Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

Raito uploaded part 2 of his tier list.

C TIER



D TIER



E TIER



Luigi being below DK and Kirby, Rosalina being this low, and ICs being this high seem very strange to me. We also get to see where Raito has Steve and it's not very high.

His rankings on and isn't too far off to how they perform in Japan's metagame, especially the former.
placement here is also not too far off from the Japan meta. They have best non-Big D results in the world, even though it is only merely respectable results.
placement is mainly due to the lack of any top Luigi representation. They have HIKARU who uses him as a strong secondary, but that is it.
placement is, however, more confusing. Unlike Luigi, Falcon actually does some pretty notable users of the character, mainly Nishiya, doing pretty well with the character there.
Similarly has Kirihara and yuzu do some pretty good stuff in Japan, so her being ranked this low doesn't make too much sense to me.

 

[NotLiquid]

大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ SPECIAL 更新データ Ver.9.0.2 ［2020.11.12 配信］｜Nintendo Switch サポート情報｜任天堂サポート

『大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ SPECIAL』の更新データ Ver.9.0.2 ［2020.11.12 配信］に関するサポート情報をご案内します。

www.nintendo.co.jp

Unsurprisingly this is mostly specific bug fixes, mainly targeting ground-detection as was mentioned previously. Samus can up-B to toward the top triplat again.

Oh yeah, and rip Zelda Phantom buffs.

 

[FruitLoop]

rip to the fact that they didn't undo the 9.0.1 DDD nerfs. Wack

 

[The_Bookworm]

GOML North American Open: Finale (8 Entrants; Invitational)

1st: Marss
2nd: Ned
3rd: BestNess
4th: Ouch!?
5th: Grayson
5th: ESAM
7th: Riddles
7th: Sparg0

 

[StrangeKitten]

" • Fixed an issue where sometimes you would be forced to end a battle on a stage created in Stage Builder." I wonder if this means getting stuck in the stage is no longer possible? I just had a match the other day where a Ridley CPU got stuck in the stage and couldn't get out.

 

[Lacrimosa]

So, the devs really don't want players to play the game.
How nice.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

So, the devs really don't want players to play the game.
How nice.

Buff Zelda in other areas rather than making her overrealiant on her Phantom.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Buff Zelda in other areas rather than making her overrealiant on her Phantom.

Don't you think she's already too reliant on it in neutral?

 

[Thinkaman]

There seems to be some confusion, even though all of this has been explained.

Phantom (and Gunman), like all entities that distinguish ground vs. aerial have some distance at which they detect the ground and snap to it. This is true in essentially all platforming games.

Zelda's short hop is slow-moving enough that on the first frame, Phantom is still within range of the ground and snaps to it.

It seems 9.0.1 bugfixes needed to extend the ground detection distance as part of various Steve-block-related checks, but they kept the snap distance the same. Except either they forgot Gunmen/Phantom in that exception, or they use some duplicated/custom collusion code that wasn't updated.

This resulted in Phantom and Gunman snapping to the ground from a jarring distance, something like 8 units. This meant that Zelda's Phantom snapped to the ground on the first frame of her (faster moving) full hop as well, in addition to suddenly teleporting to the ground in general aerial usage.

Whatever you think about Zelda, surely "Phantom teleporting to the ground" is not what she needs or what should be in the game. If you are adamant that Phantom-as-a-retreating-tool is actually the one thing Zelda needs, it ought to be implemented as spawning the Phantom at different positions intrinsically, rather than based on buggy collision behavior and unbufferable jumpsquat frames.

More broadly speaking, traditionally Zelda's root design issue is entirely on the offense/approach side. Her defensive toolset is pretty robust.


I'd be curious to see Zelda's stats for high-end-but-sub-competitive levels of play, and see how she compares to the others. She's very popular/overplayed, (Depending on if you glass is half-full or half-empty) and it'd be interesting to compare her to similarly used characters in that lens, such as Ness, Cloud, Yoshi, Falcon, Bowser, or other heavies.

 

[StoicPhantom]

But it's basically a short hop and a b-reversed(?) downB. I don't know if that's a RAR and if it is then I'm super dumb.

RAR is Reverse Aerial Rush. Meaning you dash forward and then turn and immediately jump. This is usually used to get a Bair out of dash for characters that would need to do so.

Doing a RAR Phantom displacement by quickly dashing back and turning then immediately jumping and using Phantom is how you get Phantom in front of you.

Whatever you think about Zelda, surely "Phantom teleporting to the ground" is not what she needs or what should be in the game. If you are adamant that Phantom-as-a-retreating-tool is actually the one thing Zelda needs, it ought to be implemented as spawning the Phantom at different positions intrinsically, rather than based on buggy collision behavior and unbufferable jumpsquat frames.

