking stocks using these moves against Squerk, a player that was not ranked within the top 250 for the year, at a local. Scraping an even lower barrel, clips were shared of Leffen, also a top 100 player, beating people online in Battle Arenas and/or Quickplay.

The common fear was that Hero's moves would allow him to be an upset machine, with lesser players throwing crits or Thwack or menuing magic burst at the perfect time against the right characters being hypothetically able to take down better players because of random factors. How has this transpired in the seven months of competitive play?

Well, Hero;

-Scores below 5.00 on peaks on a peaks project I posted a while back. This isn't abysmal, but 7/10 of listed peaks feature deductions relating to multimaining, several secondaries, etc.

-His main records across tournaments is middling, with an average placement score across 5 mains being at 33.72, putting him in the 40s outside of the range most would consider viable, with several characters he's ahead of having since been buffed.

-His international main usage is below 0.5%, putting him near the bottom of used characters at the relevant international level of play.

-His power rankings stats are only slightly better, making up 1% on top 3 instances, and making up a familiar 0.4% on top 1 instances (in this case, only a single instance across 250+ power rankings globally.) His overall PR usage is 0.5%.

-On the recently constructed Hidden Bosses project, only four Hero mains were used out of hundreds of mains for other characters combined. The maximum number for an individual character was 50 (no character hit this as of yet) and while this is still being worked on, the median is somewhere from 12-20. Other DLC characters sans Byleth/Minmin all outpace him in representation at the hypothetical level, including Piranha Plant, Banjo, and Terry, the last of which was very recently released for the relevant metagame.

-Most embarrassingly, out of 2072 upsets recorded across 100+ intl tier events, Hero takes up a total of 4 upsets (0.2%) meaning he scores below his representation on upsets at the national level. He has less upsets than even his representation would have you expect.

I'm not going to argue that Hero is well designed because I really think he's quite badly designed on a number of different levels. I will however say that debates about banning the character look ridiculous in hindsight as I expected them too after seeing the character's stats and actions and Salem's very, very inconsistent to occasionally poor results upon immediately picking up the character. (He would have successes with Hero - but he dropped in the rankings overall.)

I found myself embarrassed reading hostile comments towards Hero that invoked arguments his Hocus Pocus giant effect was too much RNG. I don't think I needed to have been a yugioh analyst for 4 years to explain to people that the risk-reward on Hocus Pocus is abysmal and that it's one of his worst moves, and that this amounted to complaining about Ganondorf's uptilt. Surely, I thought, people understand Smash Brothers enough to get that most of his instakill moves were actually very bad in most situations.

This certainly doesn't represent all pro-Hero ban arguments, but the insistence by pro-ban people on pushing these kinds of clips (Hocus Pocus, Thwack/Whack, etc.) demonstrates that the movement was doomed to fail because it set expectations so high that when things fell flat for Hero for most of season 2 of the PGR - particular the out-the-gate SSC/Shine, people immediately stopped caring.

This, of course, is now a great example of why pulling an instant ban trigger is a terrible idea, because bans on unimpactful low tiers is a silly idea if they can't consistently do the thing people are scared of. With Hero unable to even fill an Ice Climbers-like role, I feel as though this is the last nail in the coffin for pro-ban sentiment having any ground outside of language barrier debates. Even significant upset(s) now would need to come fast and be as high profile as possible in a very specific way with an immensely negative reaction.

The data here embarrassingly proves how silly this talk of a ban is. I would argue, especially after 8.0, that the character is in the low tiers right now, and maybe the worst DLC character.

I am not arguing that the character is poorly designed, as he is, but this is still striking.

 

[meleebrawler]

I love how discussion on and if he should be banned, just randomly decides to show up after the clip of Samsora getting bodied by one.

It is almost like we have all pretended, for the past year, that we didn't know Hero is capable of that.
There was the ban talk during the first month of release, into people widely agreeing that the ban talk on a mediocre and rare character was silly, into the character going into complete obscurity outside of low-level play and the occasional Salem.

.... then more than a year passed ...

But nope, all it takes is for a clip of Samsora getting bodied by a random netplay Hero for people to discuss about the character's legality again.

Do I really need to say anything else on how silly and ridiculous this talk on a Hero ban is?


The data here embarrassingly proves how silly this talk of a ban is. I would argue, especially after 8.0, that the character is in the low tiers right now, and maybe the worst DLC character.

