Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Thinkaman]

This post is honestly what I'm talking about. I have an extremely hard time believe seph won't demolish incenaroar when he becomes more polished.
For instance a 50 50 of dash grab or dash attack for sep particularly with owa active is something people aren't really ready to implement yet and the zoning tools and other parts of his kit are heavily underemployed. Revenge has not proved to be an issue for characters like byleth or min min because as they became optimized incenaroar weak eases and slowness began to show its fatal flaw.

I mean, Revenge is pretty great against Byleth for what it applies to; Byleth is absolutely one of my preferred opponents with Incineroar. But for Sephiroth Revenge is also a factor in his recovery and Shadow Flare, and Sephiroth's game is more dependent on being proactive. Incineroar is my best-perfoming character against all sword users in the game, so enjoying him against Sephiroth isn't much of a surprise to me.

(That said, my Mac is definitely doing better against Sephiroth than Incineroar for the very small sample size we have.)

As for Min Min, Revenge would be great if she didn't have 2 arms. As it stands, it's one of the worst matchups in the game for it, and contributes to it being one of Incineroar's worst matchups. I would never play Incineroar into Min Min.

 

[Kalashnikov]

I dunno about this character when it comes to tiers, but one thing I do know is that it feels like this is either gonna be an even or losing matchup for Wario.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I dunno about this character when it comes to tiers, but one thing I do know is that it feels like this is either gonna be an even or losing matchup for Wario.

I predict losing on Wario's side, even if it's just 45-55. Because that dash and reach will seriously make Wario reconsider everything in life. Approaches won't be as simple, but the combos will remain of course and everything else that makes Wario Wario, like the bike and Waft. Those will remain powerful, but not as easy to use against Sephiroth.

I'm sort of thinking Sephiroth will end up being like a sword-version of Mewtwo. People won't be able to decide where to list him due to both his incredible strenghts, and weaknesses. I find this rather ironic, as they share the same weight / height issue exactly, and are both always seen as one of the strongest videogame characters included in Smash.

He seems like a very fun character tho. And I was never a FF fan. I kinda hope they once find a way to port the FF7 remake to Switch...

 

[Wunderwaft]

I dunno about this character when it comes to tiers, but one thing I do know is that it feels like this is either gonna be an even or losing matchup for Wario.

I just got out of a tourney playing against many Sephiroths so I feel like I can comment on this with my very early day 3 impressions. I don't think it's gonna be a losing MU for Wario. Chomp can eat all levels of flare that Sephiroth can dish out (not the explosion obviously, only when it's out like a ball). The laser part of Shadow Flare is also chompable, he can also eat a shadow flare orb after it launches if you're facing in the right direction (only one though, if there are others they'll hit Wario).

If Sephi can space well and it seems hard to approach him then using the bike as a tool to throw might help. But for the most part you don't need to approach him, just camp him. The hell is Sephiroth gonna do to force a Wario to approach? Throw slow projectiles that can be avoided or eaten? Use his committal poking tools which can be punished easily by Wario's superior air speed? The problem with Sephiroth in this MU is that his moves have a lot of lag and Wario can skedaddle and jump around with no problems.

 

[Anomilus]

On the topic of , he's got a strong advantage but he's just not outrageous enough to make up for being such a punching bag. He doesn't have the weight for it either. Ridley's a midtier and somewhat underwhelming imo.

Agreed so hard. When you really consider the rest of the cast, Ridley's most standout move is Space Pirate Rush, and despite its potential rewards it's just a command grab that's both escapable and very punishable on whiff. Skewer meanwhile mind as well not even be a real move with how impractical it is. Even in casual FFA it's not reliable.

Just feels like nearly every character either has "THAT Move" or "THAT option" that's both strong and reliable. Ridley has no such thing. He has to struggle for nearly everything: His specifically spaced Plasma Stream edgeguard, his situational well-timed Up B ledgespike, his well-aimed well-time (and sometimes just lucky) SPR off-stage grabs. And Skewer on hit quickly stops being amazing when you realize dealing 66% damage every once in a while is literally NOTHING when other characters are consistently doing big damage AND/OR killing early as well.

Our newest character gets to simply charge and release a projectile with a HUGE hitbox that does high damage, tremendous KBG, AND is a starter! The argued worst character in the game at least gets "DORIYAH!!" and making people scared at nearly 0%. Simply said, poor is NOT living the same quality of life as 90% of the cast. Didn't intend to "whine" about my main, but this middle tier "bermuda triangle" is pretty frustrating. Not good enough to win big tournaments, not simple enough that people won't drop him for other characters, not bad enough to be appealing to low-tier enthusiasts, not underwhelming enough to get properly buffed when Patch Day rolls around.

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Sephiroth is a bafflingly balanced character.

This a character with a large hurtbox, extremely low weight, AND awful frame data and inconsistent damage? His only real pro (besides OWA form) is that his range is huge and his damage is occasionally good if you land his sweetspots, which you usually don't. On top of all of these weakness, a lot of his hitboxes don't even function right, namely his usmash and grabs.

