Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Firox]

Pikachu probably wins the matchup, people see one aspect and jump to conclusions. It would surprise me quite a bit if ESAM puts Steve in losing for Pikachu in his next MU chart.

Oh, I would totally agree that Pikachu wins the matchup. I was just messing aroung.

 

[Thinkaman]

Currently I don't know where stands. It's most likely still bottom 10, but I do think his buffs did matter to some degree. Aura being better starting around 65% (at least based on what I've heard that's about when the changes start to become noticeable)

It doesn't become noticeable at 65%, it starts at 65%. (Aura essentially functions as penalty to base damage from 0-65%, and a boost from 65-190%.)

So, Lucario's baseline (equal stocks) Aura multiplier is now:

0%: 0.66x (unchanged)
35%: 0.83x (unchanged)
65%: 1.00x (unchanged)
100%: 1.168x -> 1.188x
130%: 1.312x -> 1.348x
160%: 1.456x -> 1.509x
190%: 1.600x -> 1.670x

(Note that Lucario also gets a bonus when behind on stocks, and that the combined multiplier is clamped.)

So on one hand, this is a nominally small change. No difference at many %s, and typically only a 2-5% difference seen only at the end of stocks. It's a 7% difference in the most most extreme case, and will apply the least to matchup Lucario already struggles in.

On the other hand, it's rare that a buff applies to literally every move that character has. And this is on damage, so we're talking both damage and knockback. (and occasionally 1 extra frame of shield safety!)

For context, if Lucario and his opponent live the same amount and deal the same amount of damage to each other (linearly), this is how much of a total cumulative damage difference this buff will make across a single stock:

65%: 0.000%
75%: 0.028%
85%: 0.111%
95%: 0.252%
105%: 0.448%
115%: 0.700%
125%: 1.008%
135%: 1.372%
145%: 1.792%
155%: 2.268%
165%: 2.800%
175%: 3.388%
185%: 4.032%
190%: 4.375%

Again, dealing an extra one whole % total because you lived to 125% might not seem impressive. But if you live to 150% and make that 2% "extra credit", and the higher aura means your kill moves are hitting at 1.04x the knockback of before, you're quickly looking at your kill moves (all of them!) killing anywhere from 4-8% sooner than they effectively would have otherwise.

Finally, I might have been too quick to dismiss the Extremespeed landing lag buff. It might open up some important high recovery options against the people who could most easily ledgeguard him, and Lucario living to see another neutral matters more to him than any other character in the game.

 

[Wunderwaft]

Funny coincidence I see people discussing the Steve/Pikachu match-up when I have just come to share a new tech someone discovered on how to shut down Pikachu's thunder jolt.

Optimal block placement is gonna be the future of Steve. Against various characters I believe we will see Steve set-up blocks as either offensive or defensive options in various situations. Time will tell how many of these set-ups will be discovered and against how many characters, but make no mistake, this is only scratching the surface of what this character can do.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I've already explained multiple times why Dr. Mario is one of the worst, so I got nothing to add there.

However, I think most people tend to forget that even the worst in this game isn't under the same handicap compared to the previous games. Those kinds of characters are still worth keeping around as a pocket pick if you're comfortable with them.

As said before, not many mid and high-level players are prepared to fight a good Doc, or Ganon, or Mac, or Dedede, or Isabelle, or whoever you think is the worst thanks to this game's giant and fairly relatively roster...


Side note: I see so many people still claiming (post 8.0.0) Isabelle is still complete trash, yet they never explain why...

 

[Lacrimosa]

Dabuz's Week 1 Impressions of Steve:

Week 1 impressions

NGL a lot of my +1s and evens are being optimistic pic.twitter.com/jMJW6crODx

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) October 18, 2020

Here's also the Twitch vod with his explanations: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/774617357 (begins at 1:21:30)

I would agree with Dabuz on the Zelda placement.
She frankly cares very little about Steve's mining.
She can pressure him with Phantom and he has to either shield or jump away with a block which results in even more stage control. If Steve wants to attack then Phantom can hit him out of it. Now, Steve will get materials sooner or later but I guess he does that against every character after some time.
If Steve wants to be aggressive he has to rely on Minecart (I could be wrong but that'S what my limited MU understanding showed me) which Phantom hits him out of and the Phantom kinda blocks the Minecart so it slows down and gives time to react to both Steve and the Minecart. In other words, Steve gets outcamped really well in this matchup.
Phantom also gets rid of any blocks Steve tries to set up which can be used as a recovery tool if he tries to block the ledge or if he tries to mine materials (Din's Fire is also useful since you can maneuver it around the blocks but it's not the primary option to go for).
Like, I feel it's really difficult for Steve to get into advantage state in this Mu consistently and not getting blown back Zelda's advantage state in return, which I think is also much easier to get to.

But I've been wrong before about match-ups and Steve's meta will develop. So I'll be looking forward to what this character has in store for us.

 

[The_Bookworm]

If you guys want to know what Steve's hitboxes looks like, here it is.
They, for the most part, match the animations decently well.

I still remember Min Min's disgustingly disjointed kick jabs, up smash, and down smash.

 

[Thinkaman]

Side note: I see so many people still claiming (post 8.0.0) Isabelle is still complete trash, yet they never explain why...

Pretty sure it's entirely a matter of her actually being poor before 4.0.0, and her being so rarely played as a psuedo-echo zoner that many people have not updated their opinions to reflect either those changes nor 7.0.0's.

Release Isabelle was... pretty bad. Lloid Trap basically didn't work except for ledge coverage in most matchups, Fishing Rod had very questionable numbers, her non-slingshot aerials were all underwhelming, Jab was unsafe and led to nothing, u-smash had no use, even her roll was weirdly bad.

She was basically Villager, who dubiously traded Lloid Rocket and Timber for a pinch of airspeed, in a game where everyone was faster and more capable of dealing with zoners.

But now she's vastly better. Lloid Trap is reliable and frankly a really good move. Fishing Rod is risky but has a variety of compelling and rewarding use cases and synergize with the rest of her moveset. Nair, uair, and dair are all solid and lead to good stuff. Dash attack is faster, u-tilt is good and true combos into lots of things, u-smash has some actual applications, jab is amazing... Slingshot supported by Pocket and f-smash was always an okay foundation for the character, but nothing else worked. And well, now it does.

