Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[MG_3989]

Right now, all of the current "top tiers" (ie characters people think are top tier) feel much less oppressive and overpowered compared to Smash 4. Meanwhile, the "low tiers" seem better than in Smash 4. It could be that they've actually managed to tone down the best characters while buffing the worst, making the game more balanced overall.

Let's hope that's the case and it stays that way (DLC could change things, both Cloud and Bayonetta were Smash 4 DLC after all).

It feels super balanced right now. Definitely the most balanced Smash game I’ve played, you can pretty much win with anyone if you’re good enough (I mean of course there’s a couple really bad characters and bad matchups but discounting those). It’s even more impressive because the roster is so large. It’s an impressive feat not just for a Smash game but a fighting game in general

 

[Shaya]

Sorry but all you have to do is DI away and its no longer true at a range of %'s. I managed to get at least 3 frames of leeway by doing that as you have to delay her flip kick to catch him.

Go frame by frame, set up the hit, change CPU to 'control' on impact and hold away on a joycon or something. Pretty easy to verify that.

You don't need to apologize, it combos with no DI at a high %, but it was obvious it wouldn't be with DI.
The main factor I personally cared about was having zair send at angle that naturally strings into FJK - the move struggles to combo barring very close ranges now compared to S4, this can work at slightly further distances which is the beneficial part.
Delaying the kick can cover air dodges - it might be 50/50ish or a very very hard punish on people holding forward when hit by zair (jump ins, ledge jumps, platforms, etc).

Dash and/or Jump Flip Kick might have a better chance of hitting people DI-ing away and jumping.

Probably should've made it more obvious I don't care about it as a true combo. I'd probably be trying to "find it" at around 70% onwards.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I feel the need to point out that we're still in relatively early days and it's by no means guaranteed that the roster will shake out to be as balanced as it currently feels like it is. Metas evolve, tech gets discovered, characters get figured out, and patches throw monkey wrenches into everything.

That said, I've been pleasantly surprised by the character diversity in tournament results so far.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I dunno how much talk there's been about Little Mac but boy oh boy this character got weird nerfs and buffs across the board.

For example: Why did they gut his down-tilt? Cancelling it from dash would've been awesome, but too bad, it has more endlag now and it doesn't true combo into anything anymore past 60%... except I think F-air at around 70% if your timing is tight. His up-tilt got buffed but in weird ways too... for instance why is Up-tilt to UPAIR a thing (like wtf??). He's also got true combos from it to Up-B, but they don't KO unfortunately at the percents it true combos at.

Speaking of his aerials, it's nice to see all of them getting a bit stronger, they're still bad but at least they can be situationally useful now. The small KB buffs make enough of a difference to let b-air and f-air lead into some tech chase situations close to the ground, and it's nice that U-air sends opponents farther away.

Neutral B now this is an interesting one. The move has so much more application than it did previously now that it can be shield cancelled. The fact that it also has armor means you can land against a string of jabs or weak tilts from characters like Pichu or Fox, tank them and shield cancel into Up-B or Upsmash or whatever else you can think of, or just grab them. It's also pretty nice that it can be reversed too as it catches any airdodges and rolls that go behind Little Mac. Or if you choose to hit with the move instead, its pretty strong and it deals significant shield damage. It's pretty nice too that it can be cancelled in the air with an air-dodge as well. Mixes up his recovery in different ways than before.

The thing that screws him most though is the fact he can't run past shields anymore. That really just entirely screws his already linear approach, it makes him relly more on foxtrotting (which admittedly he makes good use of) and mixing up Neutral B shield cancels with his super armored smashes.

With the gut to D-tilt and the game engine not allowing him to cross up opponents, I feel like he's going to be playing super different in this game. I don't have high hopes for the boxer in the 1v1 meta, perhaps we'll see more of him in 2v2s though where a partner can complement his weaknesses.

 

[Nobie]

I dunno how much talk there's been about Little Mac but boy oh boy this character got weird nerfs and buffs across the board.

For example: Why did they gut his down-tilt? Cancelling it from dash would've been awesome, but too bad, it has more endlag now and it doesn't true combo into anything anymore past 60%... except I think F-air at around 70% if your timing is tight. His up-tilt got buffed but in weird ways too... for instance why is Up-tilt to UPAIR a thing (like wtf??). He's also got true combos from it to Up-B, but they don't KO unfortunately at the percents it true combos at.

Speaking of his aerials, it's nice to see all of them getting a bit stronger, they're still bad but at least they can be situationally useful now. The small KB buffs make enough of a difference to let b-air and f-air lead into some tech chase situations close to the ground, and it's nice that U-air sends opponents farther away.

Neutral B now this is an interesting one. The move has so much more application than it did previously now that it can be shield cancelled. The fact that it also has armor means you can land against a string of jabs or weak tilts from characters like Pichu or Fox, tank them and shield cancel into Up-B or Upsmash or whatever else you can think of, or just grab them. It's also pretty nice that it can be reversed too as it catches any airdodges and rolls that go behind Little Mac. Or if you choose to hit with the move instead, its pretty strong and it deals significant shield damage. It's pretty nice too that it can be cancelled in the air with an air-dodge as well. Mixes up his recovery in different ways than before.

