Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DougEfresh]

I wonder how much the resource management will or won't hold Steve back.

Impossible to say until Steve drops next week and some significant time has passed, but I'd imagine the resource management is going to be a lot of give and take, much like other characters with those types of mechanics. I think neutral is going to be pretty hard for Steve, at least initially when people are still figuring him out, but with enough neutral wins of his own so he can set up pressure at the edge, I'm sure he'll get his chances to mine for resources to power himself up...and now neutral is harder, whether or not you reset back to that state with your stock intact, especially if Steve is able to make the most of his resource management. At least that's how I picture it for the time being; it'll most likely be balanced but obnoxious to deal with given enough time to fully develop his gameplan.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Sakurai kind of goes out of his way to say using iron for blocks is a relative waste, and considering mining is slower on iron surface, you'd be hard pressed to actually have a chance to get enough iron to do stuff like that without using it for your equipment that you have to build and maintain to keep your edge in a fight.

I'm more interested in seeing how the blocks can be used in doubles to aid recovering partners as a temporary platform.

I'm pretty sure he said it was a waste due to it crumbling in a single second due to being closer to a blastzone, not because iron blocks are a waste of resources

 

[meleebrawler]

I'm pretty sure he said it was a waste due to it crumbling in a single second due to being closer to a blastzone, not because iron blocks are a waste of resources

They don't even look like they stick around for significantly longer than other types.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Just because Sakurai thinks iron blocks are a waste of resources, doesn't mean they necessarily will be. It'll depend heavily on the situation. If you place a few iron blocks and that results in a stock loss for your opponent, that's definitely not a waste

 

[The_Bookworm]

It sometimes does depend on the situation, but most of the time, I personally believe that it is not really worth to place iron blocks.

As I mentioned in my long analysis in the previous page, the resources Steve collects are used in a lot of other aspects in his moveset.
Dirt is completely expandable. Best used for Minecart rails.
Wood is used for stage 1 basic tools and a requirement (alongside stone) to spawn TNT. Can be burned for Minecart rails.
Stone is used for stage 2 basic tools and a requirement (alongside wood) to spawn TNT. Can be burned for Minecart rails.
Iron is used to spawn the Anvil in both down air and down throw (the former of which is required for the move to work), as well as to spawn the Minecart in his side special, not to mention to upgrade your tools to stage 3 (which requires 4 pieces of iron per tool). Can be burned for Minecart rails, but I highly recommend to not do that.

So burning all of your resources up until iron (which includes dirt, wood, and most importantly stone) just to place iron blocks, is likely going to be a total waste of resources, without any guaranteed that you successfully edgeguarded the opponent. It is especially taxing when you consider that it takes longer to mine on iron surfaces than with the other surfaces.

 

[meleebrawler]

It sometimes does depend on the situation, but most of the time, I personally believe that it is not really worth to place iron blocks.

As I mentioned in my long analysis in the previous page, the resources Steve collects are used in a lot of other aspects in his moveset.
Dirt is completely expandable. Best used for Minecart rails.
Wood is used for stage 1 basic tools and a requirement (alongside stone) to spawn TNT. Can be burned for Minecart rails.
Stone is used for stage 2 basic tools and a requirement (alongside wood) to spawn TNT. Can be burned for Minecart rails.
Iron is used to spawn the Anvil in both down air and down throw (the former of which is required for the move to work), as well as to spawn the Minecart in his side special, not to mention to upgrade your tools to stage 3 (which requires 4 pieces of iron per tool). Can be burned for Minecart rails, but I highly recommend to not do that.

So burning all of your resources up until iron (which includes dirt, wood, and most importantly stone) just to place iron blocks, is likely going to be a total waste of resources, without any guaranteed that you successfully edgeguarded the opponent. It is especially taxing when you consider that it takes longer to mine on iron surfaces than with the other surfaces.

4 pieces per tool? I thought it was just 4 pieces for all tools except gold and diamond versions.

 

[The_Bookworm]

4 pieces per tool? I thought it was just 4 pieces for all tools except gold and diamond versions.

When looking at what Sakurai said in the presentation again, I think you may be right.