Honestly, there's nothing really wrong with Isabelle anymore. Even if she is underpowered when the chips are counted, everything works. The only way to improve her would be fairly arbitrary number increases. (The most extreme case would probably be grab buffs.)

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is some extremely useful Steve tech involving his recovery, namely ways to extend.
Mew2King demonstrates 3 different ways to extend his recovery, with the first one being not very practical, but the other two being very practical, with the second one being very easy and practical, while the third being a bit more difficult but the most practical, especially when combined with the second method.

This is worth watching imo.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I've already explained multiple times why Dr. Mario is one of the worst, so I got nothing to add there.

However, I think most people tend to forget that even the worst in this game isn't under the same handicap compared to the previous games. Those kinds of characters are still worth keeping around as a pocket pick if you're comfortable with them.

As said before, not many mid and high-level players are prepared to fight a good Doc, or Ganon, or Mac, or Dedede, or Isabelle, or whoever you think is the worst thanks to this game's giant and fairly relatively roster...


Side note: I see so many people still claiming (post 8.0.0) Isabelle is still complete trash, yet they never explain why...

Pretty simple, really. lacks range, lacks good neutral tools, and lacks good kill power. What does she really have in neutral? Slingshot? Not hard to deal with when you get used to it. Same goes for fishing rod. Once you stop trying to attack her, and start realizing that you should shield a lot, it's pretty easy to shut her down. Lloyd mine isn't going to hit you very often. It disappears pretty fast, so you can just play around it and it'll be gone soon. Even worse, swords and some projectiles can clear the mine away with no risk to Isabelle's opponent. has a lot of key things about them that make them okayish, though still not that great, while loses a lot of Villy's kinda good things and doesn't make up for it with much.

I wouldn't call Isabelle complete trash. I mean, she's not all that awful. But she is very lacking in my opinion.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

I figured as much.

Even then pre-patch Jab did have some confirms, but it got buffed so we're already passed that, so whatever.



So general opinions of Steve anyone?
I'm on team "Steve is High/Top Tier".

 

[Wunderwaft]

So general opinions of Steve anyone?
I'm on team "Steve is High/Top Tier".

This is fairly early but I think a character like Steve has so much tools and possibilities and as a result cannot be underestimated. I strongly believe his potential does outweigh his current weaknesses and as more people get a hold on the character and utilize his block placement more (I'm noticing that a ton of people who treat Steve as a low tier character rarely utilize his blocks more efficiently) he will be regarded as a more dangerous threat.

Steve completely relies on the player's ability to evaluate his current situation and be able to choose the best possible set-up in his current predicament. Should you craft diamond weapons now or save your diamond resource for the next stock? What's the best possible block layout that you can make against your opponent? Should you use a TNT as part of your current strategy despite it consuming a ton of your resources? Should you craft golden weapons for their faster frame data or save them for the powered mine cart instead? There will be a ton of thoughts juggling through your head as you decide which course of action is much better suited to use. It's easy to make a mistake with this character which is why I'm not surprised he has such a polarizing reception early on.

It has been stated multiple times but Steve's skill ceiling is incredibly high. The amount of techs that have been discovered so far are nuts and they're only week one techs. So in regards to tiering Steve, I think an optimized Steve lies on the High/Top tier paradigm as well. It's just gonna take a long while until we do see someone who will push Steve to his absolute limits.

 

[Thinkaman]

What does she really have in neutral? Slingshot?

..................Yes?

Slingshot is one of the best neutral options in the game. I just watched a random kept set to count.

He used it 54 times.

The first stock.

 

[Firox]

So general opinions of Steve anyone?
I'm on team "Steve is High/Top Tier".

As of right now, my only opinion is that his skill ceiling is FAR higher than most people will be able to take advantage of. At professional levels of play, I think he's got some disgustingly good potential but he's definitely a "big brain" character that most won't be able to get good with without extensive amounts of play and practice.

 

[Frihetsanka]

So Pikachu's fair change made it so opponents don't get pushed out as much. So you can get stuff like this, much easier to execute than most uair bridges. pic.twitter.com/mIasPostmO

— ESAM (@imESAM) October 19, 2020

ESAM talking about the Pikachu fair buff. Seems it's more significant than people originally thought.

 

[SwagGuy99]

So Pikachu's fair change made it so opponents don't get pushed out as much. So you can get stuff like this, much easier to execute than most uair bridges. pic.twitter.com/mIasPostmO

— ESAM (@imESAM) October 19, 2020

There's a whole thread of stuff after this tweet here regarding Pikachu's f-air changes.

The quick summary of it is that the new f-air gives Pikachu an easier combo route on a lot of characters than his up-air bridges. His new f-air now allows him to go for regrabs when using a landing f-air as a finisher for an up-air bridge and Pikachu can utilize IDJ at mid percents to take floatier characters off the side with a new combo this allows for.


..........


Nintendo why do you do this to us

 

[Firox]

So Pikachu's fair change made it so opponents don't get pushed out as much. So you can get stuff like this, much easier to execute than most uair bridges. pic.twitter.com/mIasPostmO

— ESAM (@imESAM) October 19, 2020

ESAM talking about the Pikachu fair buff. Seems it's more significant than people originally thought.

I love how the most recent patch did so little for the characters that need help yet was more than happy to break the the already broken characters even more. Way to read the room, devs.

 

[Thinkaman]

I love how the most recent patch did so little for the characters that need help yet was more than happy to break the the already broken characters even more. Way to read the room, devs.

"Why the hell are they filling a pothole in front of the bank while there are orphans who need to be adopted?"

 

[Frihetsanka]

I love how the most recent patch did so little for the characters that need help yet was more than happy to break the the already broken characters even more. Way to read the room, devs.

Eh, it's not like making Pikachu's fair more consistent is bad game design or anything. They probably should've combined it with a slight nerf to something else (like adding a few frames of endlag to Thunder Jolt or something), but in itself it's not really bad that they made fair more consistent. They don't seem to want to nerf top tiers much in this game, though. We might expect some power creep, with character that previously were considered strong getting less strong over time due to other characters being better.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

"Why the hell are they filling a pothole in front of the bank while there are orphans who need to be adopted?"

"Sorry, can't stitch-up your knife womb, gotta get a band-aid for Fred's scratch."

