Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rizen]

To go into this discussion, lets talk about most efficient kill confirms. Was anyone able to look into the data more? seems like he has an amazing kill option with UTilt at F3.

is in my top 5. Not only for kill confirms but his pressure and burst options in general.

The more I learn about the less killing becomes a problem. He can confirm smashes off Fair1 and Bair1. Late Nair>jab lock>Fsmash. Bomb/close range boomerang>Usmash/Fair/Dair. Dtilt>Fair/Dair. And chain aerials off uncharged arrows. As players get more efficient optimizing combos for the right %s I see YL getting better, to a point, as time goes on. Not saying he's top 5 though.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Fox is definitely Top Tier, I agree there. He’s got options, crazy movement, kills relatively early, and can straight up oppress with combos. He seems even better than in 4. Definitely one of the best characters.

Young Link is also still really good, it’s weird how absent he is recently though. Feel like he’s better overall than Link, but not sure about Toon Link because I feel Toon Link is slept on massively.

Still think Diddy isn’t half bad. People just need to adapt to him more. It’s crazy how they buffed the range of the banana now. Played a little Smash 3DS yesterday and that was the first thing I noticed. Also noticed how you really can’t compare the two meta games, and how floaty and slow the game plays compared to Ultimate. Anyway regarding Diddy, he’s still strong but needs a dedicated main top player, and seeing how he wasn’t exactly popular even when it was straight up obvious he was Top Tier, am thinking he’s the ultimate sleepers pick.

 

[Allkings]

i know we can't judge but what do you think of piranha plant? Since from datamining we know that he has rob's speed (on the side note who make the official tier list?)

 

[Planty]

i know we can't judge but what do you think of piranha plant? Since from datamining we know that he has rob's speed (on the side note who make the official tier list?)

Piranha Plant actually has surprisingly good jumps and fall speed:
https://mobile.twitter.com/_Mizumi/status/1082078704619134982
I can imagine him being a very threatening edgeguarder with the great dair and long distance recovery. Overall however, he seems pretty underwhelming, especially when you look at his landing lag, which makes me question why he has good vertical mobility. It's impossible to say how good he actually is though since we dont even know his full moveset yet nor how his moves interact with other moves and how they link into each other.

Also on that note: Joker seems surprisingly slow, but still decently fast, but has an absolutely awful double jump. Hopefully he has a good up-b or he's gonna be dead offstage.
https://mobile.twitter.com/_Mizumi/status/1082066073871179776
Edit for clarification: Joker still looks fast, but overall less mobile than I would have imagined.

 

[NotLiquid]

Piranha Plant actually has surprisingly good jumps and fall speed:
https://mobile.twitter.com/_Mizumi/status/1082078704619134982
I can imagine him being a very threatening edgeguarder with the great dair and long distance recovery. Overall however, he seems pretty underwhelming, especially when you look at his landing lag, which makes me question why he has good vertical mobility. It's impossible to say how good he actually is though since we dont even know his full moveset yet nor how his moves interact with other moves and how they link into each other.

Also on that note: Joker seems surprisingly slow, but still decently fast, but has an absolutely awful double jump. Hopefully he has a good up-b or he's gonna be dead offstage.
https://mobile.twitter.com/_Mizumi/status/1082066073871179776

Joker is the ninth fastest character in the game, I don't know what about that is just "decent" or "surprisingly slow".

 

[Kellojolly]

Joker is the ninth fastest character in the game, I don't know what about that is just "decent" or "surprisingly slow".

Same but from the clip, he looks a lot slower than I expected him to look. And very floaty. I’d love to his other data at this point here haha.

 

[J0eyboi]

Same but from the clip, he looks a lot slower than I expected him to look. And very floaty.

If I'm reading the files correctly, he has higher gravity than Greninja, so idk why you think he looks floaty.

Also speculating about these numbers is pointless because none of them are necessarily final. We've likely got another 2 and a half months before Joker releases, which is a lot of time to change things.

 

[BunbUn129]

The difference between a good and great character in this game comes down to OoS options. Hitting buttons is so good in this game that having a strong OoS punish (and one that doesn't live and die on your ability to parry) is paramount to success. Your character may be able to camp, combo, move, and edge-guard well but if your OoS options are lacking, all your attributes come to naught whenever you're forced on the defensive. Think Meta Knight, Falcon, Greninja and ZSS who are good characters whose gameplans fall apart when they have to deal with good shield pressure.

Again, this ties into why I think Fox is the best character. His grab game was never a selling point, he doesn't really care about the shield-grab nerf. Having the best up smash disrupts the dynamic of the game which tends to favor the attacking player. I'm sure every character can pull off some dirty punishes off of a parry, but hitting Fox's shield at 80-100%+ (depending on weight) is scary regardless of his ability to parry. A really good jab and nair round off his defensive game when up smash won't kill yet. What makes this even more absurd is that this character already has one of the most suffocating offenses.