The thing that screws him most though is the fact he can't run past shields anymore. That really just entirely screws his already linear approach, it makes him relly more on foxtrotting (which admittedly he makes good use of) and mixing up Neutral B shield cancels with his super armored smashes.

With the gut to D-tilt and the game engine not allowing him to cross up opponents, I feel like he's going to be playing super different in this game. I don't have high hopes for the boxer in the 1v1 meta, perhaps we'll see more of him in 2v2s though where a partner can complement his weaknesses.

I might just be imagining things, but I feel like the changes made to Mac are supposed to make him play more like a Punch-Out game. You don't agressively fish for hits into big damage in that series; you bait out or anticipate an attack or tell and then counterattack. Dash-cancel d-tilt into easy combos might have been considered too against this concept.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Ness feels the best he’s ever felt in Ultimate imo and I think this is the best he’s ever been. I’m a Ness main so there’s a little bias here but looking at his tournament results, his kit, and how he translates as a character into Ultimates physics I think there’s no doubt he’s a high tier character. I’d honestly say top 10 at this point. This isn’t just my opinion though, a lot of people think this. He’s a little slept on but I think people are starting to realize he’s really good. I’d love to see more than 4 or 5 top Ness mains this time around and hopefully people will start picking up the character or else he’ll stay slept on (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for me lol)

I can’t say much for Lucas since I haven’t tried him out nor have I seen tournament results but he’s definitely got a dangerous tool kit, I can tell just from playing against good Lucas players online. His edgeguarding game is insane. He might be the one that’s slept on

This is where it’s noticeable that you never played SSB4. Because Ness was often estimated as a Top Tier in 4 as well, but later fell from grace. People are now kind of expecting the same.

At least Rosalina is no longer a big threat to you guys. That’s a definite plus.

Ness is probably just a good High Tier this time, just like in 4.

 

[MG_3989]

This is where it’s noticeable that you never played SSB4. Because Ness was often estimated as a Top Tier in 4 as well, but later fell from grace. People are now kind of expecting the same.

At least Rosalina is no longer a big threat to you guys. That’s a definite plus.

Ness is probably just a good High Tier this time, just like in 4.

That’s true, I am missing a lot of information from missing out on Smash 4. I mean I’d like for Ness to stay where he is in the meta right now but as long as he’s a viable high tier I’m ok with that. I’d play him if he was low tier anyway so it doesn’t matter that much to me. I honestly know nothing about Smash 4 and how the early meta developed and I had no idea Ness was hyped

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Ness was top tier in early smash 4 because people didn't have a clue how to play the game. Same reason characters like Bowser and Yoshi were super overrated in early smash 4. It didn't help that Marthcina got buffed big time and Cloud and Corrin got introduced as DLC.

I don't expect him to stay at the top this time around either but I also don't expect him to fall very far down either. Barring patches or a really problematic DLC matchup being introduced his actually a good character this time around with strengths that finally matchup with his weakness and new tools that add a lot more depth to growing his meta long term (magnet) and should remain in the upper echelons for the game's duration.

Regarding Lucas earlier, the character honestly feels like to me he should be played even more campy in this game than 4. His PKF is still relatively the same with some added launch power, Zair has new tricks and his Fair spaces very well on shields. This combined with the fact he lost grab combos and a lot of combo potential overall means he's going to go for a more slow and steady approach to building damage and then scoring K.O's with his fantastic edge guarding, throws or a stray aerial. I think people are confused as to how he should be played right now because he feels like he can be more aggressive in this game and while he can I don't think it's optimal or successful long term for him.

 

[The_Bookworm]

That’s true, I am missing a lot of information from missing out on Smash 4. I mean I’d like for Ness to stay where he is in the meta right now but as long as he’s a viable high tier I’m ok with that. I’d play him if he was low tier anyway so it doesn’t matter that much to me. I honestly know nothing about Smash 4 and how the early meta developed and I had no idea Ness was hyped

Gist of the whole thing. [Edit: this suddenly turned into a bio of his SSB4 competitive history lol.]

Ness was top tier early on due to the big hype his significant buffs from Brawl to SSB4 brought to the table. His pretty troublesome matchup against Rosa, Villy, and Sheik, as well as Diddy and Sonic being annoying as well, where then noted, and Ness then dropped from top tier to a solid high tier, with the player base and results to back it up.

Then at the 2nd half of 2016, the top Ness players then disappeared all at once, only to return at the end of the year. During this time, opinion on him declined even further. Although Ness loved the nerfs to Diddy and especially Sheik, he doesn't like Rosa remaining prevalent, the new Corrin being introduced, and Marthcina being heavily buffed into viability.

Spoiler: The Rest of Ness' SSB4 Competitive History

There was also the whole potential craze going along in the Smash community. Unfortunately for Ness, Lucas is one of those characters, with Taiheita's 17th at Smash Con 2016 adding fuel to the fire. So even when Ness' results returned back to form in 2017, as well as Taiheita's results in Japan declining, people commonly put Lucas over Ness for the potential factor.