I am not arguing that the character is poorly designed, as he is, but this is still striking.

Competitive players, or at least ones who want to be considered such chafe at any implication of luck because it brings ego skill into question. Believing in the promise if you're good enough at using the best tools available, you can win 100% of the time, and if you lose you just weren't good enough. But no matter how much you can stack things in your favor, no one can use the right option in every single scenario, just as you can never completely predict how others will act in a poker game regardless of hand drawn. Admit it, we've all lost at least one round to that one guy who has zero experience with your game and just mashes random buttons and inputs that result in actions which discombobulate your style, or does things like only using specials in situations where your instinct tells you they would be using normals instead.

Those kinds of things are not RNG like computer-generated probabilities in that they are hugely malleable and variable. But there is still never certainty, otherwise we would be discussing things like matchups in binary terms.

 

[Rizen]

And on a side note, can we stop comparing other characters' instances of RNG to be even remotely comparable to Hero's? They're obviously so different in utility, versatility, risk/reward, reliance, hell the only thing comparable about them is some aspect of them is randomized. It honest to god feels like comparing smash 4 bayo zero-to-deaths with smash 4 roy fully charged flare blade and saying "See? They both kill at 0!" It's intellectually dishonest and only serves to distract from what people are arguing about. Worse still are people calling the latent predictions of fighting games "RNG."

^This.

The banning hero discussion was never a question of if Hero's overpowered; that's a strawman. It was a matter of if Hero's wins were dependent on RNG rather than skill. So are they? Well, soooooometimes... face it as long as Hero's around we'll continue to see clips of players getting "Heroed" like the one with Samsora. Hero does not have a dominant presence in the meta but remains a toxic and terribly designed character who will occasionally ruin someone's run but not win tournaments.

Is that reason enough to ban him? You tell me. :/

 

[Arthur97]

I think Judge might be one of the worst comparisons, because, yes, the move can be really, really strong, but most of the time it doesn't do all that much (unless the other numbers have more utility than I know) and it can even end up with recoil damage. Now, Hocus Pocus can do that, but otherwise you generally aren't getting negative effects unless you Zoom into a ceiling, but that isn't happening much in competetive. Like, crits. They can't backfire. Even Green Missile's misfire can negatively affect Luigi by going too far. Turnip Pull is more weighted in Peach and Daisy's favor, but it's not impossible to grab the projectiles and use them against them.

Again, not counting counters and/or reflectors which specialize in turning moves against the user.

That said, talking of a ban seems kind of pointless. Haven't we already done this song and dance? What's changed other than more evidence that they just aren't that good?

 

[The_Bookworm]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Well Samsora has made it clear that the clip some him getting "Hero'd" was made for more comedic/fun purposes.
But we, as usual, take it seriously and overblow the whole situation.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The moving Smashville platform would probably never be banned in itself, it's just that we run hazards off rather than mixed hazards or hazards on.

Yeah I totally get that, but I know the guys that run Xeno in NYC for example and we had a conversation in the Ho3K discord just the other day where many of them (including the TO) were like super against hazards on Smashville even if hazards on went legal (which I do not think it ever will). In case you were wonder, I disagreed with them, lol.

That opinion isn't chaotic or controversial, it's the norm. And in fairness, most of them were pro-MK ban too. But still, I definitely think there would be a big debate over H+ SV if hazards ever came back in the future.

 

[Arthur97]

I'll just leave this here:

Also, what is that video? I can get complaining about Sonic having essentially two spin dashes, but what's wrong with him going into a ball for one throw, one smash attack, and one aerial?

 

[Game7a1]

I think Judge might be one of the worst comparisons, because, yes, the move can be really, really strong, but most of the time it doesn't do all that much (unless the other numbers have more utility than I know) and it can even end up with recoil damage.

I can provide some information on the other Judge numbers. I'll be ordering them to what I believe is most useful to least useful.