I know it's too soon to ask for buffs, but I really think they should increase the damage and kill power of his tipper attacks on his horizontal swings (why punish the player for spacing), increase his weight, and fix his grab and usmash hitboxes. His uair, ftilt, and usmash are already extremely slow and laggy moves, why do they also need to never kill with most of their hitboxes?

 

[meleebrawler]

Agreed so hard. When you really consider the rest of the cast, Ridley's most standout move is Space Pirate Rush, and despite its potential rewards it's just a command grab that's both escapable and very punishable on whiff. Skewer meanwhile mind as well not even be a real move with how impractical it is. Even in casual FFA it's not reliable.

Just feels like nearly every character either has "THAT Move" or "THAT option" that's both strong and reliable. Ridley has no such thing. He has to struggle for nearly everything: His specifically spaced Plasma Stream edgeguard, his situational well-timed Up B ledgespike, his well-aimed well-time (and sometimes just lucky) SPR off-stage grabs. And Skewer on hit quickly stops being amazing when you realize dealing 66% damage every once in a while is literally NOTHING when other characters are consistently doing big damage AND/OR killing early as well.

Our newest character gets to simply charge and release a projectile with a HUGE hitbox that does high damage, tremendous KBG, AND is a starter! The argued worst character in the game at least gets "DORIYAH!!" and making people scared at nearly 0%. Simply said, poor is NOT living the same quality of life as 90% of the cast. Didn't intend to "whine" about my main, but this middle tier "bermuda triangle" is pretty frustrating. Not good enough to win big tournaments, not simple enough that people won't drop him for other characters, not bad enough to be appealing to low-tier enthusiasts, not underwhelming enough to get properly buffed when Patch Day rolls around.

You be the glass half-empty person if you want, I rather like having no stigma whatsoever attached to the character I use. Can't be accused of tier-whoring (top) or disrespect farming/sandbagging (bottom), among other things when you're a mid-tier.

He may not be flashy, but his straightforward approach to all things fundamental to Smash (spacing, juggling, edgeguarding) helps you exercise said things, and can do wonders for concentration when you're not freaking out over some meter or resource.

 

[Anomilus]

You be the glass half-empty person if you want, I rather like having no stigma whatsoever attached to the character I use. Can't be accused of tier-whoring (top) or disrespect farming/sandbagging (bottom), among other things when you're a mid-tier.

He may not be flashy, but his straightforward approach to all things fundamental to Smash (spacing, juggling, edgeguarding) helps you exercise said things, and can do wonders for concentration when you're not freaking out over some meter or resource.

It's not about "glass half empty/full". It's about what two years and a ton of balance patches have shown. And you really think somebody sticking with a character that long when so many other more skilled players have dropped him is pessimism?? No sir, it is not. It's REALITY. It's more than a character being good or bad or mediocre. It's the unfortunate reality of an awesome character getting so little recognition because of so many unaddressed issues. And no this isn't a thread about character popularity, but the thing that's making him so forgettable IS the functions of the character.

And who cares about flash? LOTS of people, so they pick other characters. Who cares about fundamentals? LOTS of people, so they pick other characters! All that's left is raw loyalty. And I got that in SPADES.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Agreed so hard. When you really consider the rest of the cast, Ridley's most standout move is Space Pirate Rush, and despite its potential rewards it's just a command grab that's both escapable and very punishable on whiff. Skewer meanwhile mind as well not even be a real move with how impractical it is. Even in casual FFA it's not reliable.

Just feels like nearly every character either has "THAT Move" or "THAT option" that's both strong and reliable. Ridley has no such thing. He has to struggle for nearly everything: His specifically spaced Plasma Stream edgeguard, his situational well-timed Up B ledgespike, his well-aimed well-time (and sometimes just lucky) SPR off-stage grabs. And Skewer on hit quickly stops being amazing when you realize dealing 66% damage every once in a while is literally NOTHING when other characters are consistently doing big damage AND/OR killing early as well.

Our newest character gets to simply charge and release a projectile with a HUGE hitbox that does high damage, tremendous KBG, AND is a starter! The argued worst character in the game at least gets "DORIYAH!!" and making people scared at nearly 0%. Simply said, poor is NOT living the same quality of life as 90% of the cast. Didn't intend to "whine" about my main, but this middle tier "bermuda triangle" is pretty frustrating. Not good enough to win big tournaments, not simple enough that people won't drop him for other characters, not bad enough to be appealing to low-tier enthusiasts, not underwhelming enough to get properly buffed when Patch Day rolls around.

It is honestly hard to pin down if Ridley will get buffed in the future.
The character got some fairly significant buffs with patch 4.0, but it definitely doesn't hurt to have some more, especially since the character isn't all that great.

However, what Ultimate's patch cycle tells me is that they tend to adjust/buff random mid tiered characters from time to time. Patch 8.0 gave out buffs to characters like Ike, Falcon, and Falco, who while having buffs doesn't hurt, these three were considered by many at the time to be simply middle-of-the-road. Oh yeah, and the previous patch gave us Sonic and Ness buffs, despite both characters already being high tier.