Who honestly believed 's Fair needed a tune-up in the first place...

 

[SKX31]

So general opinions of Steve anyone?
I'm on team "Steve is High/Top Tier".

Not sure yet, although I kinda think that with his potential he's going to wind up in a Shulk-esque position. Where the mixup potential can't be counted out, but his raw stats leave a lot to be desired. Still though, that mixup potential might allow him to do a bit better across the board than might be anticipated, even against matchups he'll clearly struggle in like Min Min. In that matchup I'm thinking that the Steve's going to be heavily defensive and try to throw the Min Min player off guard - cause her to miss with one or both of her ARMS consistently. Much easier said than done, of course, but I find it kind of possible if the Steve can get a steady supply of Minecarts and Anvils going.

Leaning towards Mid / High tier, but could certainly see him lower or higher.

Eh, it's not like making Pikachu's fair more consistent is bad game design or anything. They probably should've combined it with a slight nerf to something else (like adding a few frames of endlag to Thunder Jolt or something), but in itself it's not really bad that they made fair more consistent. They don't seem to want to nerf top tiers much in this game, though. We might expect some power creep, with character that previously were considered strong getting less strong over time due to other characters being better.

We've already seen it to some extent: I'd argue with Inkling and Fox primarily. Those two haven't gotten as nerfed as Olimar or Pichu (IIRC) and still they've seen the rise of a number of characters and the introduction of Joker, so their status isn't as solid as it was at launch.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Not sure yet, although I kinda think that with his potential he's going to wind up in a Shulk-esque position. Where the mixup potential can't be counted out, but his raw stats leave a lot to be desired. Still though, that mixup potential might allow him to do a bit better across the board than might be anticipated, even against matchups he'll clearly struggle in like Min Min. In that matchup I'm thinking that the Steve's going to be heavily defensive and try to throw the Min Min player off guard - cause her to miss with one or both of her ARMS consistently. Much easier said than done, of course, but I find it kind of possible if the Steve can get a steady supply of Minecarts and Anvils going.

Leaning towards Mid / High tier, but could certainly see him lower or higher.



We've already seen it to some extent: I'd argue with Inkling and Fox primarily. Those two haven't gotten as nerfed as Olimar or Pichu (IIRC) and still they've seen the rise of a number of characters and the introduction of Joker, so their status isn't as solid as it was at launch.

In Fox and Inkings vase I think it was more that people began just getting better at fighting them over time and became more aware of thier weakness. There are still very good characters . But i recall peope saying they were among the top 5 early in the meta. But now there comserec around 11-15ish

People realized Inking struggled to kill once they elajrwd not to get hit by roller. While Fox is very fast and strong , is also kinda squsihy due to his light weight and exploitable recovery

 

[DougEfresh]

It doesn't become noticeable at 65%, it starts at 65%. (Aura essentially functions as penalty to base damage from 0-65%, and a boost from 65-190%.)

So, Lucario's baseline (equal stocks) Aura multiplier is now:

0%: 0.66x (unchanged)
35%: 0.83x (unchanged)
65%: 1.00x (unchanged)
100%: 1.168x -> 1.188x
130%: 1.312x -> 1.348x
160%: 1.456x -> 1.509x
190%: 1.600x -> 1.670x

(Note that Lucario also gets a bonus when behind on stocks, and that the combined multiplier is clamped.)

So on one hand, this is a nominally small change. No difference at many %s, and typically only a 2-5% difference seen only at the end of stocks. It's a 7% difference in the most most extreme case, and will apply the least to matchup Lucario already struggles in.

On the other hand, it's rare that a buff applies to literally every move that character has. And this is on damage, so we're talking both damage and knockback. (and occasionally 1 extra frame of shield safety!)

For context, if Lucario and his opponent live the same amount and deal the same amount of damage to each other (linearly), this is how much of a total cumulative damage difference this buff will make across a single stock:

65%: 0.000%
75%: 0.028%
85%: 0.111%
95%: 0.252%
105%: 0.448%
115%: 0.700%
125%: 1.008%
135%: 1.372%
145%: 1.792%
155%: 2.268%
165%: 2.800%
175%: 3.388%
185%: 4.032%
190%: 4.375%

Again, dealing an extra one whole % total because you lived to 125% might not seem impressive. But if you live to 150% and make that 2% "extra credit", and the higher aura means your kill moves are hitting at 1.04x the knockback of before, you're quickly looking at your kill moves (all of them!) killing anywhere from 4-8% sooner than they effectively would have otherwise.

Finally, I might have been too quick to dismiss the Extremespeed landing lag buff. It might open up some important high recovery options against the people who could most easily ledgeguard him, and Lucario living to see another neutral matters more to him than any other character in the game.

Just wanted to add to this here, as I've been thinking through what the Lucario changes actually mean for the character. By far the best change of all the ones he was given, imo, is a faster down smash. The move's launch angle is actually disgusting for a good many characters to recover from off-stage, even if it doesn't kill. But prior to 9.0, the move was literally "C tier fsmash," because they both had the same frame data (f19 start up) and dsmash, like it is on the majority of character's, was weaker. All in all, not super worth using dsmash in the past unless your opponent had a bad roll habit, or for scramble situations where the opponent whiffs and up b OOS, for example.

But now, with dsmash's start up being f16 instead of f19, there's actually a reason to use the move over fsmash, especially now that Lucario has a consistent jab-lock confirm with a 3-frame input window. The seemingly mild aura scaling changes once base aura starts, as you already mentioned here, also helps with this confirm because you can go for a second jab 1 before going for the finishing down smash, and that extra damage now might just be the difference between whether the stock was taken or not. As I mentioned before, ASC to dsmash is now also a new confirm, and because of the aforementioned launch angle, it's a great thing to have.

