Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Myollnir]

How big were 's changes in this patch? Everyone has been pining for bug fixes (which seemed to be what they adjusted here), but I don't know the full scope of it.

Dash attack buffs look like they could hold a potentially big impact. Dash attacks are usually an effective way of mitigating characters's issues with having less than ideal mobility traits, if characters like Min Min or Snake are anything to go by.

Pretty big. Dash attack buff is indeed very impactful, especially since it can combo start at lower %s. Before 9.0.0, didn't have anything to catch landings or follow tech roll away, as well as no burst option. While it's still nowhere near being a good dash attack, at least now it's no longer one of / the worst normal in the game (it had litterally 0 uses due to it not giving any momentum boost and not even connecting).

You also die / lose Nana (basically the same tbh, Popo can kill but can't deal damage) a lot less now, which is helpful.

Did that magically make the character good or even remotely close to viable? No, it's still one of the worst character in the game, and this won't change unless they do something about Neutral B being so inconsistent against projectiles (sometimes they beat them, sometimes they get reflected, no one knows why, it probably has to do with the size of the icicle, but in practice it's purely random and ICs can't afford to play the RNG game in most match-ups due to being so terrible at resetting neutral).

You can't force a character with very short range (albeit disjointed), mediocre frame data and probably the worst mobility in the game (when factoring all stats) to approach and expect them to be viable.

One of the most lackluster neutral in the game, combined with a terrible disadvantage state (they are good at getting off the ledge though, I'll give them that).

Also you still die at any % randomly because of UpB not working, and there's absolutely nothing you can do except praying.

They went from Bottom 3 to Bottom ~10 IMO.

 

[Nobie]

Whenever ESAM talks about Pikachu being the best, it always comes with the caveat of everything frame-perfect. Up throw thunder is amazing...if done to absolute perfection...which we almost never see.

Pikachu might very well be the best character in the game, but the fact that a Pichu placed higher than a Pikachu at the EPI finals sticks out to me. It's only one result, but Pichu has the general reliable kill power that Pikachu lacks. It helps Pichu in those high-pressure last hit situations (though balanced out by the fact that Pichu probably finds itself in last hit situations more often).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

My personal opinion is that using Kirishu's results alone don't really tell the whole story, just like how ESAM's results also don't tell the whole story because ESAM is really good on his own and has a lot of character knowledge, is a complete lab rat and has very good fundamentals. Nietono is just generally better than Kishiru by a big margin, Kishiru is considered the 96th best player in Japan where as Nietono is 14th (You can also see Kishiru having difficulty and sometimes dropping combos). It'd make more sense to go for a Pichu and a Pikachu at even skill and compare them. At the very least it means Pikachu's not carrying players if a lot of them are lower level, but that was never the argument made in the first place.

That said if there's anything that could change discussion on Pikachu that could make it possible to see if the character's as busted as ESAM says, Zackray might be picking up the character as a secondary.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[blackghost]

Generally speaking defensive play is better. After all, fighting games of any kind (even Melee) are just inherently defensive games. Even Guilty Gear, which literally punishes you for playing too defensively, is primarily a defensive title.

wouldnt really say that.in most fighting games defense is safer but there are fighting games Mortal kombat x, marvel, dragonball, versus games, soulcalibur and tag force game that are inherently offensive because being on defense is just not sustainable. you can only block for so long before you get opened up. smash isnt like that for sure mostly due to the room and freedom of movement. but if every stage was the size of small BF the game would be a lot more offensive in nature

 

[Nobie]

wouldnt really say that.in most fighting games defense is safer but there are fighting games Mortal kombat x, marvel, dragonball, versus games, soulcalibur and tag force game that are inherently offensive because being on defense is just not sustainable. you can only block for so long before you get opened up. smash isnt like that for sure mostly due to the room and freedom of movement. but if every stage was the size of small BF the game would be a lot more offensive in nature

It should be noted that Go1, the winner of Dragonball FighterZ at EVO 2019, is renowned for his rock-solid defense.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Not too important but several of the best solo mains in Japan (since Navy's inactivity) have released matchup charts recently and I thought the results of them were interesting.

Mikoshiba (Tiers are dis., slight dis., even, very slight adv., slight adv., adv.)