Then again, Ridley isn't the only character in the game with his current situation. There are other characters with simply meh toolkits that while isn't quite considered pure low tier material, is not great enough to go very far in bigger (and sometimes even smaller) events.

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Agreed so hard. When you really consider the rest of the cast, Ridley's most standout move is Space Pirate Rush, and despite its potential rewards it's just a command grab that's both escapable and very punishable on whiff. Skewer meanwhile mind as well not even be a real move with how impractical it is. Even in casual FFA it's not reliable.

Just feels like nearly every character either has "THAT Move" or "THAT option" that's both strong and reliable. Ridley has no such thing. He has to struggle for nearly everything: His specifically spaced Plasma Stream edgeguard, his situational well-timed Up B ledgespike, his well-aimed well-time (and sometimes just lucky) SPR off-stage grabs. And Skewer on hit quickly stops being amazing when you realize dealing 66% damage every once in a while is literally NOTHING when other characters are consistently doing big damage AND/OR killing early as well.

Our newest character gets to simply charge and release a projectile with a HUGE hitbox that does high damage, tremendous KBG, AND is a starter! The argued worst character in the game at least gets "DORIYAH!!" and making people scared at nearly 0%. Simply said, poor is NOT living the same quality of life as 90% of the cast. Didn't intend to "whine" about my main, but this middle tier "bermuda triangle" is pretty frustrating. Not good enough to win big tournaments, not simple enough that people won't drop him for other characters, not bad enough to be appealing to low-tier enthusiasts, not underwhelming enough to get properly buffed when Patch Day rolls around.

Ridley does have THAT option though. I'm not saying he's amazing, but his nair is one of the most versatile moves in the entire game. Just incredible from top to bottom.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'm weirdly liking how light Sephiroth is. He feels like he's got pretty solid mobility in the air. Combine that with a counter and a dair that'll drop you fast (can't overuse it, of course, but it's still an option) and his disadvantage feels better than a good chunk of the cast to me. He definitely strikes me as a character who isn't too friendly to beginner and low level players, but more advanced players can reap a lot of reward. You have to be good with survival DI to get better mileage out of each stock. But once you're good with it, Sephiroth has a lot to offer!

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'm weirdly liking how light Sephiroth is. He feels like he's got pretty solid mobility in the air. Combine that with a counter and a dair that'll drop you fast (can't overuse it, of course, but it's still an option) and his disadvantage feels better than a good chunk of the cast to me. He definitely strikes me as a character who isn't too friendly to beginner and low level players, but more advanced players can reap a lot of reward. You have to be good with survival DI to get better mileage out of each stock. But once you're good with it, Sephiroth has a lot to offer!

He's a solid mid-level character IMO.

 

[ZephyrZ]

It's not about "glass half empty/full". It's about what two years and a ton of balance patches have shown. And you really think somebody sticking with a character that long when so many other more skilled players have dropped him is pessimism?? No sir, it is not. It's REALITY. It's more than a character being good or bad or mediocre. It's the unfortunate reality of an awesome character getting so little recognition because of so many unaddressed issues. And no this isn't a thread about character popularity, but the thing that's making him so forgettable IS the functions of the character.

And who cares about flash? LOTS of people, so they pick other characters. Who cares about fundamentals? LOTS of people, so they pick other characters! All that's left is raw loyalty. And I got that in SPADES.

Why does it matter if other people paly your character or not? With 80+ characters in the game, some are going to be overlooked more then others no matter how balanced it is. There's always going to be someone in the middle of the pack.

You play him if you like him.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

A couple Sephiroth thoughts:

• Not much talk about how tall he is, but it's really awful for him in certain matchups (Animal Crossing kids come to mind). Samus zair is really obnoxious for him too, although I don't think that matchup is too bad for Sephiroth or anything. Most of the other super tall characters have some kind of projectile game of their own and he just doesn't.
• Samus vs. Sephiroth is really interesting, he's very good at shutting down her anti airs and avoiding her edgeguards (which are not necessarily the reason you'd play her but they're OK in some matchups). But he's absolutely awful against projectiles, even bad ones, until he has a revenge wing thing.
• He's pretty good at maintaining momentum IMO but not very good at getting it, although this could be match-up dependent. One of his problems is that his neutral is really dependent on guessing correctly. He's great at stopping basically any kind of approach or poking at folks in the neutral but if the opponent guesses right they're in, and I don't think he's got a very good disadvantage state unless he has his third jump. You'd think with a sword as big as his he'd be better at covering more options, but he can really only cover one approach vector at a time. Short hop fair is all right, but you really have to be sure the opponent will be there when you throw it out.
• Up-b stall is bad and unsafe, and every Sephiroth needs to stop spamming it ><
• I'm not as sold on Side-b as some of you are because the range/speed is pitiful and getting it off doesn't really change the way the attacker needs to play the neutral unless he manages to stack a few orbs on you. With that said, I do think it's kind of nice for his disadvantage because it places a hard stop on the opponent, even if they land a grab, trading with shadow orb means there's a hard time limit on how long they're able to chase you down, which is good for a character who just really wants to get back the ground asap.
• Speaking of shadow orbs, I'm fairly sure you can time a spotdodge so they all miss you, but good luck doing it at the right time, lol.