More broadly speaking, traditionally Zelda's root design issue is entirely on the offense/approach side. Her defensive toolset is pretty robust.

Pretty much this. There was some legitimately useful things you could do with full hop, such as using it to sniff out whether an opponent was going to dash or was just baiting, but most of its potential use was more fun mixup stuff and not things that were really needed for competitive viability.

Phantom displacement itself is mostly good for specific MUs like where Nayru's reflect is not adequate enough. It's nice to have as extra security in other MUs and overall useful enough to learn if you are at all serious about the character, but it's not like Zelda's competitive viability would crater or anything if it was completely removed.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Seems like Wario has a true kill confirm of upThrow to Waft:

https://twitter.com/GlutonnySSB/status/1327344929933316098

(Don't kill me if that's not new but Glutonny never posted that before)




S StoicPhantom I know what RAR stands for but the question was if the input for the short hop displacement changed.
Because I can still pull it off fairly easy but was never able to pre-patch.

However, I disagree with it having no impact on her viability because it gives her much more defensive capabilities, especially against disjoints and projectiles (because when she gets hit with anything the Phantom just collapses.
So, the offensive options are gone but if they removed the defensive options as well then I would say that that's a massive nerf, even if nobody used it (and let's be honest: Zelda player should definitely use it).

 

[StrangeKitten]

Speaking of, how does everyone here feel about Waft? I personally feel it could use some slight nerfing. A move that kills that early with that many true combos into it is way overtuned.

 

[DougEfresh]

Speaking of, how does everyone here feel about Waft? I personally feel it could use some slight nerfing. A move that kills that early with that many true combos into it is way overtuned.

I'm in the same boat as you tbh and I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been addressed already. Wario is hardly lacking without having such a potent move to confirm into in so many ways. I hardly wish for nerfs on characters at this point since almost everyone is fine as is, but waft is definitely one of the few remaining moves I'd like to see toned down a bit. Hopefully it's not one of those "Nintendo nerfs" to the move though, kinda like how and were technically "nerfed" in 7.0, but functionally speaking, they didn't end up doing much (if anything) to meaningfully tone down the part(s) of their kit that most people thought were problematic (Imo). Still got at least four more balance patches remaining with the DLC though, so we'll see if the dev team gets around to it.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'm in the same boat as you tbh and I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been addressed already. Wario is hardly lacking without having such a potent move to confirm into in so many ways. I hardly wish for nerfs on characters at this point since almost everyone is fine as is, but waft is definitely one of the few remaining moves I'd like to see toned down a bit. Hopefully it's not one of those "Nintendo nerfs" to the move though, kinda like how and were technically "nerfed" in 7.0, but functionally speaking, they didn't end up doing much (if anything) to meaningfully tone down the part(s) of their kit that most people thought were problematic (Imo). Still got at least four more balance patches remaining with the DLC though, so we'll see if the dev team gets around to it.

I kinda like that they're not hurting the top tiers too much. I don't want to see characters nerfed into the ground like what happened with Pichu. Buffing the lower tier characters would help them more against top tiers anyway

 

[DougEfresh]

I kinda like that they're not hurting the top tiers too much. I don't want to see characters nerfed into the ground like what happened with Pichu. Buffing the lower tier characters would help them more against top tiers anyway

I agree with you here as well, and I wasn't trying to advocate for an approach that would "nerf top tiers to the ground," so to speak. Arguably, Palu did actually get nerfed a bit with dthrow to bair being more of a mix up now than a super consistent confirm, but I do think ZSS and Joker's nerfs were conservative enough that they're both pretty much exactly the same as they were prior. Not even complaining though, so don't misunderstand me. I just hope Nintendo isn't too timid in toning down waft in a noticeable but good way when/if they get to making such a change since it needs fixing more than most.

 

[Rizen]

Just what Wario needed: another confirm into waft /sarcasm.

GOML North American Open: Finale (8 Entrants; Invitational)

1st: Marss
2nd: Ned
3rd: BestNess
4th: Ouch!?
5th: Grayson
5th: ESAM
7th: Riddles
7th: Sparg0

They're all good players but Marss proved again he's a cut above the rest. I noticed Maester didn't represent Mexico. He's been losing to good Cloud players lately like Spargo and Kola. Like I've said G&W seems to have a weakness to swords.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Dabuz just made new matchup charts for Olimar and Rosalina today on stream.