Fortunately for the character by the end of 2017, Taiheita's retirement pretty much ended the big potential craze for Lucas, so Ness' results became more recognized by the Smash community outside of top players. Ness' improved results in 2018 thanks to players like Gackt and BestNess also came as well. He never achieved the results of back then, but still pretty good. Makes me wonder where he would be if there was one last SSB4 tier list, because the latest one from Dec 2017 has him paired with Lucas at 28/29th (potential craze or not, I have no clue how Lucas made it over DH and Link, but ok then?).

In the end, he is generally considered upper mid to high tier at the end of SSB4's metagame.

Going into Ultimate, one thing some top players complained about Ness in SSB4 besides from his recovery (which is kind of silly considering that they live in a Cloud-infested metagame lol) is that he lacks depth as a character (despite Lucina, Sonic, and MK being a thing). Well Ness has plenty in Ultimate, thanks Magnet based movement now being a thing. His new up air has a bit of a learning curve as well. Giving from his already high standing so far in Ultimate, he has more room to grow rather than having the metagame slowly slip from his fingertips.

 

[MG_3989]

Gist of the whole thing. [Edit: this suddenly turned into a bio of his SSB4 competitive history lol. Refer for only the first, second, and last paragraph for the short response. Will put in a spoiler tab later.]

Ness was top tier early on due to the big hype his significant buffs from Brawl to SSB4 brought to the table. His pretty troublesome matchup against Rosa, Villy, and Sheik, as well as Diddy and Sonic being annoying as well, where then noted, and Ness then dropped from top tier to a solid high tier, with the player base and results to back it up.

Then at the 2nd half of 2016, the top Ness players then disappeared all at once, only to return at the end of the year. During this time, opinion on him declined even further. Although Ness loved the nerfs to Diddy and especially Sheik, he doesn't like Rosa remaining prevalent, the new Corrin being introduced, and Marthcina being heavily buffed into viability.

There was also the whole potential craze going along in the Smash community. Unfortunately for Ness, Lucas is one of those characters, with Taiheita's 17th at Smash Con 2016 adding fuel to the fire. So even when Ness' results returned back to form in 2017, as well as Taiheita's results in Japan declining, people commonly put Lucas over Ness for the potential factor.

Fortunately for the character by the end of 2017, Taiheita's retirement pretty much ended the big potential craze for Lucas, so Ness' results became more recognized by the Smash community outside of top players. Ness' improved results in 2018 thanks to players like Gackt and BestNess also came as well. He never achieved the results of back then, but still pretty good. Makes me wonder where he would be if there was one last SSB4 tier list, because the latest one from Dec 2017 has him paired with Lucas at 28/29th (potential craze or not, I have no clue how Lucas made it over DH and Link, but ok then?). He is generally considered upper mid to high tier at the end of SSB4's metagame.

Going into Ultimate, one thing some top players complained about Ness in SSB4 besides from his recovery (which is kind of silly considering that they live in a Cloud-infested metagame lol) is that he lacks depth as a character (despite Lucina, Sonic, and MK being a thing). Well Ness has plenty in Ultimate, thanks Magnet based movement now being a thing. His new up air has a bit of a learning curve as well. Giving from his already high standing so far in Ultimate, he has more room to grow rather than having the metagame slowly slip from his fingertips.

That’s what I’ve been thinking. Thanks for updating me on the Smash 4 stuff. Regardless of the hype he garnered in Smash 4 it doesn’t effect his tool kit and vast improvement in Ultimate. PSI Magnet really is a game changer. And I’ve said this before his recovery weakness is overblown. He doesn’t have to use PKT2 most of the time and if he does it’s a threat to the edgeguarder. Usually Ness can recover with his great double jump and air dodges along with PSI Magnet to mix things up and when he does use PKT2 most good Ness players will make sure it’s from a good place (of course there are going to be times he’s gonna get gimped, his recovery is still somewhat of a weakness but not nearly as much as a factor as people make it out to be).

As far as depth and versatility goes he has 4 useful aerials, 3 that can kill, and all of them can combo in the right situation, and all of them have specific purposes. PSI Magnet and PSI Magnet stalls and movement options. His up smash is now a fantastic anti aerial that can kill at 100%, we all know what his down smash does. His bat can reflect projectiles and kill in the right situation. PK Thunder can harass with the head and even kill, gimp with the tail, and PKT2 is a recovery option and kills at low percentages. Then there’s his PK Fire set ups especially from the air and his grab game with a dominant back throw and a combo starting down throw and a foward throw that can push people off stage to harass them. He also can go pretty far out and edge guard with his aerials. I don’t see how anybody could complain about his depth and versatility as a character. Almost every single one of his moves is useful

 

[J0eyboi]

Played a bit more Ness last night, and it seems to me like Ness has a couple of really good relevant matchups. Specifically, Pikachu, Pichu, and Wolf seem like good MUs for him, and Peach and Snake seem like they could be pretty good. The number of strong swordies definitely sucks for him, but he seems like a good character to have as a secondary.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Ness still gets blocked hard offstage virtue of having an exploitable recovery. It's not as bad as it was in Melee or Brawl, but it can still be abused. Sometimes his best bet to avoid that is to recover from afar so he can't be gimped or spiked while rotating his thunder.

