Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Arthur97]

Seriously...does this mean Sonic's up air actually works now?

And depending on the AI changes, Climbers might really benefit...unless it makes desyncing harder which, then it might not. Still, a more reliable one might be worth trading tricky set ups for.

 

[FruitLoop]

Some quick steve impressions:

- Recovery does NOT seem to be broken thanks to the block limit actually being quite small (at least smaller than we thought), but elytra is certainly solid recovery move despite the high startup and steve can use minecart and anvil at any point so steve with iron may be scary to edge guard vs/try to frame trap him with.

- Steve cannot place a block for awhile if he gets hit or if he goes off of the ledge thank GOD

- OoS IS WAY BETTER THAN EXPECTED. SH Nair and Bair seem to be very big and using a sh bair oos will give you the sword making it frame 7 as well and giving steve good crossup on shield potential. Mix that with a huge frame 8 upsmash that kills and we have a more than solid OoS.

- The jump height seems to be a problem even with IDJ but it doesnt seem to be bad enough to probably gatekeep him out of relevancy HOPEFULLY

- Down-Tilt is as good as we thought it would probably be, it EVEN two frames without having to place the fire down on some recoveries.

- Edge guarding may or may not be busted since he's a bit too new but it certainly looks good and with downtilt I think its more than solid.

- Anvil is POWERFUL and isn't too high of a commitment outside of iron, it can't be challenged and I think it'll make the opponent have to work around being below steve in advantage.

- TNT seems good but hes too new to really give any thoughts on it outside of it just seeming like a solid but of course risky option which can probably be used when steve is at a stock lead or in the lead in general.

- Steve doesn't seem too slow suprisingly mobility-wise but air speed seems kinda meh.

- Frame data is lagless as expected lmfao.

- Up-Smash ACTUALLY has a hitbox in front of steve initially that hits grounded opponents THANK GOD. So this isn't like hero/belmont upsmash but an actually really REALLY good upsmash.

- Steve still gets ample amounts of iron even on Smashville/ToC and stage dependent resources dont seem to be an issue

- None of steve's moves break unless you're hitting the opponent (and maybe the crafting table) which is VERY good since the issue with Robin was that if you whiffed any one of your good spells you'd still take hits to durability

- The durability on non-wood/good tools seems good and you can cancel your crafting table animation at any time which is also very very good.

- Anvil offstage seems amazing and if the opponent hits steve while anvil spawns then anvil still can hit which given its power is SUPER SUPER good

Yea I have a feeling this character is going to be VERY good

 

[Ziodyne 21]

There is going to be a special circle of hell reserved for whoever thought it would be a good idea to buff Sonic in these times..

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So there's a new stock phrase in the patch notes this time around: "Made it so the attack does not get neutralized." Appears exclusively on Flurry Attack (rapid jab) and Flurry Attack to KO (rapid jab finisher, I think) attacks. Any idea what it actually means?

Also Belmont buffs yesssss.

 

[StrangeKitten]

There is going to be a special circle of hell reserved for whoever thought it would be a good idea to buff Sonic in these times..

I mean, up air has needed that fix for a long time but I have no idea why they decided to buff him on top of that.

Also lol Pikachu got a forward air fix but no nerfs. At this rate, better buff Pikachu is going to become the next better nerf Greninja

 

[Arthur97]

Well, online aside, Sonic isn't that good. And one of the moves they buffed was up smash so that one at least wasn't too crazy.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Well, online aside, Sonic isn't that good. And one of the moves they buffed was up smash so that one at least wasn't too crazy.

He's still upper high tier to lower top tier offline. That's a very good spot, and it's baffling that they'd buff him when Ganondorf and Little Mac exist. But hey, at least some of the characters needing buffs did get them.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Let's see...

-More multi-hits (hopefully) connect better now.
-Many moves (mostly rapid jabs) probably won't clank anymore.
- and even both & for some reason were notably buffed. (Good for their mains)
- were ignored yet again...

And that's it...


Yeah, this was disappointing.
Especially after 8.0.0's grand push.

 

[Gleam]

If one believes in the concept of multiverse theory, there's a universe where the patch notes say.