MU charts for Rosa and Olimar

Rosalina one is optimistic but all her losing matchups feel bad

Olimar one is more realistic but his losing matchups aren't awful because he can have so much momentum

Unlisted Videos for eachhttps://t.co/qcycPzCRoIhttps://t.co/KcmhvF2obi pic.twitter.com/dDOn2Gn6PR

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) November 14, 2020

He said that he thinks Rosalina is the better character overall but he acknowledged that she does worse against the relevant characters and he thinks she is at a much more significant deficit in her losing matchups. Dabuz thinks the Cloud matchup in particular is extremely bad for Rosalina.

He also said that thinks Olimar is a worse character overall and loses to a larger percentage of the cast, but does better against the relevant characters and with the potential exception of maybe Link, he thinks all of the losing matchups are easier compared to Rosalina's losing matchups.

 

[StoicPhantom]

S StoicPhantom I know what RAR stands for but the question was if the input for the short hop displacement changed.
Because I can still pull it off fairly easy but was never able to pre-patch.

However, I disagree with it having no impact on her viability because it gives her much more defensive capabilities, especially against disjoints and projectiles (because when she gets hit with anything the Phantom just collapses.
So, the offensive options are gone but if they removed the defensive options as well then I would say that that's a massive nerf, even if nobody used it (and let's be honest: Zelda player should definitely use it).

Well, I can't really say whether the input is easier or not since I don't play Ultimate much anymore.

Phantom requires proper spacing to avoid counterattacks just like swords or projectile zoners do. If you understand your fundamentals of spacing and stage control then you should be able to properly set it up without needing the displacement tech. I myself don't use it much outside of specific situations and specific MUs. It is really helpful and will make or break those specific situations, but it is a bit much to call removing something that was never intended a massive nerf.

Removing displacement entirely would weaken her significantly in certain MUs and weaken her MU spread overall, but it isn't like she would be dropping tiers like if you were to nerf the startup on Snake's grenades or something. You can still manage as Zelda had before the new full hop displacement and before we even discovered displacement in the first place.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Watching the vid, I can see where he's coming from for a lot of his explanations from Rosa. Based off his explanation, beating Rosa generally boils down to the following things:

• Can I kill Luma easily?
• Can I deal with pseudo disjoints like Luma moves, down tilt spacing, or Star Bits?
• Do I have a defense good enough to stop Luma-meat-shield + dash attack/dash grab or Gravitational Pull?

Characters with massive, high damaging hitboxes like can kill Luma fairly easily while making it hard for Rosa to approach via dash attack, while zone-breakers like can weave around her defenses well enough (and in the case of Mario, use fireballs as a zone-breaking tool).

Likewise, she's going to either use Dash Attack to zone-break projectile-heavy characters like , use Gravitational Pull against more passive zoners like , or use Luma's defenses to wall out short-ranged characters like or less-disjointed, floatier characters like .


I'm not sure if Rosa's advantage/disadvantage state is strong enough (compared to the cast anyway) to merit her having over 50 winning MUs, but I'd also be hard-pressed to find non-Rosa players who understand the character better than Dabuz, especially when Rosa herself isn't an exactly archetypal character.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Raito uploaded part 3 of his tier list.

B TIER



C TIER



D TIER



E TIER



The remaining characters currently are:




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The placings of are all somewhat strange.

I think that Inkling being in B Tier is fine as I think she is and has been overrated for a long time and is an extremely inconsistent character overall, but I'd still put her much higher than where Raito has her. Most likely closer to where Bowser/Young Link/Ness/Sheik are.

Villager I could see being in this tier as well but on the lower end of it, closer to where Inkling currently is. He's a solid character overall with good camping and zoning tools and a passable matchup spread against some of the top tiers (being one of Peach's worst matchups is really good just on it's own) but he does struggle with characters who outrange him, are faster than him, and characters who can handle his projectile game well. Falco, G&W, Wolf, and Palutena seem to be considered among his worst matchups by Villager mains, and I think at top level, the latter two could especially prove to be problematic due to how common they are.

Regarding Mewtwo, Plant, and Hero, I think they are all too high.

Plant's kit is lackluster in most areas, Plant's ledgetrapping and tools to help him condition his oppinent are strong, but not being able to play neutral or approach all too well holds him back a lot. Overall, Plant's kit just isn't cohesive enough for him to be any better than C Tier (based on how Raito is formatting his list at least).

Hero is a good counterpick character, but his inability to deal with close up pressure, polarizing matchup spread, and overall reliance on RNG in a lot of situations holds him back as a solo-main. I feel like Hero's overall lack of results as a solo-main since his release supports this as well.