The minor changes to aura beginning at base levels also serves some other very important functions, namely that now his standard ASC confirms into uair or bair are incredibly consistent with that small extra hitstun with aura sphere that the projectile now has. Even ASC to up smash, by far his least reliable of ASC confirms because of its poor scoop hitbox and inconsistency connecting into the strong hit ( usmash is now basically what 's pre-9.0 usmash was and it can be very frustrating and unfortunate too because usmash on Lucario is extremely strong when it does work), can work just a bit better at those mid to high percents because of the slight hitstun boost. It also benefits his ability to get ASC into utilt, ftilt and dair for tech chases at those low to mid percents, and it's also worth mentioning that having the jab lock dsmash also gives him a relatively consistent way of taking stocks without aura coming online; a simple back throw from center stage when Lucario is at say, 40% and the opponent is 80%, its low angle sets up well for a jab reset off a missed tech, and at/near ledge, you can explode your opponent at 100% (or even slightly earlier depending on weight of the character he's against) when you still lack that "oomph," which is big. It's no secret that Lucario's ability to kill when he was at modest percents has been a weakness of the character, and it still is to some extent, but having a streamlined consistent kill confirm off of a jab lock does help him become more consistent at taking stocks across the majority of his entire stocks, and not just at the 80+ percent range when you may already be knocking on death's door at that point depending on the match up.

The 65+ percent aura buff also makes a meaningful difference for the high pressure scramble situations when you look for your openings with excruciating patience, yet the hits you're landing aren't ever seeming to kill. Well, the instances of opponents being literal pixels away from getting KO'd should be considerably less frequent given that now each interaction that Lucario is involved in with that slightly buffed aura will gradually get him closer to taking those stocks and your momentum throughout a match or set because of these extremely stressful scenarios doesn't have to get completely robbed now that everything is just that much more likely to kill.

The new consistency to ftilt would have to be the last truly notable change, since it's an essential move to his kit. It now consistently 2-frames many characters' recoveries and while it's a bit slow still, at high aura, this move also sends at a favorable edgeguarding angle for Lucario and it's a safer ledge trapping option that now has increased kill potential; no more are the days where you have to rely almost exclusively on timing an aura sphere correctly, or going for a hard read on your opponent in the corner with fsmash (or bair for a similar hard read on jumps) and instead you are able to go for a lower commitment, yet moderate to good reward, option while ledge trapping (which was already very good at, and a big reason I thought he was in the bottom 20 or 25 of the cast, not bottom 3 or 10, prior to 9.0).

Jab 1 having 2 frames shaved off of its start up by itself isn't very noteworthy, except that now jab is the fastest grounded option Lucario has in front of him, which is good because now he has to rely less on his f9 dtilt for a "fast" get off me tool.

To summarize, the changes to dsmash allowing for a consistent jab-lock (and ASC) confirm both to kill outright and make edgeguarding opportunities more consistent to set up and exploit is a great buff because it makes setting up Lucario's win condition much easier overall, especially across a wide array of percents and not just at those medium to high aura ranges. It now gives him more of a mix up game because he's less reliant on bair and fsmash to kill now. Ftilt's improved consistency now amplifies its use for tech chasing, 2-framing, and ledge trapping with a better chance of killing off a stray hit (along with everything else once base aura kicks in) and should very likely be a good thing for him over the long run as he needed ways where he could kill a bit more consistently off of a stray hit that wasn't overcommitting. Added consistency to other ASC confirms is very important and now gives him multiple confirms that are flexible with the % windows because of the added hitstun AS now has.

The buffs were extremely targeted and nuanced, and unless you're familiar with Lucario (which is rare unless you play the character like I do), you'd think these changes were laughably weak, especially when viewing each change he received independently. But if you understand the interaction between the moves that were buffed (barring increased KB on force palm flame) and how the improvements influence his overall gameplan, you'll realize much of this was exactly what he needed with more of a mix up game, more variety of kill confirms and ways to rack up damage until that point, and just that little push to kill better off of stray hits at high aura now. He's still going to be this weird "glass-cannon comeback" character, but I very much suspect the 9.0 changes will eventually come together to make considerably more explosive and consistent across the board. He still needs just a little bit more to be "complete" imo (especially since usmash and FPG as a command grab are still quite inconsistent), but this gives him some solid stuff to work with for now at least.

 

[B_Burg]

Net buffs/nerfs for the cast since release via patches; rough draft with potential mistakes. Ken, Kirby, and Mewtwo all slightly break the scale. pic.twitter.com/FVwbAjVEru

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) October 19, 2020

Since we're on the topic of buffs and nerfs, I came across this and wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts.

The creator of the chart says they may have made a few mistakes, and also that buffs to final smashes were not counted but changes listed as "fixes" were considered buffs in the context of this list.

Edit: Should point out this obviously doesn't really have much to do with how good or bad a character is as a result of balance changes because the number of buffs/nerfs doesn't reflect the severity of the buffs/nerfs. Just thought it would make for some fun discussion.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm not sure what leap is more ridiculous:

• The idea that top tier characters shouldn't have bug fixes
• The idea that characters Twitter thinks are top tiers shouldn't have bug fixes
• The idea that characters Twitter thinks are top tiers shouldn't have bug fixes, while receiving a bug fix that negatively impacts them in a major way

Really, this Pikachu hysteria got old a long time ago. No one complained about Ken and Young Link buffs--characters who outperform Pikachu!

There's a great irony in people being afraid that the devs were going to "balanced based on online", while massively overrating Pikachu, Sonic, and Ness every day since the game's launch.

Fun trivia: While there are a small handful of capable Japanese Pikachu players, they are barely able to break into the top 100 of their player rankings. As of last update, there are no Pikachu players in the top 90 players.

Net buffs/nerfs for the cast since release via patches; rough draft with potential mistakes. Ken, Kirby, and Mewtwo all slightly break the scale. pic.twitter.com/FVwbAjVEru

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) October 19, 2020

Since we're on the topic of buffs and nerfs, I came across this and wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts.

The creator of the chart says they may have made a few mistakes, and also that buffs to final smashes were not counted but changes listed as "fixes" were considered buffs in the context of this list.

The main issue with Das Koopa 's list is that we can't really quantify changes. Lucario's Aura tweak buffs every move in his moveset--should that be counted only once? What about global changes like the parry one, which very clearly affect some characters more than others? It's hard enough to compare buffs in general, but putting something like the Raptor Boost buff side by side with an uair getting to grab the ledge a couple frames sooner starts to dilute any utility the exercise has.

 

[B_Burg]

...

The main issue with Das Koopa 's list is that we can't really quantify changes. Lucario's Aura tweak buffs every move in his moveset--should that be counted only once? What about global changes like the parry one, which very clearly affect some characters more than others? It's hard enough to compare buffs in general, but putting something like the Raptor Boost buff side by side with an uair getting to grab the ledge a couple frames sooner starts to dilute any utility the exercise has.