 

[Kokiden]

I'm not sure how well he'll perform competitively, but I'm seeing a lot of people enjoying him at least.

It's been awhile since we've gotten a character that was universally praised and seems to be fun for a lot of people.

He's such a good addition. He might be my fav DLC, alongside Joker, or even above him.

If they don't buff him in the future, I hope they'll at least just leave him as is at the very least.

I haven't come across the usual "he's broken please nerf!" arguments yet thankfully.

 

[Iron Maw]

Also why doesn't his cou ter reflect projectiles? Maybe because people started complaining about all the reflectors added?
Also I wouldn't say sep is even a counter more like an armored attack or even focus

Oddly enough, while it can't reflect projectiles it can counter them and the opponent at same time around mid-range due it deceptively large hitbox. You can see it here at 3:34

Perhaps its because of how activates is why it doesn't reflect, but any case its not necessary for Seph it seems.

I agree that feels like less an counter than an armored attack.

 

[Kokiden]

Btw how do you guys do the nair short hop fast fall?

I used to be able to do it with Joker, but did they patch it or something? I'm doing the same thing with Sephiroth but it's not working.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Btw how do you guys do the nair short hop fast fall?

I used to be able to do it with Joker, but did they patch it or something? I'm doing the same thing with Sephiroth but it's not working.

I am not the best at it myself, but what you do is during your jumpsquat frames, input a neutral air. You could use the easy short hop attack mechanic the game has as well. The key is to input downwards at the peak of your shorthop in order to fastfall.

The timings are different with each character, which is probably how you managed to get it with Joker consistently but with no other character. This isn't the easiest thing to get down, but enough practice, you should be able to get it down more consistently.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I am noticing that my wing tends to stick around. I often get taken to like 80, OWA activates, and then I bulldoze through 3-4 stocks before I get taken down (I practice using Squad Strike, so 5 stocks since I do the 5-character one). My wing is there the entire time. I'm fine with Sephi's wing sticking around for a long time, but it doesn't seem like this is what was intended. I'm in favor of patching it out if this isn't what the devs intended.

 

[SwagGuy99]

So, after a few days, I have some early thoughts on Sephiroth:

• A lot of his moves feel just kind of OK to me. However, I don't really think he has many moves I would consider to be straight up bad outside of his grab, dash grab, pivot grab, and back throw. All of these moves feel fairly lackluster and don't really do much in the context of his kit and are still bad even if you want to rank them in a vacuum. His grab being bad is something I think is a little problematic since the reward he gets off of his up and down-throw are not that bad all things considered.
• A lot of his moves are susceptible to being low-profiled by characters like Kirby and Pikachu. Kirby's crouch based on my testing goes under Sephiroth's neutral-b, side-b, f-smash depending on the spacing, f-tilt unless angled down, up-smash, dash, pivot, and normal grabs, as well as f-air and b-air depending on the spacing. There are other smaller characters like Pikachu who might be able to get away with low profiling a lot of these moves somewhat consistently as well by pancaking using aerials or by crouching.
• Sephiroth's side-b is really good. It's fairly non-committal to throw out, a lot of projectiles seem to be unable to properly clank with it, and it gives him potential openings he can exploit. If the opponent they have a lot of ways to deal with it: shielding, grabbing ledge, rolling, spotdodging, throwing out an invincible option, or choosing to be hit by it. However, almost all of these options should be punishable by Sephiroth if he reads the opponent well, and even if he doesn't get a punish, he doesn't lose anything by throwing out that move unless it is low profiled and punished by someone like Kirby or if it's reflected back at him/absorbed.
• Neutral-b isn't all too great but it has it's uses. It's too reactable and slow to be good in neutral or as an approach option. It also can be stopped by a lot of projectiles, but like Lucas's PK Fire, it will still create an explosion hitbox that deals damage to the opponent if you stop it in that way. The projectile does have a good hitbox though and using it uncharged or half charged at ledge to force the opponent to pick an option that Sephiroth can punish is pretty good.
• His back air is really good for stopping characters like Mario who struggle against disjoints and slower characters like Ganondorf from approaching if spaced properly. Also really good against opponents recovering high.
• Sephiroth's close range options are terrible. His only good options at close range are probably his jab (only because it's fast), down-tilt, up-tilt (when hitting from the front), and neutral air. Sephiroth's options to deal with characters who have strong CQC like Kirby, Luigi, or Sheik are not good at all.
• Neutral air is amazing. Frame 9, good hitbox, safe on shield, and sets up into f-air or itself at certain percents. Potentially his best move.
• F-tilt is also pretty good when spaced properly, although it's speed and endlag make it extremely punishable when it misses. It's no Belmont f-tilt, but it's also pretty good.
• F-smash, down-smash, and jab seem to lack utility compared to a lot of other moves.
• Counter is fairly good when it works. The knockback on it when it counters a move feels surprisingly strong at higher percents and is very capable of killing, even if it counters a weaker move. The extra hit even if it misses is nice, but he probably won't ever be killing with it. However, like K. Rools, it does leave him open from behind so that's definitely holding the move back a bit.
• Up-b is really good. It's fairly strong and has good range which makes it a fairly safe recovery option (except against moves like Nikita or Luigi z-air but those are few and far between) and while the distance it travels isn't amazing, it can get the job done.
• Winged form is good. He's a bit stronger and faster with it active and the smash attack armor and extra jump are nice, but overall, I don't think this is a huge game changer for him. It just makes him a bit better at the things he already does.
• His OOS game is not very good. This along with his poor CQC options makes his ability to deal with fighters at close range even worse than it otherwise would be if his OOS game was better.