The ability to punish OoS reliably and consistently is going to play a deciding role in viability. These options are now at a premium.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think I can agree with Fox being the best character, if not he's at least Top 5 now. My other guesses are Palutena, Inkling, Snake, Peach and Pichu. Then come the FE swordies, and that could round up Top Tier I feel. Maybe Olimar and Cloud belong there as well. The likes of Greninja, Pokemon Trainer and Pikachu seem to fall short compared to them, but still better than the rest unmentioned.

Then come a few characters I feel are quite strong, but not quite Top Tier, as; Donkey Kong, Ryu / Ken, Shulk, the Links, Mewtwo, Ness, Lucas, Diddy Kong, Wolf, Wario, Bowser and Yoshi.

 

[J0eyboi]

The difference between a good and great character in this game comes down to OoS options. Hitting buttons is so good in this game that having a strong OoS punish (and one that doesn't live and die on your ability to parry) is paramount to success. Your character may be able to camp, combo, move, and edge-guard well but if your OoS options are lacking, all your attributes come to naught whenever you're forced on the defensive. Think Meta Knight, Falcon, Greninja and ZSS who are good characters whose gameplans fall apart when they have to deal with good shield pressure.

Again, this ties into why I think Fox is the best character. His grab game was never a selling point, he doesn't really care about the shield-grab nerf. Having the best up smash disrupts the dynamic of the game which tends to favor the attacking player. I'm sure every character can pull off some dirty punishes off of a parry, but hitting Fox's shield at 80-100%+ (depending on weight) is scary regardless of his ability to parry. A really good jab and nair round off his defensive game when up smash won't kill yet. What makes this even more absurd is that this character already has one of the most suffocating offenses.

The ability to punish OoS reliably and consistently is going to play a deciding role in viability. These options are now at a premium.

I don't see it. The ability to punish poorly spaced moves is always nice, but even Fox can't punish a lot of well-spaced buttons. Combined with the fact that dash-to-shield sucks in this game and shieldpokes run rampant, shielding isn't a strong enough option for OoS options to matter that much. Having good ones is nice, but not anything close to character-defining. Even with Fox, I'm more scared of him calling out my movement with Usmash than hitting me with it OoS.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Shield is indeed more risky to use this time, lots of attacks are quite safe on shield. Especially swords and other disjointed attacks. Still, the option to attack OoS is great to have, and OoS could also be interpreted as Out Of Parry. And that's definitely a plus. In general, having good buttons is way more rewarding now than ever, and Parry / Perfect Shield helps with this tremendously as there aren't many attacks you can safely do besides jab after you parried a attack due to lingering hitboxes, multihits, the fact the enemy also has fast options... before I would always opt for grabs in these situations, especially as Diddy, but I feel my rewards are much greater if I just choose to jab instead.

Fox is still crazy though. Personally I think Inklings are better, but Fox is definitely up there.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I dunno about being top 5. Maybe even top 10. Yes I know she has improved greatly from Smash 4, in the fact she actullay feels like a compelte, functional character now , but I think it all may have been slightly overhyped. Palu still has a lot of her old issues. She still has poor CQC and Oos options, so very fast/mobile characters that can easily apply pressure and juggle can give her a very hard time. are a few notable examples. Palutena is still very good, maybe top 15ish. but I think she may fall off a bit

 

[Nobie]

Mewtwo started Smash 4 with a frame 7 fair, which then got buffed to frame 6.

In Ultimate, it's back to Frame 7, I suspect to offset the frame 3 jump squat. Still, I wonder if we'll see history repeat itself.

The character never had great out of shield options in the first place, so one might think that players are familiar with this drawback, but I do wonder how much it's messing players up.

 

[LightLV]

The more I play them the more i feel it

and might be the worst characters in this game

 

[NotLiquid]

It's sort of hard to imagine Fox being the best character when he's essentially just a roided version of what he was in Smash 4 - and I mean that in the most warts-and-all sense. He's still explosive under the new engine, but he has the survivability of a twig now, and he doesn't even have the advantage Pichu has of having a great recovery move that can mixup opponents. In fact, the only reason I believe Inkling might run an even matchup against him in what should be a total stomp in Fox's favor is because his recovery and overall survivability is just that bad.

If he ends up being the best, it's going to be by virtue of every other character that was above him just getting more nerfed than he did, and other character buffs being overstated.

 

[trickroom]

All the supposed top tiers of this game all have have notable flaws that their advantages can't overrule.

What are Inklings’ ‘notable flaws’?

 

[J0eyboi]

What are Inklings’ ‘notable flaws’?

Bad kill options, mediocre disadvantage.

In particular, their landing options are pretty bad, and they don't have great options off the ledge. Also they don't have very good ground moves.