Ganondorf:

Increase range on Wizard's Foot
Neutral Air fixed to connect both attacks easier
Up Air Attack fixed to connect attacks easier.
Start and End lag reduced on Warlock Punch
Recovery no longer ****.

But alas, I do not live in such a universe.

 

[Rizen]

When the patch notes say "flurry attack" I assume that means rapid jab?

 

[Arthur97]

He's still upper high tier to lower top tier offline. That's a very good spot, and it's baffling that they'd buff him when Ganondorf and Little Mac exist. But hey, at least some of the characters needing buffs did get them.

True, but it's not like they're buffing Joker here...though they fixed Pikachu. Still, I'm happy at least to see that up air finally fixed.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

He's still upper high tier to lower top tier offline. That's a very good spot, and it's baffling that they'd buff him when Ganondorf and Little Mac exist. But hey, at least some of the characters needing buffs did get them.

I still say whoever decides to buff Sonic should be tied down and forced to play Online Smash facing nothing but Sonics for 8 hours straight.

Also Ridley actullay got a nerf.and they buffed Ness but give Lucas nothing ...just...why?.

 

[StrangeKitten]

If one believes in the concept of multiverse theory, there's a universe where the patch notes say.

Ganondorf:

Increase range on Wizard's Foot
Neutral Air fixed to connect both attacks easier
Up Air Attack fixed to connect attacks easier.
Start and End lag reduced on Warlock Punch
Recovery no longer ****.

But alas, I do not live in such a universe.

Wizard's Foot also no longer loses to everything.
C'mon Nintendo, it ain't that hard to help Ganon here

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Also lol Pikachu got a forward air fix but no nerfs. At this rate, better buff Pikachu is going to become the next better nerf Greninja

This might be a nerf in the long run.

Sometimes opponents falling out of F-Air are sent down, sort of like Cyclone gimps.
ESAM sometimes does this with fast fall F-Air off-stage.

When the patch notes say "flurry attack" I assume that means rapid jab?

That's correct.

 

[StrangeKitten]

So I doubted that Steve would have much trouble with this but seems like he does: Lylat only gives you iron, which makes mining slower. Steve might always have to ban Lylat. Kinda sucks.

 

[Aaron1997]

So Jr Buffs

• More KB on f-tilt Who doesn't want more power?
• Fix Up-smash multihits Buffs his OOS. They forgot to fix D-tilt, Up-B Kart explosion and F-smash
• Faster start-up on Down smash ok
• More KB on F-throw This is actually pretty good since now on the ledge your opponent will have to guess either Jab or Grab for kills now.
• More armor on Side-B THIS CAN BE GAME CHANGING DEPENDING HOW MUCH THIS IS BUFFED
• Faster Hammer swing Better kill confirms off side-B?

Also I'm pretty sure Simon/Richter's Up-B goes higher now. I was coming back from off the screen. This could be very big since the only thing really stopping him from being high tier is recovery.

 

[Nobie]

Sakurai said something about having to balance the other characters in accordance with Steve, and now we get all these jab combo and multihit buffs.

I wonder if it's to deal with either Steve's walking jab and/or his blocks.

 

[SwagGuy99]

The changes given this patch... were pretty bad to say the least. Let's start with the major character changes that I like.

• Steve was added. Don't have a lot to say on him, but he seems fun enough to fight against a play against and a lot of the worries that people were wondering about recovering against him don't seem nearly as bad as we thought.
• buffs. Bowser Jr. has been a fairly average character since his last set of buffs and it's nice to see him get some more changes. Most of the changes he got were just solid QoL changes that make him a slightly better character.
• it seems got some small QoL buffs as well as a potential nerf to Shield Monado. He supposedly gets launched further when using that art. Not sure how much of a difference this will make, but I'd say this is a good change overall.

The changes I don't like are a lot more numerous though.

• buffs. I don't know how Ness would be doing right now if we were in an offline meta, but thanks to BestNess and other Ness mains, this character has been thriving in the online meta. Buffing this character seems completely unnecessary in the current online meta and his changes do seem like they will be very helpful in the matchups he already does well in, although I think his losing matchups probably won't change. He'll still struggle against characters with better grounded CQC than him who have solid neutrals in the matchup ( and to a lesser extent although G&W also has other factors that allow him to do so well against Ness), and will still lose to the same swordies he already does (). However, the matchups he already did well in he'll probably be better in, and fighting this character online will likely be way more annoying as a result as well.
• Everything I said about Ness also applies to the buffs given to and . The buffs for these characters were unnecessary given the current state of the game, although Sonic's buffs mostly seem to be QoL changes, so it could be worse.