Sakurai in the presentation said: "Of course, the diamond sword is the most powerful! You definitely want that one... but the sword, axe, pickaxe, and shovel all get crafted at the same time. What a bargain! So when you get the diamond sword... the pickaxe also powers up."

When I first saw that, I thought he meant that the powering up everything at once was a mechanic exclusive to diamonds, but he likely meant that upgrading your weapons to a certain stage will power-up everything in general.
That means that 4 iron pieces will = everything powers up to stage 3.
We don't know the pieces requirement for the other materials aside from gold and diamond, but it may be 4 as well.

Sorry for misinterpreting that.
That does mean that usage on iron isn't quite a intensive as I thought, but using them for blocks in the expense of iron pieces and all the other lower-stage materials is still not really worth it imo.

 

[Thinkaman]

I probably goes without saying that Steve's policies for what is or isn't "worth it" in terms of resource management will vary wildly based on how much pressure/rushdown the enemy can apply. He is probably more than happy to let you charge your crap while he charges his.

 

[meleebrawler]

Steve looks best as a counter-camper; even a simple dirt block can obstruct projectiles flying his way while he mines, forcing an approach. In this way it's even more pressure than Cloud's limit charge.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I wonder how projectiles like Thunder Jolt will interact with Steve's blocks. Will they detect it as a hurtbox and do damage (and vanish) or will they detect it as terrain and hug it or bounce off or whatever?

 

[StrangeKitten]

I wonder how projectiles like Thunder Jolt will interact with Steve's blocks. Will they detect it as a hurtbox and do damage (and vanish) or will they detect it as terrain and hug it or bounce off or whatever?

Either way, Pikachu will probably deal with Steve pretty well. It'll either break the blocks easily or the t-jolts will go over the blocks and hit Steve.

Spoiler: Pikachu, on its way to murder yet another DLC character:

 

[meleebrawler]

Either way, Pikachu will probably deal with Steve pretty well. It'll either break the blocks easily or the t-jolts will go over the blocks and hit Steve.

Spoiler: Pikachu, on its way to murder yet another DLC character:

Ehhh, Steve can put up a wall of sword or axe-flailing while on the move that seems rather troublesome for short-ranged characters to work past. Not to mention blocks cutting off Quick Attack approach vectors, or using his destructible crafting table as another shield. I only really see long disjoints being a big problem for Steve; standard rushdown is more of a 50-50 if they're able to stop Steve from getting strong weapons or not.

 

[TennisBall]

Ehhh, Steve can put up a wall of sword or axe-flailing while on the move that seems rather troublesome for short-ranged characters to work past. Not to mention blocks cutting off Quick Attack approach vectors, or using his destructible crafting table as another shield. I only really see long disjoints being a big problem for Steve; standard rushdown is more of a 50-50 if they're able to stop Steve from getting strong weapons or not.

Personally with his strong speed, quick attacks and overwhelming frametrapping I think is gonna BODY this character offline. We'll have to see later on though especially with offline still not being a factor to count on so it's a matter of time to see how Steve is gonna really play out.

 

[meleebrawler]

Personally with his strong speed, quick attacks and overwhelming frametrapping I think is gonna BODY this character offline. We'll have to see later on though especially with offline still not being a factor to count on so it's a matter of time to see how Steve is gonna really play out.

You're only considering Steve's worst-case scenario where he messes up with no materials on hand. Besides how only one or two blocks can serve as a big middle finger to anyone trying to blitz Steve on the ground, a healthy supply of materials can let Steve decide he doesn't want to deal with landing traps today and stroll over to the ledge.

I'd be more scared of Falco's big jumps and Reflector disjoint or Wolf's more flexible air movement.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I'd be more scared of Falco's big jumps and Reflector disjoint

Not to mention his transcendent lasers that can stop Steve from setting anything up.

 

[meleebrawler]

Not to mention his transcendent lasers that can stop Steve from setting anything up.

