Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Gimmick-Hater]

The more I play Sephiroth the less I like him. It's probably just the online getting to me, but man does this character feel frustrating to play. The biggest thing that gets to me is the low-profiling. It's not even short characters. Sometimes I'll miss a fast fall b-air, or f-air against a fairly tall character like Snake because of f-tilt, or Hero using a dash attack. The crazy thing is that the move still looks like it hit visually, but it didn't.

The worst part is that even if you properly space you're still probably going to end up getting parried, and Sephiroth doesn't have any crazy multi hit moves that can interrupt parry attempts. And in the case of Sephiroth specifically I feel like he can't really afford to take those hits because of his weight, and how hard he can comboed.

For me the most glaring thing is his neutral special. Giga flare feels strangely designed to me, It's really good for ledge traping, but outside of that I just don't like the design. In a lot of fighting games I play slow moving projectiles are usually low damage pressure tools that stay on screen for a long time, and can allow the player to approach (Ex: Reptile's enhanced acid ball). I feel like GF should've been like that. ATM the move feels really awkward in some matches. Especially one's where the opponent has a reflector, or pocket. Even throwing out the second version of the move is a commitment for Sephiroth as it has lots of end lag, and if it gets reflected then prepared to die at 34%. The move doesn't seem like a good neutral option, and in a lot of matches it's definitely not good at forcing the opponent to approach. I noticed this a lot when facing Palutena & Fox. A lot of players would just wait for me to approach with Sephiroth's laggy buttons, and realsitically what else could I do?

 

[Nobie]

Here's the VOD of MKLeo Metaknight vs. Sonix, for those who didn't want to sift though a 7-hour twitch VOD: https://youtu.be/Ut4KOjEs_I0

 

[meleebrawler]

The more I play Sephiroth the less I like him. It's probably just the online getting to me, but man does this character feel frustrating to play. The biggest thing that gets to me is the low-profiling. It's not even short characters. Sometimes I'll miss a fast fall b-air, or f-air against a fairly tall character like Snake because of f-tilt, or Hero using a dash attack. The crazy thing is that the move still looks like it hit visually, but it didn't.

The worst part is that even if you properly space you're still probably going to end up getting parried, and Sephiroth doesn't have any crazy multi hit moves that can interrupt parry attempts. And in the case of Sephiroth specifically I feel like he can't really afford to take those hits because of his weight, and how hard he can comboed.

For me the most glaring thing is his neutral special. Giga flare feels strangely designed to me, It's really good for ledge traping, but outside of that I just don't like the design. In a lot of fighting games I play slow moving projectiles are usually low damage pressure tools that stay on screen for a long time, and can allow the player to approach (Ex: Reptile's enhanced acid ball). I feel like GF should've been like that. ATM the move feels really awkward in some matches. Especially one's where the opponent has a reflector, or pocket. Even throwing out the second version of the move is a commitment for Sephiroth as it has lots of end lag, and if it gets reflected then prepared to die at 34%. The move doesn't seem like a good neutral option, and in a lot of matches it's definitely not good at forcing the opponent to approach. I noticed this a lot when facing Palutena & Fox. A lot of players would just wait for me to approach with Sephiroth's laggy buttons, and realsitically what else could I do?

Defensive players receive nothing but Shadow Flares until they do something to get around them, with the occasional down smash if they like shielding a lot. Unless you're greedy with charging it, it's not something that can be reflected on reaction, and jumping to get around it can put opponents in a better position to leverage Sephiroth's aerials or anti-airs (particularly with your example's low lateral airspeed), while jabbing checks attempts to blitz him between shots. And of course if it hits you get the usual mind-games. Air spacing with the sword on grounded opponents is kind of overrated when you have a move that covers a similar range, whose timing can be varied and can be b-reversed. Also handy for cancelling weak projectiles.

Mind-games, really it's Sephiroth's theme, and it's all the more apparent with the aspect of the Flare family you've completely glossed over: being able to cancel the move until the very end. I can't count the amount of free hits I've gotten on Villagers or Isabelles so eager to pocket the strong projectile only to get stabbed or Lifestream-palmed in the face, and substituting Gigaflare at the ledge for an upsmash at the last minute is a great surprise to what is usually the best way around the former.

 

[SapphSabre777]

Ron made matchup chart for (he has used Kirby as a secondary for the last several months). I think most of the placings here are relatively in offensive, but a handful of the placements here stick out to me as being kind of weird.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

and all stick out to me as having optimistic placements, while and seem to have more pessimistic ones compared to what I would expect.