Oh is that Koopa's Twitter? That's cool. I didn't know that.

Also yes, I may have been too late in my edit, but as I said, I don't think it really shows much for how effective the nerfs and buffs were, nor neccessarily is it all encompassing. Plus since it's "net" buffs and nerfs, that seems to imply that buffs and nerfs take a way from each other, so in your example a Lucario change to aura would really change his numbers if each was counted individually, but if not could be "negated" in the context of this list by something basically meaningless like a hypothetical nerf to f-throw or something.

I do still think it's fun food for thought to think about where characters are now compared to where they started, or how many changes the devs have tried to give specific characters.

 

[Thinkaman]

I made a post earlier about who received slates of buffs in each patch since 2.0.0.

The main takeaway I keep repeating is that a little over half the cast got targeted sets of changes in 2020, and no character more than once.

 

[L9999]

And it would probably

"Sorry, can't stitch-up your knife womb, gotta get a band-aid for Fred's scratch."

Who honestly believed 's Fair needed a tune-up in the first place...

Honestly that change will likely not be major, nobody plays Pikachu. It is the same song on repeat again and again, "Pikachu is so broken, look at my Twitter combos, MU spread is the best" and the character does nothing. It is no Jiggs situation either, that the character is good but nobody plays "out of principal" or some bull**** like that, ESAM doesn't get first at everything, he scores about as good as any high tier player, sometimes worse.

If his toolkit is so good that it warrants mass hysteria why does absolutely no human on the planet that isn't called ESAM want to play the character? Is it "technically difficulty?" Because there a considerable amount of competent Peach players, she has only dropped off because lag is a *****. Is it needing iron nerves and perfect fingers to maximize precision? Not really because Joker and ZSS also have more competent players than Pikachu, even in online meta Sharp has brought out Joker sometimes. Is it that he is too frail and making a mistake is too much? Marss makes a lot of stupid mistakes in which he eats % or flat out dies yet has brought ZSS higher peaks than the ESAM has done for the rat. Do people just not like the character of Pikachu period? Well almost nobody genuinely likes Ice Climbers yet they still saw play when they could 0-death with grabs. If Pikachu is broken or even competent people would overlook he is a yellow rat with irritating voice clips. Cosmos would rather play a potato like Corrin instead of Pikachu, it says a lot.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Cosmos would rather play a potato like Corrin instead of Pikachu, it says a lot.

Cosmos thinks Corrin is top 15 though, and she was his best character in 4. As far as people not picking Pikachu, I think there are a few reasons:

#1. Pikachu is considered boring to play by many top players.
#2. When the game was released, Pichu and some other characters were considered better than Pichu by many top players.
#3. Pikachu is technically demanding to play.

#2 is pretty significant. By the time people started considering Pikachu the best character, most top players had already picked their main, and switching to Pikachu is probably not worth the effort for most of them. Top players don't seem to switch mains all that often, and it's usually done as a response to a patch (like a character getting buffed or a new DLC character being added). Even if Pikachu is the best character, he's not the best by a very wide margin, and the benefit from going from, say, Peach or Wolf to Pikachu might not be worth the effort.

It's not like we're seeing people flock to any character, really. Couldn't one ask the following questions: "If Joker is the best, why aren't more players switching to Joker? If Palutena is the best, why aren't more people switching to Palutena? If Peach is the best, why aren't more people switching to Peach? If Wario is the best, why aren't more people switching to Wario?". In the end, it is unclear who the best character is. I really do not agree with people here claiming Pikachu isn't even top 10 though.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

We all can agree that the change hardly matters in the long run, but it still didn't feel needed.
Of course, when it's on a very debatable top tier/best character, people are gonna question it more than it's really worth...

Oh well, the balance team works in mysterious ways.

 

[Thinkaman]

Well, Pikachu does not have a Mii, ICs, Wario, shoto, or "Dabuz character" usability issue. The character is not obtuse, is reasonable to pick up, and is from a popular franchise. There is no shortage of people willing to play Pikachu. He has a slightly-above-median volume of players, who achieve a slightly-above-median set of results.

It's not that nobody plays Pikachu. A perfectly ordinary number of people play Pikachu, and they get perfectly ordinary results. Part of that is artificially propped up quite a bit by ESAM, but that in and of itself is also perfectly ordinary--true for lots of characters around this performance level, like .

It's more of a stretch yet more concievable that someone who is underplayed (and underexplored) like ICs could be a secret top tier waiting to break out. But someone like Pika isn't a mystery, isn't an unknown. He's just... ordinary.

It's not like we're seeing people flock to any character, really. Couldn't one ask the following questions: "If Joker is the best, why aren't more players switching to Joker? If Palutena is the best, why aren't more people switching to Palutena? If Peach is the best, why aren't more people switching to Peach? If Wario is the best, why aren't more people switching to Wario?"

Um, we absolutely did see lots of switching to all of these characters! Particularly Joker.

Now, obviously that's DLC so he had a bit more of an on-ramp, but I have to point out that most of the Joker bandwagoning didn't happen until quite a long time after his release, and MKLeo cemented his performance with the character.

Wario was grabbed by Tweek, Kameme, Abadango, and a few others in spite of his otherwise record-low usage rates across the general population. Peach is more technical/niche and was adopted by a smaller crowd, but still picked up disproportionately early on. Wolf got a chart-topping amount of early attention, but ancedotally I saw lots of people gradually picking up Paultena as the months went on.

There has also been a low-key silent coversion to ROB going on that got much less attention. But yeah, Joker is the big one, or the biggest Ultimate has had.

 

[Arthur97]

We all can agree that the change hardly matters in the long run, but it still didn't feel needed.
Of course, when it's on a very debatable top tier/best character, people are gonna question it more than it's really worth...

Oh well, the balance team works in mysterious ways.

Is it really that mysterious when they fixed other moves to hit more reliably in the same patch?

 

[StrangeKitten]

Snip

I'm glad these buffs are looking better for Lucario than previously thought! Give him better frame data on some of his moves, scooping hitbox for upsmash, and better range and kill power for FPG and he's ready to go!

 

[Thinkaman]

By the way, my special pandemic-exclusive offer to explore matchups online remains--sadly--open. If anyone, particularly in the midwest or america in general, wants to mess around with Steve, try a matchup, or just make me put my money where Doc's mouth is, my door is open.