Transcendent doesn't mean "pierces hurtboxes", which is what blocks are. Not other projectiles, of which Steve has none, unless the minecart somehow counts.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Ehhh, Steve can put up a wall of sword or axe-flailing while on the move that seems rather troublesome for short-ranged characters to work past. Not to mention blocks cutting off Quick Attack approach vectors, or using his destructible crafting table as another shield. I only really see long disjoints being a big problem for Steve; standard rushdown is more of a 50-50 if they're able to stop Steve from getting strong weapons or not.

I was just watching Mew2King's Steve frame data analysis, and realized that Steve's grounded swipes hit pretty high up, let alone the aerials. So Pikachu will pretty much be like:

 

[Rocketjay8]

What will really hurt Steve's chances of high tier is if his hitboxes have the same problem as 's. That problem being difficult to hit short opponents.

 

[Firox]

What will really hurt Steve's chances of high tier is if his hitboxes have the same problem as 's. That problem being difficult to hit short opponents.

I find this somewhat surprising considering how short Steve is relative to most of the cast.

 

[Rocketjay8]

I find this somewhat surprising considering how short Steve is relative to most of the cast.

It might not be that bad for Steve if it's true if his strengths are greater than his weakness. However, I doubt that he's going to since most of the DLC at this point haven't been on the same league as smash4's .

Speaking of I haven't really seen that much talk about this character, how has she been doing lately?

 

[StrangeKitten]

It does look like most of his moves will miss shorter characters, and doesn't look like he'll have much to help make up for this. Joker, for example, will miss shorter characters with a lot of his moves, but can get by pretty well with Gun, Eiha, and down tilt in those matchups. It doesn't look like Steve has that many options, but bear in mind that these are just my early impressions. It's possible Steve's shortish height can make up for this, and/or there are good options I'm overlooking here. It's hard to say how this will play out with much certainty while the character is still out of our hands.

 

[meleebrawler]

It does look like most of his moves will miss shorter characters, and doesn't look like he'll have much to help make up for this. Joker, for example, will miss shorter characters with a lot of his moves, but can get by pretty well with Gun, Eiha, and down tilt in those matchups. It doesn't look like Steve has that many options, but bear in mind that these are just my early impressions. It's possible Steve's shortish height can make up for this, and/or there are good options I'm overlooking here. It's hard to say how this will play out with much certainty while the character is still out of our hands.

Like just putting blocks on the ground to not have to answer to low approaches in the first place? Even preemptive down tilts seem pretty effective at deterring them.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

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Japanese Tier List. This is certainly different.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Like just putting blocks on the ground to not have to answer to low approaches in the first place? Even preemptive down tilts seem pretty effective at deterring them.

Steve would be using up a lot of resources if he's placing a ton of blocks to try and keep fast characters out. Additionally, many of them have projectiles, which will probably break the blocks faster, and can hit Steve once the blocks break. Blocks will most likely be helpful, but they won't eliminate the struggle entirely, imo.

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Japanese Tier List. This is certainly different.

That's certainly something. With the exception of a few characters, I'd swap A and A-. I think Min Min's placement is way too optimistic, and I disagree with Lucario being the worst character in the game. What we agree on is Joker and Palu for best, Pikachu not being quite as good as it's hyped up to be, and Puff still being bad.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Steve would be using up a lot of resources if he's placing a ton of blocks to try and keep fast characters out. Additionally, many of them have projectiles, which will probably break the blocks faster, and can hit Steve once the blocks break. Blocks will most likely be helpful, but they won't eliminate the struggle entirely, imo.


That's certainly something. With the exception of a few characters, I'd swap A and A-. I think Min Min's placement is way too optimistic, and I disagree with Lucario being the worst character in the game. What we agree on is Joker and Palu for best, Pikachu not being quite as good as it's hyped up to be, and Puff still being bad.

Lucario is definitely underwhelming and inconsistent, but his movement is strong and that, along with his extreme volatility sometimes working out in his favor, keeps him from being the absolute worst, at least to me. Although I don't think the gap between him and the true contenders for worst in the game is very large.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Lucario is definitely underwhelming and inconsistent, but his movement is strong and that, along with his extreme volatility sometimes working out in his favor, keeps him from being the absolute worst, at least to me. Although I don't think the gap between him and the true contenders for worst in the game is very large.