Mewtwo is almost a really good character. He's fast, has good range, Shadow Ball is an amazing projectile, his moveset is fairly versatile, his combo game is alright, he has good confirms, he has so much going for him. But his terrible disadvantage state holds him back so much. He's a huge, lightweight character who can die off of losing neutral once against almost the entire cast. Characters like Palutena, Roy, Link, Mario, Wolf, Fox, ROB, Chrom, Sheik, Luigi, and Cloud can all kill Mewtwo off of one opening. The Falco matchup especially is something most Mewtwo mains seem to agree is awful, likely because he negates so much of Mewtwo's kit so well. I don't really think Mewtwo belongs this high, even with his more recent buffs, he's extremely inconsistent and really lacks the sort of X-Factor a lot of the top and high tiers have.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Raito uploaded part 3 of his tier list.

B TIER



C TIER



D TIER



E TIER



The remaining characters currently are:




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The placings of are all somewhat strange.

I think that Inkling being in B Tier is fine as I think she is and has been overrated for a long time and is an extremely inconsistent character overall, but I'd still put her much higher than where Raito has her. Most likely closer to where Bowser/Young Link/Ness/Sheik are.

Villager I could see being in this tier as well but on the lower end of it, closer to where Inkling currently is. He's a solid character overall with good camping and zoning tools and a passable matchup spread against some of the top tiers (being one of Peach's worst matchups is really good just on it's own) but he does struggle with characters who outrange him, are faster than him, and characters who can handle his projectile game well. Falco, G&W, Wolf, and Palutena seem to be considered among his worst matchups by Villager mains, and I think at top level, the latter two could especially prove to be problematic due to how common they are.

Regarding Mewtwo, Plant, and Hero, I think they are all too high.

Plant's kit is lackluster in most areas, Plant's ledgetrapping and tools to help him condition his oppinent are strong, but not being able to play neutral or approach all too well holds him back a lot. Overall, Plant's kit just isn't cohesive enough for him to be any better than C Tier (based on how Raito is formatting his list at least).

Hero is a good counterpick character, but his inability to deal with close up pressure, polarizing matchup spread, and overall reliance on RNG in a lot of situations holds him back as a solo-main. I feel like Hero's overall lack of results as a solo-main since his release supports this as well.

Mewtwo is almost a really good character. He's fast, has good range, Shadow Ball is an amazing projectile, his moveset is fairly versatile, his combo game is alright, he has good confirms, he has so much going for him. But his terrible disadvantage state holds him back so much. He's a huge, lightweight character who can die off of losing neutral once against almost the entire cast. Characters like Palutena, Roy, Link, Mario, Wolf, Fox, ROB, Chrom, Sheik, Luigi, and Cloud can all kill Mewtwo off of one opening. The Falco matchup especially is something most Mewtwo mains seem to agree is awful, likely because he negates so much of Mewtwo's kit so well. I don't really think Mewtwo belongs this high, even with his more recent buffs, he's extremely inconsistent and really lacks the sort of X-Factor a lot of the top and high tiers have.

Tbh I think Mega Man is his weirdest character pick aside from G&W. Mega Man is very good with his zoning and pressuring and Raito knows how good Kameme is. I feel as though Mega Man should be in A tier. Like I'm very confused at how Mega Man is considered lower than Pit.

 

[StrangeKitten]

My opinions on Raito's tier list:
Too low:
& : Wtf are these two doing in low tier? Should be B tier, maybe even bottom of A.
: This was his placement before all the buffs. Now he should probably be above Doc in D.
: I don't think she's that bad anymore. I'd put her around Ridley in C.
: Should be mid-B.
: This also feels like where he was before the buffs. Dude's a powerhouse now! High B, easily.
: Should definitely be mid-to-high B.
&: Should be high B or low A, instead of towards the bottom of B.
: Should be mid-to-high A.
: Should be high A or low S.

Too high:
: This character has simply failed to make a splash, and still has yet to receive substantial buffs. I'd put him at bottom of D, but I can see top of D if you're optimistic about him.
: I'm pretty optimistic on him, so I'd place him above Simon. Most would place him even lower than that.
: I can't fault Raito too much here. This is one of the funkiest characters to place. Above Bowser Jr is where I'd rank him.
: Dude I'm optimistic about Plant too, but sheesh. I feel above Robin would be more fitting.
: I'm pretty pessimistic on this character. I'd honestly put him at top of D.
: While Mewtwo is very good, I don't think he's this good. His horrendous disadvantage holds him back too much. Top of C.
: Seems I'm a lot more pessimistic on him than his best main. Mid-C.
: I get that the logic is that "worse Lucina can't be that bad", but according to MKLeo, he is! Leo even thinks Marth is worse than Byleth, so going by that, I'd put Marth at high D.
& : The buffs definitely helped these good, underrated-at-the-time characters, but I don't think it helped them this much. I think they're mid-B now.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Dabuz thinks Rosalina is better than Olimar? man thats is qutie a fall from the eary pre 3.0,0 patch days where Olimar was considered one of the best characters in the game. I think its safe to say Olimar was the 2nd most severely nerfed character right after Pichu. Olimar fell off almost as hard as Pichu after that fateful patch. The most results Olimar has gotten since them as Shuton winning EVO Japan 2019, but his reuutls otherwise is a far cry from the early days.