Playing video games is probably better than complaining aobut people complaining about them.

 

[DougEfresh]

I'm glad these buffs are looking better for Lucario than previously thought! Give him better frame data on some of his moves, scooping hitbox for upsmash, and better range and kill power for FPG and he's ready to go!

Yea I'm excited. It's unfortunate that most of my fellow lucario mains aren't nearly as happy about the changes, but I don't care about them. They keep complaining about his lack of OOS options and how giving him some of those would help him become more viable. That's not technically wrong, but he is a movement based character much like . Just give Lucario a faster ftilt and dtilt to give him good grounded approach options like the frog to compensate for his lack of OOS options (and like greninja, Lucario can get some deadly punishes off of parries), then like you said, better scoop hitbox on up smash (and connectivity from the scoop hitbox to the second strong hit), make FPG work like it's supposed to and maybe change its launch angle so it sends more horizontally compared to up and out (it still often sends to the top corner of the blastzone, which ain't it) and he'll be solid.

People just need to accept that 1) is extremely difficult to play well and optimize, so he's more likely to thrive in a late metagame environment, and 2) stop wishing that buffs alone are going to change the character (or anyone, for that matter) for the better; even with the new possibilities from his changes this patch, players still must develop his meta. That requires a change in attitude that I've yet to see in the lucario community, and it's mind-boggling how the one character in Smash who demands you have some of the highest mental resilience of anyone in the game has seemed to appeal to what I see as one of the whiniest groups of character mains I've ever witnessed lol.

 

[Minix0]

I think as part of a pattern is a bit of a reach, in that he was pretty underpowered on release and only came into his own with some rather large buffs.


Also, I think can't be characterized as that bad, and I say this as one of the most historically pessimistic people on Hero in this thread. For the longest time, Hero was being propped up by Salem and splashes of secondary success among various top players that seemed unlikely to be sustained--with very little "grassroots" support underneath them. But now Akakikushu has stepped up to really develop and take point on the character, playing him at a level that seems far more robust than any of the secondary tricksters in the past.

I had a long-standing prediction that would overtake in OrionRank within a year, and he was weeks away from doing so before COVID hit. But fast forward 6 months, and this might not happen--between the seeming stagnation of Banjo's playerbase and Akakikushu's single-handed results, Banjo is probably the weakest non-Plant DLC character today.



Man, I've made a lot of posts defending Doc and Mac in particular.

is the anti-Pikachu. Everyone is just adamant he is awful, with... nothing but "theory" to back that up. (Theory that consists of merely listing his weaknesses, and leaving the rest of the proof as an exercise to the reader.)

Doc has results. Before COVID, he was at #58 on OrionRank. #58 is pretty mediocre, but it is way above #74 or whatever people are constantly trying to peg him at. And what's more impressive, he managed #58 in spite of:

• His 7.0.0 buffs not covering much of the sample period
• A HUGE substitution effect with Mario
• Social media frequently dumping on the character--one of the least encouraged characters to play

Look at Marth, the only bigger substitution effect. Lucina is at least an upper-high-tier character. Marth is at least a lower-high-tier character. Marth has 0 points on OrionRank and is ranked #76 because Lucina exists. But most people can see that Marth would be around at least #35 or so if Lucina disappeared.

Doc is similar. Why play Doc when Mario exists? Doc's results would more than double if there wasn't a generally superior nearly-top-tier alternative. Yet instead of interpreting this as Doc obviously being better than his results indicate (like Marth), people instead round them down to zero. Because recovery, or something.

Tsumusuto is the best Doc in the world. He got 2nd at Sumabato SP 13, losing only to Kome. (And Shulk is generally regarded as Doc's worst matchup.) What does he think?

Spoiler: Tsumusuto's 8.0.0 Matchup Opinions

https://twitter.com/4D_Killer_Combi/status/1283768416537440256

One player's opinion does not define the reality of how good a character is, but the best Doc in the world seems pretty convinced the character is a solid mid-tier. And there's lots of footage out there. Lui$ plays Doc less now, but there's great footage of his Doc too--even before the buffs, which were quite meaningful.


is a more complicated case. Unlike Doc, does not have a consistent baseline level of top-level results. However, there are 3 giant caveats that have to be considered:

First, there are numerous good Little Macs in Japan, who intermittently get respectable placing at well-attended events. These placings would ordinarily be nothing too noteworthy--any character or player of sufficient skill is going to get a lucky bracket or have a good day eventually. But quite the contrary, Tarakotori and pals actually have lots of wins over some really formidable opponents, disproportionate to the overall average ranking.

Second, until possibly Steve, Mac is the most sensitive character to stage. Under Smash 4 stage lists, his life was... manageable. But virtually ever Ultimate Stage list is massively worse for him. Kalos, Yoshi's, and PS2 are all worse than any legal stage in Smash 4. Plus, the new Town & City has gone from being a great Mac stage to a mediocre one. With our current ban counts, Mac has no good counterpicks even in a Bo3.

This doesn't make Mac better. If Mac is artificially bad under tournament rules, then that's the same outcome as him being bad. But it has to be recognized in discussing Mac that this is a situation of our own creation:

• It would not be true if we played only on FD, Battlefield, Small Battlefield, or any combination thereof.
• It would not be true if we played on vastly more stages, especially if Mac could counterpick something as crazy as walk-offs.
• It would not be true if we didn't have stage bans, or merely had 1.
• It would not be true if we used a different tiebreaker/timeout procedure than our forced-approach community homebrew policy.

I am not advocating for any of these things. I'm just pointing out that Little Mac is vastly better under literally any stage/timeout ruleset than the exact one we use, and it's thus more than a little weird to stick to said ruleset and take it as self-evident that Mac is just inherently flawed. Various imbalances exist across the roster (in both directions) for various other rulesets one could pursue, especially when diverse stages and Final Smashes get involved. This is nothing new or unique to Mac, it's just that his case is the most relevant to the world closest to us.

Third, what Little Mac lacks in consistent top-level results he makes up for in overall tournament usage. Little Mac is used more than virtually all "low tier" characters in the competitive scene. People vote with their controller, and raw tournament usage is strongly correlated with character strength.


is similar to that last point, but cranked up to 11. Ganondorf's tournament usage is quite high, top 25 last I checked. And yet all these Ganon aren't going 0-2; they have around a 50% average win-rate. So they are clearly entering events and doing at least decent, yet there's also clearly some sort of cut-off that leads to basically 0 top-level Ganon results.