I agree. His movement being very good and good projectiles keeps him from being the worst, but he's down there for sure.

 

[DougEfresh]

You know, I wonder if Sakurai and co. pay attention to these tier lists when considering who to buff, fix, etc. Tsu dropping really did a number on Japan's perception of him, it seems. The low opinion of him is very much expected from US players at this point, but seeing Japan as a whole rate him as the absolute worst character in the game surprises me even though I had been seeing his perception lower there as well.

In addition to the things SwagGuy already said, I also think Lucario's ledge trapping overall is still pretty strong, and his MU spread isn't as awful as people like to assume (just a lot of evens, with very few winning match ups, and some of his worst MUs, like and , being quite common at top level play). A super safe nair (-2 at 0 aura, -1 at 65% onward) also helps a bit. All and all, probably bottom 20 or 25 in Ult. Either way, I'm cautiously optimistic that Nintendo will at least address his more glaring issues before all of the patches are done for this game.

Speaking of Wario, I'm surprised to see him as low as he is on Japan's tier list, especially with Kameme and Abadango doing quite well with the character (and many other Japanese players using him with success at different points, iirc).

I think it's way too early to call top tier, let alone top 5. But I do know a couple of Japanese players have taken a shine to her and performed well in online tourneys. is also placed a bit too high Imo; great character, just not top 4 caliber (more solidly in the tier below if you ask me).

One last surprising placement I'll comment on is : There's actually a number of Banjo reps in Japan because of their less aggressive and more calculated, patient meta over there (Raito, Brood, and Huto having the most notable success with the duo from memory, but there are also others that have done well with Banjo & Kazooie), so seeing them that low, especially when seeing placed several spots ahead of him, is pretty alarming. I think people haven't quite figured out the best way to play Banjo yet, so I think he's better than many give him credit for. Upper mid tier seems appropriate with his weight, extremely potent ledge trapping and 2-framing, solid disjoints on many moves, some solid mix ups in disadvantage, and of course wonderwing. He's in need of some selective QoL improvements combined with shaving off start up on some moves slightly, but if he gets those, I can easily picture progressing to low or mid high tier.

I definitely agree with the top 3 though, I've always thought Japan had it right about well before American players came around to her being a top tier in Ultimate. I actually think she could be the best character in the game, she's still nutty as hell even after her nerfs in 7.0; same can be said for Palu as well.

 

[Nobie]

People have been speculating about how other setup characters will do against Steve, mostly worse it seems. One exception might be Hero, who at full strength is terrifying.

But it also makes me wonder about non-setup zoners like Mega Man and Min Min. I think that's another character type that might generally be dangerous for Steve, because they're in a sense designed to disrupt and make it tough to set up in the first place. Pellet interactions with blocks are going to be interesting.

 

[The_Bookworm]

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Japanese Tier List. This is certainly different.

Not sure if this tier list is for specifically Japanese cumulative tier list, or simply the player's personal tier list, but it does have some interesting insight.