This chart is definitely weird due to, as you said, the optimistic and pessimistic MUs being scattered all around the board. I think it only re-enforces that 's meta is still in a developing state from top to bottom thanks to finally having definitive, viable characteristics going for him.

I've been meaning to talk about it a lot since I have been in development of a sheet to really understand the character, but Kirby's meta is just a hodgepodge of different ideas rather than the collective combination of them that uses all their resources.

When you look at JeJaJeJa's style of Kirby, it is very offensive and rush-down heavy compared to Jesuischoq and Ron's Kirbys, who emphasize on neutral and maximizing the utility of Kirby's multiple jumps to help with mixing up neutral. Even so, neither are conscious about one move in particular that I believe will change Kirby and only help him tremendously with enough emphasis: Inhale. No, not Kirbycide, actual copy ability Inhale.

With Inhale being so buffed that Kirby can actually combo into it, along with the gargantuan 1.2x damage benefits provided that can really stack up, it is a huge surprise seeing none of the prolific Kirby players right now do anything to get a nice, juicy Copy Ability. As labelled by SGK awhile back, some abilities can make and break a matchup on the spot, just by having it. Abilities like Min Min, any projectile in the game, DK, Shulk, and so on, can allow Kirby to be absolutely annoying and deadly with the right knowledge. However, that leads into a possible answer as to why this play is not as pushed: knowledge of how to optimally use each Ability.

A lot of Kirbys tend to go into "New Toy Syndrome" mode and spam these Abilities right away, rather than attempting to use them in the most optimal way. It does not help that Kirby's 20 second timer on Abilities seems short to some players. Additionally, wantonly using these Abilities is just as wrong and punishing as the very character they copied wantonly using their moves themselves. In a sense, Kirby has to know how to use each Copy Ability in each MU, which with 80+ characters, can be just too much effort to think about from a standpoint; however, I think that with the right, constructive approach from labbers, the learning curve will lower a little bit, and as aforementioned, the boons given to Kirby for having these Copy Abilities can range from very useful to matchup-changing.

Kirby is in a very weird spot right now because he is easily in development. While this means he has to play catch-up with characters that have already developed metas (high/top tiers with solid structures), it also means that there is a definite room for improvement that will allow him to get better as players push him and his underused tools more. As a Smash player and analyst, not just as a Kirby player myself, it will be fascinating watching Kirby's movement from hereon.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The more I play Sephiroth the less I like him. It's probably just the online getting to me, but man does this character feel frustrating to play. The biggest thing that gets to me is the low-profiling. It's not even short characters. Sometimes I'll miss a fast fall b-air, or f-air against a fairly tall character like Snake because of f-tilt, or Hero using a dash attack. The crazy thing is that the move still looks like it hit visually, but it didn't.

Intresting. The more I play him, the more fun I'm having. Online is annoying, sure, but at least my connection is pretty good (I highly recommend getting a LAN-adapter if possible and playing against people who you have a stable connection with). But yeah, online will make you miss moves that you would've hit offline. Oh well.

For me the most glaring thing is his neutral special. Giga flare feels strangely designed to me, It's really good for ledge traping, but outside of that I just don't like the design. In a lot of fighting games I play slow moving projectiles are usually low damage pressure tools that stay on screen for a long time, and can allow the player to approach (Ex: Reptile's enhanced acid ball). I feel like GF should've been like that. ATM the move feels really awkward in some matches. Especially one's where the opponent has a reflector, or pocket. Even throwing out the second version of the move is a commitment for Sephiroth as it has lots of end lag, and if it gets reflected then prepared to die at 34%. The move doesn't seem like a good neutral option, and in a lot of matches it's definitely not good at forcing the opponent to approach. I noticed this a lot when facing Palutena & Fox. A lot of players would just wait for me to approach with Sephiroth's laggy buttons, and realsitically what else could I do?

I think his neutral special has some uses, although it's probably not one of his best moves or anything. Being able to cancel it is huge though, and means you can bait options and punish those options rather than actually throwing out a projectile. As for approaching, Shadow Flare, his side-B, is great for forcing approaches. If you land an orb you instantly pressure your opponent quite a bit, it's definitely one of the best side-Bs in the game right now. It does require some experience to use properly, though.

The more I play the character, the better I think he is. Tweek said potentially top 10 and that sounds quite probable right now but it's hard to say for sure due to the lack of offline.

 

[Diddy Kong]

So, Tweek is really, really, really making Diddy work for him. The insane amount of flow he has with the character, I haven't seen this in a long time in Ultimate. Early day Pichu came closest to what Tweek is seemingly doing with my main Kong, and am seriously thinking Diddy might be more than High Tier because of this.