We see this sort of relationship with characters as diverse as , but Ganon exhibits it the most in Smash Ultimate by far. If you remember, we were told that Ganon was the #1 most used character within Elite Smash following the game's release. There seems to be a level of play, somewhere between 95th to 99.9th percentile, where Ganon is really good, possibly even a contender for best character. And this level isn't your kid cousins mashing on each other--again, these Ganons are showing up in tournaments en mass, and averaging 2-2. They just are never placing in the money.

A complicating factor is Ganon's historic dominance of Free-For-All formats. This applies to other heavies as well, but Ganon with his uair, wizkick, and huge smashes is a FFA monster. This is mostly a factor in terms of "why hasn't Ganon been buffed yet", and is probably little consolation to competitive Ganon players. But, like Mac and his stage situation, it is probably wise to keep in mind the broader contexts outside our little competitive mountain top when evaluating characters as if discerning some sort of universal truth.


, for constrast, has poor results, no one playing him, no justification for either, and is uniquely disadvantaged by 35 other characters becoming better at killing this year. He is worse with items, worse in FFAs, worse in teams in Ultimate, and really has no context going for him outside of ludicriously large stages. He was in the sharpest performance decline since the game's launch of any character.

Hopefully, these 9.0.0 buffs let him at least keep up with the Jones.

Unless I'm misquoting you, you're more or less saying you believe he was the worst in the game based on results, is that right? Correct me if wrong.

Well I hear you and understand, but I don't think results alone can determine character viability. Would Lucina be trash tier if no one played her and didn't know how to use her? Of course, Lucario players have more or less found a way to play him beyond being totally in the dark, but nonetheless that doesn't disqualify him. Truth is, as you said, no one is playing him. There are so many things that go into results-- match ups, stress, difficulty of play, the character being under developed, sheer popularity of said character, tourney stage lists, seeding, etc. To base viability solely on that doesn't make much sense. These things while ultimately useful and important, ignores simple things like the fact that people simply don't play the character.

All I'm saying is ideally, Lucario is much more versatile then Doc, Little Mac, Ganondorf, Isabelle combined. You said yourself Little Mac is the "most sensitive to stage change". Isn't an important factor in viability adaptation? Isn't consistency important?

How can Little Mac be better than Lucario if he loses just by going to Battlefield (or heck, loses the second he's airborne)? How can Lucario be worse than two characters (Doc, Ganon) who have horrendous disadvantage states and die at stupid percents based on solely on recovery?

What I'm proposing is in an idealistic situation, where both people are of more or less of equal high level skill, regardless of stage, X character will generally win against Y character. In this case, a competent Lucario will almost always beat a competent Little Mac.

Doc is similar. Why play Doc when Mario exists? Doc's results would more than double if there wasn't a generally superior nearly-top-tier alternative. Yet instead of interpreting this as Doc obviously being better than his results indicate (like Marth), people instead round them down to zero. Because recovery, or something.

Because again, results and character strengths should go hand and hand. It's not just his recovery, his mobility is awful. His range is lacking. His neutral consists of praying the opponent gets hit by a pill and/or hitting his dtilt. His disadvantage is sad. He's slow and has a bad recovery, yet slightly above average weight, meaning he'll be going off stage pretty frequently. His results might be better than say, a character no one even touches like Lucario or trash tier characters, but I wholeheartedly believe that just about any character in the game can do a little better than horrible given the right situation and enough practice with the character. Then again, as I say, results aren't worthless either, so maybe he isn't a bottom tier. But I still don't see an arguement where Lucario was the worst in the game other than results.

Also, even with results, Lucario has Tsu (5th at Umebura Japan Major 2019, 9th at Umebura SP 2 and Thunder Smash 3: Clash of the Pandas, and 13th at Umebura SP 3), Vivi (17th at Defend the North 2019), Jeda (3rd at BURST 4, 5th at Ultimate WANTED 1, 9th at Stunfest 2019, and 17th at Albion 4, along with being ranked 6th on the French Ultimate Power Rankings), Labot who placed 3rd at Awakening 5, and some results among a few others.

That's my two cents.

 

[Thinkaman]

Holistic views on balance tend to be a triangulation of (long-term) usage, win-rates, and theory. In practice, actual controlled win-rates are super hard to measure and very overrated, and theory is even more useless/inaccurate. Things end up being like, 90% usage, 9% win-rate, 1% theory.

The best overall measure we have is weighted results, like OrionRank. But even though it's the broadest robust measure we have, it's still a narrow level of play and subject to a few unavoidable confounders. Overall tournament usage is also enlightening.

Here's a more detailed post.

Well I hear you and understand, but I don't think results alone can determine character viability. Would Lucina be trash tier if no one played her and didn't know how to use her? Of course, Lucario players have more or less found a way to play him beyond being totally in the dark, but nonetheless that doesn't disqualify him. Truth is, as you said, no one is playing him. There are so many things that go into results-- match ups, stress, difficulty of play, the character being under developed, sheer popularity of said character, tourney stage lists, seeding, etc. To base viability solely on that doesn't make much sense. These things while ultimately useful and important, ignores simple things like the fact that people simply don't play the character.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one plays Lucina, is she a good character?

I mean, I think the answer is actually no, because usage is our most indicative data. Isn't it a million times more likely that zero people are playing a character because she is bad, rather than a universally coordinated yet unspoken effort to not play a top character that exists only in this thought experiement?

All I'm saying is ideally, Lucario is much more versatile then Doc, Little Mac, Ganondorf, Isabelle combined. You said yourself Little Mac is the "most sensitive to stage change". Isn't an important factor in viability adaptation? Isn't consistency important?

Yes, and this like all other factors is reflected in results--normally. You're skipping my actual point on this topic, which is that we have to take Little Mac's results with a few grains of context because we are choosing to play in a highly specific context that uniquely penalizes Mac.

