Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rocketjay8]

Again, you don't need to approach. You have missiles to harass people and Charge Shot to win projectile wars. Force other people to approach you.

The same thing applies to Simon. His approach is linear as hell, and no one is getting hit by Axe in neutral unless they're trying to approach you.



Honestly? Yeah.

I don't even mean to insult your intelligence. 90% of the Smash community including multiple top Smash 4 players apparently forgot that she had moves other than dash attack in the months leading up to Ultimate's release.



Then talk about that. Talk about the flaws in her zoning and why it isn't good enough.

I don't know why people are saying that Samus suck because Dash attack and up air got nerfed, while ignoring the buffs that she recieved (faster in many ways, specials got buffed).
It's just like Bowser, they thought that he was going to be worst and outclassed by K Rool and Ridley because of his Koopah kill confirm nerf. Forgetting that he no longer has that 8 frame jump squat, buffed armor, and better fire breath hitboxes. No longer the one trick pony he was in smash 4.

 

[PK Gaming]

Incineroar definitely does not have one of the worst recoveries in the game when characters like Chrom, Cloud and the Belmonts exist, and when side B has invincibility, up b being hard to edge guard, and still being able to use directional air dodge alongside all his tools. It's a predictable recovery, sure, but he's going to get back on the stage as long as he's not semi-spiked or projectile camped.

This perspective is only correct when specials are taken into account. Incineroar's poor double jump and lackluster air mobility make his ability to recover worse than the characters you mentioned.

Well, Cloud and Chrom at least.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Incineroar's double jump is fine. It goes higher than Chrom's and is only a bit lower than Cloud's from checking training mode. His air speed is is what holds him back.

Though I wouldn't ignore side b, he doesn't lose much vertical height from it, and up b isn't exactly easy to challenge. He can mix up his recovery.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Incineroar's double jump is fine. It goes higher than Chrom's and is only a bit lower than Cloud's from checking training mode. His air speed is is what holds him back.

Though I wouldn't ignore side b, he doesn't lose much vertical height from it, and up b isn't exactly easy to challenge. He can mix up his recovery.

He can also grab someone with side b if they try to gimp them, fail his attack, and get back on stage with up-B or air dodge. He has a surprising amount of options for recovering.

 

[Browny]

I need some answers from people who have the data to prove this, I've believed one too many misconceptions about this game already and I need to know whats up.

I've read that jump cancelled options out of shield are best, yet I can't spot a single frame of advantage that doing a jump gives you over an upb out of shield or an upsmash. I have tap jump off so there is absolutely no way I am inputting a jump. Uptilt or any other move has the additional shield drop frames, but jump, upb and upsmash are all the same at 3 (usual shield drop).

Given that I can't jump cancel into any grounded attack (where you used to jump cancel upsmash), why would anyone even bother describing it as 'jump cancelling' when you either jump, or are simply using upsmash or upb? There is no cancelling of jumps involved at any stage.

 

[J0eyboi]

I need some answers from people who have the data to prove this, I've believed one too many misconceptions about this game already and I need to know whats up.

I've read that jump cancelled options out of shield are best, yet I can't spot a single frame of advantage that doing a jump gives you over an upb out of shield or an upsmash. I have tap jump off so there is absolutely no way I am inputting a jump. Uptilt or any other move has the additional shield drop frames, but jump, upb and upsmash are all the same at 3 (usual shield drop).

Given that I can't jump cancel into any grounded attack (where you used to jump cancel upsmash), why would anyone even bother describing it as 'jump cancelling' when you either jump, or are simply using upsmash or upb? There is no cancelling of jumps involved at any stage.

When people say "jump cancelled options out of shield" they really mean "options out of shield that have historically involved jump cancelling," even though Upsmash and Up-B no longer need to be jump cancelled. In other words, they mean "shieldgrabs and dropping shield suck now."

 

[Marmotbro]

Putting in muh 2 cents

is very good. His side B is scary and he can control the entire stage if played right. That being said, he is gonna get weaker the longer the game is played as people will understand his projectiles and counterplay better.

is a sleeper. I think he is around where is, he might even be better in the long run. is the weakest Link (heh) by far but is still a viable pick.

is a mixed bag for me. He feels like an actual character with the overall buffs everyone got in ultimate, but the nerf to his bike really hurts and he didn't need it. I feel like no one is gonna play him again.

is scary. He plays more like a grappler now and can actually kill you. Fear the robot.
I don't feel guilty picking or anymore.

isn't going to see as much play this time around.

is better or as good as .

might be better then both of them.