Before the Patch Olimar had (and still has) both insane damage output with early 0-60+ combos only rivaled by combined ith stuid poweful and safe kill moves in up-smash and forward-smash that he could spam and laug at even being punished for them. Plus he was very small so he could be hard to hit,

Then 3.0.0 version came with the nerfs. His up and forward smash had more lag, making them far less spammable, but the big thing was that like his size and thus hurtboxes were increased. However unlike Pichu his shield size was not increased to compensate for his now larger size. Meanig his sheild was flimsy and inconsistent and make him vulneralbe and hit when in sheid more than any other character. This made playing him understandabaly fairly frustating considering his disadvantage was already not that great. It was not until the 7.0.0 patch where his shield issues were adressed, But now thinking about hit. All his other nerfs do not seem to bad in a vacum. at least compared again to Pichu. So what other reasons did he fall off quite a bit. Once again I have to bring the comparsion..in that players began to adapt to fighting him. learning how to deal with his streghts while being able to exploit his weakness

 

[StrangeKitten]

I definitely don't think Rosa is better than Olimar. Olimar is still a monster in damage output and kill power. Rosa could probably stand to see a slight buff to both.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I definitely don't think Rosa is better than Olimar. Olimar is still a monster in damage output and kill power. Rosa could probably stand to see a slight buff to both.

I could actually see Rosa being better than Olimar. I don't find myself disagreeing too much with his assessments of Rosa or Olimar's matchup spreads outside of a few characters, and based off those, it does make Rosa seem like the better character. I think Rosalina definitely has more room to grow as a character than Olimar at this point though. People figured out with made Olimar a good character really quickly when the game came out, and while he did receive some fairly significant nerfs since then, most of what was great about him before his nerfs is still solid. His smash attacks are amazing, his juggling is amazing, he's small and hard to hit, he has high damage output, etc. But in terms of more complicated setups and techs, I don't think Olimar has much room to grow in either of those two areas. I don't see Rosalina's meta stagnating in that way anytime soon though, I feel like she has loads of room for optimization between Luma setups and her attack cancel combos.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd argue that if Rosalina isn't the better character now, she probably will be in the long run, even if Olimar remains more common at top and high level play.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Dabuz thinks Rosalina is better than Olimar? man thats is qutie a fall from the eary pre 3.0,0 patch days where Olimar was considered one of the best characters in the game. I think its safe to say Olimar was the 2nd most severely nerfed character right after Pichu. Olimar fell off almost as hard as Pichu after that fateful patch. The most results Olimar has gotten since them as Shuton winning EVO Japan 2019, but his reuutls otherwise is a far cry from the early days.

Before the Patch Olimar had (and still has) both insane damage output with early 0-60+ combos only rivaled by combined ith stuid poweful and safe kill moves in up-smash and forward-smash that he could spam and laug at even being punished for them. Plus he was very small so he could be hard to hit,

Then 3.0.0 version came with the nerfs. His up and forward smash had more lag, making them far less spammable, but the big thing was that like his size and thus hurtboxes were increased. However unlike Pichu his shield size was not increased to compensate for his now larger size. Meanig his sheild was flimsy and inconsistent and make him vulneralbe and hit when in sheid more than any other character. This made playing him understandabaly fairly frustating considering his disadvantage was already not that great. It was not until the 7.0.0 patch where his shield issues were adressed, But now thinking about hit. All his other nerfs do not seem to bad in a vacum. at least compared again to Pichu. So what other reasons did he fall off quite a bit. Once again I have to bring the comparsion..in that players began to adapt to fighting him. learning how to deal with his streghts while being able to exploit his weakness

I could actually see Rosa being better than Olimar. I don't find myself disagreeing too much with his assessments of Rosa or Olimar's matchup spreads outside of a few characters, and based off those, it does make Rosa seem like the better character. I think Rosalina definitely has more room to grow as a character than Olimar at this point though. People figured out with made Olimar a good character really quickly when the game came out, and while he did receive some fairly significant nerfs since then, most of what was great about him before his nerfs is still solid. His smash attacks are amazing, his juggling is amazing, he's small and hard to hit, he has high damage output, etc. But in terms of more complicated setups and techs, I don't think Olimar has much room to grow in either of those two areas. I don't see Rosalina's meta stagnating in that way anytime soon though, I feel like she has loads of room for optimization between Luma setups and her attack cancel combos.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd argue that if Rosalina isn't the better character now, she probably will be in the long run, even if Olimar remains more common at top and high level play.