Here is my analysis:
Not only being top tier, but top 5 in the game. Granted that Min Min's online presence in Japan has been exceptional, especially by the likes of Shuton, but seeing her that high is rather interesting. I think she is good, but I personally doubt she is that good.
Is ranked as #7 in the game. T does pretty well in Japan, but I didn't know that his performances is that much of an influence. Again, another good character, but I don't think Link is that good.
Being ranked #12, Mii Brawler is ranked in pretty much the polar opposite of the tier list that NA players typically rank him. Swordfighter is also ranked much higher than he normally is. I know that Japan typically has a higher opinion on the Miis, but I didn't know they are this optimistic on them.
Not too surprised about Pika being ranked just outside of top 15. Opinions on Pika is not being wildly influenced by ESAM, and while there are some notable Japanese Pika players (funnily enough more than in USA), they haven't really placed high enough for the "Pika Busted" propaganda to really have much influence there.
Is ranked extremely low to how he is normally ranked. Usually seen as a top 5 character, Wario being merely mid tier in this player's tier list, especially considering the strong Wario presence in Japan, is quite shocking.
Is ranked higher than most players typically have him ranked. He is an... odd character to say the least. I don't know much about Mewtwo's metagame in Japan, but I am assuming he is ranked this high for a similar reason to why they ranked Brawler and Swordfighter as high as they are.
Is ranked much, much lower than I anticipated. Considering the strong presence of players like Gackt (granted that he didn't really take much part in the Japan online meta), I am surprised that the player thinks that he is lower-mid tier, almost low tier. For reference, Lucas is ranked 25 spots higher (which is also higher than Lucas is typically ranked). We are getting pre-2018 Japanese tier lists all over again. XD
...Youch. Ranked even lower than Ness' unusually low placement. Considering how impactful ProtoBanham's and Abadango's Inklings are, I am again surprised that they aren't ranked much higher in the Japanese meta. Granted that Inkling is rather weak in top-level online play imo, but still...
Ranked in bottom 10. This is, of course, a very common and widespread placement of her. The interesting thing, however, is that she is ranked above Villager, who be ranked as the 5th worst character in the game. This is another one of those "top Japanese player does well with character, but be ranked this low" situation. The Japanese player in question is Kept, who plays both of them, but mainly plays Villager.
Are ranked as the 3rd worst character in the game despite Japan being the region with the most amount of strong IC players. The IC placement isn't too far off from where I put them, but seeing them being placed that low in Japan is rather intriguing.
DougEfresh pretty much summarized it. My overall thoughts is that I believe Lucario is in the low tiers, but I don't think he is a worst character contender.


There is a few minor, but important things to note, such as 's rather lower placement (granted that they don't have the second best player in the world in their region), being put in top 10, being ranked much lower than usual/expected especially when you consider KEN, being ranked noticeably lower than common perception (which doesn't surprise me too much since there aren't really that many good Ike players in Japan), and perception not improving that much in Japan (which does not surprise me in the slightest).

 

[SwagGuy99]

SNIP

There's a handful of other things I noticed as well.

• being at the bottom of mid tier is very low compared to the common opinion of him in the US, where at worst he'll be ranked maybe 30th or so. Most Japanese Tier Lists I've seen at best put him on par with Toon Link but some will still rank him a decent bit below the other two. At worst, like we see here, this player has a good 20 characters between him and Toon Link.
• is also ranked decently high, likely due to the results of Tsumusuto, Ron, and other Japanese Doc players and due to the fact that his matchup spread seems to be considered much more middling by players in Japan compared to most US players who consider his matchup spread extremely poor.
• is ranked over Villager. I don't have any good reasoning for this, that just seems baffling to me.
• > is an odd opinion as well. While Isabelle has a solid trapping game, she really lacks ways to force opponents to approach her and struggles to deal with faster characters and disjoints. Her matchup spread isn't awful, but it's definitely somewhat lackluster against non-projectile users. Villager, meanwhile, has much more effective tools that can help him wall out opponents. Something else that helps Villager in matchups against Luigi, Peach (matchups that I can see Isabelle losing due to her inability to force them to approach her), or other characters that can sometimes struggle with projectiles is that his Lloyd Rocket is a good option to force approaches while also stuffing opponents out and giving him more time to set up his tree. His neutral is arguably better as well. I don't really know what reasoning there is for her being above Villager, that opinion seems weird to me.

Edit: I nearly forgot to add what I actually came here to post. Player-1 posted this much less controversial tier list today (outside of a few weird opinions). I don't think there's nearly as much to discuss here, outside of the one really obvious hot take ().

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[Aaron1997]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

Speaking of Min Min this is your chance to see Offline Min Min. Mao seems to have switched to her. He's already beat T 3-1

 

[StrangeKitten]

Edit: I nearly forgot to add what I actually came here to post. Player-1 posted this much less controversial tier list today (outside of a few weird opinions). I don't think there's nearly as much to discuss here, outside of the one really obvious hot take ().

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A much more sensible take. Bowser's definitely far from the best though, lol. I'd switch Trainer with G&W, switch Puff with Ganon, and bump Piranha Plant and Kirby up quite a bit. But other than that, and of course my feeling that Pika isn't quite that good, there's not much I disagree with. It's nice to see someone else who doesn't put Incineroar as one of the worst. He's not very good, but I think he's a bit better than bottom of the barrel

 

[Das Koopa]

Early impressions from my extreme data collection project as it nears completion

-Smash Ultimate's first 15 months were a lot less tumultuous than Smash 4's.