I don't really know what to think about the buffs given to and . They're not necessarily good characters, but their overall designs in game are implemented somewhat poorly. But I also don't think they fall into the same kind of area that the buffs to Sonic, Belmonts, and Ness do where they were pretty much unnecessary altogether.

On the topic of the specific buffs they received, buffing Lucario's frame data and his Aura may mean a lot for the character and he could be a decent bit better as a result of the changes if they end up making him more consistent. ICs I just think are destined to be mediocre due to the amount of characters who have solid tools to separate them as well as the game's faster pace, but buffing Nana's survivability and AI as well as their recovery, and giving them some QoL changes may result in them being slightly better overall, but I don't think this will make a huge difference in the long run.

Overall, I really dislike most of the balance changes given in this patch or am neutral on them. I really don't trust the judgement of the balance team if they thought buffing characters like Sonic and Ness was a good idea, but there's always the next patch I guess.

Edit: Also, I'm just going to put it out there, this is probably the worst patch I think we've gotten in terms of balance changes, at least in my opinion. If we want to include Smash 4 I don't think this would be anywhere near the top of that list though.

 

[KakuCP9]

Given the pandemic , the nightmare of implementing the Minecraft characters and fixing (afaik) the debilitating inconsistency of parrying between modes, the patch is alright. I imagine the Ness and Sonic buffs are like the buffs Young Link and friends got a little while ago (or an eternity ago. Time feels a little weird right now) where you take a character whose strong but missing something and then try to make them more complete ( much to the chargin of wifi warriors or anyone playing smash atm).

 

[Aaron1997]

I'd Argue that the Shield Monado change is a buff since because its only up for so little time that people will just run away from you to stall it out. Now some kill confirms like Throw -> Shield art times out -> kill move may not work anymore. The main use of shield (to break out of combo's) is still there.

 

[KakuCP9]

I'd Argue that the Shield Monado change is a buff since because its only up for so little time that people will just run away from you to stall it out. Now some kill confirms like Throw -> Shield art times out -> kill move may not work anymore. The main use of shield (to break out of combo's) is still there.

This reminds of when they tried to kill Luigi's death combos one patch and ended up doing nothing of note. History truly repeats itself huh?

Anyway, this **** right here is hella funny.

no way LMAO pic.twitter.com/qrUdfcEVrb

— Cody (@codyisike) October 14, 2020

 

[SwagGuy99]

Luigi's up-b can't be blocked by dirt blocks, so I'm happy about that at least

2020-10-13_19-27-14

Watch "2020-10-13_19-27-14" on Streamable.

streamable.com

 

[Anomilus]

Regarding Ridley's change, it is not a nerf. The wording in the Patch Notes is throwing people off.

Instead of "The hit detection when charging downward and landing", it should say "The hit detection when landing after charging downward".

Basically Ridley got a small "quake" hitbox around him when landing, so nearby opponents on the ground will now get launched slightly. More importantly, his Wing Blitz spike is still fully intact. I think Ridley mains would have rioted if they removed that.

Frankly while a neat buff, I don't see it being too useful outside of free-for-all matches. At the most you can't really spotdodge it anymore. It's a buff, but not the one Ridley needs.

 

[Game7a1]

So, some notes about Steve I found when labbing against him.

• D-Tilt, D-Smash, and D-Air are all considered projectiles, meaning they can be reflected and pocketed. D-Tilt and D-Smash can also be absorbed, but insofar for G&W, it doesn't produce a strong bucket.
• As for reflecting D-air, the reflected anvil can hit Steve if Steve is not very close to the ground. The distance of the Anvil doesn't go far when reflected, but it can hit a Steve standing on it.
• Steve is considered grounded on the Anvil. This means that, under some wild situation, Sing and Disable will work as if he was grounded. When using items, the POW Block will hit him.

Edit: Minecart when released and TNT are also projectiles that can be reflected, pocketed, and for TNT, absorbed. Minecart when riding it can be reflected.