• 9 - self-explanatory. When fresh and 1v1, deals over 40%. Can KO early and does a ton of shield damage and some shield push back.
• 6 - second most amount of knockback and semi-spikes. Can KO at high percents. Deals decent damage at 12% (14.4% in 1v1). Good for edgeguarding.
• 7 - deals second most damage at 14% (16.8%) and drops three apples for 12% healing. Good for heal. Decent knockback, but don't expect it to KO.
• 8 - deals a good amount of damage and freezes opponent. The freeze allows G&W to continue a combo with N-air and Up-Air and put the opponent in a bad position. Also, you can't tech when you are frozen, so it has a niche stage spike use.
• 5 - multi-hit move that puts opponent above G&W (like Judge 8), and being above G&W is a bad thing. Deals decent damage but not knockback. Not safe on shield (and everything below isn't either).
• 3 - deals almost as much shield damage as 9 and sends opponent behind him. Sets ups (not a true combo) for a potential roll read or B-air/N-air.
• 4 - discount F-Tilt and Smash 4 F-air. Because F-air is now Bomb Drop, being able to send opponents away with Judge 4 is fine. Nothing special; outclassed by Judge 6.
• 1 - recoil damage is bad, but since rage boosts knockback, it isn't a complete loss. 2% with no knockback. Funny enough, can defend against Bayo's Smash Attacks (at least in Smash 4).
• 2 - 4% and jab locks. Very low knockback. Pretty useless since it's outclassed by Jab 1 on the ground and in the air, it's negative on hit.

Essentially, G&W players aren't always fishing for 9s. The other numbers have their uses. It's up to the G&W player to recognize what to do next for whatever Judge number is there. As well, wasting a bad number (like 2) when trying to roll a good number (6 though 9) can be a benefit of its own since the previous number G&W had can't be rolled again (except for the first use per stock).

EDIT (because I don't want to double post):

Kirby (down-tilt has a chance to trip).

Note that Kirby's D-Tilt has a bonus trip chance, so it adds to the trip chance it already had. Any attack with a low enough angle that doesn't cause the opponent to be sent above the ground and has high enough knockback has a 7% of trip.

 

[meleebrawler]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Well Samsora has made it clear that the clip some him getting "Hero'd" was made for more comedic/fun purposes.
But we, as usual, take it seriously and overblow the whole situation.

Technically if your goal is to kill from 0% off a shield break, wouldn't it be better to fish for Hatchet Man, the "100% crit" move instead of a 1-in-8 chance smash?

 

[PK Gaming]

Technically if your goal is to kill from 0% off a shield break, wouldn't it be better to fish for Hatchet Man, the "100% crit" move instead of a 1-in-8 chance smash?

There's just one problem; Hatchet Man has 37 frames of startup (compounded by Command selection being active on frame 19)

 

[meleebrawler]

There's just one problem; Hatchet Man has 37 frames of startup (compounded by Command selection being active on frame 19)

What's the average amount of frames it takes to mash out of a shieldbreak stun again? The 70-frame Warlock Punch doesn't seem to have any issues here. Not to mention you can preemptively roll the menus before the opponent actually lands.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Technically if your goal is to kill from 0% off a shield break, wouldn't it be better to fish for Hatchet Man, the "100% crit" move instead of a 1-in-8 chance smash?

Not sure how my post about how the clip was made for comedic intentions and not turn into a full-blown discussion about Hero's legality, led to "Technically if your goal is to kill from 0% off a shield break, wouldn't it be better to fish for Hatchet Man, the "100% crit" move instead of a 1-in-8 chance smash?"

To answer your question: you have to fish through the menu to get it and I don't think it will KO, even if boosted by Oomph.
Fully charged crit forward smash > Hatchet Man, in terms of knockback.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Also, what is that video? I can get complaining about Sonic having essentially two spin dashes, but what's wrong with him going into a ball for one throw, one smash attack, and one aerial?

IDK, it runs under the same discussion of how & are uninspired, but there are many threads on that.

 

[Thinkaman]

EDIT: In fact I think smash players are probably more tolerant of RNG than other things. Hero, Peach, and G&W aren't really that controversial but predictable stage elements are because characters are sort of sacred to this community. That makes some sense since Smash is a fairly character-driven franchise and most of us are fans because we're Nintendo fans. But I still think it's hilarious that the moving Smashville platform has been easier to ban than Brawl Meta Knight, who was one of the most broken characters in the history of fighting games IMO.

The exception that proves the rule: how quick the community was to ban or (de facto ban) Miis for no reason what-so-ever. Just like a Smashville platform.




Super atomic take: The idea that the worst possible thing that can happen in a competitive game is Samsora (or w/e) losing a single stock, in a single game, in a single set, in a single event, because of RNG, is not just bad math and not just an attitude antithetical to the actual competitive spirit, but is the exact same root delusion about the sacredness of competitive outcomes that led to the idol worship, power imbalances, sexual assualt, and pedophilic acts in the community.