Nemo

Yamanaction

Their opinions seem to vary a lot both from each other and from what I would expect a Luigi matchup chart from an American player to look like. Mikoshiba separated / into different tiers which is something I've seen other Luigi mains do so that doesn't really surprise me, but him having and in even does. Yamanaction having Pit in 35:65 is also surprising as well, as I'm not really sure what Pit does that would do to cause the matchup to be anything worse than 45:55 for Luigi. The players seem to be in agreement that we may beat and , something I'm guessing most Marcina mains would disagree with. They all seem to have a very negative opinion of the matchup though, something I find to be kind of strange as to me it feels kind of like the Belmont's matchup but not nearly as punishing for Luigi if he makes mistakes and not nearly as hard to approach. They also seem to have a very negative opinion of the matchup which I can see some reasoning for, but at the same time I personally don't think it's any worse or better for Luigi than even.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Not too important but several of the best solo mains in Japan (since Navy's inactivity) have released matchup charts recently and I thought the results of them were interesting.

Mikoshiba (Tiers are dis., slight dis., even, very slight adv., slight adv., adv.)

Nemo

Yamanaction

Their opinions seem to vary a lot both from each other and from what I would expect a Luigi matchup chart from an American player to look like. Mikoshiba separated / into different tiers which is something I've seen other Luigi mains do so that doesn't really surprise me, but him having and in even does. Yamanaction having Pit in 35:65 is also surprising as well, as I'm not really sure what Pit does that would do to cause the matchup to be anything worse than 45:55 for Luigi. The players seem to be in agreement that we may beat and , something I'm guessing most Marcina mains would disagree with. They all seem to have a very negative opinion of the matchup though, something I find to be kind of strange as to me it feels kind of like the Belmont's matchup but not nearly as punishing for Luigi if he makes mistakes and not nearly as hard to approach. They also seem to have a very negative opinion of the matchup which I can see some reasoning for, but at the same time I personally don't think it's any worse or better for Luigi than even.

Yea i can see why ZSS one of Luigits worst or possibly worst MU. She has far superior mobilty and evasivness, she genrally outranges him, but tyhe biggest thing that thing going Luigi is flip-jump. That one move is basically a free escape disadvatange tool (moreso than in most MU's) one Luigi thinks he has finally got her. Lugig does not have the mobility or safe burst options to handle it in any way. She uses it to esacpe to neutral and begin running circles around him. Watch any Marss vs Elegant sets and you see what a struggle Elegant had to even star anything on Marss, basically having to rely on YOLO cyclones to even get in,

 

[Lacrimosa]

That's a lot of variance in these match-up charts.
Not sure what you can extract from these besides that a lot of match-ups surrounding Luigi are probably even.

 

[SwagGuy99]

That's a lot of variance in these match-up charts.
Not sure what you can extract from these besides that a lot of match-ups surrounding Luigi are probably even.

Yeah, I found the variance to be kind of weird, these opinions are kind of all over the place compared to the opinions I've seen seen from most other players.

 

[Lacrimosa]

A more in-depth look at steve from MVG.

 

[FruitLoop]

A more in-depth look at steve from MVG.

Steve being the best character in the game let alone top tier is already a super hot take.

I certainly don't think he's as bad as other people say since I think he's at least a solid mid tier. Being able to control the stage and block cancel actually does a lot for steve but I think he gets too many fundamental issues since his good tools obviously cost resources which you're not even going to get that often. Steve is a hard charcater to place either way and I wouldn't be suprised if he ends up as the best character in the game in the future or the worst character in the game in the future. Unlike a lot of other DLC characters Steve is INCREDIBLY hard to play with untapped potential with suprisingly decent representation and results already. So as more things get discovered and his kit gets optimized I think it'll be easier to pinpoint where he is.

 

[SKX31]

Hungrybox posted Part 3:

Upper Mid tier (apparently he's changed terminologies from Mid-High to Upper Mid between lists) is his eyes: ,, , / , , / , , , ,

Changes from his 8.1 list:

• Several characters moved down from Upper Mid between lists, as noted in previous posts. 6 in total: (went down to Lower Mid); , , and went down to (True) Mid.
• , / and went down from High Tier to Upper Mid.
• No other movers - at least up - from Upper Mid it seems.
• and were not shown, so HBox considers the two at least High now.