 

[Nobie]

This reminds of when they tried to kill Luigi's death combos one patch and ended up doing nothing of note. History truly repeats itself huh?

Anyway, this **** right here is hella funny.

no way LMAO pic.twitter.com/qrUdfcEVrb

— Cody (@codyisike) October 14, 2020

Testing Palutena out, she can still ledge snap horizontally, but vertical teleports are much harder. For whatever reason, this does not affect Mewtwo (ironic, given how often they ledge bonk).

 

[DougEfresh]

So needless to say, I'm happy to see get some positive changes. Labbing the extent of his changes and how much they actually improved him is yet to be seen, but here are some extremely early thoughts and observations:

- Ftilt becoming a more consistent multi-hit move is a nice QoL change for him, even though it was not the change to the move I was expecting or even hoping for (that its start up may be a bit faster). Still, seeing yet another multi-hit move get fixed, and making it more consistent to use for tech chases is pretty neat imo.

- Jab 1 is now f5 compared to f7 in 8.1.0. I don't see this bringing anything meaningful to the table for Lucario, but hey, we'll take frame data improvements anytime and maybe something useful with it will be discovered later on.

- Dsmash is now f16, compared to f19 previously. This is a decent improvement to its start up fdata, and now allows Lucario to use dsmash to kill off of a jablock, which gives him another option for taking stocks. ASC to dsmash sometimes registered as true on the combo counter in training mode when I was at 100% and Bayo was at 80%, but the timing seems tight and using ASC to uair/bair will likely still be more consistent confirms to go for at those percent ranges. Lastly, dsmash being faster allows it to be better used for tech chases at early and mid percents to rack up damage, which is also nice.

- The aura mechanic as a whole appears to be unchanged from 0-65%, but 66 -190% seems to be when aura now packs a bit more of a punch. Whether or not people agree with the gimmicky mechanic of aura, if this is actually the case, improving aura scaling past base aura levels so your hits actually count for something is probably amongst the best ways to make the mechanic more consistent in Ultimate. The specifics of this are still subject to rigorous testing from lab rats far more skilled than me, though.

- I'm still not exactly sure what to make of the side b buff. My interpretation of the patches notes on it indicate that it may now kill sooner than it did before, but I'm unclear what the "aura area" refers to exactly. Hopefully it interacts somewhat better with shields so the command grab itself works more consistently, but at least Lucario may get better reward from conditioning the opponent to shield with FPG and get earlier kills with it, which is always good as it's a core part of his gameplan.

It's all speculative for now, but I'd say that Lucario now is, at worst, solidly mid tier. It's a stretch, but maybe he can be upper mid tier or even low high tier if his aura scaling improvements are understood better and he gets a solid reward from aura at reasonable percents (increasing his general kill power before he loses his stocks) along with any new confirms, set ups, or improvement to the consistency of any existing confirms Lucario has at present.

As far as the rest of the patch notes go, I'm with many others here in being confused as to why they buffed and to the extent they did, but at least the latter's up air now works. It's also good to see the Belmonts and get some solid improvements as well. Interested to see how this affects the meta going forward.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Launching Shulk further while he's in Shield might indeed be a stealth buff. I'm sure the intention was to help prevent Shulk from living to 220, but now Shield will break combos and it'll probably be more difficult for his opponent to get follow ups. We'll see what happens, though. If it does end up being a nerf, it's a good one, because I feel like the top tiers are all still fair and don't need sweeping nerfs. Only slap on the wrist stuff like this.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Well, maybe we'll get another patch in the near future, I doubt Nintendo will want this to be in the game for very long

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[Space thing]

- I'm still not exactly sure what to make of the side b buff. My interpretation of the patches notes on it indicate that it may now kill sooner than it did before, but I'm unclear what the "aura area" refers to exactly. Hopefully it interacts somewhat better with shields so the command grab itself works more consistently, but at least Lucario may get better reward from conditioning the opponent to shield with FPG and get earlier kills with it, which is always good as it's a core part of his gameplan.