 

[MG_3989]

It's sort of hard to imagine Fox being the best character when he's essentially just a roided version of what he was in Smash 4 - and I mean that in the most warts-and-all sense. He's still explosive under the new engine, but he has the survivability of a twig now, and he doesn't even have the advantage Pichu has of having a great recovery move that can mixup opponents. In fact, the only reason I believe Inkling might run an even matchup against him in what should be a total stomp in Fox's favor is because his recovery and overall survivability is just that bad.

If he ends up being the best, it's going to be by virtue of every other character that was above him just getting more nerfed than he did, and other character buffs being overstated.

I understand where you’re coming from but I think it’s cancelled out by the fact that he’s so explosive. Sure he’s light and doesn’t have the best recovery but when he can come back and take a stock off in 20 seconds how much does that matter?

It’s like the saying in sports the best defense is a good offense

 

[Diddy Kong]

Mewtwo started Smash 4 with a frame 7 fair, which then got buffed to frame 6.

In Ultimate, it's back to Frame 7, I suspect to offset the frame 3 jump squat. Still, I wonder if we'll see history repeat itself.

The character never had great out of shield options in the first place, so one might think that players are familiar with this drawback, but I do wonder how much it's messing players up.

Jab out of parry is great however, builds up great damage. F Tilt is also great for keeping enemies at bay, something old D Tilt never could. I still think people are selling Mewtwo short honestly. In anyway, I prefer actually playing the neutral over abusing the engine with 134972834 airdodges.

 

[Rizen]

I think I can agree with Fox being the best character, if not he's at least Top 5 now. My other guesses are Palutena, Inkling, Snake, Peach and Pichu. Then come the FE swordies, and that could round up Top Tier I feel. Maybe Olimar and Cloud belong there as well. The likes of Greninja, Pokemon Trainer and Pikachu seem to fall short compared to them, but still better than the rest unmentioned.

Then come a few characters I feel are quite strong, but not quite Top Tier, as; Donkey Kong, Ryu / Ken, Shulk, the Links, Mewtwo, Ness, Lucas, Diddy Kong, Wolf, Wario, Bowser and Yoshi.

That sounds good. My top and high tiers would be (great smashboards decides not to load the character icons properly when I'm doing this ):
//
/
Unordered within tiers. Heavily influenced by results. Following high mid tiers would include DK, Yoshi and Link.

Spoiler: Explanations

Top:
is just stupidly good in every way: weight, great boxing, Utilt for kills, Nikita, etc. amazing mobility, frame data and move set. Even though his weight probably puts him on the lower end of top tier. really strong specials and great frame data make them thrive all around. best pressure and burst game with great killing potential and recovery. (parred with Daisy) suffocates opponents and has great intercepting with turnips that works really well in this engine. / Probably the best sword zoning. TBH IDK enough about what Marth can do with sourspots so I'm grouping them together. is just better than Roy, no grouping them together. He's fast and his upB kamikaze is really stupid.
High:
works really well with the engine. Her projectiles are laggy and her buttons are slow so she doesn't make top cut. She can be very oppressive but has issues I think will be exploited in the future. just works really well with the engine. Bthrow's dump OP as ever. PK fire's a great zoning projectile and thunder's great for harassment offstage. He might even be top tier but I've heard he has trouble with swords.'s damage wracking is insane and his power is good. He doesn't have the stage presence of say chrom or Peach. Has great mobility with a big sword. His buttons aren't as oppressive as say Lucina's but still very strong. swapping its self is a great f1 invincible move and allows other pokemon to cover another's weaknesses. has top tier results but I feel like he's getting away with more than he should. Wolf needs to fish for kill moves and his recovery is bad. Still very oppressive in neutral with strong attacks. has all Chrom's great stats but needs to hit closer and his upB, although with more distance, isn't threatening offstage. gets over shadowed by Pichu but still has great mobility, annoying spam, recovery, intercepting etc. has top tier results; maybe he should be in top tier. It's heavy, has good projectiles and is very oppressive offstage. It just doesn't feel as oppressive as say Peach or Snake./ their big weakness is recovering but they make up for it with incredible ledge trapping. Even though they have long reaching whips for zoning, they have a standard f5 swordsman jab and a burst Dtilt. He combines Link's amazing landing game and with projectile zoning. YL has great combos off several buttons. He's brought down by a f6 jab being his fastest ground attack and being a lightweight. On the low end of high tier. IDK a lot about him but think he's losing out in popularity due to YL and Link being fresh. TL is very solid in zoning and has better stats than YL so I can't see him being far below. 's getting results. He's fast enough to space and rush anyone.'s at the top of high tier. Waft is a powerful "clutch factor" that puts him above Yoshi. His mobility and staying power work really well with this engine. has Nair combos, a f4 GTFO jab that's above average for a swordsman, good weight and a long recovery.'s kind of like a more versatile, toned down Fox.

 

[MG_3989]

Jab out of parry is great however, builds up great damage. F Tilt is also great for keeping enemies at bay, something old D Tilt never could. I still think people are selling Mewtwo short honestly. In anyway, I prefer actually playing the neutral over abusing the engine with 134972834 airdodges.