To be fair, Dabuz has always been pessimistic about Olimar as a character.

He has always viewed SSB4 Olimar in a more negative light than everyone else. Even when Shuton was doing amazing stuff with the character during the game's second-half of its lifespan, Dabuz mostly credited it to Shuton's skills as a player and not to Olimar's strength as a character.

Shortly before 3.1.0, Dabuz posted a tier list putting Olimar much lower than everyone else at the time. I don't remember if it was under top 10 or the lower-end of top 10, but it was lower than the general consensus being top 3. He claimed that it is because Olimar's meta was falling, but that time period was ironically enough the peak of Ultimate Olimar's results.

After 3.1.0, even after Olimar's shield would get fixed in 7.0.0, Dabuz has never viewed Olimar fondly ever again, despite Shuton's continued strong results with the character. He even slapped Olimar in mid tier in his previous tier lists. His latest one is funnily enough the first time a long time he put Olimar as high tier.

Rosalina is a character he was more pessimistic than others in SSB4, putting her outside top 5 in his lists. In Ultimate, he straight up believed Rosa to be one of the worst characters in the game, granted that Rosa was a very weak character at launch.

However, the buffs she received afterwards flipped the script. He already claimed that he has more fun playing Ulimate Rosa than SSB4 Rosa, but with the significant buffs making her a fairly solid character now, he turned from being pessimistic to the character to being very optimistic on her. It certainly helps that his viewpoint on Olimar got soured around this time and to this day.

As for Rosa herself, I don't see her being better than Olimar. With how easy to is to knock Luma away, as well as dealing with a very tall, floaty hurtbox, she can be forced into very awkward situations often, especially against her weakest matchup. Her results, while pretty good at times, doesn't really emit too impressive of a feeling (to me at least), especially in comparison to Olimar's accomplishments. Upper-mid to lower-high is where I think Rosa is currently, although that might change, for better or for worse.

As for Olimar, the character has indeed considerably dropped off from its early meta days. I believe this is largely due to the meta adapting to the character, as well as the character's mains getting soured over the nerfs (i.e. Dabuz and Myran). Even after Olimar's shield got fixed, the public consensus on Olimar is still more negative than the early meta. The nerfs in question isn't even all that significant. Forward and especially up smash is still amazing, and the recovery nerf is negligible at best. Shield poking issues did hurt, but the character still did great things even with it. Shuton won EVO Japan 2020, and that was a literal week before Olimar's shield got fixed. High tier imo, but the character has seen his better days,

 

[SwagGuy99]

Ultimate 32: Top 32

• 1st:
  • MKLeo
• 2nd
  • Maister
• 3rd
  • Lui$
• 4th
  • Sparg0
• 5th
  • Sharp
  • Kola
• 7th
  • Dabuz
  • Mr. E
• 9th
  • Joker
  • BestNess
  • LeoN
  • Salem
• 13th
  • Angel
  • Yez
  • SuperGirlKels
  • Aaron
• 17th
  • Atomsk
  • Ned
  • KirbyKid
  • Sinji
  • mabelssb
  • WaDi
  • Chag
  • Epic_Gabriel
• 25th
  • SHADIC
  • 8BitMan
  • Rivers
  • ApolloKage
  • WebbJP
  • Grayson
  • Riddles
  • ChunkyKong

Haven't watched any of this yet, but I do know that Leo took the tournament from losers and then reverse 3/0ed Maister... with Ike. I hope Leo maybe puts a bit more time into Ike. Ike isn't exactly an extremely complex character, but he is fun to watch at times, especially when Leo is the one playing him.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Ike is a great character and it's nice to see Leo play him again. He may not be the best, and probably requires a secondary or two to cover his bad MUs, but he's still such a solid character overall.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Haven't watched any of this yet, but I do know that Leo took the tournament from losers and then reverse 3/0ed Maister... with Ike. I hope Leo maybe puts a bit more time into Ike. Ike isn't exactly an extremely complex character, but he is fun to watch at times, especially when Leo is the one playing him.

I mean, Ike kinda beats up on G&W. Probably the most out of MKLeo's range of characters. Logical switch on his part. idk how he does against Steve because Steve is... Steve.

But yes, seeing more of his Ike would be nice given the large changes Ike has gone through. Curious to see how MKLeo would use them given that he got the original Ike train going.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Something to note is that MkLeo only used to reverse 6-0 Maister in grand finals.