It's not that Little Mac is a finicky snowflake who only functions well on one stage or in one mode. It's the the exact combination of rules currently in use are such an outlier for him, that it's worth putting an astrick next to his name and recognizing that "Yes, as long as all of these factors stay the same, Mac is this particular lens will perform poorly--but the moment any of those factors change, or we choose to look at our criteria differently, this number will cease to be an accurate relefection. (Moreso than the rest of the data)"

How can Little Mac be better than Lucario if he loses just by going to Battlefield (or heck, loses the second he's airborne)?

Neither of these describes Mac or identifies his actual weaknesses. Mac is fine on Battlefield, and Mac "going airborne" isn't an issue.

How can Lucario be worse than two characters (Doc, Ganon) who have horrendous disadvantage states and die at stupid percents based on solely on recovery?

Because he has his own weaknesses, and they have their own strengths? Again, listing common traits is not informative.

What I'm proposing is in an idealistic situation, where both people are of more or less of equal high level skill, regardless of stage, X character will generally win against Y character. In this case, a competent Lucario will almost always beat a competent Little Mac.

Well, a character can be better than a character they happen to have a losing matchup too; I mean, one by definition is transitive and the other by defnition isn't.

Regardless, I am pretty sure Mac wins the Lucario matchup, or at least did before 9.0.0. Sol seems to agree too.

Also, even with results, Lucario has Tsu (5th at Umebura Japan Major 2019, 9th at Umebura SP 2 and Thunder Smash 3: Clash of the Pandas, and 13th at Umebura SP 3), Vivi (17th at Defend the North 2019), Jeda (3rd at BURST 4, 5th at Ultimate WANTED 1, 9th at Stunfest 2019, and 17th at Albion 4, along with being ranked 6th on the French Ultimate Power Rankings), Labot who placed 3rd at Awakening 5, and some results among a few others.

But this is the point. Look at the dates of all of those events.

Lucario's results indeed started quite strong, proped up by good players with Tsu leading the charge.

But, as they were increasingly disappointed with the character, he was dropped rapidly by many players. Finally, even Tsu moved on. No character declined as much or as rapidly as Lucario. For most eSports balance teams, this is the reddest possible flag.

 

[SwagGuy99]

SNIP

You argue that Lucario is worse than the other low tiers based off of the fact that he has gotten strong results. And you're right, during early to mid 2019 when Tsu played the character, Lucario's results were solid enough, and the general perception of him was higher. However, Lucario (starting in the latter half of 2019 and into the first part of 2020) stopped placing highly at larger events almost entirely. Tsu changed Lucario to a co-main or tri-main (as he added Hero, Terry and Mii Swordfighter to his roster of characters at times before seemingly settling on Lucario/Terry as a co-main). Most of the solid results he got in Europe as well, were in early to mid 2019. Lucario did have some results throughout the rest of 2019, but starting in 2020, he dropped off kind of hard. OrionStats has him ranked at 65/76, placing him barely outside of bottom 10 in results during the pre-quarantine period of 2020.

Meanwhile, let's take another low tier who is usually considered fragile and inconsistent (Doc) and compare their more recent results past the very early meta. Doc was still getting solid placements in early 2020 and while his peaks were mostly limited to Japan, from what I can find (and based on his higher placing on OrionStats from 2020) it was still better than the results Lucario was getting at the time. Shissho got 8th at Sumabato SP 12, Tsumusuto won Mie Bato while Aion placed 4th using Doc at the same event, and Tsumusuto recently placed 2nd at Sumabato SP 13 (while also 2 stocking Kome's Shulk in a matchup that is notoriously bad for Doc) just to name a handful of these placements.

Despite Doc being an inconsistent character and one that I can see being somewhat difficult to perform with consistently at top level due to the extreme difficulty of his bad matchups, he's managed to get semi-consistent results despite this. Lucario, also suffers from from some extreme inconsistencies, and yet his more recent results don't really reach these kind of peaks that Doc's has.

And I don't think that's really a coincidence either. A character that is light, has to commit to his approaches while also having both inconsistent kill power and an inconsistent neutral doesn't really seems that great in practice or on paper.

Doc isn't exactly a great character, but his neutral is overall better against non-swordies thanks to pills, his normals are much faster and stronger than Lucario's and a lot of them just have more overall utility in general. He also has no trouble killing whatsoever either.

However, that was pre-patch Lucario. Aura becoming more effective around 65% is a good change I think that may reduce at least some of troubles of killing, although I think a slight weight buff would be the best way to address a lot of his issues at once. I think Lucario may end up slightly better from these changes, but I still don't expect him to rise up past maybe the bottom of mid tier. He's still going to be inconsistent and extremely difficult to play at top level unless he receives some very extreme changes in a future patch.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Huh.....well let's just agree to disagree on the Doc/Lucario discussion on who's better or worse but just my two cents? I lost a lot more to Doc than Lucario because those pills are a much better zoning tool and are not as linear as they appear. I also sometimes try to edgeguard doc only to be reminded that for all the grousing about his recovery, if you overextend and he hits you with that fist, it HURTS!

 

[Cheryl~]

I love the optimism about Lucario in here, because I still think the opposite. The buffs were nice, sure, but the character’s design will never allow him to function above a mid tier in a game where he gets mashed on by most of the cast due to lacking options in disadvantage and lacking frame data compared to the gross data of the rest of the cast. Lets not forget that compared to previous games, Ultimate’s characters have some frankly stupid kill power that allows them to cheese stocks from Lucario (a very precious resource considering he needs Aura to function) much easier on average. This is compounded by the worst change they ever made to Lucario: his weight being dropped from 99 to 92. This doesn’t seem like a drastic change at first and considering what I just said about characters killing him at 60, maybe that’s right. But we all know that with Smash 4 weight Lucario would at least be able to take more of a beating, not die quite as easily, and overall be slightly more effective because he can survive to get Aura. Nerfing the weight to be that of a lighter mid weight was a decent idea at first to balance out his faster mobility stats in Ultimate, but it proved to be an unnecessary change since Lucario still sucks. Making him on the heavier side of mid weights again would at least allow him to perform his function better if they are hellbent on not improving his frame data.

tl;dr Lucario still sucks but he’s destined to in this game’s design.

also holy crap, people fall out of Lucario’s jab even more often than Lucas’ jab. That is sad

 

[StrangeKitten]

I noticed that, on a couple of occasions during this set, ShinyMark didn't close the stock when he otherwise would have because Skittles fell out of forward air. Makes me feel like the fix was a good idea after all