I think people are going to surprise with Mewtwo at tournaments due to his edgeguarding and combo options in neutral. He has to be played in a very patient way but I see no reason he can’t be successful to an extent in this game. Yeah he has a lot of weaknesses but with the importance of edgeguarding in this game I can’t see him being completely irrelevant

 

[meleebrawler]

That sounds good. My top and high tiers would be (great smashboards decides not to load the character icons properly when I'm doing this ):
//
/
Unordered within tiers. Heavily influenced by results. Following high mid tiers would include DK, Yoshi and Link.

Spoiler: Explanations

Top:
is just stupidly good in every way: weight, great boxing, Utilt for kills, Nikita, etc. amazing mobility, frame data and move set. Even though his weight probably puts him on the lower end of top tier. really strong specials and great frame data make them thrive all around. best pressure and burst game with great killing potential and recovery. (parred with Daisy) suffocates opponents and has great intercepting with turnips that works really well in this engine. / Probably the best sword zoning. TBH IDK enough about what Marth can do with sourspots so I'm grouping them together. is just better than Roy, no grouping them together. He's fast and his upB kamikaze is really stupid.
High:
works really well with the engine. Her projectiles are laggy and her buttons are slow so she doesn't make top cut. She can be very oppressive but has issues I think will be exploited in the future. just works really well with the engine. Bthrow's dump OP as ever. PK fire's a great zoning projectile and thunder's great for harassment offstage. He might even be top tier but I've heard he has trouble with swords.'s damage wracking is insane and his power is good. He doesn't have the stage presence of say chrom or Peach. Has great mobility with a big sword. His buttons aren't as oppressive as say Lucina's but still very strong. swapping its self is a great f1 invincible move and allows other pokemon to cover another's weaknesses. has top tier results but I feel like he's getting away with more than he should. Wolf needs to fish for kill moves and his recovery is bad. Still very oppressive in neutral with strong attacks. has all Chrom's great stats but needs to hit closer and his upB, although with more distance, isn't threatening offstage. gets over shadowed by Pichu but still has great mobility, annoying spam, recovery, intercepting etc. has top tier results; maybe he should be in top tier. It's heavy, has good projectiles and is very oppressive offstage. It just doesn't feel as oppressive as say Peach or Snake./ their big weakness is recovering but they make up for it with incredible ledge trapping. Even though they have long reaching whips for zoning, they have a standard f5 swordsman jab and a burst Dtilt. He combines Link's amazing landing game and with projectile zoning. YL has great combos off several buttons. He's brought down by a f6 jab being his slowest ground attack and being a lightweight. IDK a lot about him but think he's losing out in popularity due to YL and Link being fresh. TL is very solid in zoning and has better stats than YL so I can't see him being far below. 's getting results. He's fast enough to space and rush anyone.'s at the top of high tier. Waft is a powerful "clutch factor" that puts him above Yoshi. His mobility and staying power work really well with this engine. has Nair combos, a f4 GTFO jab that's above average for a swordsman, good weight and a long recovery.'s kind of like a more versatile, toned down Fox.

Interesting opinion on the Belmonts; last time they were discussed here the general sentiment was low due to theoretically getting walked all over by fast characters who dance around their tools, narrow hitboxes and frame data and then subsequently gimp them. Did they do something impressive lately to counter this?

 

[NotLiquid]

I understand where you’re coming from but I think it’s cancelled out by the fact that he’s so explosive. Sure he’s light and doesn’t have the best recovery but when he can come back and take a stock off in 20 seconds how much does that matter?

It’s like the saying in sports the best defense is a good offense

It's going to matter once he can just as easily lose his own stock in 20 seconds. I'll admit that a lot of this theorycraft is going to be wholly contingent on how the meta game eventually shapes but I've mentioned before how back in Smash 4, advantage was objectively king, and that jumping off from that mindset, it makes total sense why characters like Chrom, Fox and Pichu are so good this early - because we as players are still at the point where having an explosive advantage state is seen as the one desirable "oomph" for a character. Neutral hasn't been optimized, same goes for ledge options and overall punishing, so instead it's easy to look towards characters who have the juice to push into big followups/combos.

Thing is, in Smash 4, even Bayonetta's monstrous advantage state wouldn't have mattered if she didn't have an equally monstrous disadvantage state. The miniscule amount of weaknesses the Smash 4 top tiers had were often made irrelevant by the engine covering the slack for them, but now with the new engine, multiple characters actually manage to have some of their formerly minor weaknesses compounded and turned into an Achilles heel. It's why players like ZeRo, Anti and MKLeo are going through some character crisis at the time being; every character they've tried to settle on has some kind of detrimental flaw to their playstyles that they're not entirely able to reconcile with (ZeRo actually considered picking up Fox at one point), and though we might not be seeing that now, I fully expect them to become more evident as time goes on. It sort of makes me think ESAM might have had a point when he predicted that most characters that thrived in Smash 4 are in sort of a "worse" position right now than they were before. I suspect this is partially why Salem has done so well with Link as of present, given how he's sort of ahead of the curve and providing a hint of where Smash Ultimate's meta might be heading. I think this is also why several players rank characters like Snake, Inkling and Peach so high as well; despite only the latter having some clearly busted tech right now, they're all characters that are well rounded and just plain consistent across neutral/advantage/disadvantage.