Pretty sure it's saying the flame part (the projectile, not the grab) has more knockback.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Well, maybe we'll get another patch in the near future, I doubt Nintendo will want this to be in the game for very long

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Yup, 9.1 coming in like a week. This is something they'd patch right away

 

[zumaddy]

Hey guys long time no see, let's check out this patch-

Sonic and Ness buffs
No Pikachu nerfs
One random Ridley nerf
No Dr Mario or Byleth buffs

(hi guys! excited to try out steve in a bit)

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here are the notable changes:

All received a semi-universal change where their rapid jabs are made that "the attack does not get neutralized". I am assuming this means this means that you can no longer clank with it.
Overall a very minor change, but we found our obligatory universal change of the patch.


Now to the actual stuff:

Got buffed... for some reason. I legitimately have 0, completely no clue in my mind, why they would buff Ness of all characters.

• His dash attack's third hit got a damage and power buff. Relatively minor change.
• Up tilt got a damage buff, with knockback compensated.
• They also slightly buffed the startup of down air (frame 20 -> 18) and PK Flash, with the latter feeling the most noticeable.

Overall relatively minor changes for Ness, but I am still confused why he got buffed in the first place.
ICs got changed, and it is actually aimed at stuff that I wanted to be fixed for a long time.

• Dash attack got WAY better. Previously it was one of the worst moves in the game, with almost no range, exploitable endlag, and Nana's hit hardly ever connected. Now it has more range (still small, but that is a general IC issue) and Nana's hit actually now consistently connects, which sets up for up air. Nice buff overall. Not really game changing, but it is no longer a pile of garbage anymore.
• Down smash got a little nice knockback buff. Nothing really noticeable, but it is still a change.
• Side special seems like it can grab the ledge sooner, making it a more reliable recovery option, although it is still going to be pretty situational.
• Up special got its tether range noticeably increased. It now covers pretty deep below the stage now. They also fixed an issue where Nana using up B around the same time as Popo would send both climbers nowhere, which is really nice. I don't know if they fixed the issue where if getting hit by up B would sometimes make Popo go nowhere and die, but since it is not listed in the patch notes, I am assuming that this glaring issue has not been fixed.
• One of the most stupid changes made to the character from Brawl to Ultimate imo, is that they added a damage/knockback multiplier to Nana. They now lowered that multiplier, so Nana isn't going to die as early. I don't know how much they lowered the multiplier, and how significant it is, but I am glad they are adjusting that dumb mechanic.
• They also "adjusted Nana's AI behavior" which is something they haven't done for over a year. Nana's behavior still feels wonky, so I don't know how signficant this change is.

Overall, IC's recovery got some pretty good buffs. Dash attack is no longer a pile of garbage. The damage/knockback multiplier to Nana got weakened and Nana's AI behavior got adjusted.
I personally don't think this will be a big boost for ICs in the tier list, as they still possess a lot of the same issues (and we don't know how buffed Nana got), but it is a step in the right direction, especially considering that the character has been neglected for so long.
In a similar vein to Ness, why Sonic of all characters got buffed is a mystery, but at least the buffs are to areas that do feel somewhat frustratingly inconsistent with the character, so I will give the devs that.

• UP AIR FINALLY WORKS! The move actually functions properly at last. Through my testing on using up air against an opponent multiple times at different angles, up air only dropped once. This will help Sonic considerably in contesting the area above him.
• Up smash has decreased startup (frame 18 -> 14), increased invincibility, and a more consistent multi-hit. The move is still weak in terms of knockback, so it is still going to be very situational, but it is better nevertheless.
• Dash attack has increased damage and slightly less endlag. Nothing too major here.
• Up tilt got slightly reduced endlag. Makes combos out of it slightly more consistent, but it is still a pretty difficult move to initiate combos with.

Overall, nothing that will boost online Sonic too much (if not at all), but offline Sonic, who is already high tier, will definitely love having a functioning up air. Contrary to what people says, I actually like these changes.
Lucario also got some love this patch.

• Max aura is even stronger. This is a cool change that allows him to be more threatening at high aura.
• Jab got a nice frame data buff. Previously 7 frame startup, it now starts-up at frame 5. Still relatively slow for a non-swordie jab, but every bit helps.
• Forward tilt now connects better. I didn't actually never knew that this move drops, so cool I guess?
• Up special got slightly less landing lag. It was already miles faster than in SSB4, so it being even faster is helpful.
• Side special aura attack (not the command grab) got increased knockback. High aura Lucario (that got buffed) has a new toy to play with, although the knockback from my testing is still not too impressive for a high aura Lucario move.
• Down smash got a nice frame data buff. Previously 19 frames of startup, it now comes out on frame 16.