Certain characters can also just completely deny that opportunity even from far away. Rosalina's Gravity Pull (even if she's not as common as she used to be) and Villager/Isabelle's pocket flat out deny him any chance to make it back. There's also projectiles like Snake's Remote Missile that can tank the PK Thunder hit essentially doing the same thing to Ness.

Ness's recovery still has the same weakness it's always had. Now I'm not trying to say that this makes the character bad because I also realize he's got a lot of ranged disjoints paired with flexible air mobility to complement this weakness, and challenging a recovering Ness directly with a physical attack is very risky itself because of how strong the hitbox is on PK Thunder2 (when he hits himself with it). But it's still an issue to keep in mind while playing against Ness and to a lesser extent Lucas (his thunder passing through things makes it a lot better in this regard).

 

[LightLV]

no seriously i think is the worst character in the game...or i just am completely incompatible with his design.

he went from a character with an unstoppable neutral in Brawl to Z E R O neutral in Ultimate



He's literally reverse Little Mac. He's **** on the stage, but a god off the stage in the air. He has almost no buttons to contest anything.

 

[J0eyboi]

Ness still gets blocked hard offstage virtue of having an exploitable recovery. It's not as bad as it was in Melee or Brawl, but it can still be abused. Sometimes his best bet to avoid that is to recover from afar so he can't be gimped or spiked while rotating his thunder.

Certain characters can also just completely deny that opportunity even from far away. Rosalina's Gravity Pull (even if she's not as common as she used to be) and Villager/Isabelle's pocket flat out deny him any chance to make it back. There's also projectiles like Snake's Remote Missile that can tank the PK Thunder hit essentially doing the same thing to Ness.

Ness's recovery still has the same weakness it's always had. Now I'm not trying to say that this makes the character bad because I also realize he's got a lot of ranged disjoints paired with flexible air mobility to complement this weakness, and challenging a recovering Ness directly with a physical attack is very risky itself because of how strong the hitbox is on PK Thunder2 (when he hits himself with it). But it's still an issue to keep in mind while playing against Ness and to a lesser extent Lucas (his thunder passing through things makes it a lot better in this regard).

You're overstating how bad Ness' recovery is here. Just like Chrom, though he should be dead in most situations where he's forced to up-B, he can mix up his recovery enough to avoid Up-Bing often. Ness has way better recovery mixups than Chrom, as well.

no seriously i think is the worst character in the game...or i just am completely incompatible with his design.

he went from a character with an unstoppable neutral in Brawl to Z E R O neutral in Ultimate



He's literally reverse Little Mac. He's **** on the stage, but a god off the stage in the air.

I'm going to guess it's the latter. I could be wrong, but Meta Knight doesn't seem that bad from the outside. His neutral is definitely an issue for him, but his disadvantage is strong, his advantage is decent, and his kill power is quite good. If you can find a way to make his neutral work, which is probably harder than it was in 4 but not impossible, he should be fine.

 

[MG_3989]

Played a bit more Ness last night, and it seems to me like Ness has a couple of really good relevant matchups. Specifically, Pikachu, Pichu, and Wolf seem like good MUs for him, and Peach and Snake seem like they could be pretty good. The number of strong swordies definitely sucks for him, but he seems like a good character to have as a secondary.

Snake can go either way I think it favors Ness a little. Ness eats gernades, nikita, Snake’s upsmash, and if I’m not mistaken his sidesmash effectively taking away or at least seriously limiting Snake’s zoning and trapping ability. Plus Snake can’t keep up with Ness in CQC nor in the air. I haven’t thought too much about the Peach matchup but I can see PK Thunder and Ness’s disjointed aerials giving her some trouble. He’s one character that can almost kind of float with her and throw out moves. I haven’t played a high level Peach nor have I seen any gameplay of Ness vs Peach so I’m not sure how this matchup turns out. The swordies can definitely be a problem but I don’t believe Ness is at a huge disadvantage against them and he has his disjoints to throw out and his other zoning tools. It’s just a matchup where the Ness player has to be on top of every moment and space pretty much perfectly. Another decent top tier matchup for Ness is Inkling because Ness swallows the all their zoning tools, the gernades and the splatter shot and he doesn’t have too much trouble with the rest of their kit. PSI Magnet also kills Pikman instantly against Olimar. Ness doesn’t like swords but other than that I don’t see anyone currently top or high tier giving him too much trouble

 

[LightLV]

I'm going to guess it's the latter. I could be wrong, but Meta Knight doesn't seem that bad from the outside. His neutral is definitely an issue for him, but his disadvantage is strong, his advantage is decent, and his kill power is quite good. If you can find a way to make his neutral work, which is probably harder than it was in 4 but not impossible, he should be fine.

I'm actually having fun playing around with him but im pretty sure its only because of how incredibly trash his neutral game is. You have to measure every button because he has almost no lenient hitboxes (other than Dsmash) and his specials are so incredibly laggy that you get punished ON HIT

But for some reason, i'm having this intuition that he's sleeper tier.....probably just denial though.

I do think he ****s on most heavies since they solve the biggest problem i have with him. But at face value this character is terrible.