Another thing to consider; in Melee, Falco is usually agreed to have the better advantage state and combo game over Fox. Despite this, he's usually seen as the worse of the two space animals because his neutral and disadvantage overall isn't as good as Fox's (and while we're on that subject, Fox didn't actually end up being the best character until many years into the game's lifespan). The question then is whether or not Smash Ultimate, which compared to Smash 4, has far more pronounced disadvantage states now that ledges are a threat again, air dodges aren't free, can't use dash to crossup etc. will revert the game plan to a point where being able to reset into neutral is going to be invaluable to have when the meta game progresses, and compared to a lot of other cast members I can see Fox struggling a little here.

 

[Rizen]

I don't think the belmonts are gimmicky. All 3 projectiles are solid zoning tool. Holy water is a great combo starter. Their whips don't need to sweetspot so they effectively control a huge strip of space. Then they have a f5 jab and UpB OoS as GTFO options. Even though they can be played around and gimped, their ledge trapping is so oppressive it makes up for being exploited.

 

[boysilver400]

The more I play them the more i feel it

and might be the worst characters in this game

I know you’ve talked about Kirby already, but why do you think Meta Knight is bottom 2 over , , or ?

 

[Nate1080]

Their ledge trapping is only oppressive to those who don’t know the match up and/or characters who lack tools to agressively push against their pressure.

From games I’ve watched on youtube and games personally experienced from using the Belmonts myself, if they just don’t fall for their laggy B moves, its that too many people give them too much respect and/or just too afraid to go on the offensive. The Belmonts fold to pressure, regardless of the up-B OoS or f5 jab (which in my experience isn’t much, I’ve either traded or just got my jab stuffed with faster moves/jabs), because of their slow movment speed, mediocre at best frame data and poor CQC options (not even gonna get into the fact that they die to everyone off stage). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, when people stop playing this game like Smash 4 and start parrying, edgeguarding harder and just overall being more agressive, this game is gonna get harder for Belmonts.

 

[Rizen]

Their ledge trapping is only oppressive to those who don’t know the match up and/or characters who lack tools to agressively push against their pressure.

From games I’ve watched on youtube and games personally experienced from using the Belmonts myself, if they just don’t fall for their laggy B moves, its that too many people give them too much respect and/or just too afraid to go on the offensive. The Belmonts fold to pressure, regardless of the up-B OoS or f5 jab (which in my experience isn’t much, I’ve either traded or just got my jab stuffed with faster moves/jabs), because of their slow movment speed, mediocre at best frame data and poor CQC options (not even gonna get into the fact that they die to everyone off stage). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, when people stop playing this game like Smash 4 and start parrying, edgeguarding harder and just overall being more agressive, this game is gonna get harder for Belmonts.

Their ledge trapping is good vs anyone. They throw holy water and you can't ledge stand or attack. They throw the axe and you have to do something. Ftilt covers the rolling and tanking holy water options. You can't pressure them from the ledge.

Axe is laggy but cross and holy water last until f44 or 45. Wolf's blaster last 49f. And those control space in front of them for a long time.

How does parrying help vs a spaced whip attack?

 

[The_Bookworm]

It's going to matter once he can just as easily lose his own stock in 20 seconds. I'll admit that a lot of this theorycraft is going to be wholly contingent on how the meta game eventually shapes but I've mentioned before how back in Smash 4, advantage was objectively king, and that jumping off from that mindset, it makes total sense why characters like Chrom, Fox and Pichu are so good this early - because we as players are still at the point where having an explosive advantage state is seen as the one desirable "oomph" for a character. Neutral hasn't been optimized, same goes for ledge options and overall punishing, so instead it's easy to look towards characters who have the juice to push into big followups/combos.

Thing is, in Smash 4, even Bayonetta's monstrous advantage state wouldn't have mattered if she didn't have an equally monstrous disadvantage state. The miniscule amount of weaknesses the Smash 4 top tiers had were often made irrelevant by the engine covering the slack for them, but now with the new engine, multiple characters actually manage to have some of their formerly minor weaknesses compounded and turned into an Achilles heel. It's why players like ZeRo, Anti and MKLeo are going through some character crisis at the time being; every character they've tried to settle on has some kind of detrimental flaw to their playstyles that they're not entirely able to reconcile with (ZeRo actually considered picking up Fox at one point), and though we might not be seeing that now, I fully expect them to become more evident as time goes on. It sort of makes me think ESAM might have had a point when he predicted that most characters that thrived in Smash 4 are in sort of a "worse" position right now than they were before. I suspect this is partially why Salem has done so well with Link as of present, given how he's sort of ahead of the curve and providing a hint of where Smash Ultimate's meta might be heading. I think this is also why several players rank characters like Snake, Inkling and Peach so high as well; despite only the latter having some clearly busted tech right now, they're all characters that are well rounded and just plain consistent across neutral/advantage/disadvantage.