Easy has one of the best neutrals in the game. Very good kill confirms, Banana leads into everything, Banana is one of the best punishment options therefore, D Tilt is an amazing combo starter and boxing move, aerials are fast and safe, combo potential is definitely Top 15, maybe Top 10, insanely good Top Tier matchups too (Tweek is saying Diddy beats Pikachu even).

I think it might warrant some consideration at the very least.

 

[DougEfresh]

In general, I'd say I have a fairly positive outlook on even though I haven't been playing him (or smash in general) very consistently since his release, but I can't say I share the popular, ever more vehement opinion that he's sooooo much better offline than online. I've heard what Tweek and Leo have said about him, and also what M2K's thoughts on him are as well...but despite all he has going for him (huge disjoints with strong kill power, good mobility especially with OWA, conditioning with shadow flare, ledge trapping/edgeguarding, etc.), I think the issue of low profiling is going to be problematic in the long term, and I firmly believe he'll get suffocated by rushdown characters once offline returns and they can properly react.

I realize Sephiroth benefits from proper reaction times too, especially with his ledge trapping, but the thin, belmont-like hitboxes with nothing in the way of practical multihits will very likely make it quite easy to get used to his timing on fair, bair, and nair for consistent parrying and subsequent punishes on Seph, and given his fragile stature and susceptibility to up close pressure (even from characters who aren't necessarily cqc specialists, because of such lacking OOS and slow start up) will probably render him a relatively good, but very volatile and stressful character to use consistently at high level.

Overall, I think there's a good chance he'll settle in the top 25 - 30 range as he does have enough strengths to outweigh his glaring weaknesses Imo, but it's likely a long road for mains because I think he'll require strong character knowledge, as well as broad (but deep) MU knowledge to find success with, and even then, I get the feeling several match ups will either end up even for him or still slightly losing because the characters in that top echelon being strong enough where they don't have to care that much about Seph's gameplan or allow him to capitalize on OWA.

Something also worth mentioning with Leo and Tweek in particular is that, while I respect their knowledge and skill as top 2-3 players in the world, that exact status should give a moment of pause because these two guys can truly make any character look top 10-15 if they care to pick them up; they have unbelievable precision and game knowledge that clearly make them a cut above the rest even among other top players. Time will tell of course and I'm open to changing my mind, but if Leo and Tweek remain the only two top players that push the character hard and see great results while other reps are getting nowhere near their level of results (similar to Leo and Zackray with ), is Sephiroth really top 10, or is it just another case of Leo and Tweek being well, Leo and Tweek?

To be clear with my Joker analogy, I believe he's top tier like everyone else (probably top 5 though, not top 3 imo), but that conclusion comes from a clear basis of his own merits as a character that can be viewed even when putting aside the skill and results of Leo and Zackray. I'm just not sure I'm ready to have a similarly high opinion of Sephiroth not only because it's still early to make a solid conclusion on his level of competitive viability, but also because I think there's a reasonable basis to suspect he's just not as strong as the 20+ characters I can see being above him. As always though, time will tell and I'll be excited for either Leo or Tweek to try proving me wrong once offline returns.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I agree, MKLeo and Tweek make any character work. No doubt. But Tweek has been focusing on Diddy a lot. Probably is gonna be a solid secondary, because why not, he beats certain Top Tiers.

But you know, Diddy was already quite good, but having a pro player as Tweek picking him up might just mean he's gonna go places. And it isn't a one time deal either. Tweek has been using Diddy for several months now.

Considering Diddy is notoriously worse online, this is promising.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Parry is not really much of an issue when it comes to character viability, even top players don't bother parrying very often since it's fairly high risk and you can't do it on reaction most of the time, even offline. You might think Sephiroth is going to use a fair but he lands with a side-B and now you have a Shadow Flare orb ticking down to your eventual doom... Potentially. We've seen characters with moves with slow startups before, and parry is never game-changing or anything. Sephiroth has plenty of options that you can't react to so you'd have to guess, and guessing wrong might cost more than the benefit from a potential parry is worth. Shulk and Ike would be great examples of characters that might struggle versus parry in theory but in practice it's not a big deal. I imagine the same will be true for Sephiroth. He's almost certainly going to be better offline than online.

 

[NotLiquid]

Here we go again.

 

[Galgatha]

Here we go again.

What do you mean?

I agree, MKLeo and Tweek make any character work. No doubt. But Tweek has been focusing on Diddy a lot. Probably is gonna be a solid secondary, because why not, he beats certain Top Tiers.

But you know, Diddy was already quite good, but having a pro player as Tweek picking him up might just mean he's gonna go places. And it isn't a one time deal either. Tweek has been using Diddy for several months now.