Overall, mostly QoL stuff to Lucario. It doesn't really address too much of Lucario's core flaws. For example, I think they could've pushed the jab (and overall frame data) buff even further, and I think he still needs more survivability to take advantage of his buffed aura. However, every little bit helps.
Shulk received a small mix of buffs and nerfs, but are worth pointing out.
Up smash got a multi-hit consistency change and Vision got a knockback buff. Both are rather inconsequential.
Shield Monado can now be launched farther away. By how much, and how significant this is will be determined.
However, I doubt this will Shulk that much, if not at all.
Bowser Jr. got some love this patch.

• Forward tilt knockback got buffed a rather inconsequential amount.
• Up smash multi-hits got a pretty nice QoL consistency buff. Now all we need now is down tilt and forward smash at higher percents lol.
• Down smash got a startup buff. Previously frame 15, it now comes out at frame 12.
• Up special got a startup buff, as Bowser Jr. ejects out of the Clown Car slightly sooner. Overall buff to his recovery.
• Forward throw getting a slight knockback buff. Makes it's role as a situational KO throw near the ledge better, although I think most Jr. mains are likely going to use jab finisher more often than not.
• Clown Cart Dash armor got buffed. I am not sure by how much, but this has potential to be a fairly significant change.

Overall, nice QoL changes to Bowser Jr. We will see how significant his side B armor buff is, and if this changes Bowser Jr. as a whole. Overall, he is relativelt the same character.
Got some buffs at last.

• Dash attack got a damage buff, as well as its base knockback increased. This improves reward, and it improves safety on-hit at low percents.
• Up tilt also got its base knockback increased. On paper, this nerfs combo potential, but up tilt's endlag is pretty high where it didn't really have much (of any) combo potential to begin with. Conversely, this improves safety on-hit at low percents.
• Down smash got a nice knockback buff. It was a pretty weak move for a down smash, while having relatively high endlag. It is still on the weak side in terms of smash attacks, but every little bit counts.
• Up smash got a startup (frame 18 -> 16) and knockback buff. It now KO's stupidly early now even if isn't at the tip. This is good, since you are hardly ever going to land this move.
• Up special received an increase in "attack range". I don't know if they are referring to travel distance or hitbox size of the move. Either way, up B still travels a meh distance, so even if it the former, it isn't going to improve their recovery that much.

Overall, the Belmonts got some nice QoL changes, but I heavily doubt this will actually change the character that much, since they didn't really address of their glaring weaknesses.

All other changes in the patch notes are minor move consistency changes.

I believe that may be potentially the biggest winner of the patch, but it solely depends on how significant the side B buff is. I don't think he will increase much in the tier list otherwise.
If not Jr., then is the biggest winner, as they received changes that directly help with their weaknesses. However, I personally doubt that they will increase in the tier list that much.
changes are nice, but they didn't really touch their most glaring weaknesses, only QoL changes.

My overall summary is that I think the adjusted characters, outside of maybe Jr. and ICs, are barely going to change in the tier list, only maybe a tier spot higher at best. Even then, I don't think Jr. and ICs are going to change much tier-wise this patch.

Overall in terms of character changes, this is a relatively uneventful patch, especially after 8.0's craziness (many mid tier buffs + them buffing the Pits and Corrin straight out of low tier irrelevancy).

On the bright side, it is nice to see a major patch in Ultimate where the DLC character gets the limelight. I will post tomorrow on my observations and impressions on Steve.

Well, maybe we'll get another patch in the near future, I doubt this will be in the game for very long

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I think this is either a stage (they are playing on one of the Minecraft World variants) or a Samus specific issue. Either way, this isn't really that significant.
It would seem that Steve joins the Min Min school of janky glitches at DLC release.