Another thing to consider; in Melee, Falco is usually agreed to have the better advantage state and combo game over Fox. Despite this, he's usually seen as the worse of the two space animals because his neutral and disadvantage overall isn't as good as Fox's (and while we're on that subject, Fox didn't actually end up being the best character until many years into the game's lifespan). The question then is whether or not Smash Ultimate, which compared to Smash 4, has far more pronounced disadvantage states now that ledges are a threat again, air dodges aren't free, can't use dash to crossup etc. will revert the game plan to a point where being able to reset into neutral is going to be invaluable to have when the meta game progresses, and compared to a lot of other cast members I can see Fox struggling a little here.

Somewhat agree with this. It is the main reason why I think Pichu's success right now isn't going to last for very long.

 

[Shaya]

Late but, Pacman is probably one of the most buffed characters from S4 bar none.

His overall "priority" is insane now. It's like trying to hit bayonetta in S4, where you're getting zoned out like its a swordie, and swordies are like "???" "???????" as they suddenly have to play at like 2.5+ swords-length away before they actually can start to pretend they're in a position to zone.
His grab is a better brawl olimar grab (i.e. grabs basically everywhere the entire duration and covers sizeable amount above the ground too), might be one of the best in the entire cast now IMO (characters without big fat nairs hitting below them actually have to STUPENDOUSLY commit to punish him for it).

Weakness of getting kills without effort is still there, but a lot of KO power has been added to aerials and smash attacks; those smash attacks are approaching lagless cooldowns. You'll die to throws too.

Can't run through hydrant anymore if you're a fast character.
Taking fruit from him is practically useless (dissipates almost instantly/not-pac use will disappear after single throw it seems?)
Recovery is no-where near as remotely exploitable as smash four - the distance that side-b can go with super armor is actually ... disgusting?

Don't fall for the trap of Pac mains from S4 being like "qq my char is [was] bad" while they laugh behind your back.

tl;dr take away most of the counter play to all of pacman's kit
make all of pacman's kit stronger in nearly every property.
what the **** @ his grab (online it's literally the "ima grab 5 times in a row and I'll be legitimately shocked/will report you for cheating if I get punished")


The character's my sleeper top tier.
Not necessarily actually top tier, but as someone who barely dropped games to pacman at all throughout smash 4's entire history... this thing is now an entirely new beast.

Virtually certain that whoever lead the design/balance team for Smash4 Bayonetta took on the Pacman mantle for Ultimate.
I think this is all fine bar the grab. Whoever thought making Pacman's broken grab actually broken deserves a paddling.

 

[Nate1080]

Their ledge trapping is good vs anyone. They throw holy water and you can't ledge stand or attack. They throw the axe and you have to do something. Ftilt covers the rolling and tanking holy water options. You can't pressure them from the ledge.

Axe is laggy but cross and holy water last until f44 or 45. Wolf's blaster last 49f. And those control space in front of them for a long time.

How does parrying help vs a spaced whip attack?

You’re right, you can’t pressure them from the ledge, but why are you letting them take you to the ledge in the first place? They’re not fast enough to completely oppress most characters to the ledge unless people are respecting them too much.

Cross and Water last a while yes, but they take long to come out in the first place and if you miss that’s your ass because they’re vulnerable for a while before they can do another action. That’s what I am talking about.

Parrying helps by allowing you to get out of the way and/or start approaching them. Parrying the whip freezes then, couple that with their visible end lag (especially on f-Smash), you can see how them parrying hinders your pressure. Imagine this happening more than less than a handful of times during the game.

 

[Heracr055]

That sounds good. My top and high tiers would be (great smashboards decides not to load the character icons properly when I'm doing this ):
//
/
Unordered within tiers. Heavily influenced by results. Following high mid tiers would include DK, Yoshi and Link.