 

[J0eyboi]

Plus Snake can’t keep up with Ness in CQC nor in the air.

Snake can keep up with Ness in CQC. A lot of his grounded buttons are either slightly faster than Ness' or have more range. Ness definitely wins the air game though.

Another decent top tier matchup for Ness is Inkling because Ness swallows the all their zoning tools, the gernades and the splatter shot and he doesn’t have too much trouble with the rest of their kit.

See, I was thinking Inkling might be good, but I wasn't sure. Inkling's dash is really good at low-profiling Ness' aerials, which he really wants to be using (dash attack seems good for this matchup though). Inkling can also probably edgeguard Ness quite well, though Ness should be able to edgeguard Inkling back. I can definitely see that MU being decent, but Ness-favored seems unlikely to me.

I'm actually having fun playing around with him but im pretty sure its only because of how incredibly trash his neutral game is. You have to measure every button because he has almost no lenient hitboxes (other than Dsmash) and his specials are so incredibly laggy that you get punished ON HIT

Yeah that sounds about right. A full half of MK's hitboxes have exactly 1 active frame, which is really annoying. His specials are definitely not neutral tools, either. All of them kill eventually, but none of them have much use in neutral.

 

[MG_3989]

Snake can keep up with Ness in CQC. A lot of his grounded buttons are either slightly faster than Ness' or have more range. Ness definitely wins the air game though.



See, I was thinking Inkling might be good, but I wasn't sure. Inkling's dash is really good at low-profiling Ness' aerials, which he really wants to be using (dash attack seems good for this matchup though). Inkling can also probably edgeguard Ness quite well, though Ness should be able to edgeguard Inkling back. I can definitely see that MU being decent, but Ness-favored seems unlikely to me.

What I meant by CQC is Ness can use his nair to get Snake off him and throw out short hop disjoints. Snake definitely wins on the ground. And yeah I’m not too sure about Inkling either, Ness does take away two of their big options but they are a very well rounded character with good edgeguarding which does hurt Ness in the matchup. I really wish we’d see more Ness players at majors and nationals so we can get a better idea of how these matchups play out in game and not just on paper

 

[BunbUn129]

No doubt as time goes on and the dust settles, the class of viable characters will shrink. Same happened in other games but in Brawl/4 those games ended with a few characters holding the rest of the cast hostage. What will make Ultimate different is that they clearly had a more focused mindset for the engine (assuming they don't mess up with DLC like last time...).

S4's design philosophy was all over the place. The game was marketed as hitting the middle ground between Brawl/Melee, but at least to me it turned out to be another Brawl but with far less depth. Let's go through the design decisions in 4 that don't make sense:

-Air dodges got high landing lag. Makes sense...buuuut they now had ~5 frames of ending lag. Rolls became super spammable as well.
-Removing ledge-invincibility on regrab, I totally agree with that. But...they removed ledge-hogging (yes, I don't find ledge-hogging cheap, a lot of people do but in reality, in Melee 4 out of 5 times ledge-hogging wouldn't directly lead to a stock, it just forced the recovering character onstage for further punishing. It already became much less effective in Brawl anyway) and they buffed recoveries and gave us absurd magnet hands.
-Characters couldn't be grabbed for 70 frames after a previous grab. The change itself makes sense but they also went and increased the knockback on many throws that could be chained (Falco, Pikachu). If you removed the invulnerability in 4 most characters still wouldn't be able to reliably chain-grab.
-Hitstun cancelling was nerfed so you could do non-chain-grab combos...but vectoring made horizontal combos easy to DI out of, and many combo-oriented moves received damage nerfs, largely offsetting the gains from being able to combo (MK, ZSS, Sheik, Pikachu, Mario, etc.).

The overall design of S4's engine had some very apparent contradictions. In an alternate reality where 1.1.3 was the final version, I think the game would've ended on a brighter note. Bayonetta's inclusion only highlighted the above contradictions because of how differently she was designed from everyone else.

Smash Ultimate had a much clearer goal behind it. It's tuned towards offense. Dodge spam and hitstun cancelling are gone, shield and grab aren't the win buttons they once were, movement is way faster and more flexible, edge-guarding matters. Horizontal vectoring still being in is the only gripe I have. But nonetheless this game's environment encourages creativity, and even in the long run, I don't think it will devolve into a meta dominated by one-trick ponies.

Re: Meta Knight.
Bad character? There are bad opinions. This one is just plain wrong. He has one of the best disadvantage states in the game (and this matters way more than in 4 where most characters had it) and that alone makes him better than 1/2 the cast.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Played a bit more Ness last night, and it seems to me like Ness has a couple of really good relevant matchups. Specifically, Pikachu, Pichu, and Wolf seem like good MUs for him, and Peach and Snake seem like they could be pretty good. The number of strong swordies definitely sucks for him, but he seems like a good character to have as a secondary.

Ness has always done good against the Chus and that's no different in this game. Ness walls them well at the same time forcing their approach. Pichu can be a bit more difficult to deal with due to his speed but Ness has fairly good sized hitboxes so hitting him isn't too much of an issue. Both of them are also very light and Ness has plenty of kill power.