-DLC is less likely to be game-breaking in Ultimate, whereas Smash 4's DLC had a tendency to accelerate rapidly. Cloud in absurd fashion managed to reach 21/58 in results scaled over the course of 16 months in around 2.5 active months.

-The most controversial DLC characters in Ultimate so far have been Hero and Joker; the former is quite pitiful (See: some of the worst upset rates in the game compared to his presence) while Joker does not have the extreme acceleration + top level meta presence Cloud had in 4.

-We have not been hit by an absurdly powerful base roster character. Patch-era Sheik is quite easily Smash 4's most powerful character, handily surpassing 2018 Bayonetta.

-The high/top tiers in general seem more balanced around one another. If Ultimate largely comprises half of its roster in the meta, it's far less split towards the "Top 10" than it was in Smash 4's early period, where Sheik was extremely prevalent (16.6% is a big number to have.)

-It may actually be have been good for Smash 4's life that Japan's meta wasn't widely exposed at the time; outside of Ranai and earth bucking conventions with Villager and pit, it was entirely dominated by top tiers - particularly Sheik. The concept of Japan carrying many mid or low tier mains may have been true to an extent at the time, but they did not run the JPN metagame.

-We're also probably better off in terms of actual playstyle. Rosalina and Sonic were plainly top tiers in this period of Smash 4 and both were played very defensively; the only character in the top 5-by-numbers that had some reputation for explosiveness was ZSS, at 5th.

 

[SKX31]

- YouTube

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Speaking of Min Min this is your chance to see Offline Min Min. Mao seems to have switched to her. He's already beat T 3-1

It's a shame though that Mao lost to Nietono 0-3 (Mao played in the 3rd game) and Takera 1-3, eliminating him since Top 3 in each group advanced and he came 4th. While it doesn't tell us that much about Min Min as a character, my guess is that she might struggle heavily against combo-centric characters because the combo-centric characters can readily do much more damage to her in one opening than she can to them in a similar opening; and thus leave her behind in % or stocks.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Edit: I nearly forgot to add what I actually came here to post. Player-1 posted this much less controversial tier list today (outside of a few weird opinions). I don't think there's nearly as much to discuss here, outside of the one really obvious hot take ().

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This one is alright, although it is definitely not devoid of odd placements as well.
The biggest ones being:
>
being ranked way too high imo.
being ranked too low imo.
He also seems pretty optimistic on the Miis, albeit not to the same extent as the Japanese tier list, this time with . He ranked at bottom 5, which is honestly not too far off where Swordfighter is currently imo.

-It may actually be have been good for Smash 4's life that Japan's meta wasn't widely exposed at the time; outside of Ranai and earth bucking conventions with Villager and pit, it was entirely dominated by top tiers - particularly Sheik. The concept of Japan carrying many mid or low tier mains may have been true to an extent at the time, but they did not run the JPN metagame.

I actually did not know that top tiers ruled the metagame that much in Japan back in the day.

At this point, pre-patch SSB4 Sheik is so far away from people's memories, that people forgot how absolutely dominant that character was. There was a reason why pre-patch SSB4 Sheik also know as "the flawless character". It is for good reason: the character had virtually no flaws back then.

 

[Nobie]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

Speaking of Min Min this is your chance to see Offline Min Min. Mao seems to have switched to her. He's already beat T 3-1

Having watched more of this, it's interesting that Nietono has managed to do so well with Pichu when most of its players have abandoned the rat.

It's understandable why so many have stopped maining Pichu: justified as they might be, the patches objectively nerfed the character. But the core of the character is the same, and its gameplan remains unchanged aside from not being able to score early kills with f-tilt. So what's different about Nietono that Pichu is still his character of choice?