Spoiler: Explanations

Top:
is just stupidly good in every way: weight, great boxing, Utilt for kills, Nikita, etc. amazing mobility, frame data and move set. Even though his weight probably puts him on the lower end of top tier. really strong specials and great frame data make them thrive all around. best pressure and burst game with great killing potential and recovery. (parred with Daisy) suffocates opponents and has great intercepting with turnips that works really well in this engine. / Probably the best sword zoning. TBH IDK enough about what Marth can do with sourspots so I'm grouping them together. is just better than Roy, no grouping them together. He's fast and his upB kamikaze is really stupid.
High:
works really well with the engine. Her projectiles are laggy and her buttons are slow so she doesn't make top cut. She can be very oppressive but has issues I think will be exploited in the future. just works really well with the engine. Bthrow's dump OP as ever. PK fire's a great zoning projectile and thunder's great for harassment offstage. He might even be top tier but I've heard he has trouble with swords.'s damage wracking is insane and his power is good. He doesn't have the stage presence of say chrom or Peach. Has great mobility with a big sword. His buttons aren't as oppressive as say Lucina's but still very strong. swapping its self is a great f1 invincible move and allows other pokemon to cover another's weaknesses. has top tier results but I feel like he's getting away with more than he should. Wolf needs to fish for kill moves and his recovery is bad. Still very oppressive in neutral with strong attacks. has all Chrom's great stats but needs to hit closer and his upB, although with more distance, isn't threatening offstage. gets over shadowed by Pichu but still has great mobility, annoying spam, recovery, intercepting etc. has top tier results; maybe he should be in top tier. It's heavy, has good projectiles and is very oppressive offstage. It just doesn't feel as oppressive as say Peach or Snake./ their big weakness is recovering but they make up for it with incredible ledge trapping. Even though they have long reaching whips for zoning, they have a standard f5 swordsman jab and a burst Dtilt. He combines Link's amazing landing game and with projectile zoning. YL has great combos off several buttons. He's brought down by a f6 jab being his fastest ground attack and being a lightweight. On the low end of high tier. IDK a lot about him but think he's losing out in popularity due to YL and Link being fresh. TL is very solid in zoning and has better stats than YL so I can't see him being far below. 's getting results. He's fast enough to space and rush anyone.'s at the top of high tier. Waft is a powerful "clutch factor" that puts him above Yoshi. His mobility and staying power work really well with this engine. has Nair combos, a f4 GTFO jab that's above average for a swordsman, good weight and a long recovery.'s kind of like a more versatile, toned down Fox.

I'm curious about your omission of . This isn't necessarily limited to you either; I've seen a couple of top players not place her highly either.
Edit: Salem thinks that she is very good and plans to start using her in tournament, so we have that to look forward to. We also had Choco place 3rd in that Japan tournament recently. So I think she's flying under the radar. Salem, Choco or Marss might be the ones to change our minds in the coming months.

 

[Rizen]

I'm curious about your omission of . This isn't necessarily limited to you either; I've seen a couple of top players not place her highly either.

TBH I haven't seen much of her and don't know a lot about her. She flew under my radar :/
Edit, I forgot about Luigi too. He's hard to place. He seems mediocre at best but then there's the 0-death combo. It depends on how lenient the window for that is.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think people are going to surprise with Mewtwo at tournaments due to his edgeguarding and combo options in neutral. He has to be played in a very patient way but I see no reason he can’t be successful to an extent in this game. Yeah he has a lot of weaknesses but with the importance of edgeguarding in this game I can’t see him being completely irrelevant

Basically, I expect this to happen with quite some of the Smash 4 Top Tiers that have 'fallen from grace'. I defend Diddy Kong and Mewtwo all the time, but I think Mario has the potential to throw things around as well, if not Doc cause that Tornado is looking scary. Not too sure about Luigi however, feels a bit wonky, and am not too knowledgable about him anyway. Bayonetta might have some more to her as well,

 

[Untouch]

Late but, Pacman is probably one of the most buffed characters from S4 bar none.

His overall "priority" is insane now. It's like trying to hit bayonetta in S4, where you're getting zoned out like its a swordie, and swordies are like "???" "???????" as they suddenly have to play at like 2.5+ swords-length away before they actually can start to pretend they're in a position to zone.
His grab is a better brawl olimar grab (i.e. grabs basically everywhere the entire duration and covers sizeable amount above the ground too), might be one of the best in the entire cast now IMO (characters without big fat nairs hitting below them actually have to STUPENDOUSLY commit to punish him for it).

Weakness of getting kills without effort is still there, but a lot of KO power has been added to aerials and smash attacks; those smash attacks are approaching lagless cooldowns. You'll die to throws too.

Can't run through hydrant anymore if you're a fast character.
Taking fruit from him is practically useless (dissipates almost instantly/not-pac use will disappear after single throw it seems?)
Recovery is no-where near as remotely exploitable as smash four - the distance that side-b can go with super armor is actually ... disgusting?

Don't fall for the trap of Pac mains from S4 being like "qq my char is [was] bad" while they laugh behind your back.

tl;dr take away most of the counter play to all of pacman's kit
make all of pacman's kit stronger in nearly every property.
what the **** @ his grab (online it's literally the "ima grab 5 times in a row and I'll be legitimately shocked/will report you for cheating if I get punished")


The character's my sleeper top tier.
Not necessarily actually top tier, but as someone who barely dropped games to pacman at all throughout smash 4's entire history... this thing is now an entirely new beast.

Virtually certain that whoever lead the design/balance team for Smash4 Bayonetta took on the Pacman mantle for Ultimate.
I think this is all fine bar the grab. Whoever thought making Pacman's broken grab actually broken deserves a paddling.