Idk about Wolf, sure Wolf can't freely use his blaster at range but Wolf is pretty good at juggling Ness and his grounded options are all superior to Ness' which makes for a MU you have to play airborne but very cautiously. I can't say if any side wins that MU yet I need to play it more but it doesn't feel like it swings hard either way.

Peach/Daisy are probably evenish, neither character really have a distinct advantage in neutral, Peach is really good at exploiting Ness' disadvantage and is one of the better edge guarders against Ness with turnip and float allowing her to control a lot of space and force Ness into rough situations so it's important for the Ness to play more cautiously and campy in this MU I believe to prevent more risk to getting hit off stage with Peach's ability to carry opponents to the ledge with her combos and float pressure. Ness does have the advantage of being very oppressive to Peach's disadvantage due to her floaty nature, PKT adds a ton of damage and makes landing really hard for her.

Snake might be one of Ness' best MUs. Ness hampers Snakes neutral hard. Not being able to use nades to set up, combo break (Ness can heal off a nade that simultaneously hurts Snake at the same time due to magnet's hitbox activation the nade). Not being able to use up smash to cover ledge options or platforms, even Nikita can't be used the same way since the magnet's hitbox will stop Nikita upon contact and Ness can jump away or if he has time can continue to hold magnet to heal off it. This is all very bad news for Snake and forces him to approach without nades which is quite telegraphed and easy to intercept with PKF or a Fair. Snake can contest with Ness when in CQC but it's not easy for him to actually get close to Ness without his ability to control stage with his explosives which makes this a rough MU imo. The fact that MVD was able to make that set against Awestin so close speaks volumes to MVD's skill as player, and Awestin wasn't even playing that MU optimally.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Ness's recovery still has the same weakness it's always had.

I've watched a bunch of Ultimate Ness and it seems like Directional Air Dodges can help him a bunch when recovering, depending on the situation.

 

[PK Bash]

Played a bit more Ness last night, and it seems to me like Ness has a couple of really good relevant matchups. Specifically, Pikachu, Pichu, and Wolf seem like good MUs for him, and Peach and Snake seem like they could be pretty good. The number of strong swordies definitely sucks for him, but he seems like a good character to have as a secondary.

Agree with all of this mu-wise (Ness does well against many relevant and popular characters) but I would like to say that although yes swords can be rough, they are much easier in this game imo. A lot has changed to make these mus more bearable than they were and I am writing a (massive) post whenever I get a spare minute explaining why.

Inkling is a funky matchup. Absorbing Splat Bomb is not feasible in my experience. You can't pick it up and drop it like Young/Toon Link's bombs or Snake's grenades, the hitbox of Magnet doesn't trigger Splat Bomb (certainly not consistently anyway. they seem to clank from sets I've played) so you can't blow it up like that either... you have to wait out the lengthy timer for it to explode and then Inkling's closed the gap and is dropkicking you in the teeth or something so yeah. Often not worth it. Ness has a lot going for him in that matchup though I think, but I can't explore it all right now.

In the Snake matchup, I am always grateful for PSI Magnet pressure. Awestin vs MVD (winners finals) (grand finals) is great to show the matchup, such as this pressure, PKT and down air knocking Snake out of Cypher, Snake's up tilt on Ness' shield (excellent pressure), and why PSI Magnet in response to offstage Nikita doesn't always work out. I love these sets.

Ness' recovery is pretty crap but he does give the player the options to work around it somewhat with a little bit of brainpower. Much moreso than like Chrom or Belmont for example.

 

[MG_3989]

Agree with all of this mu-wise (Ness does well against many relevant and popular characters) but I would like to say that although yes swords can be rough, they are much easier in this game imo. A lot has changed to make these mus more bearable than they were and I am writing a (massive) post whenever I get a spare minute explaining why.

Inkling is a funky matchup. Absorbing Splat Bomb is not feasible in my experience. You can't pick it up and drop it like Young/Toon Link's bombs or Snake's grenades, the hitbox of Magnet doesn't trigger Splat Bomb (certainly not consistently anyway. they seem to clank from sets I've played) so you can't blow it up like that either... you have to wait out the lengthy timer for it to explode and then Inkling's closed the gap and is dropkicking you in the teeth or something so yeah. Often not worth it. Ness has a lot going for him in that matchup though I think, but I can't explore it all right now.

In the Snake matchup, I am always grateful for PSI Magnet pressure. Awestin vs MVD (winners finals) (grand finals) is great to show the matchup, such as this pressure, PKT and down air knocking Snake out of Cypher, Snake's up tilt on Ness' shield (excellent pressure), and why PSI Magnet in response to offstage Nikita doesn't always work out. I love these sets.

Ness' recovery is pretty crap but he does give the player the options to work around it somewhat with a little bit of brainpower. Much moreso than like Chrom or Belmont for example.

I’d take Ness’s recovery over Chrom or Belmonts anyday. The Belmonts get gimped at like 40% and Ness has more options than Chrom

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

People overrated the **** outta ness in sm4sh. That character was garbage. But people would swear he was good. Like the best thing he had going for him was roll bthrow straight up garbage.