 

[Minix0]

So needless to say, I'm happy to see get some positive changes. Labbing the extent of his changes and how much they actually improved him is yet to be seen, but here are some extremely early thoughts and observations:

- Ftilt becoming a more consistent multi-hit move is a nice QoL change for him, even though it was not the change to the move I was expecting or even hoping for (that its start up may be a bit faster). Still, seeing yet another multi-hit move get fixed, and making it more consistent to use for tech chases is pretty neat imo.

- Jab 1 is now f5 compared to f7 in 8.1.0. I don't see this bringing anything meaningful to the table for Lucario, but hey, we'll take frame data improvements anytime and maybe something useful with it will be discovered later on.

- Dsmash is now f16, compared to f19 previously. This is a decent improvement to its start up fdata, and now allows Lucario to use dsmash to kill off of a jablock, which gives him another option for taking stocks. ASC to dsmash sometimes registered as true on the combo counter in training mode when I was at 100% and Bayo was at 80%, but the timing seems tight and using ASC to uair/bair will likely still be more consistent confirms to go for at those percent ranges. Lastly, dsmash being faster allows it to be better used for tech chases at early and mid percents to rack up damage, which is also nice.

- The aura mechanic as a whole appears to be unchanged from 0-65%, but 66 -190% seems to be when aura now packs a bit more of a punch. Whether or not people agree with the gimmicky mechanic of aura, if this is actually the case, improving aura scaling past base aura levels so your hits actually count for something is probably amongst the best ways to make the mechanic more consistent in Ultimate. The specifics of this are still subject to rigorous testing from lab rats far more skilled than me, though.

- I'm still not exactly sure what to make of the side b buff. My interpretation of the patches notes on it indicate that it may now kill sooner than it did before, but I'm unclear what the "aura area" refers to exactly. Hopefully it interacts somewhat better with shields so the command grab itself works more consistently, but at least Lucario may get better reward from conditioning the opponent to shield with FPG and get earlier kills with it, which is always good as it's a core part of his gameplan.

It's all speculative for now, but I'd say that Lucario now is, at worst, solidly mid tier. It's a stretch, but maybe he can be upper mid tier or even low high tier if his aura scaling improvements are understood better and he gets a solid reward from aura at reasonable percents (increasing his general kill power before he loses his stocks) along with any new confirms, set ups, or improvement to the consistency of any existing confirms Lucario has at present.

As far as the rest of the patch notes go, I'm with many others here in being confused as to why they buffed and to the extent they did, but at least the latter's up air now works. It's also good to see the Belmonts and get some solid improvements as well. Interested to see how this affects the meta going forward.

I'm pretty sure his side b hitbox (the laser) is just bigger.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I know it's only day 1, so people will get better with it, but Steve's recovery is looking a lot worse than I initially thought

 

[Aaron1997]

BTW correction on Bowser Jr's Up-B. They didn't buff hammer Swing. He ejects out of Clown kart 4 frames faster then before. Kill confirms off of side-b are better and his recovery is better.

 

[TennisBall]

They really buffed Ness huh.
I'll admit I'm super psyched but like Ness was a solo viable character offline and online and they decided that wasn't enough?
Oh well, as expected Steve is incredibly amazing and I love this patch so much.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I had a feeling people downplaying Ness’ strengths would eventually get him buffed when he didn’t really need it but hey I’m not complaining lol.

The Ness Discord is still going over the changes. Up tilt deals 2% more damage I’ll Fair it. Up throw now deals 15.1% fresh in 1v1s, that’s only 6% off from K.Rool’s and is his most damaging throw so we now have incentive to use it against non-floaty characters. If you manage to catch an up thrown opponent with PKT that’s 30% for free, I like this change. PK Flash now uncharged releases on frame 40 up from frame 44. A rather noticeable buff it’s still out there how effective this buff will be but it’s probably his less changing buff.