 

[The_Bookworm]

His list so far:

Upper-Mid: ()()
Mid: ()
Lower-Mid:
Low:
Trash:


The characters not included yet in the list:

 

[blackghost]

It should be noted that Go1, the winner of Dragonball FighterZ at EVO 2019, is renowned for his rock-solid defense.

2 things tho:
1. Fighters is vastly more offensive now with the latest dlc and buffs accross all characters
2. His individual defense is one thing most players can't block long in fighterzs. Its not impossible like marvel but its still far too much a risk.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I feel like Salem overestimated Steve's strengths and underestimated Steve's weaknesses. He acted like a block was all you need to stop projectile characters, with no consideration to all the ways the block can be played around. He just gave a blanket "Steve doesn't lose to rushdown", but if Steve gets rushed down, those kinds of characters are good at staying on him and thus preventing him from mining. Rushdowns can keep Steve in disadvantage well, and Steve's disadvantage is very bad, particularly when he is given very few opportunities to mine. You use your anvil and cart to help you in disadvantage, and once that iron is gone and it's gonna take a little while to get more, things are looking rough. The disparity here is probably the fact that the rushdowns are heavily nerfed online, whereas more lag would help Steve. While Salem does have the benefit of having people to play Steve offline with, it's still worth mentioning how little we've seen of offline Steve. Additionally, Steve is still new. It's going to take longer than usual for counterplay against this character to develop due to his tools being so complex.

As to how good I think Steve is? I'm leaning around mid tier for the time being. I could see him rise to high tier because he has great strengths, or fall to low tier because his weaknesses are equally great. I think his very poor mobility will keep him from being top tier, but he has far too many things going for him for him to be bottom tier.

 

[Firox]

I feel like Salem overestimated Steve's strengths and underestimated Steve's weaknesses. He acted like a block was all you need to stop projectile characters, with no consideration to all the ways the block can be played around. He just gave a blanket "Steve doesn't lose to rushdown", but if Steve gets rushed down, those kinds of characters are good at staying on him and thus preventing him from mining. Rushdowns can keep Steve in disadvantage well, and Steve's disadvantage is very bad, particularly when he is given very few opportunities to mine. You use your anvil and cart to help you in disadvantage, and once that iron is gone and it's gonna take a little while to get more, things are looking rough. The disparity here is probably the fact that the rushdowns are heavily nerfed online, whereas more lag would help Steve. While Salem does have the benefit of having people to play Steve offline with, it's still worth mentioning how little we've seen of offline Steve. Additionally, Steve is still new. It's going to take longer than usual for counterplay against this character to develop due to his tools being so complex.

As to how good I think Steve is? I'm leaning around mid tier for the time being. I could see him rise to high tier because he has great strengths, or fall to low tier because his weaknesses are equally great. I think his very poor mobility will keep him from being top tier, but he has far too many things going for him for him to be bottom tier.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: As a main, I have zero problems with Steve. My speed and projectiles negate his mining, my mobility negates has blocks and my recovery options negate his edgeguards. As long as I watch out for surprise up smashes and bait his anvils with up-angled Substitutes, I'm good. To say that Steve is flat out immune to rushdown just feels really disingenuous.

To second your point, I still think Steve has a lot going for him. I just think that people are blowing him a little out of proportion right now.

 

[SKX31]

Hungrybox uploaded Part 4:

High Tier consists of in his eyes: Steve, , , , , , , , ( ), , , , , , ,( ) , , , , , , .

As usual, changes compared to his 8.1 list:

• As mentioned in the previous post, , / and went down from High Tier to Upper Mid mentioned above.
• and moved up from True Mid to High tier after all.
• and went down from Barely not Top to High Tier.
• apparently went up from High Tier.

High tier was a massive vid (22 characters - 24 if you count Echoes - occupy this space), so if I missed anything, let me know.

 

[The_Bookworm]

His list so far:

High: (Steve)()()
Upper-Mid: ()()
Mid: ()
Lower-Mid:
Low:
Trash:


Note: he talked about the Shotos together, when he put the final screen, he put Ryu/Ken in between Cloud and Wii Fit.