Pacman feels like another one of the characters that is good, but sees no competitive play, so has no results, so people call them low tier, so they see even less play.

 

[Lavani]

Can't run through hydrant anymore if you're a fast character.

This is actually still possible.

 

[ReVerbIsSuperb]

Good timing with that specific twitch clip executed by Light. Hydrant seems to have some weird interactions in this game as shown by two clips I saw of Dekillsage explaining it recently. He goes further into it in the comments as well:

Fox running through Hydrant explained! This is pretty cool. @Light_S21 @FP_AJAX
Not testing who can run past it for the whole cast, but Falcon can run through it normally like he could in Smash 4. pic.twitter.com/izdxwlv9eW

— dekillsage (@dekillsage) January 9, 2019

Sigh. What? pic.twitter.com/bnsbE5iSUX

— dekillsage (@dekillsage) January 9, 2019

 

[meleebrawler]

You’re right, you can’t pressure them from the ledge, but why are you letting them take you to the ledge in the first place? They’re not fast enough to completely oppress most characters to the ledge unless people are respecting them too much.

Cross and Water last a while yes, but they take long to come out in the first place and if you miss that’s your *** because they’re vulnerable for a while before they can do another action. That’s what I am talking about.

Parrying helps by allowing you to get out of the way and/or start approaching them. Parrying the whip freezes then, couple that with their visible end lag (especially on f-Smash), you can see how them parrying hinders your pressure. Imagine this happening more than less than a handful of times during the game.

Punishing Cross and Holy Water only really seems to be a problem if you try to hit your opponent with them directly. The water can stop any ground approach long enough to get a backward tossed Cross out; from there you have to deal with the coverage of the Belmont ready to whip your jump while the returning cross covers the ground.

 

[KakuCP9]

Does anyone know what causes the whole getting shield-poked at full shield health thing cause I'm not sure I'd like playing a game where everyone is Melee Mr. Game and Watch.

 

[Y2Kay]

I find it interesting that some of you think that Fox is top 5 or better, but have Greninja on the outside looking into top tier.

Now more than ever Greninja's and Fox's game-plan overlap. Their damage output is much more in line than it was in smash 4. Both have access to amazing kill confirms (Fox Nair vs Greninja Down Tilt; Down tilt is fast, and plus on block when spaced, and combos into Fair and Up smash). Great juggling, frame traps, and tech chases. Both have great AA tools. Greninja's dash attack is pretty much Fox's DA from smash 4.

There's are still things that set them apart, albeit more slight then it was last game.

• Fox has better OOS options (Nair + Usmash vs Jab) this the most significant difference imo
• Fox Nair is better landing aerial than any of Greninja's aerial
• Fox has useful rising aerials. Greninja only has Bair
• Fox's ledgetrapping is spectacular, while Greninja's is just above average
• Fox's ground normals make him more fit for CQC
• Greninja disadvantage is significantly better with the Illusion nerf
• Greninja has better offstage prescence
• Greninja has better range with Fair and Forward tilt (IMO he plays footsies against swordsmen better than Fox but Fox higher ground speed matters more in other MUs)
• Greninja has more well rounded mobility (better jumps and air speed)
• Greninja has a real grab game
• Greninja has a better projectile

Greninja seems to be more well rounded and versatile in the things he can do, while Fox is more polarizing and has a slightly better advantage state and better shield defense.

Now this post does come off as me trying to argue that Greninja is better than Fox, but that's not necessarily the case. I think it does depend on what strengths you think are valued more.

 

[Repli.Cant]

I dunno about being top 5. Maybe even top 10. Yes I know she has improved greatly from Smash 4, in the fact she actullay feels like a compelte, functional character now , but I think it all may have been slightly overhyped. Palu still has a lot of her old issues. She still has poor CQC and Oos options, so very fast/mobile characters that can easily apply pressure and juggle can give her a very hard time. are a few notable examples. Palutena is still very good, maybe top 15ish. but I think she may fall off a bit

I don't think I can agree with you enough there. The amount of **** I get for playing this character vs. friends and getting called biased when I try to refute "Palu is top tier/5/10" or that "EF > Autoreticle shouldn't exist" is just the most annoying thing to me. It's why I rarely play her now despite wanting to go far with her. sigh

Anyways, I'd like to ask what everyone feels about . Upon toying with him for a few matches, I found she felt... Odd. Nerfed, but more fun, I suppose? His little water ball felt pretty useless because literally everything out-prioritizes it, and the uncharged version's stun lasts for a much smaller amount of time. Instapin is still a thing, but the kicks have endlag now so it can be punished. What's probably the worst feeling change to me is their up b lost all momentum carry when finishing the move.

Their combos are super tight now, dtilt > fair not being at lenient and uair feels weaker to me. Bair is a kill move now though.

In my opinion, they're the worst swordie. I'd like to see everyone else's opinions though.