 

[webbedspace]

Hazardous question but: is Bayonetta really looking to be bottom 5? I find it a bit hard to believe she's now in the same level of irrelevance as Wii Fit, Pac-Man, Bowser Jr, Kirby and Dedede. Do any of those beat her now?

 

[Marmotbro]

Hazardous question but: is Bayonetta really looking to be bottom 5? I find it a bit hard to believe she's now in the same level of irrelevance as Wii Fit, Pac-Man, Bowser Jr, Kirby and Dedede. Do any of those beat her now?

No way. She is still good, nowhere near the bottom. She is more like Shiek now where she has issues killing.


Bottom five looks like

 

[zeldasmash]

No way. She is still good, nowhere near the bottom. She is more like Shiek now where she has issues killing.


Bottom five looks like

I don't think Robin is bottom 5. It's still up for debate if he's worse than Corrin who is considered by some to be the weakest FE character here. Robin has some good stuff about him (his edge-guarding is really deadly and his recovery was improved, two things in Ultimate which are big deals).

 

[UberMadman]

No way. She is still good, nowhere near the bottom. She is more like Shiek now where she has issues killing.


Bottom five looks like

Where is this insistence that Bowser Jr. is bottom 5 coming from? I really don't get it. I don't think he's top tier or anything, but so many people are so sure that he's bottom 5 despite the buffs he got that I'm left feeling quite confused.

 

[bc1910]

No way is Robin bottom 5. Thoron slaughters posers at 60 and can be confirmed off Arcfire and sometimes Fthrow. He lost the checkmate but made gains everywhere else, he’s far more cohesive and scarier than before.

It’s too early to rank characters numerically anyway but if we take “bottom 5” to mean currently weak or irrelevant characters, Bayo is certainly underrepresented right now. Her neutral is weaker but her tools in advantage are still strong. I would expect her to rise based on the strength of her remaining tools once people get accustomed to all the nerfs, there will be a long period of adjustment. I have no idea where exactly she will end up in the long term though.

 

[Marmotbro]

I don't think Robin is bottom 5. It's still up for debate if he's worse than Corrin who is considered by some to be the weakest FE character here. Robin has some good stuff about him (his edge-guarding is really deadly and his recovery was improved, two things in Ultimate which are big deals).

Robin also got nerfed with Achthunder and not having the levin sword right off the bat, I admit he has good things but hey, everyone does. He gets bullied too easy in this game, its not like sm4sh.

Where is this insistence that Bowser Jr. is bottom 5 coming from? I really don't get it. I don't think he's top tier or anything, but so many people are so sure that he's bottom 5 despite the buffs he got that I'm left feeling quite confused.

Its just an instance of not really having anything crazy good about him. His best points are mediocre at best. Really I feel his meta is too underdeveloped to say for sure, but bottom 5 is where i would put him for now.



Honestly its too early to say who is where, these are just the impressions I get from playing.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Everyone's meta is underdeveloped it's hasn't even been a week yet. I wouldn't go as far to make bottom or top anything for a few months personally.

 

[Marmotbro]

Everyone's meta is underdeveloped it's hasn't even been a week yet

Yes but some more then other. characters like are more popular and getting labbed, characters like are similar to how they are last game with tweaks, and were played a lot so there is a lot more to work with when you put them in tiers. Characters who were/are not popular will take more time before people realize the extent of their abilities, basically didn't exist in sm4sh's meta, weren't even legal a lot of the time so they might as well be new characters.

That's what I mean by underdeveloped.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Okay that's fair, I can see your point. I'm just real hesitant on calling a character good or bad yet until we start tapping the full potential of them. I remember people calling Duck Hunt for example top tier when smash 4 first came out yeah those characters might look good and are getting a lot of love right now but will it actually translate into results?

 

[DavemanCozy]

I don't know well enough whos gonna be top 10 or bottom 10, it is too early to tell imo. I only think so far that Fox is gonna be in top 10 cuz he's just busted in this game.