The characters not included yet in the list:

 

[Wigglerman]

I'm legit surprised K. Rool is ranked mid by him. Not that I have anything against K. Rool but for so long people have been saying he's either bottom 10 or lower due to all his glaring issues. Just an interesting take is all.

 

[Arthur97]

Honestly, Steve probably should have been left undecided.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'm legit surprised K. Rool is ranked mid by him. Not that I have anything against K. Rool but for so long people have been saying he's either bottom 10 or lower due to all his glaring issues. Just an interesting take is all.

That was before 8.0.0...

Spoiler: Quoting an old post

In short: Krown Armor buffed him against almost everyone.
He can armor most fast moves, belly armor one-shots are basically gone (Outside of some MU's), and he can punish even harder with every other buff, most noticeably out of a grab. This character's design is now defined as a Punish Heavy Grappling Tank with part zoning capability.

Way better than in the base-game/2.0 when IMO he was a contender for one of the worst.
Now, I'd argue a solid mid-tier.

More people agree he's got some sauce now.

 

[Minix0]

His list so far:

Upper-Mid: ()()
Mid: ()
Lower-Mid:
Low:
Trash:


The characters not included yet in the list:

I respect his opinion but there some weird takes in here. I can't imagine a world where King K Rool is somehow better than Brawler, DK, Ridley, Lucario, DDD, Byleth, Robin, or heck any of the miis.

He put Steve in high tier in his latest vid. I think its way too early to rank him to be honest, but even so I don't see that either.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Rool was legitimately one of the worst characters in the game. Then 6.0 came out and gave him a much better nair, better Kannonball, better kill power on fair, etc. Then 8.0 gave him better armor, the infamous Krown armor, better kill power on back throw, etc. Now he's still not great, being huge with a poor disadvantage, but he is massively improved to the point that lower mid is a reasonable spot for him.

 

[SwagGuy99]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Rough translation from Google:

Pichu's credibility fell to the ground in earnest. .. .. I'm tired of trying hard with a character that I don't think is strong, so I'll try various characters for a while.


If the translation here is right, it looks like Nietono doesn't think Pichu is that great of a character and plans on trying other characters. This will likely affect the character's representation to some degree as many of the other players who played him earlier on in Ultimate's lifespan have either relegated him to a secondary or dropped him entirely.

 

[The_Bookworm]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Rough translation from Google:

Pichu's credibility fell to the ground in earnest. .. .. I'm tired of trying hard with a character that I don't think is strong, so I'll try various characters for a while.


If the translation here is right, it looks like Nietono doesn't think Pichu is that great of a character and plans on trying other characters. This will likely affect the character's representation to some degree as many of the other players who played him earlier on in Ultimate's lifespan have either relegated him to a secondary or dropped him entirely.

Yikes. Nietono was probably the best in the world alongside RFang, after VoiD dropped the character.
If he is indeed planning on dropping the character, this is a pretty big blow to Pichu's already stagnating metagame.

As for characters he is planning to pick up, I think he might go to first. He has achieved some very notable success with the character in the past, including placing 9th in EVO 2019 with solo Wario.
Outside of him and maybe , I am not sure who he has in mind.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Rough translation from Google:

Pichu's credibility fell to the ground in earnest. .. .. I'm tired of trying hard with a character that I don't think is strong, so I'll try various characters for a while.


If the translation here is right, it looks like Nietono doesn't think Pichu is that great of a character and plans on trying other characters. This will likely affect the character's representation to some degree as many of the other players who played him earlier on in Ultimate's lifespan have either relegated him to a secondary or dropped him entirely.

This likely means we either get more representation or he could go towards . Guess we'll have to see if Nietono's results show how good Pikachu actually is if he uses the character.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Hoping for because I really want to see what another player around ESAM's level can do with the character. I've gone on about how I don't think Pika is quite the best, so I'd like another high-level player to either prove that right, or take Pikachu to the heights many theorize he can go. ESAM is amazing with the character, but it's possible something is lacking a little there, or just a slightly different style can be the push Pika needs. , on the other had, has an abundance of top reps already, all of whom have proven that Wario is an amazing character. Easily top 10, possibly top 5, they've demonstrated the amazing things Wario can do really well. I wouldn't blame Nietono if he decides on Wario of course - we all know he's an excellent top tier pick. Just hoping for since we see top level Pika far less.