Considering Diddy is notoriously worse online, this is promising.

Honestly, I wish Tweek would go back to his Bowser Jr from Smash 4. He was pretty good and came up with some interesting combos. While Jr has some representations (Ketchup for instance), none seem to have been that active during this online stint from what I've seen.

 

[Diddy Kong]

What do you mean?



Honestly, I wish Tweek would go back to his Bowser Jr from Smash 4. He was pretty good and came up with some interesting combos. While Jr has some representations (Ketchup for instance), none seem to have been that active during this online stint from what I've seen.

Tweek became relevant due to playing Cloud in 4. No one should go through the stress of actually maining Bowser Jr. for competition.

It's like I predicted, someone will pick up Diddy, and make him work. I still hope the same for Mewtwo. Mostly all old Smash 4 top tiers have some representation now in Ultimate, Mewtwo alone doesn't.

 

[DougEfresh]

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1361676737730519042?s=19

A lot of you may have already seen this, but looks like we're getting our first actual Nintendo Direct in months tomorrow and they specifically mentioned smash content, among other things. Seems quite likely that a new DLC would be revealed (especially with a 50min length), and it'll be interesting to see how quickly he/she will be released with a new balance patch if a reveal does occur. If my suspicion turns out to be correct, I like these shorter gaps between characters and patches a lot.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Parry is not really much of an issue when it comes to character viability, even top players don't bother parrying very often since it's fairly high risk and you can't do it on reaction most of the time, even offline. You might think Sephiroth is going to use a fair but he lands with a side-B and now you have a Shadow Flare orb ticking down to your eventual doom... Potentially. We've seen characters with moves with slow startups before, and parry is never game-changing or anything. Sephiroth has plenty of options that you can't react to so you'd have to guess, and guessing wrong might cost more than the benefit from a potential parry is worth. Shulk and Ike would be great examples of characters that might struggle versus parry in theory but in practice it's not a big deal. I imagine the same will be true for Sephiroth. He's almost certainly going to be better offline than online.

Someday, probably, people will get really good at parrying consistently. I think it'll take a good while before that happens, though. I'm not even sure if we'll see it a lot over Ultimate's lifetime. It seems like a very late-meta thing, like in 5 years or so most players will be really good at it. The issue is, I'm not sure if Ultimate will have the legs that 64 and Melee have. We could be looking at the next game coming out five years from now, and it remains to be seen whether players will stick with Ult, or if the next game will surpass it. So, it's likely that parry won't ever become much of an issue for the characters it's good against.

 

[DJ3DS]

Regarding parrying: I think it's being undersold here, and there are already plenty of people who are fairly good at parrying on prediction. What's more, I think there are two relevant things to consider:

1) How effective parrying is for a character

2) How effective parrying is against a character

As an example for the first, is someone who doesn't really benefit from parrying - his Up B is usually his best option anyway, and doesn't require the execution of a parry. Conversely, really likes parrying: his out of shield options are bad, but his dtilt and dsmash out of parry are incredibly useful.

And on the second? Using the same two examples, G&W cares less about your parrying, because his multihits and ability to mix up which hit he lands on makes it much harder to be useful against him. As ROB though? There are few things scarier than someone who can consistently parry your landing Nair.

 

[StrangeKitten]

there are already plenty of people who are fairly good at parrying on prediction.

Seems like a rarity for players to be good at it atm, from what I've seen. I've watched goodness-only-knows how many competitive matches, and I've yet to see any players pull off much parrying. Of course, there have been clutch instances of it. But even three parries per game isn't happening anywhere close to every game. This includes pre- and post-quarantine matches, naturally. Worth noting that parrying is much harder online, though. So, we definitely need to see what happens once the offline Smash scene can get into full swing again.

 

[Thinkaman]

A lot of you may have already seen this, but looks like we're getting our first actual Nintendo Direct in months tomorrow and they specifically mentioned smash content, among other things. Seems quite likely that a new DLC would be revealed (especially with a 50min length), and it'll be interesting to see how quickly he/she will be released with a new balance patch if a reveal does occur. If my suspicion turns out to be correct, I like these shorter gaps between characters and patches a lot.

I would caution against getting hopes up. The timing of most Smash Ultimate DLC reveals was tied to factors unreleated to Smash, general Directs like this one. Content would actually release a variable--but often generous--amount of time after, when it was actually ready.

2020 was a bit different, only because there were no Directs to announce by. Byleth, Min Min, and Steve were fully revealed barely a week before release only because there was no other, earlier situation to reveal them.

The timing of tomorrow's direct has everything to do with their 2021 lineup needing to be revealed, and nothing to do with Smash.