Dair is now frame 18 changed from 20. It feels great to use. So far we’ve discovered dair Will now combo into itself at mid-low percentages. You can catch neutral ledge getups with a dair and combo into a dair that will spike the opponent off stage. Quite nice. Also if your aware of Multi-Mags Ness’ “psudeo infinite” anymore lighter than Mega Man can now be true combo’d off a held magnet into dair. This is one example of held magnet. There are other variations. There is more to unpack with the dair buff.

https://twitter.com/nessboy12/status/1316188000531873792?s=20


Now my favorite change. Dash attack. Simply put it’s effectively now a weaker Cloud Dash attack when it comes to kill power. With max rage and no DI you can kill Puff at 88 with no rage no DI 110 is kill percentage. Thanfully for his opponents you can still affect the launch angle a lot with DI and survive the ludicrous percentages it can kill at now but you CANNOT fall asleep if this hits you. You will die for it. This will probably be the biggest buff out the patch imo as it now gives Ness something sword characters (his main weakness) MUST respect even before kill percentages. Ness now has a move that not only lets him get past disjoints with good prediction and spacing but also get those characters farther off stage meaning less neutral he has to play with them. I can absolutely see a Ness for example catching a Lucina mid Ftilt holding in to preform the ftilt with his dash attack and getting a kill at 120 for it because you didn’t have time to react and DI. It’s very nice stuff, thank you Sakurai I will take it.

Please pardon the language, if not allowed please delete. Thank you. https://mobile.twitter.com/KyozoSoCal/status/1316186435951587328

 

[ThreeT]

Steve is a fun character, I'll give you that.

https://twitter.com/Nullificationn/status/1316221409648095233

 

[The_Bookworm]

I had a feeling people downplaying Ness’ strengths would eventually get him buffed when he didn’t really need it but hey I’m not complaining lol.

The Ness Discord is still going over the changes. Up tilt deals 2% more damage I’ll Fair it. Up throw now deals 15.1% fresh in 1v1s, that’s only 6% off from K.Rool’s and is his most damaging throw so we now have incentive to use it against non-floaty characters. If you manage to catch an up thrown opponent with PKT that’s 30% for free, I like this change. PK Flash now uncharged releases on frame 40 up from frame 44. A rather noticeable buff it’s still out there how effective this buff will be but it’s probably his less changing buff.

Dair is now frame 18 changed from 20. It feels great to use. So far we’ve discovered dair Will now combo into itself at mid-low percentages. You can catch neutral ledge getups with a dair and combo into a dair that will spike the opponent off stage. Quite nice. Also if your aware of Multi-Mags Ness’ “psudeo infinite” anymore lighter than Mega Man can now be true combo’d off a held magnet into dair. This is one example of held magnet. There is more to unpack with the dair buff.

https://twitter.com/nessboy12/status/1316188000531873792?s=20


Now my favorite change. Dash attack. Simply put it’s effectively now a weaker Cloud Dash attack when it comes to kill power. With max rage and no DI you can kill Puff at 88 with no rage no DI 110 is kill percentage. Thanfully for his opponents you can still affect the launch angle a lot with DI and survive the ludicrous percentages it can kill at now but you CANNOT fall asleep if this hits you. You will die for it. This will probably be just biggest buff out the patch imo as it now gives Ness something sword characters (his main weakness) MUST respect even before kill percentages. Ness now has a move that not only lets him get past disjoints with good prediction and spacing but also get those characters farther off stage meaning less neutral he has to play with them. I can absolutely see a Ness for example catching a Lucina mid Ftilt holding on to preform the ftilt with his dash attack and getting a kill at 120 for it because you didn’t have time to react and DI. It’s very nice stuff, thank you Sakurai I will take it.

Please pardon the language, if not allowed please delete. Thank you. https://mobile.twitter.com/KyozoSoCal/status/1316186435951587328

The Ness changes are nice, but they aren't really going to change the character that much imo. This is fine though, since Ness never needed buffs in the first place.

Dash attack is going to be the ultimate scrub killer now. lol

Steve is a fun character, I'll give you that.

https://twitter.com/Nullificationn/status/1316221409648095233

The mining on TNT mechanic is pretty cool tech. However it is still risky since the explosion is very powerful.

In terms of why it doesn't work on Battlefield, FD, and SB, I am assuming that this a development oversight when applying the same material pool to every single Battlefield and FD form.

 

[Aaron1997]

Some stuff about Steve and recoveries:
-Can always go through dirt blocks
-Need a hitbox to break through anything else
-Nerfs your recovery distance anyway
-Teleports can't get through anything
-Can't place blocks next to stage wall, so hugging wall to recover is good pic.twitter.com/is86YESWdn

— RaZe (@RaZe_SSB) October 14, 2020

Recovery stuff