There's no way MK is the worst character in the game. Even if his neutral sucks Rosalina and little mac have a firm handle of that spot. Also I'm not even sure if I'd consider MK having a strong neutral in brawl. He basically just did whatever he wanted you couldn't match his speed range or safety. Unless nado counts as a good neutral.

Also I was looking at some of the frame data and I believe that some of the top tiers from sm4sh are still viable and shouldn't be written off. ZSS Sheik Mario and Luigi have really good buttons and really amazing frame data. Then there's mii brawler who has some great frame data as well. I think if people labbed it up more with these characters they'd fine a lot of good stuff.

Also anybody have any tips on a good way to b practice how to parry? Really need to be able to consistently parry.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Inkling is a funky matchup. Absorbing Splat Bomb is not feasible in my experience. You can't pick it up and drop it like Young/Toon Link's bombs or Snake's grenades, the hitbox of Magnet doesn't trigger Splat Bomb (certainly not consistently anyway. they seem to clank from sets I've played) so you can't blow it up like that either... you have to wait out the lengthy timer for it to explode and then Inkling's closed the gap and is dropkicking you in the teeth or something so yeah. Often not worth it. Ness has a lot going for him in that matchup though I think, but I can't explore it all right now.

Don't Splat Bombs detonate on contact with a hurtbox? I'd think Ness could use that to his advantage when trying to absorb their explosion. (Also, am I the only one who thinks it's weird that ink counts as energy for PSI Magnet?)

Also, I have a question for anyone who might know the answer: If BOTW!Link throws his bomb at you and you reflect it back at him, does it explode on contact or does he still get to detonate it remotely?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Don't Splat Bombs detonate on contact with a hurtbox? I'd think Ness could use that to his advantage when trying to absorb their explosion. (Also, am I the only one who thinks it's weird that ink counts as energy for PSI Magnet?)

Also, I have a question for anyone who might know the answer: If BOTW!Link throws his bomb at you and you reflect it back at him, does it explode on contact or does he still get to detonate it remotely?

Yes, Inkling's bombs will explode on contact. I have no idea why Inkling's ink attacks can be absorbed though :/

Remote Bombs doesn't explode on contact at all, even if reflected. He still detonates it manually.

 

[J0eyboi]

(Also, am I the only one who thinks it's weird that ink counts as energy for PSI Magnet?)

Nikita counts as an energy projectile but Samus' homing missiles don't. It doesn't make any sense, just don't think about it.

 

[Diddy Kong]

no seriously i think is the worst character in the game...or i just am completely incompatible with his design.

he went from a character with an unstoppable neutral in Brawl to Z E R O neutral in Ultimate



He's literally reverse Little Mac. He's **** on the stage, but a god off the stage in the air. He has almost no buttons to contest anything.

Tornado is still amazing though. I think he'll be buffed a little over time.

 

[NotLiquid]

Ness has the advantage of being fairly short in the Inkling matchup. It means a lot of Inkling's shorthop shenanigans aren't going to work against him. That said given how he's so grab dependent Ness feels especially susceptible to empty jump strats, and Inkling's jab stuffs out a lot of his close quarters approaches from my experience. He can also go down really early given how good Inkling is at edgeguarding.

I think the matchup leans Inkling but it's definitely not free. For whatever reason, I've come across a lot of Ness players in this region, and they've given me more than enough cause for frustration.

 

[MG_3989]

Ness has the advantage of being fairly short in the Inkling matchup. It means a lot of Inkling's shorthop shenanigans aren't going to work against him. That said given how he's so grab dependent Ness feels especially susceptible to empty jump strats, and Inkling's jab stuffs out a lot of his close quarters approaches from my experience. He can also go down really early given how good Inkling is at edgeguarding.

I think the matchup leans Inkling but it's definitely not free. For whatever reason, I've come across a lot of Ness players in this region, and they've given me more than enough cause for frustration.

I think this is fair. Maybe it’s a 55/45 in Inklings favor but nothing more than that

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think this is fair. Maybe it’s a 55/45 in Inklings favor but nothing more than that

I think Inklings have no losing matchup honestly. They seem to 55-45 the entire roster.

 

[Nobie]

I'm not deeply knowledgeable about Meta Knight, but just looking at his frame data, I can't see his neutral, or his grounded neutral, to be anything worse than "above average."

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Jnf1GGIteH35UX3IM7-mnbdG6eE/edit?usp=drivesdk (Sorry, this is in Japanese)

Here's the startup on his attacks.
Jab: 4 (not so relevant because I don't think anyone uses jab on purpose)
F-tilt: 6
U-tilt: 4
D-tilt: 3
Dash attack: 7
F-smash: 24
U-smash: 8
D-smash: 4
Nair: 6 (landing lag 7)
Fair: 9 (landing lag 10)
Bair: 7 (landing lag 11)
Uair: 6 (landing lag 9)
Dair: 4 (landing lag 9)

In other words, out of all his normals, only ONE of them is even in the double digits on startup. That's the frame data of an up-close brawler, except it's on a speedy, tiny swordsman. He doesn't have the extended hurtbox weaknesses of a Smash 4 Yoshi, nor bad movement. The only weakness I see is maybe low damage output, perhaps like Sheik, but no one argues that she has a bad neutral or onstage game.