Either way, it truly is a shame that lost one of his best reps. Maybe Nintendo will pay attention and buff Pichu a little (I think they went way overboard with the nerfs)

 

[The_Bookworm]

Perhaps they did go a bit overboard with specifically the recoil damage nerf, but in all honesty, I think was doomed to fall off.

Pichu's meta developed very quickly in the beginning, thanks to the new toy syndrome and coming off from SSB4's crazy punish games.

However, when people actually got good in Ultimate, Pichu's extreme weaknesses of extremely stubby range and abysmal frailty became more and more exploited. These said frailty weaknesses got amplified further thanks to the recoil damage change, but it has always existed there in the first place.

But Pichu mains would naturally optimize their character's punish games to counteract Pichu's lopsided weaknesses, right? Well too late, as they kinda already did that since the very first few months of the game.
More and more characters would also get buffed to their punish games as time goes on as well. Suddenly, there are now characters in the mid/lower tiers that possesses potent punish and neutral games as well, but not have the poor defenses of Pichu.

His results reflected that as well. Even prior to the nerfs, VoiD and other Pichu mains were not getting the same success as they did in the very early meta. However, this trend occurred so close to the Pichu nerfs, that people didn't really notice it at all, even when the nerfs hit.
Pichu's results didn't even really go down initially after the nerfs. The Pichu mains were proceeding the same as always. Pichu's meta kinda just naturally slowed down and stagnated, with instances of success sprinkled here and there.

Pichu mains revealed their cards far too early in the game's meta, and further advancements to the other character's metagames punished Pichu very hard.



I glossed over this back when Pichu was more relevant in the meta, but I think Pichu is simply a poorly designed character. It is a character that focuses on strong damage output and KO power, while possessing a potent recovery and projectile game. However, it also possesses by far the worst survivability in the game with its poor weight, which is further compounded by recoil damage and having some of the stubbiest range in the game.

It is a character of the absolute extremes. It could win neutral on you a few times, then kill you for it. Or, you do the same to Pichu and then it dies very early. When Pichu is on the field, someone is dying early, whether it is the opponent or Pichu.
The character is so ridiculously lopsided, it puts even to shame.

You can design well built glass-cannons. Smash Bros has built many well-designed glass cannon characters, with being the poster child of this, but Pichu is not the way to go.

Granted that if you are going to design a character around being very light and having recoil damage in almost all of your moves, you kinda have to have a strong punish game to have some semblance of compensating for it.
However, designing a character this ridiculously lopsided is still rather poor design.



Sorry if this kinda changed to a rant about Pichu's character design, but as someone who have been constantly been wary about Pichu's extreme weaknesses, and have been constantly predicting since the beginning that he is going to fall off (which eventually happened lol), I kinda want to get this off my chest.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Perhaps they did go a bit overboard with specifically the recoil damage nerf, but in all honesty, I think was doomed to fall off.

Pichu's meta developed very quickly in the beginning, thanks to the new toy syndrome and coming off from SSB4's crazy punish games.

However, when people actually got good in Ultimate, Pichu's extreme weaknesses of extremely stubby range and abysmal frailty became more and more exploited. These said frailty weaknesses got amplified further thanks to the recoil damage change, but it has always existed there in the first place.

But Pichu mains would naturally optimize their character's punish games to counteract Pichu's lopsided weaknesses, right? Well too late, as they kinda already did that since the very first few months of the game.
More and more characters would also get buffed to their punish games as time goes on as well. Suddenly, there are now characters in the mid/lower tiers that possesses potent punish and neutral games as well, but not have the poor defenses of Pichu.

His results reflected that as well. Even prior to the nerfs, VoiD and other Pichu mains were not getting the same success as they did in the very early meta. However, this trend occurred so close to the Pichu nerfs, that people didn't really notice it at all, even when the nerfs hit.
Pichu's results didn't even really go down initially after the nerfs. The Pichu mains were proceeding the same as always. Pichu's meta kinda just naturally slowed down and stagnated, with instances of success sprinkled here and there.

Pichu mains revealed their cards far too early in the game's meta, and further advancements to the other character's metagames punished Pichu very hard.