My guess is that Pichu still has the mix of attributes Nietono is looking for in a character, which are likely speed, combos, and reliable kill power compared to Pikachu. The main drawback is that Pichu hurts itself much more than before, so you can't be as recklessly aggressive with the character. Every Thunderjolt, every throw, every back air comes with a certain degree of commital in the form of self-inflicted damage. Whereas Pichu as a glass cannon probably only appealed to most of his early adopters because the risk/reward ratio was so skewed in a favorable way, Nietono still thinks the self-harm can be played around effectively. He really doesn't spam with Pichu or throw out hitboxes aside from the occasional nair.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Having watched more of this, it's interesting that Nietono has managed to do so well with Pichu when most of its players have abandoned the rat.

It's understandable why so many have stopped maining Pichu: justified as they might be, the patches objectively nerfed the character. But the core of the character is the same, and its gameplan remains unchanged aside from not being able to score early kills with f-tilt. So what's different about Nietono that Pichu is still his character of choice?

My guess is that Pichu still has the mix of attributes Nietono is looking for in a character, which are likely speed, combos, and reliable kill power compared to Pikachu. The main drawback is that Pichu hurts itself much more than before, so you can't be as recklessly aggressive with the character. Every Thunderjolt, every throw, every back air comes with a certain degree of commital in the form of self-inflicted damage. Whereas Pichu as a glass cannon probably only appealed to most of his early adopters because the risk/reward ratio was so skewed in a favorable way, Nietono still thinks the self-harm can be played around effectively. He really doesn't spam with Pichu or throw out hitboxes aside from the occasional nair.

I think another reason to why Pichu is in a much less favorable position now, as well as not many players really play it today, is because the metagame pretty much moved right passed it.

In the early metagame, where people doesn't quite know how Ultimate works, the metagame pretty much revolved around mashing safe buttons on the opponent's face, and strong neutral game was not viewed very highly of, which is a reason why Diddy and Sheik was so negatively viewed back then, aside from being not very impressive characters in themselves back then. Today's meta has some shades of this, but this was so especially prevalent back then. It was one of the main reasons why characters like Ike, Chrom, Cloud, and Yoshi was viewed so highly back then.

Pichu had the luxury of this, as well as players prioritizing very highly on strong punish games after the craziness that was SSB4's punish games. Pichu was also relatively simple to play, especially in comparison to Pikachu, so the character was developed pretty quickly.

However, the metagame was shifting past Pichu shortly before 3.1.0, as player's figured out more and more about how top-level Ultimate should play and how to exploit Pichu's glaring weaknesses, which is why Pichu's results were dropping steadily before the nerfs. It just happened so close to eachother that people associated Pichu's fall-from-grace from the nerfs alone. Pichu still had some pretty notable players afterwards, but then the meta slowly, but surely kept shifting away from Pichu as time goes on.

It certainly doesn't help that Pichu is not a very good character in an online environment. Sure, your buttons are even more obnoxiously safe, but more mistakes will be made with the increased lag, and making mistakes as Pichu is very costly.

That is not to say that the character is bad at all, with Nietono getting 9th at Frostbite 2020 being a good indication that the character is still viable, but between the metagame shifting and everyone below him getting buffs (including another early metagame superstar Ike), this is why Pichu became less and less popular in terms of playerbase and perception.

Btw, I freaking called that this was going to happen ever since back then.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Btw, I freaking called that this was going to happen ever since back then.

Same. I never said it on here or anything (wasn't signed up yet) but I had a feeling Pichu would fall off because its weaknesses are among the most glaring of the entire cast. I had a feeling Pichu's dominance would be done for once people acclimated to the matchup, and that was already starting to happen. Void talked about how Pichu was extremely stressful to play at top level, and he just couldn't do it anymore. He put that video out very close to when the nerfs dropped, so I don't feel like the nerfs were that much of a factor here. Pichu's days were numbered regardless.

That said, the character is still a diet Pikachu of sorts, which is still good. I find Pichu's combo game to be naturally stronger, where Pikachu is going to have to rely on loops to achieve a stronger combo game, which are easy to mess up. Pichu's smash attacks will also kill sooner, and its up throw -> Thunder is easier to pull off. Overall though, I think Pikachu is still better due to having far better survivability and being able to throw out electric attacks freely. I'm also not sure if I'd call Pichu more consistent at killing when Pikachu has such a strong dash attack, which Pichu lacks.