 

[DougEfresh]

Someday, probably, people will get really good at parrying consistently. I think it'll take a good while before that happens, though. I'm not even sure if we'll see it a lot over Ultimate's lifetime. It seems like a very late-meta thing, like in 5 years or so most players will be really good at it. The issue is, I'm not sure if Ultimate will have the legs that 64 and Melee have. We could be looking at the next game coming out five years from now, and it remains to be seen whether players will stick with Ult, or if the next game will surpass it. So, it's likely that parry won't ever become much of an issue for the characters it's good against.

I'm mid level as hell, but ironically enough, I've actually gotten pretty consistent at parrying through this wifi era, especially with . It's helped my punish game a ton, and also helps mitigate his issue of sluggish fdata on most moves where I otherwise wouldn't get punishes (and more punishes with Luc is obviously a good thing and leads to some disgusting reversal situations). I sometimes get it accidentally (that's how Ultimate be sometimes, though), but I think anyone who benefits greatly from a solid punish game should try to work on it in their gameplay (good to be able to do against zoners for easier approaches, as well).

As a case in point, just look at Light and his . Light is a parrying god, and I think it's one of the distinctive qualities of him as a player that makes his playstyle so explosive. There's a lot more that goes into why he's so good with Fox, but his fantastic reactive playstyle combined with such consistent parry punishes really brings to life Fox's explosive, glass cannon nature that's so threatening in a way that ZD, Paseriman, or Lui$ just haven't been able to replicate and I think Light's parries make that small but meaningful difference in how the character fares at high/top level imo.

Edit: Thinkaman that's a fair point. My only reason for thinking it's likely at all was that the Twitter post did mention smash (otherwise, I'd think nothing of it). I still think the rest of Nintendo's line up for 2021 will get the limelight, but a quick reveal of a new character like they did with Terry during the last actual Nintendo Direct in September 2019 doesn't seem too farfetched to me. We'll see what goes down tomorrow though.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Edit: Thinkaman that's a fair point. My only reason for thinking it's likely at all was that the Twitter post did mention smash (otherwise, I'd think nothing of it). I still think the rest of Nintendo's line up for 2021 will get the limelight, but a quick reveal of a new character like they did with Terry during the last actual Nintendo Direct in September 2019 doesn't seem too farfetched to me. We'll see what goes down tomorrow though.

Feel like Thinkaman most likely meant we could be waiting a month or so for the next character to release, not that it's unlikely for there to be a reveal. A longer wait between reveal and release than we've had with recent characters. The waitscreen that's currently up for the Direct says there will be Smash info, as does the description. That makes me feel like it's highly likely that we'll see the trailer for the next character in this Direct. It's also been over 80 days since Sepiroth dropped, meaning the time for our next character trailer is drawing near. I'm not really sure what else they'd reveal, if not a character. Maybe a third fighter's pass or some big new single-player mode or something, which would also be hype anyway

 

[DougEfresh]

Feel like Thinkaman most likely meant we could be waiting a month or so for the next character to release, not that it's unlikely for there to be a reveal. A longer wait between reveal and release than we've had with recent characters. The waitscreen that's currently up for the Direct says there will be Smash info, as does the description. That makes me feel like it's highly likely that we'll see the trailer for the next character in this Direct. It's also been over 80 days since Sepiroth dropped, meaning the time for our next character trailer is drawing near. I'm not really sure what else they'd reveal, if not a character. Maybe a third fighter's pass or some big new single-player mode or something, which would also be hype anyway

I realized this just after making my edit, lol. Thanks for bringing it up though, and in that regard he's probably right. Either way it'll be cool to see what they have in store for this year!

 

[DJ3DS]

Seems like a rarity for players to be good at it atm, from what I've seen. I've watched goodness-only-knows how many competitive matches, and I've yet to see any players pull off much parrying. Of course, there have been clutch instances of it. But even three parries per game isn't happening anywhere close to every game. This includes pre- and post-quarantine matches, naturally. Worth noting that parrying is much harder online, though. So, we definitely need to see what happens once the offline Smash scene can get into full swing again.

You're just not watching the right matches - I have a friend who will parry my landing Nairs (as ROB) three times a stock, let alone a match!

I am not a high level player by any means, but I've worked it into my play a fair amount. One particular trick I like doing as ROB is firing a gyro as the opponent initiates an "obvious" aerial approach (quite often because they expect me to fire a gyro there), parrying their landing aerial and then using one of ROBs excellent moves out of parry (down tilt or jab) to knock them into the gyro. This can confirm into a pseudo wobble between ROB and the gyro, or just a straight smash attack KO at high percents.