The idea that Samsora, the #2 player in the world, was unduly burdened by having to 2-stock a rando playing a mediocre character, or else risk having to play an extra game, lest he go into loser's bracket early in his checks notes 112th reported Smash tournament is so bonkers I can't even respond to it.

MEANWHILE

Remember the time we got rid of pools and started eliminating 25% of the community participants 0-2, and another 25% 1-2?

Remember the time we started playing Smash 4 with just 2 stocks?

Remember the time we started insisting that all later bracket matches be Bo5, while the pleb early brackets remained Bo3 with a more aggrivated schedule?

Remember the time we would allocate some of a venue's extra setups away from the normal pool (available for practice) for VIP use?

ALL OF THESE THINGS ADD MORE INCONSISTENCY AND UNRELIABLY TO OVERALL TOURNAMENT PLAY THAN ANY NUMBER OF PEACH BOMBS, G&W 9 HAMMERS, OR HERO CRITS.

Your gods aren't just fake, they're dead. You killed them.

 

[Rizen]

The exception that proves the rule: how quick the community was to ban or (de facto ban) Miis for no reason what-so-ever. Just like a Smashville platform.




Super atomic take: The idea that the worst possible thing that can happen in a competitive game is Samsora (or w/e) losing a single stock, in a single game, in a single set, in a single event, because of RNG, is not just bad math and not just an attitude antithetical to the actual competitive spirit, but is the exact same root delusion about the sacredness of competitive outcomes that led to the idol worship, power imbalances, sexual assualt, and pedophilic acts in the community.

About Miis in Smash4: cry me a river.

Seriously? You're comparing the Hero ban discussion to sexual assault and pedophilia? I'm out! exits the room
Edit, after much thought and out of respect for the thread I've decided to simply edit in a response and not derail the thread.

Spoiler

Spoiler: I mean...

YES, I absolutely am.

I am not pursuing hyperbole or extrapolating. I am 100% saying that this inappropriate pedestal-placing of who wins a childen's video game is the exact same root cause of all of these issues.

Healthy:

• Winning some, losing some, improving always
• Seeking out broad challenges to adapt to
• Looking to successful players for expertise in their field

Not Healthy:

• Acting like who wins any given game, set, or event is some important universal statement on your ego or worth, whose purity must be ensured
• Seeking to limit the space of competition to the narrowest set, to most consistently prove your superiority
• Looking to top players as superior human beings, becourages others to do so as well and enabling power-imbalanced relationships

Frat houses aren't accidents. Power imbalanced social dynamics don't emerge from nothing. What is being put on a pedestal to create this situation?

I'm so sick of people whining about custom moves, not miis, being banned in Smash 4 in 2020! The game was better for it. Most people get this. The fault is not on our end.

Complaining about RNG being too big a factor in a competitive game has nothing to do with the issues you've brought up. This is strait fear mongering. Maybe Biden is against god and if he wins we'll all have to speak Chinese. What about killing at 0%? "Remember how immoral top players are! 9/11 was bad!"
Honestly I used to have a lot of respect for you. That's gone.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'm against a Hero ban. He has dumb stuff, obviously. But meh, he's not really overpowered or anything.

 

[Thinkaman]

About Miis in Smash4: cry me a river.

Spoiler: I mean...

Seriously? You're comparing the Hero ban discussion to sexual assault and pedophilia? I'm out! exits the room

YES, I absolutely am.

I am not pursuing hyperbole or extrapolating. I am 100% saying that this inappropriate pedestal-placing of who wins a childen's video game is the exact same root cause of all of these issues.

Healthy:

• Winning some, losing some, improving always
• Seeking out broad challenges to adapt to
• Looking to successful players for expertise in their field

Not Healthy:

• Acting like who wins any given game, set, or event is some important universal statement on your ego or worth, whose purity must be ensured
• Seeking to limit the space of competition to the narrowest set, to most consistently prove your superiority
• Looking to top players as superior human beings, becourages others to do so as well and enabling power-imbalanced relationships

Frat houses aren't accidents. Power imbalanced social dynamics don't emerge from nothing. What is being put on a pedestal to create this situation?

 

[StrangeKitten]

Being good at a video game does not a good person make. Should we give them kudos and monetary earnings for winning? Sure. But we also shouldn't idolize them. It's unhealthy