I mean, there's no way he'll ever be Brawl level, but initial reactions were even that the character felt like a toned-down Brawl MK In terms of neutral.

 

[NotLiquid]

I think Inklings have no losing matchup honestly. They seem to 55-45 the entire roster.

I dunno, I think Inkling has a few mid-tier demons to worry about. I actually think Mario and Duck Hunt do decently against her. I will say that a lot of popular top tier characters that you think would do great against her (swordies, Fox, Pichu, etc.) are sort of bootstrapped by the fact that they have terrible disadvantage and/or survivability, and Inkling is a master in capitalizing on the former, while the latter compensates for her rare issues in securing stocks. The more questionable high/top tier MUs I can see her having are against Palutena, Olimar and possibly Yoshi.

 

[Iridium]

#UltimateSummit is approaching...
And new foes have appeared!

Say hello to the invited challengers who will be battling it out in March!
There will also be FOUR wildcard qualifier slots determined on February 3rd at @Genesis_Smash #G6! pic.twitter.com/HJMM8gWwZ5

— Beyond the Smash (@BTSsmash) January 15, 2019

An upcoming event to look out for.

 

[Rizen]

Nikita counts as an energy projectile but Samus' homing missiles don't. It doesn't make any sense, just don't think about it.

YL's fire arrows can't be absorbed either.

Also anybody have any tips on a good way to b practice how to parry? Really need to be able to consistently parry.

Go to training and pick someone like Samus who has a projectile neutral B. Set the CPU's AI to either Neutral B or Fsmash; they'll do it repeatedly.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I think we are kind of overrating heavies at the moment. It's clear to me that, yet again, the meta is shifting towards characters who give heavies a hard time. Just look at who the hot topics are right now. Inkling, Lucina, the thunder rats, Palutena, Peach, Wolf, Young Link and Chrom are the first that come to mind.

Lucy isn't too bad. Her disjoints are a problem but they're a problem for anyone who can't match them, but they can at least be played around with patient play. You'd think Peach and the rats would win easily because of their combos and solid projectiles, but these strengths are offset by their weight and range. Fighting those characters with a heavy feels fair imo, and I felt that way with them in Smash 4 as well. I'm not sure how I feel about Chrom but its harder to patiently play around his disjoints when he's rushing you down.

Inkling, Palutena, Young Link and Wolf however are everywhere and destroy heavyweights. I've seen it stated that Autoreticle / ES aren't exceptional zoning tools but when you're a big bodied heavy they are a pain to deal with. Inkling, YLink and Wolf meanwhile have zero issues out maneuvering heavies with their incredible air mobility and camping them out. Sure some of them might struggle to kill but they can afford that when their heavyweight opponent is struggling almost just as hard to even land a hit.

That's a good handful of difficult and relevant match ups, and none that I'd argue are wins. Yeah matchups are going to very by character but generally heavies struggle with the same overall weaknesses and those weaknesses are very relevant right now. If the meta continues heading in the direction it is now I don't see the likes of Bowser and DK dominating. They'll probably remain viable to some degree, sure, but how much does that really mean when almost the entire roster feels that way? I love heavies but I'll be surprised if any end up ranked higher then high-mid tier once the meta has settled.

 

[trickroom]

Ness was top tier in early smash 4 because people didn't have a clue how to play the game. Same reason characters like Bowser and Yoshi were super overrated in early smash 4.

This is why I'm skeptical of the praise being lavished on Yoshi and ROB and a couple others right now. There is such a thing as a character who falls hard when the playerbase collectively gets better, and I think the sort of "abusable" character with a strength that preys on the weakness of mid-level players and a weakness that bad players have trouble exploiting isn't a recipe for long-term success.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Kinda sucks that the meta will always and forever favor the faster characters. I was really hoping that ultimate would fix that.

 

[Rehnquist]

I'm actually having fun playing around with him but im pretty sure its only because of how incredibly trash his neutral game is. You have to measure every button because he has almost no lenient hitboxes (other than Dsmash) and his specials are so incredibly laggy that you get punished ON HIT

But for some reason, i'm having this intuition that he's sleeper tier.....probably just denial though.

I do think he ****s on most heavies since they solve the biggest problem i have with him. But at face value this character is terrible.

I mean he is still designed as a bait and punish character, while you won't be challenging too many moves, his frame data is good. Fsmash is just as spammable as it was in sm4sh due low end lag, which allows for some creativity. While SL and cape have average knockback, drill and nado knockback knockback is good. If you are getting punished on these while hitting your opponent, then your throwing them out way too early, they aren't neutral tools.

DA, Nair, Fair, Dtilt, Grab are your combo starters, Fsmash is safe in neutral, RAR Bair kills, and sliding Ftilt are also nice. Essentially you are going to be dancing with your opponent and falling on top of their misses.

 

[PK Gaming]

Kinda sucks that the meta will always and forever favor the faster characters. I was really hoping that ultimate would fix that.

Speed is universally useful in Fighting games because it scales so well with everything (movement, controlling space, offense, pressure, etc)

There was no way Ultimate would "fix that" nor does it need to, imo (especially since speedy characters aren't that problematic in this game / they tend to be more skill intensive than heavies)