Overall, his kit is solid but his lack of solid close range options and good OOS options feels like it definitely is something that will be exploited hard by certain characters. At the current moment he feels like he could potentially be the second or third best DLC in terms of viability with only Joker and potentially Terry being better than him. My initial guess is that he's a lower high tier but could potentially be a bit higher or lower as people explore his kit more or find easier ways to exploit his weaknesses.

I think he might do pretty well against characters like who struggle against characters with disjoints significantly larger than their own. These are characters all feel like they'll struggle to approach him, and in the case of Rosalina it also feels like Sephiroth will be very good at getting rid of Luma as well.

Characters I think he'll struggle against based on early impressions are . Most of these are fast characters who can play hard to hit against him and I think they will definitely end up being problematic for him in the long run. Kirby might seem like a weird choice here (it probably is) but his ability to play hard to hit low to the ground while also overwhelming Sephiroth with fast moves at close range seems very good. I think Pit and Dark Pit's arrows being good against Sephiroth from a distance as well as the fact that their moves are both disjointed and fast will be good against this character. We'll see though, I think some of these might not be as bad for Sephiroth as they seem now.

 

[Flon]

I think his counter is being overlooked by a lot of people. Sure, it has some unique properties that make it a little strange to get used to... but the detection hitbox and range of this thing makes it incredible in situations, and almost too generous for hitting recoveries. This isn't just a typical counter.

My thoughts on Sephiroth are similar to those I had back in Smash 4 when Mewtwo first started to get buffs. There was still a lot of pessimism that a character with such lightweight and assumed low tier status could actually be good, but ended up getting too wound up in comparisons and judgements when in reality the character had a lot of abusable aspects that they didn't yet consider.

This is a character with generous ground and air mobility, including a really good short hop. He controls space like very few, yet doesn't have to rely on just swinging to maintain that space like Byleth, yet he's also able to bully shield so easily that the typical patient, defensive approach just doesn't work like you're used to. He's a character that has options that help against ledgetrapping which is really rare for a character archetype like him. He's strong as buggery and has DI mix-ups all over the place. And he has good combos to get you off stage. And a projectile that forces reaction from your opponent?

I hear that people want him to have less ending lag, but alongside his already great mobility and power, you'd want to return your copy of the game by the end of the month.

I'm not saying he's top tier or lacking flaws, he's not an easy character and I think he's more-so going to be a wildcard. I just think his traits are already so polarizingly strong that people writing him off or wishing for buffs don't exactly know what they want right now.

 

[Cheryl~]

If you guys want to watch some early Sephiroth tournament footage, go to the Twitch channel metaview and look at their recent vod of Get Clipped. Sharp, a very good player both online and offline, went solo Sephiroth for the tournament and got 2nd out of over 400 entrants, beating notable players like ChunkyKong.

if anything, watching it should show the potential of his grab setups, particularly with IDJ B-Air.

 

[Gleam]

The community really needs to stop demanding buffs for everyone and start trying to implement competition beyond the typical norm. There's a huge variety you can do in this game and each one has its own potential for competitive play through proper regulation.

1.) Doubles
2.) Stamina
3.) 3ForAll
4.)4ForAll
5.) Spirit Specific
6.) King of Fighters

We've had doubles implemented so its not like we aren't capable of doing something past our safe bubble, but people want buffs merely to appease a small part of this game, when you should be trying out many aspects of the game to see where your character fits. Then afterwards you can see about getting buffs if you find out that nowhere is working.

It is said that is quite good in "Doubles", "Free For Alls" and "King of Fighters." If that's true, that's 3 things Ganondorf could be a true 'A' tier beast, but instead you all want him to be good in the one thing he, by literal game design, is meant to be bad at.

Stamina Mode would be a great new implementation of competitive smash, one where you could implement the same ideologies of 1v1 and stage legality as before. The difference here is that, defeats would be based damage ratio and not necessarily knockback or off stage capabilities. You might find characters like doing well here. Afterall if you can diminish the significant weakness a character has, that gives them a great benefit within a match.

in the past was infamous for her atrocious lack of kill power. All of that problem is utterly gone in Stamina mode, now it's just about actually hitting your opponent, something Bayo is actually good at.