I glossed over this back when Pichu was more relevant in the meta, but I think Pichu is simply a poorly designed character. It is a character that focuses on strong damage output and KO power, while possessing a potent recovery and projectile game. However, it also possesses by far the worst survivability in the game with its poor weight, which is further compounded by recoil damage and having some of the stubbiest range in the game.

It is a character of the absolute extremes. It could win neutral on you a few times, then kill you for it. Or, you do the same to Pichu and then it dies very early. When Pichu is on the field, someone is dying early, whether it is the opponent or Pichu.
The character is so ridiculously lopsided, it puts even to shame.

You can design well built glass-cannons. Smash Bros has built many well-designed glass cannon characters, with being the poster child of this, but Pichu is not the way to go.

Granted that if you are going to design a character around being very light and having recoil damage in almost all of your moves, you kinda have to have a strong punish game to have some semblance of compensating for it.
However, designing a character this ridiculously lopsided is still rather poor design.



Sorry if this kinda changed to a rant about Pichu's character design, but as someone who have been constantly been wary about Pichu's extreme weaknesses, and have been constantly predicting since the beginning that he is going to fall off (which eventually happened lol), I kinda want to get this off my chest.

That's what I predicted early on as well. I just didn't feel like a character with such extreme weaknesses would remain top dog for very long. And I was proven right when VoiD released his video on dropping Pichu. Things were looking less-than-stellar for the character even before the nerfs.

 

[meleebrawler]

Perhaps they did go a bit overboard with specifically the recoil damage nerf, but in all honesty, I think was doomed to fall off.

Pichu's meta developed very quickly in the beginning, thanks to the new toy syndrome and coming off from SSB4's crazy punish games.

However, when people actually got good in Ultimate, Pichu's extreme weaknesses of extremely stubby range and abysmal frailty became more and more exploited. These said frailty weaknesses got amplified further thanks to the recoil damage change, but it has always existed there in the first place.

But Pichu mains would naturally optimize their character's punish games to counteract Pichu's lopsided weaknesses, right? Well too late, as they kinda already did that since the very first few months of the game.
More and more characters would also get buffed to their punish games as time goes on as well. Suddenly, there are now characters in the mid/lower tiers that possesses potent punish and neutral games as well, but not have the poor defenses of Pichu.

His results reflected that as well. Even prior to the nerfs, VoiD and other Pichu mains were not getting the same success as they did in the very early meta. However, this trend occurred so close to the Pichu nerfs, that people didn't really notice it at all, even when the nerfs hit.
Pichu's results didn't even really go down initially after the nerfs. The Pichu mains were proceeding the same as always. Pichu's meta kinda just naturally slowed down and stagnated, with instances of success sprinkled here and there.

Pichu mains revealed their cards far too early in the game's meta, and further advancements to the other character's metagames punished Pichu very hard.



I glossed over this back when Pichu was more relevant in the meta, but I think Pichu is simply a poorly designed character. It is a character that focuses on strong damage output and KO power, while possessing a potent recovery and projectile game. However, it also possesses by far the worst survivability in the game with its poor weight, which is further compounded by recoil damage and having some of the stubbiest range in the game.

It is a character of the absolute extremes. It could win neutral on you a few times, then kill you for it. Or, you do the same to Pichu and then it dies very early. When Pichu is on the field, someone is dying early, whether it is the opponent or Pichu.
The character is so ridiculously lopsided, it puts even to shame.

You can design well built glass-cannons. Smash Bros has built many well-designed glass cannon characters, with being the poster child of this, but Pichu is not the way to go.

Granted that if you are going to design a character around being very light and having recoil damage in almost all of your moves, you kinda have to have a strong punish game to have some semblance of compensating for it.
However, designing a character this ridiculously lopsided is still rather poor design.



Sorry if this kinda changed to a rant about Pichu's character design, but as someone who have been constantly been wary about Pichu's extreme weaknesses, and have been constantly predicting since the beginning that he is going to fall off (which eventually happened lol), I kinda want to get this off my chest.

The transition to an extreme glass cannon is still impressive considering the initial state of intentionally being designed to be bad.

 

[Frihetsanka]

That's what I predicted early on as well. I just didn't feel like a character with such extreme weaknesses would remain top dog for very long. And I was proven right when VoiD released his video on dropping Pichu. Things were looking less-than-stellar for the character even before the nerfs.