That's a very specific example of a specific piece of setplay I enjoy, but you can do a lot. A ROB who can parry consistently can (for example) get a small dtilt combo into a jab leading into further techchases, which is a significant improvement over his usual options if he doesn't have gyro in hand or the opponent is small/pancakes).

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It has been confirmed that part of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct will be about Smash Ultimate. I mean what else can the news be other than the next DLC character and update?

 

[StrangeKitten]

You're just not watching the right matches - I have a friend who will parry my landing Nairs (as ROB) three times a stock, let alone a match!

I am not a high level player by any means, but I've worked it into my play a fair amount. One particular trick I like doing as ROB is firing a gyro as the opponent initiates an "obvious" aerial approach (quite often because they expect me to fire a gyro there), parrying their landing aerial and then using one of ROBs excellent moves out of parry (down tilt or jab) to knock them into the gyro. This can confirm into a pseudo wobble between ROB and the gyro, or just a straight smash attack KO at high percents.

That's a very specific example of a specific piece of setplay I enjoy, but you can do a lot. A ROB who can parry consistently can (for example) get a small dtilt combo into a jab leading into further techchases, which is a significant improvement over his usual options if he doesn't have gyro in hand or the opponent is small/pancakes).

Well I watch the high-profile matches such as ones featuring Tweek, Mkleo, and Hero (Japanese Bowser player) so I'm not sure where to look to find players who parry a ton Like, they do it sometimes, sure, but not often enough that an Ike facing them would be at a severe disadvantage, for example.

 

[Rizen]

You're just not watching the right matches - I have a friend who will parry my landing Nairs (as ROB) three times a stock, let alone a match!

I am not a high level player by any means, but I've worked it into my play a fair amount. One particular trick I like doing as ROB is firing a gyro as the opponent initiates an "obvious" aerial approach (quite often because they expect me to fire a gyro there), parrying their landing aerial and then using one of ROBs excellent moves out of parry (down tilt or jab) to knock them into the gyro. This can confirm into a pseudo wobble between ROB and the gyro, or just a straight smash attack KO at high percents.

That's a very specific example of a specific piece of setplay I enjoy, but you can do a lot. A ROB who can parry consistently can (for example) get a small dtilt combo into a jab leading into further techchases, which is a significant improvement over his usual options if he doesn't have gyro in hand or the opponent is small/pancakes).

If you're getting your Nairs parried like that you're being too obvious with them. Try working in some tomahawks.

The thing about parries is they require advanced knowledge. It's fairly easy to see a projectile coming and parry it but hard to parry most CQC with some exceptions. Parries also barely give any frame advantage so they're risky while being low reward. You might be able to get a tilt punish off them, sometimes, but you also risk being hit by dropping shield too soon. Frankly I don't see parries as very important to the meta.

 

[DJ3DS]

If you're getting your Nairs parried like that you're being too obvious with them. Try working in some tomahawks.

The thing about parries is they require advanced knowledge. It's fairly easy to see a projectile coming and parry it but hard to parry most CQC with some exceptions. Parries also barely give any frame advantage so they're risky while being low reward. You might be able to get a tilt punish off them, sometimes, but you also risk being hit by dropping shield too soon. Frankly I don't see parries as very important to the meta.

If we are framing things in terms of risk and reward...

...obviously I am not advocating trying to parry everything in the game. Whilst that's surely optimal, it's also an absurd suggestion for any human player to pull off. What I am advocating is that there are plenty of situations where the risk/reward for parrying makes sense and people should try to do it.

The risk of parrying can be mitigated by the situations you use it in. For me, that essentially means two things: using parries in a less reactionary fashion (against obvious landing aerials, like yours truly ) and not trying to be a hero and parrying things you're safer shielding. In the ROB example - parry Nair, but don't do it if he's got a gyro in hand and you might eat a zero to death for it.

As for reward, you are vastly underselling the reward parries can lead to. The frame advantage isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is having access to your entire kit. Some characters have good parry moves that will yield your parries disproportionately higher reward. Snake's up tilt is a great parry move, for example, and will net straight KOs in situations where Snake could not achieve this out of shield. ROBs down tilt is a fantastic parry move that easily leads into...well, all of the rubbish it usually does.

So yeah, this was my TED talk. In summary: parries are a useful tool and merit using in the appropriate places where risk is minimised and the reward you get noticeably outweighs what would otherwise be available.

Also StrangeKitten I believe somebody already pointed out Light as a player who parries a ton. I recall the top snakes generally being decent at it as well.

 

[Galgatha]

No one should go through the stress of actually maining Bowser Jr. for competition.