And hey, there's no problem with a 1v1 match on PS2 or whatever. There are surely characters who will do better in that environment than they would in the ones mentioned above. But this singular expression of Smash isn't helping anyone, nor the actual viability of the characters. You're missing out on a lot of potential and no amount of high ceilings, walls, curves, etc. should ever stop you from regulating and exploring the variety of what Smash can offer.

Because if you're waiting for the day gets Joker's Frame Data, you might be waiting a long time.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Because if you're waiting for the day gets Joker's Frame Data, you might be waiting a long time.

's frame data is on-par, if not better then 's...

We already do Doubles, and the other rulesets aren't likely to happen for reasons multiple people have said years ago...

 

[Idon]

The community really needs to stop demanding buffs for everyone and start trying to implement competition beyond the typical norm. There's a huge variety you can do in this game and each one has its own potential for competitive play through proper regulation.

1.) Doubles
2.) Stamina
3.) 3ForAll
4.)4ForAll
5.) Spirit Specific
6.) King of Fighters

We've had doubles implemented so its not like we aren't capable of doing something past our safe bubble, but people want buffs merely to appease a small part of this game, when you should be trying out many aspects of the game to see where your character fits. Then afterwards you can see about getting buffs if you find out that nowhere is working.

It is said that is quite good in "Doubles", "Free For Alls" and "King of Fighters." If that's true, that's 3 things Ganondorf could be a true 'A' tier beast, but instead you all want him to be good in the one thing he, by literal game design, is meant to be bad at.

Stamina Mode would be a great new implementation of competitive smash, one where you could implement the same ideologies of 1v1 and stage legality as before. The difference here is that, defeats would be based damage ratio and not necessarily knockback or off stage capabilities. You might find characters like doing well here. Afterall if you can diminish the significant weakness a character has, that gives them a great benefit within a match.

in the past was infamous for her atrocious lack of kill power. All of that problem is utterly gone in Stamina mode, now it's just about actually hitting your opponent, something Bayo is actually good at.

And hey, there's no problem with a 1v1 match on PS2 or whatever. There are surely characters who will do better in that environment than they would in the ones mentioned above. But this singular expression of Smash isn't helping anyone, nor the actual viability of the characters. You're missing out on a lot of potential and no amount of high ceilings, walls, curves, etc. should ever stop you from regulating and exploring the variety of what Smash can offer.

Because if you're waiting for the day gets Joker's Frame Data, you might be waiting a long time.

As soon as you find an audience for people that want to play and watch everything beyond 1 feel free to complain about how people aren't adjusting their perspective on the primarily played competitive game-mode.

 

[Thinkaman]

My assumption is that we aren't getting balance changes in 10.1.0 or w/e, though I'd be happy to be surprised:

• Surely all updates to the game engine itself would have shipped with Sephiroth; why would the code be forked? It's one thing to flip a switch making content available, but we're talking about nontrivial code changes.
• There were no bundles of balance changes with Banjo, who as it happened was the 3rd FP1 DLC.
• We haven't gotten a replay invalidation notification.

The community really needs to stop demanding buffs for everyone and start trying to implement competition beyond the typical norm. There's a huge variety you can do in this game and each one has its own potential for competitive play through proper regulation.

1.) Doubles
2.) Stamina
3.) 3ForAll
4.)4ForAll
5.) Spirit Specific
6.) King of Fighters

We've had doubles implemented so its not like we aren't capable of doing something past our safe bubble, but people want buffs merely to appease a small part of this game, when you should be trying out many aspects of the game to see where your character fits. Then afterwards you can see about getting buffs if you find out that nowhere is working.

It is said that is quite good in "Doubles", "Free For Alls" and "King of Fighters." If that's true, that's 3 things Ganondorf could be a true 'A' tier beast, but instead you all want him to be good in the one thing he, by literal game design, is meant to be bad at.

Stamina Mode would be a great new implementation of competitive smash, one where you could implement the same ideologies of 1v1 and stage legality as before. The difference here is that, defeats would be based damage ratio and not necessarily knockback or off stage capabilities. You might find characters like doing well here. Afterall if you can diminish the significant weakness a character has, that gives them a great benefit within a match.

in the past was infamous for her atrocious lack of kill power. All of that problem is utterly gone in Stamina mode, now it's just about actually hitting your opponent, something Bayo is actually good at.

And hey, there's no problem with a 1v1 match on PS2 or whatever. There are surely characters who will do better in that environment than they would in the ones mentioned above. But this singular expression of Smash isn't helping anyone, nor the actual viability of the characters. You're missing out on a lot of potential and no amount of high ceilings, walls, curves, etc. should ever stop you from regulating and exploring the variety of what Smash can offer.

Because if you're waiting for the day gets Joker's Frame Data, you might be waiting a long time.

Your main point is correct, important, and overlooked far too often.

I'm going to nit-pick your examples though. Stamina in particular is not that great, at least in terms of competitive potential. There's a long list of reasons that could be discussed, but I'm not sure anyone cares to--as both a player and moderator I would much rather continuing to talk about Sephiroth than the limitations of Stamina mode.