Pichu got massively nerfed. If he hadn't gotten massively nerfed, he'd most likely still be top tier, and perhaps VoiD would still be playing him. The 3.1.0 nerfs were brutal, and made him significantly weaker. I'm really not sure why they decided to go with such severe nerfs, just hitting his f-tilt a bit probably would've been enough to tone him down.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Pichu got massively nerfed. If he hadn't gotten massively nerfed, he'd most likely still be top tier, and perhaps VoiD would still be playing him. The 3.1.0 nerfs were brutal, and made him significantly weaker. I'm really not sure why they decided to go with such severe nerfs, just hitting his f-tilt a bit probably would've been enough to tone him down.

No VoiD was still planning on dropping him before the nerfs I believe. Though the nerfs are harsh.

 

[Firox]

Perhaps they did go a bit overboard with specifically the recoil damage nerf, but in all honesty, I think was doomed to fall off.

Pichu's meta developed very quickly in the beginning, thanks to the new toy syndrome and coming off from SSB4's crazy punish games.

However, when people actually got good in Ultimate, Pichu's extreme weaknesses of extremely stubby range and abysmal frailty became more and more exploited. These said frailty weaknesses got amplified further thanks to the recoil damage change, but it has always existed there in the first place.

But Pichu mains would naturally optimize their character's punish games to counteract Pichu's lopsided weaknesses, right? Well too late, as they kinda already did that since the very first few months of the game.
More and more characters would also get buffed to their punish games as time goes on as well. Suddenly, there are now characters in the mid/lower tiers that possesses potent punish and neutral games as well, but not have the poor defenses of Pichu.

His results reflected that as well. Even prior to the nerfs, VoiD and other Pichu mains were not getting the same success as they did in the very early meta. However, this trend occurred so close to the Pichu nerfs, that people didn't really notice it at all, even when the nerfs hit.
Pichu's results didn't even really go down initially after the nerfs. The Pichu mains were proceeding the same as always. Pichu's meta kinda just naturally slowed down and stagnated, with instances of success sprinkled here and there.

Pichu mains revealed their cards far too early in the game's meta, and further advancements to the other character's metagames punished Pichu very hard.



I glossed over this back when Pichu was more relevant in the meta, but I think Pichu is simply a poorly designed character. It is a character that focuses on strong damage output and KO power, while possessing a potent recovery and projectile game. However, it also possesses by far the worst survivability in the game with its poor weight, which is further compounded by recoil damage and having some of the stubbiest range in the game.

It is a character of the absolute extremes. It could win neutral on you a few times, then kill you for it. Or, you do the same to Pichu and then it dies very early. When Pichu is on the field, someone is dying early, whether it is the opponent or Pichu.
The character is so ridiculously lopsided, it puts even to shame.

You can design well built glass-cannons. Smash Bros has built many well-designed glass cannon characters, with being the poster child of this, but Pichu is not the way to go.

Granted that if you are going to design a character around being very light and having recoil damage in almost all of your moves, you kinda have to have a strong punish game to have some semblance of compensating for it.
However, designing a character this ridiculously lopsided is still rather poor design.



Sorry if this kinda changed to a rant about Pichu's character design, but as someone who have been constantly been wary about Pichu's extreme weaknesses, and have been constantly predicting since the beginning that he is going to fall off (which eventually happened lol), I kinda want to get this off my chest.

Completely agree on all points. To be perfectly honest, I was surprised it took Pichu so long to fall off in the first place given all the weaknesses you describe.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I also think something that's affected him that I don't see as many people mentioning is general power creep through the patches. By the time 3.1.0 rolled around, and were the only characters to have received any noticeable buffs. At the time, and were already seen as having decent matchups against Pichu (even before their changes) but the rest were still regarded as having poor matchups against him. Then Pichu got nerfed and a lot of other characters have been buffed since then. Since Pichu's original nerfs, and are regarded to have much better matchups against Pichu than they were originally believed too, thanks to their increase in overall results and representation (as well as further buffs that Rosalina received). However, if we stopped getting patches after Pichu got nerfed, I don't think he would have fallen off nearly as hard as he did.