Up until that point, MkLeo was tearing it up with solo , beating 8BitMan 3-0, Aaron 3-1, BestNess 3-0, Sharp 3-2, Sparg0 3-1, and Lui$ 3-0 with him.
The person able to stop his Byleth rampage was Maister, who beat him in winners semi-finals 3-2.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Ike has a few really good matchups in places you wouldn't expect. Smash players have a habit of assuming that better characters automatically beat worse characters, but in a balanced game, you'll find good matchups in places you wouldn't expect from badly balanced games (and most smash games are badly balanced, so this is understandable).

Plus, most characters are pretty good, and Ike is especially still quite strong, even if Leo doesn't play him that often

Also, I straight up think Byleth is buffed by online lag and is dramatically overperforming in the online era. Generally speaking, the higher the innate lag, the more important range is and the less important frame data is. I think she's probably still fine, but I don't think we'll see Leo sweeping tournaments with Byleth once there's a covid vaccine.

Unrelated, but I also want to throw out a few characters I think people are sleeping on because of how they have changed from previous versions, namely Mewtwo and MK, who I think both have really nice versatile toolkits, good recovery (MK is probably contender for best recovery in the game), good kill options, and great neutral. Everyone wants Mewtwo in particular to be something he's not when what he is honestly is pretty all right. I wish he wasn't so light and easy to hit, but those are weaknesses you can play around and a great player piloting either of these characters could do a lot. I'd put TL, Bayo, Marth, and a few others on this list too.

In USF4, Sagat was nerfed in literally every version, and everyone thought it was the end of Sagat each time, but Bonchan kept ****ing everyone up because Sagat was still a strong character with a lot of good baselines. To this day, thanks to Bonchan's persistence, people generally acknowledge Sagat as a high tier. In Japan, they believe he's top tier.

Shoutout to VoiD for being a guy who keeps trying to make characters he likes work even after they're nerfed from previous games.

 

[Thinkaman]

Everyone wants Mewtwo in particular to be something he's not when what he is honestly is pretty all right.

This is spot on. A local player here has a very strong Mewtwo, and we talked before the last set of buffs about how much he prefered Ultimate Mewtwo, in spite of the perceived reduction in power. He found Smash 4 Mewtwo to be a boring d-tilt machine pigeonholed into a strict glass cannon role, vs. Ultimate Mewtwo's less bombastic but more well-rounded kit, whose personality comes out in more subtle options like Confusion. He expressed what you said more or less verbatim.

I've said this before, but this is how I see Mac as well. (In terms of cross-game relationship--not being "pretty all right.") None of the generous changes Ultimate Little Mac got can (alone) make up for Smash 4 d-tilt, but holistically I don't think there is any way that Ultimate Mac isn't better in overall direct comparison. (Once you bring stages into consideration, only then do things get murky.)

 

[ARISTOS]

This is spot on. A local player here has a very strong Mewtwo, and we talked before the last set of buffs about how much he prefered Ultimate Mewtwo, in spite of the perceived reduction in power. He found Smash 4 Mewtwo to be a boring d-tilt machine pigeonholed into a strict glass cannon role, vs. Ultimate Mewtwo's less bombastic but more well-rounded kit, whose personality comes out in more subtle options like Confusion. He expressed what you said more or less verbatim.

I've said this before, but this is how I see Mac as well. (In terms of cross-game relationship--not being "pretty all right.") None of the generous changes Ultimate Little Mac got can (alone) make up for Smash 4 d-tilt, but holistically I don't think there is any way that Ultimate Mac isn't better in overall direct comparison. (Once you bring stages into consideration, only then do things get murky.)

Just hopping in to concur.

Ultimate Mewtwo is an incredibly cool character - much more interesting and multifaceted character with more expressive combo routes and options compared to 4 Mewtwo. Every move in the kit has a distinct purpose in a way that wasn't true for 4. I don't think Ultimate Mewtwo can ever be great due to the engine changes but definitely a fun character to play with.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that solo got 17th - not incredible or out of this world, but I think people underplay the real threat that the character possesses.

I'd put TL, Bayo, Marth, and a few others on this list too.

I wanted to ask who else you'd put on the list - I think everyone has come around to Diddy. Outside of the characters listed I'm quite bullish on the Pits as well.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I wanted to ask who else you'd put on the list - I think everyone has come around to Diddy. Outside of the characters listed I'm quite bullish on the Pits as well.

I admit I'm not super aware of how Diddy is playing these days. I do think he's got a lot of solid bases and bananas are a top tier projectile period, but I just don't see or play against very many Diddys, so I'm unable to really have an educated perspective. What I'll say is that I'm not as down on the character as others are. I'm firm in the belief that folks overstate the effect of small nerfs. Diddy had a wide variety of strengths in past games and many of them are still intact so I don't buy that he's a low mid tier character now or whatever.