FFA formats are even more irrelevant. I talk about this a lot in my game design talks, arguably the most overarching trichotomy of games:

• Single-party (single-player, co-op, PvE)
• Two-party aka "Competitive" (1v1, teams, PvP)
• Multi-party aka "Political" (FFA)

Most people understand intuitively how a competitive game is fundamentally, at the deepest level, different from a single-player or co-op game. However, differences between competitive games and political games seem to elude people.

Some games can be played in either competitive or political contexts pretty seemlessly, just as some games can be played in a single-player or multi-player context seemlessly. Some games even provide for rapid transitions between cooperative and competitive/political gameplay; NSMBU and Four Swords come to mind as Nintendo examples. But make no mistake: This is a trichotomy, and a game simple cannot somehow be both at once. Just as a single competing adversay makes any games unquestionably competitive, a single drop of politics (a third adversary and any mechanism that interacts with other players differently) turns any competition irredeemibly political.

You can't have a FFA tournament, not in sense of a "competitive" event as the title of this subforum is labeled. Any such charade would devolve immediately into a political agreement between the top players, and politics are far less interesting in the real world than the seven kingdoms.

Twice I found myself in a FFA tournament. In one, in which 2 advance each round, I teamed up with the weakest player in my first game and made sure to eliminate the others first; he would be easiest to beat at the end, and was never enough of a threat that the others ever teamed up against us. In the other, I planked and openly vowed to exclusively go after the first person to damage me. Both were the easiest and least fun Smash events I ever did.

To be clear, I am not saying FFA is bad. I am saying that trying to pretend FFA is a competitive game mode is like trying to pretend that your poodle is deisel ice cream; it doesn't even make sense as a series of concepts.

A better list of alternative competitive modes/factors might be:

• 2v2
• 3v3
• 4v4
• Squad Strike
• Unusual Stages
• Spirits-on
• Items-on
• Smashdown
• Special Smash options (really getting out on a limb at this point)

Time mode also exists as a relevant factor, but it mostly applies to FFA and has few positive implications (and lots of bad ones) for competitive play.

Personally, I think 2v2 and Squad Strike are the #1 and #2 competitive game modes, both beating out ordinary 1v1. But that's just me.

 

[NotLiquid]

My assumption is that we aren't getting balance changes in 10.1.0 or w/e, though I'd be happy to be surprised:

• Surely all updates to the game engine itself would have shipped with Sephiroth; why would the code be forked? It's one thing to flip a switch making content available, but we're talking about nontrivial code changes.

While I don't necessarily disagree, they did see fit to, for whatever reason, split things like Cloud's new Final Smash into the coming update, and Sephiroth himself in 10.0.0 is considered an "early access" release, implying that they're treating him in isolation. His official release was still announced as the 22nd and much like previous releases they gave enough of an advance notice for that, plus they technically release each update with a notice that replays might not work so who knows, might be enough for 'em this time.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The way that this works, is that us having Sephiroth right now is technically early access before the official release, which is two days from now.

Patch 10.0, the one released at December 17th contained:

• The Sephiroth Challenge
• Sephiroth + Northern Cave + New FF Music
• Sephiroth's Classic mode route
• Various bug fixes

Patch 10.1, the one that will be out at December 22nd, the TRUE release date of Sephiroth, would contain:

• Final Fantasy DLC spirits
• Round 8 of Mii Fighter DLC costumes
• New AC Cloud Final Smash animation
• Fighter adjustments

 

[StrangeKitten]

Also seems like Alph/Olimar got a lot of fixes. Here's Dabuz's video on it:

So yeah, I expect we'll see more adjustments. Save those replays before they're gone!

 

[Rizen]

It is said that is quite good in "Doubles", "Free For Alls" and "King of Fighters." If that's true, that's 3 things Ganondorf could be a true 'A' tier beast, but instead you all want him to be good in the one thing he, by literal game design, is meant to be bad at.

That's not really true. Sad to say Ganon's pretty bad all around. He might be a little better in those modes but there are much better characters :/ I can go into more detail if anyone cares.
PS Yes, I have played him in all those except KoF- idk what that is.

 

[StrangeKitten]

That's not really true. Sad to say Ganon's pretty bad all around. He might be a little better in those modes but there are much better characters :/ I can go into more detail if anyone cares.
PS Yes, I have played him in all those except KoF- idk what that is.

KoF would be the King of Fighters stage - y'know, the one that's a walkoff but with the destroyable walls on the sides? Makes for a very fun side event kind of stage

But yeah, I agree that there's no reason Ganondorf can't be given some buffs. I don't think he's the best character in doubles or FFAs or anything. Heck, look at Joker, whose Arsene meter fills up if his teammate gets hit in doubles. He's in the running for best character in the game, and he's still allowed to be even stronger in doubles. Don't see why Ganondorf can't get a kill throw or two and a nair that links consistently.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I am noticing that my wing tends to stick around. I often get taken to like 80, OWA activates, and then I bulldoze through 3-4 stocks before I get taken down (I practice using Squad Strike, so 5 stocks since I do the 5-character one). My wing is there the entire time. I'm fine with Sephi's wing sticking around for a long time, but it doesn't seem like this is what was intended. I'm in favor of patching it out if this isn't what the devs intended.