However, as time went on and more characters got buffed, his amount of even and losing matchups increased as many of these characters either gained increased kill potential or better confirms. And those changes (when combined with Pichu's increased fragility) have made it so he struggles with a larger portion of the cast than he did previously. Characters who come to mind here (that weren't previously mentioned) are . I think the addition of also harmed him a bit.

Power creep has affected him both due to changes due to balance patches and certain characters having more potential than was initially realized a year and a half ago. I don't think Pichu is a bad character, far from it (lower high tier with potential to be higher, although I'd like to see more players push his meta before I'm willing to put him anywhere near top tier). But he is much worse than he was initially.

 

[meleebrawler]

Pichu got massively nerfed. If he hadn't gotten massively nerfed, he'd most likely still be top tier, and perhaps VoiD would still be playing him. The 3.1.0 nerfs were brutal, and made him significantly weaker. I'm really not sure why they decided to go with such severe nerfs, just hitting his f-tilt a bit probably would've been enough to tone him down.

Maybe they don't want him to be better than Pikachu. When you look at how joke characters like Dan Hibiki are made nowadays, it is often the case that despite being clearly inferior in most important factors (for Dan it's neutral options and frame data, Pichu is reach and stamina), they have strengths in areas designed to surprise opponents (unusual move properties/cancels/power for Dan, explosive combos and power for Pichu), even if they aren't enough to surmount all the other faults.

Pichu is a baby Pikachu. He isn't supposed to be a better fighter. But his inexperience can surprise you in ways Pikachu can't. He is also lucky to "only" be a worse version of one of the best characters, making still pretty darn good in the grand scheme.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

So Aaron beat ESAM 10-7 going all Steve, despite Steve apparently losing to rushdown. Yeah this makes me really doubt what Izaw and Dabuz were saying.

 

[Frihetsanka]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

So Aaron beat ESAM 10-7 going all Steve, despite Steve apparently losing to rushdown. Yeah this makes me really doubt what Izaw and Dabuz were saying.

Why do people have this idea that if someone loses with a character that proves the MU is bad? Slight disadvantage is just that, slight. Pikachu may have a slight edge versus Steve, but it's just a slight edge, and player performance is much more important. Even -2 MUs are quite doable, although more of an uphill battle. Remember Smash 4? Plenty of Ness players beat Rosalina players, despite that commonly being agreed to be a -2 MU. -3 and -4 MUs are a different story to some extent, not unwinnable but really uphill, but no one is claiming Steve loses -3 to Pikachu.

Granted, both Dabuz and Hungrybox said Steve loses -2 to Pikachu, but I could see it potentially being -1. I actually think Steve loses harder to disjointed sword characters, like Lucina, Corrin, and Shulk, than versus characters like Pikachu. Anyway, let's not forget that people have gotten wins with low tiers and low-mid tiers before. Is it possible that Steve is slightly underrated by many people? Sure, he's very new and somewhat complex. Is he top tier? I really don't see him being top tier right now, perhaps if they buff him.

 

[The_Bookworm]

HBox's Complete Tier List

Top: ()
High: (Steve)()(*)
Upper-Mid: ()()
Mid: ()**
Lower-Mid:
Low:
Trash:

* He talked about the Shotos together with Terry, but when he put the final screen, he put Ryu/Ken in between Cloud and Wii Fit.
** Bowser Jr was erroneously not mentioned, but he put him in between the Belmonts and Banjo in the final screen.

Overall solid list, especially towards the start, but as the list goes on, more and more odd placements spawned, although he isn't afraid to show his personal beliefs/opinions.
Anyways, the top tier is pretty much the typical USA top player top tier, although I am surprised on how low he put Peach/Daisy.


On a side note, I am rather annoyed that we still don't have Steve's stock icon.
We pretty much got Min Min's stock icon pretty much instantly, but it has already been 2 weeks since Steve came out.
I know that Steve is essentially 4 characters in one, but we got the default Hero and Byleth long before getting everything else.

 

[Lacrimosa]

There are some outliers regarding their results (Bayo, Corrin, Pit and Wii-Fit too high even though they got more into the spotlight during Wi-Fi, Zelda, ICs, maybe Villager and Duck-Hunt, although Raito didn't do anything after EVO with DH.

Inkling is surprisingly low but here I also think that the meta kinda stagnated at the beginning of the year with Cosmos not being as confident in the character anymore.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Izaw made this.