 

[Terotrous]

My first post in forever, here's a few hot takes on recent points of discussion:

I really like what they've done with Steve, though he wasn't a character I was ever excited for, his implementation is very cool. That being said, my gut feeling is that he isn't going to be very good. I think his advantage state looks quite good, but how does he get into advantage? Many of his buttons are pretty slow or heavily situational, and those that aren't seem to have pretty short range, which when combined with at best average mobility doesn't seem too threatening to much of the cast. I actually think Gold Weapons might secretly be really good. Like for example, if gold dash attack is safe, that's a big gamechanger, even if you lose power for it. I'm looking forward to trying him out but I'm a little pessimistic.

was also brought up, and I'm definitely in agreement with those saying he's at least bottom 5. IMO, there's kind of just nothing good about him. He's always had pretty atrocious frame data and lacks any particularly dominant moves or tools in his kit. In Smash 4, he was easily one of the worst characters in the game in terms of neutral, but it didn't matter because when he has Aura Side B kills you at 40%. His Aura is no longer particularly threatening in Ult, and as such, he really just has almost nothing going for him. Honestly, short of a near-complete redesign, I'm not sure how you fix this character without just giving him aura Side B back. Easily my #1 pick for a character who really needs buffs now that Corrin finally got fixed.

In terms of characters I'm not pessimistic about, there's . She seems to be kind of an anti-Lucario in that she basically just has it all. Range, power, speed, safety, pretty much everything you could want, she has it. In particular, I feel that she has absurdly good kill power for a character who has this kind of range and safety, I killed someone at 20% today with FSmash into dragon laser near the ledge, and Megawatt kills very reliably even from center stage. She kind of feels like a Smash 4 DLC character in that she seems to be better at pretty much everything compared to much of the cast. Easily top 15, probably top 10 IMO.

 

[StrangeKitten]

My first post in forever, here's a few hot takes on recent points of discussion:

I really like what they've done with Steve, though he wasn't a character I was ever excited for, his implementation is very cool. That being said, my gut feeling is that he isn't going to be very good. I think his advantage state looks quite good, but how does he get into advantage? Many of his buttons are pretty slow or heavily situational, and those that aren't seem to have pretty short range, which when combined with at best average mobility doesn't seem too threatening to much of the cast. I actually think Gold Weapons might secretly be really good. Like for example, if gold dash attack is safe, that's a big gamechanger, even if you lose power for it. I'm looking forward to trying him out but I'm a little pessimistic.

was also brought up, and I'm definitely in agreement with those saying he's at least bottom 5. IMO, there's kind of just nothing good about him. He's always had pretty atrocious frame data and lacks any particularly dominant moves or tools in his kit. In Smash 4, he was easily one of the worst characters in the game in terms of neutral, but it didn't matter because when he has Aura Side B kills you at 40%. His Aura is no longer particularly threatening in Ult, and as such, he really just has almost nothing going for him. Honestly, short of a near-complete redesign, I'm not sure how you fix this character without just giving him aura Side B back. Easily my #1 pick for a character who really needs buffs now that Corrin finally got fixed.

In terms of characters I'm not pessimistic about, there's . She seems to be kind of an anti-Lucario in that she basically just has it all. Range, power, speed, safety, pretty much everything you could want, she has it. In particular, I feel that she has absurdly good kill power for a character who has this kind of range and safety, I killed someone at 20% today with FSmash into dragon laser near the ledge, and Megawatt kills very reliably even from center stage. She kind of feels like a Smash 4 DLC character in that she seems to be better at pretty much everything compared to much of the cast. Easily top 15, probably top 10 IMO.

has really good movement, in addition to scary snowball potential if he can keep his aura. He also has access to a couple projectiles which is always a nice thing to have. I think Lucario's a little better than bottom 5, though only just.

I'm skeptical of being that high. She might be, but it's very difficult to tell with very little offline to go by. It means other characters have had little to no practice in a MU that is likely much more difficult to react to online.