Jr is actually a pretty decent character, he's just more tricky to play than others. I see no stress in maining him for competitive Smash, and Jr has alot of tools working in his favor.

Mecha-Koopa is, imo, one of the best tools for gaining and maintaining stage control. He has great stalling ability when recovering, and multiple mix-up options. Good multi-hit attacks like Dair, Usmash, and Fsmash (which is practically unpunishable). He's a heavy, so he lasts a good amount of time but is fast and not big bodied like others. Has one of the only decent killing jabs in the game (like, under 120% near ledge kills). If you can play with the MK and get the correct set-ups, Jr is a difficult person to play against.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The next Smash character has been revealed and it's...

Spoiler: Character Spoiler

Pyra and Mythra, in an old-school Zelda/Sheik mid-battle swap sort of scenario. That alone might make them interesting, or we could be returning to form with one being generally superior to the other in all but a few niche situations. We'll have to see. Projected to release in March.

 

[Wunderwaft]

Ahahahahaha what is this move

Spoiler: Character Spoiler

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm going to decree that character spoilers are not a concern moving forward--anyone reading the latest post on page 475 of this thread the day after a Direct that advertised Smash knows what they are about. ( ParanoidDrone 's button is a good final warning just in case.)

I'd also normally scoff at devoting too much ink towards such limited pre-release footage, but again we still have relatively little to discuss in this era so hell with it.



If we assume down-b is change, then that leaves the "named attacked" as the other 3 specials for each character. Pyra Mythra seems to have 2 slightly different up-b options, a single shot and a multi-shot. Mythra also seems to have "Bat Within" Foresight.

What I'm most curious about is Pyra's side-b, where she throws her sword forward as a spinning trap but still seems able to move independently. Can she not attack until it returns? Seems like a logical, interesting situation that we somehow have not had already in Smash.

As far as the viability of the two-character model, if they are the same weight then it will really come down to differences in damage vs. kill options, neutral vs. ledge-guarding, and recovery options. Sheik/Zelda in Brawl promised the first distinction but failed in practice, and whiffed on the other two entirely. PT in Brawl was also a mixed bag, while PT in Ultimate nailed it. If nothing else, that's encouraging.

 

[Arthur97]

I mean, Mythra's not really much of a spoiler or any. At least her presence. She was in at least one promo video.

 

[Wunderwaft]

Something was pointed out to me but Pyra and Mythra share their normals and aerials, their only major difference is in their specials. Looking back at the footage their up tilt, down air, and side tilt are the same animation. I guess this might be the first stance character we get in Smash and isn't a full on transformation character that changes everything completely like how Zelda/Shiek were.

 

[Thinkaman]

I mean, Mythra's not really much of a spoiler or any. At least her presence. She was in at least one promo video.

I was refering to keeping the newcomer's identity a secret; people typically want to see the trailer for themselves, and for example Reddit mods are surely justified in keeping the character's name censored for 24 hours in thread titles.

Just letting everyone knows that body text in page 475 of a competitive forum is far enough from that scenario to not worry.

Something was pointed out to me but Pyra and Mythra share their normals and aerials, their only major difference is in their specials. Looking back at the footage their up tilt, down air, and side tilt are the same animation. I guess this might be the first stance character we get in Smash and isn't a full on transformation character that changes everything completely like how Zelda/Shiek were.

Similar or even identical animations can still be pretty different, whether it's as subtle as Marth/Lucina or otherwise.

The voiceover could be interpreted as outright suggesting that Pyra has stronger smashes, "powered up with fire?!?" if we were to give that any weight at all.

Even specials aside, "Bat Within" would be a pretty big passive difference.

 

[Arthur97]

Well, Mythra being the faster one would make sense (even if she's technically supposed to be stronger as well). Pyra could be the harder hitter though. One of their last lines does seem to kind of back it up that Pyra may be the oomph while Mythra is the speed. As such, well, Mythra will probably end up being the better of the two in a vacuum if that's the case.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Assuming that they don't have deliberating flaws and that the strengths of each transformation is significant enough, I have high hopes for this character. Being able to switch between fast and strong? We've seen this with Pokémon Trainer and Shulk already, and from a cursory glance of the new character's moves, they do look promising... We'll see soon enough, I suppose. So far we only have a trailer, but my initial gut feeling is high or top tier.

 

[The_Bookworm]

There is something to note about the character transform mechanic that I think is worth bringing up.

With ,while the character is fully intangible while transforming, the character endures about 14 frames of cooldown, where they cannot act, they are stuck in place, and they are vulnerable. The overall move has a duration of 39 frames.