I don't think it's a glitch personally, but rather that the wing stays up when Sephiroth's still in a significant disadvantage when comparing percentages in gane. I haven't done any research nor did I see if anyone else did, but I've noticed that when OWA's still up after I take a stock, I'm usually at like 120% or something and that the stocks are equal.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I don't think it's a glitch personally, but rather that the wing stays up when Sephiroth's still in a significant disadvantage when comparing percentages in gane. I haven't done any research nor did I see if anyone else did, but I've noticed that when OWA's still up after I take a stock, I'm usually at like 120% or something and that the stocks are equal.

But it tends to just stay there. I'll get to a higher percentage than my opponent, but our stock count is the same. OWA activates. Makes sense so far. But then I KO them, so now I have a stock lead but my wing stays. Then I KO the next opponent, wing still doesn't disappear. That's what I'm talking about. It didn't seem like they intended for it to work this way.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

But it tends to just stay there. I'll get to a higher percentage than my opponent, but our stock count is the same. OWA activates. Makes sense so far. But then I KO them, so now I have a stock lead but my wing stays. Then I KO the next opponent, wing still doesn't disappear. That's what I'm talking about. It didn't seem like they intended for it to work this way.

Ok yeah that's likely unintentional but I think my theory's still a possible explanation for why OWA disappearing is so inconsistent

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think Sephiroth's movesets are pretty good.

They're not safe to do though.

It'd be great if they reduced startup and end lag but I highly doubt it. I think these 2 alone are going to make him not great viability wise.

I remember Leffen saying he thinks seohiroth seems designed for competitive play but I just don't see it unfortunately.

I hoped Sephiroth would be amazing as **** since it's freaking Sephiroth, but I think the honeymoon phase is cooling already and some can already see that he's just ok.

Just fought an amazing captain falcon player in elite. I couldn't even react or do anything because he's too slow.

You lost with a character you can barely play.

Relax.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

But yeah, I agree that there's no reason Ganondorf can't be given some buffs. I don't think he's the best character in doubles or FFAs or anything. Heck, look at Joker, whose Arsene meter fills up if his teammate gets hit in doubles. He's in the running for best character in the game, and he's still allowed to be even stronger in doubles. Don't see why Ganondorf can't get a kill throw or two and a nair that links consistently.

It's safe to say Ganon will never get the mobility or recovery buffs he needs to be truly viable...

Despite that, it's still very disappointing that his moveset rarely gets touched.

He's got a few great moves, yeah.
But the rest range from slightly above average to downright awful...

-Many of his quickest moves have narrow hitboxes
-Nair's linking issues
-Foward & Up Smash blindspots (Although they're not common)
-His slow and short grab range
-D-Throw combos that stop working pass low-mid %'s
-Lack of any reliable kill throws
-Lack of reliable confirms from Flame Choke
-Ganoncide can be mashed out of and kills Ganon 1st
-Tech Checking (RC)
-Lack of good/reliable shield break set ups

Etc...

Honestly, a few QoL changes could put him in that fun mid-tier spot with someone like .

 

[NotLiquid]

And there we go.

【お知らせ】
明後日12月23日(水)に更新データVer. 10.1を配信します。更新すると、それまで保存していたリプレイが再生できなくなる場合がありますのでご注意ください。残したいリプレイがある場合、「コレクション」→「リプレイ」→「リプレイデータ」→「動画にする」で動画に変換してください。

— 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ【スマブラ公式】 (@SmashBrosJP) December 21, 2020

Replay alert, balance changes are most likely en route.

 

[Kokiden]

You lost with a character you can barely play.

Relax.

He's still slow.

I'm fine. Stop assuming I'm angry.

 

[Firox]

Sephiroth is a bafflingly balanced character.

This a character with a large hurtbox, extremely low weight, AND awful frame data and inconsistent damage? His only real pro (besides OWA form) is that his range is huge and his damage is occasionally good if you land his sweetspots, which you usually don't. On top of all of these weakness, a lot of his hitboxes don't even function right, namely his usmash and grabs.

I know it's too soon to ask for buffs, but I really think they should increase the damage and kill power of his tipper attacks on his horizontal swings (why punish the player for spacing), increase his weight, and fix his grab and usmash hitboxes. His uair, ftilt, and usmash are already extremely slow and laggy moves, why do they also need to never kill with most of their hitboxes?

Totally agree with you. Sephiroth is honestly the first DLC character I've ever played that after about 10 hours of training have come to the conclusion that he actually needs buffs. That's not to say he can't do some serious damage in the right hands, but competitively speaking, he could use a couple tweaks.

EDIT: I realize this is only an early first impression and that Sephiroth's metagame is still pretty young for actual balance changes. That said, he just doesn't feel OP out the gate like Joker, Terry or Min Min did within the first week of their release.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Oh, because it was mentioned earlier, on the notion of worst counters in the game, that honor would go to either Ike or Lucario. The former's being slower than Witch Time for frankly terrible risk/reward, and the latter.....well, it's just really bad.