I'm still pretty down on Doc and just don't see the value in him that others do. I think that while he has real and very potent strengths most of them can be nullified with solid neutral play, and that's before we even talk about his recovery which is obviously a problem. Doc is often so slow that you can call out an option before the opponent does it and still not be able to reach and punish it.

17th is impressive relative to past games, but not in Ultimate, where I'd expect even the absolute worst characters to get top 25. The game just isn't poorly balanced in the grand scheme of things.

He found Smash 4 Mewtwo to be a boring d-tilt machine pigeonholed into a strict glass cannon role, vs. Ultimate Mewtwo's less bombastic but more well-rounded kit, whose personality comes out in more subtle options like Confusion.

This is me, but with Smash 4/Ultimate ZSS vs Brawl ZSS (the latter being the one that was more interesting and less braindead).

 

[SwagGuy99]

The other thing I wanted to point out is that solo got 17th - not incredible or out of this world, but I think people underplay the real threat that the character possesses.



I wanted to ask who else you'd put on the list - I think everyone has come around to Diddy. Outside of the characters listed I'm quite bullish on the Pits as well.

Most people are quick to assume he's bottom 3 or bottom 5, and while I'm not saying there isn't an argument for that being true, I think people do understate how good certain aspects of this character are.

His frame data on most of his moveset is almost identical to Mario's with only a few differences in the active frames and endlag on a few moves (Doc's up-smash is active for 5 frames instead of 4, b-air's hitbox lingers longer, and n-air, b-air and up-air all have 2 more frames of landing lag). This means that he can outbox a lot of the other more mediocre characters up-close, but there are even some top/high tiers that do fall victim to this like Mario himself and Pikachu.

Another thing that I think Doc has over a lot of the other perceived low mid tiers/low tiers/bottom tiers is that his matchup spread against the top/high tiers isn't that bad (although it's not exactly amazing either). and probably are probably his best matchups in the top 20. I think like Mario and Luigi, he does pretty good against for similar reasons (gets rewarded heavily for using banana against Diddy, pills are good against Diddy, Doc can box with Diddy up close, kills Diddy early). I also think he does well against most of the other low and low mid tiers in a similar manner to K. Rool.

I think one of Doc's hurdles overall are the fact that he does struggle a lot with disjoints. Certain characters with large disjoints () are on paper really good, low maintenance secondaries against characters who struggle with range like Doc. I think that Doc is capable of making small waves in the meta, but I don't see him winning a major without a secondary. But maybe Tsumusuto will prove me wrong on that one, he does secondary/co-main Mii Gunner with Doc, but he has been known to get very strong results with solo-Doc. So maybe there is a chance that Tsumusuto could win a major with Doc, but I think the odds of that happening are pretty slim.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Just hopping in to concur.

Ultimate Mewtwo is an incredibly cool character - much more interesting and multifaceted character with more expressive combo routes and options compared to 4 Mewtwo. Every move in the kit has a distinct purpose in a way that wasn't true for 4. I don't think Ultimate Mewtwo can ever be great due to the engine changes but definitely a fun character to play with.

Mewtwo is like Sonic Unleashed.
He has a lot going for him, but just that dumb tail hurtbox man...

The other thing I wanted to point out is that solo got 17th - not incredible or out of this world, but I think people underplay the real threat that the character possesses.

I've already made a billion posts on this character's downsides...

Keeping it short. There's nothing special about him.
He's just uncommon...

Like who's prepared to fight a good ...

Most people aren't, so Doc players often get away with more than they really should.
(Watch how many times people don't edge-guard and continue approaching him in tourney)

If he was common, most high-level competitors would have no trouble running over him.

 

[Rizen]

Mewtwo is like Sonic Unleashed.
He has a lot going for them, just that dumb tail hurtbox man...

Mewtwo and Ridley are in very similar situations- both very solid sword characters but burdened by huge hurtboxes while enjoying none of the perks actual super heavyweights get. They're not bad characters, very few of the cast are, but you could get almost all of their benefits with none of the drawbacks with other swordsmen.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ESAM breaks down and critiques Izaw's video on how bad Steve is.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Mewtwo and Ridley are in very similar situations- both very solid sword characters but burdened by huge hurtboxes while enjoying none of the perks actual super heavyweights get. They're not bad characters, very few of the cast are, but you could get almost all of their benefits with none of the drawbacks with other swordsmen.

Although Ridley doesn't get as burdened as badly for this as Mewtwo since he's still decently heavy.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't see how Steve can be the worst when Mac, Ganon, and to lesser extents, Isabelle, Doc, and Lucario exist in their current states. I think Steve is around middle of mid-tier, but at the very least, I think he's better than these characters by a decent margin. And I'd be surprised if buffs helped Mac and Ganon to the point of them being better than Steve tbh.