With Pyra/Mythra, the transformation is seemless. They transformed into the other enduring very little to no endlag, and move freely during the transformation. As seen in the trailer where she transforms to dodge Link's dash attack (and another later on with another character but I forgot), she is briefly intangible while transforming. The intangibility is more brief than Pokémon Change, but that is because the move has a significantly shorter duration.

It feels like 's Pokémon Change, mixed in with 's ARMS Change. This seems like a fairly huge advantage for the character as a whole.

I personally think it makes sense from a design perspective. In the case with , he wields three different characters, and are drastically different from eachother. While Pyra and Mythra does seem like they possess many significant differences between eachother, they seem to be fundamentally similar characters.


Outside of that, we do have a good chunk of their moveset shown off, similar to Steve, but for now we are in speculation mode. I will post my analysis on that another time.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Seems Cosmos, Tweek, and MkLeo all think the new character is quite good. I've been thinking a bit more about it and I'm strongly inclined to believe.

So I've been thinking for a while that you could almost take any three mid tiers and give them PT down-B and they'd be at least high tier. In this case, we only have two characters... But they look individually better than the PT characters. This character has the potential to be better than Pokémon Trainer, Tweek even seems to believe that it's possible that this character is the best character in the game.

Oh, and seems Cosmos might play her? I have mixed feelings: On one hand, this new character looks hype. On the other hand, poor Corrin. I still think Corrin is top 30 but without Cosmos to prove it people will keep putting her in like, top 40 or something. Oh well. Maybe he'll play both?

 

[meleebrawler]

I was refering to keeping the newcomer's identity a secret; people typically want to see the trailer for themselves, and for example Reddit mods are surely justified in keeping the character's name censored for 24 hours in thread titles.

Just letting everyone knows that body text in page 475 of a competitive forum is far enough from that scenario to not worry.



Similar or even identical animations can still be pretty different, whether it's as subtle as Marth/Lucina or otherwise.

The voiceover could be interpreted as outright suggesting that Pyra has stronger smashes, "powered up with fire?!?" if we were to give that any weight at all.

Even specials aside, "Bat Within" would be a pretty big passive difference.

The "Smash Flare" as the trailer calls it is probably Pyra's answer to Mythra's Foresight. Probably an applied buff that changes her smashes, which in normal circumstances behave mostly identically to Mythra's. In general Mythra's unique moves make her move around a lot while Pyra's are about being meaty and controlling big space. I don't know if their base mobility specs or general frame data on shared normals will differ, though.

Well, Mythra being the faster one would make sense (even if she's technically supposed to be stronger as well). Pyra could be the harder hitter though. One of their last lines does seem to kind of back it up that Pyra may be the oomph while Mythra is the speed. As such, well, Mythra will probably end up being the better of the two in a vacuum if that's the case.

Similar things have been said of Min-Min's Megawatt, eveyone thought it would be the least useful arm in her kit, but it's actually a very important tool even in 1v1s. When you switch that quickly it's trivial to use one to lead into the other.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I discovered another interesting thing:

In the Smash Bros Website, they denote characters in their respective order of appearance in the Smash series.
Mario is #1. Falco is #20. Sonic is #38. Terry is #74. Etc.

However, despite Pyra & Mythra sharing the same character slot, they are actually denoted as separate characters.
Pyra is #79 and Mythra is #80.
The only other character with this distinction is Pokémon Trainer, sharing the same character slot but being denoted as characters #33-35.
The Mii Fighters technically have this distinction too, but only in the website and not on the CSS.


This isn't anything too surprising given that the trailer showed that they are indeed two characters in one, but find this quite fascinating.

Also, I guess that means that we have officially reached character #80 (although technically we are now in 77).
Remember when we thought post-patch SSB4's roster of 58 characters was pretty big?



Oh, and here is the official render on the two.

Spoiler

We don't have alts yet, as that will come in the future.

 

[Arthur97]

The "Smash Flare" as the trailer calls it is probably Pyra's answer to Mythra's Foresight. Probably an applied buff that changes her smashes, which in normal circumstances behave mostly identically to Mythra's. In general Mythra's unique moves make her move around a lot while Pyra's are about being meaty and controlling big space. I don't know if their base mobility specs or general frame data on shared normals will differ, though.



Similar things have been said of Min-Min's Megawatt, eveyone thought it would be the least useful arm in her kit, but it's actually a very important tool even in 1v1s. When you switch that quickly it's trivial to use one to lead into the other.

True, it matters more how they mesh, but in a vacuum, the slower of the two would likely be the worst one. Together, well, if they're designed properly, both should be very important.

 

[Rizen]

What's the deal with the Ras; why are they able to change back and forth? (I never played xenoblade).