Check this out. Utilt to upsmash is true kill confirm. Cuz why not right? He needed to be better in this game.
https://twitter.com/CharlieCerezaFP/status/1073111486053068800?s=19

 

[Emblem Lord]

I am ok with Fox smacking people up.

 

[Augi]

Some of my thoughts?

is much improved and I think we're gonna see some more talk about her. Explosive Flame is great, she's a lot faster, and her hitboxes last for a looooong time (Up+A is almost the entire animation). She's very solid.

or anyone else with a sweetspot aerial should be approached cautiously these days. Those sweetspots seem reaaaally easy to land this time around and the new short-hop macro makes them easier to spam than ever.

I wish he'd get some more attention from people... He's gotten some very interesting changes to some of his moves and my gut tells me he may have a brighter future this time around. The bucket has way less ending lag and now reflects physical projectiles. The new F-air is intriguing and theres some other changes to him too. I can't say how much of an improvement this all is, I don't know the character well enough, but he definitely feels better...

 

[Rocketjay8]

No way is Robin bottom 5. Thoron slaughters posers at 60 and can be confirmed off Arcfire and sometimes Fthrow. He lost the checkmate but made gains everywhere else, he’s far more cohesive and scarier than before.

It’s too early to rank characters numerically anyway but if we take “bottom 5” to mean currently weak or irrelevant characters, Bayo is certainly underrepresented right now. Her neutral is weaker but her tools in advantage are still strong. I would expect her to rise based on the strength of her remaining tools once people get accustomed to all the nerfs, there will be a long period of adjustment. I have no idea where exactly she will end up in the long term though.

The Bayo discord is absolutely livid at the nerfs that she received. Everything that was good about her in smash 4 is gone now. Witch Time is absolutely useless as it both goes away too fast for her to do anything and lost intangibility. Her combo trees are chopped down to a stump. Her up air sends horizontally instead of vertically, garbage move now. Most of her aerials have more lag to them than before. Bullet Climax can't cancel by shielding unless fully charged and takes longer to charge. She's overall one of the worst characters in the game right now and it would have been fine to nerf some of her kit to be less broken. The problem is that they broke her in this game and not in a good way.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Bowser Jr having a functional jab helps him so much, never mind all the other things he got. That not working was probably his biggest detriment in 4.

I think he's underrated. Still not particularly great, but better than people give him credit for.

 

[Wintermelon43]

The Bayo discord is absolutely livid at the nerfs that she received. Everything that was good about her in smash 4 is gone now. Witch Time is absolutely useless as it both goes away too fast for her to do anything and lost intangibility. Her combo trees are chopped down to a stump. Her up air sends horizontally instead of vertically, garbage move now. Most of her aerials have more lag to them than before. Bullet Climax can't cancel by shielding unless fully charged and takes longer to charge. She's overall one of the worst characters in the game right now and it would have been fine to nerf some of her kit to be less broken. The problem is that they broke her in this game and not in a good way.

Honestly Nintendo probably didn't want to have to deal with the Bayonetta stuff again after what happened in smash 4. Which honestly I don't blame them, I would have done the same thing.

 

[Marmotbro]

The Bayo discord is absolutely livid at the nerfs that she received. Everything that was good about her in smash 4 is gone now. Witch Time is absolutely useless as it both goes away too fast for her to do anything and lost intangibility. Her combo trees are chopped down to a stump. Her up air sends horizontally instead of vertically, garbage move now. Most of her aerials have more lag to them than before. Bullet Climax can't cancel by shielding unless fully charged and takes longer to charge. She's overall one of the worst characters in the game right now and it would have been fine to nerf some of her kit to be less broken. The problem is that they broke her in this game and not in a good way.

Two things. One, its likely she is still good but now they have to learn to play her, she has a lot in her kit going for her. Take it from someone who played MK from brawl to sm4sh, you gotta relearn the character when you are playing the same game as everyone else.


Two, if she is garbage, good.

 

[Lonewolf14]

So guys i tryed to make a VERY early tier list just for the fun of trying to predict what characters will be good and bad based on my experience.
lemme know what you guys think about it.

here is the tl, the characters are in no particular order

 

[NotLiquid]

No character deserves to be bad. Not even Bayonetta.

Actually, it's not even that she's bad now. She's just boring.

 

[Marmotbro]

No character deserves to be bad. Not even Bayonetta.

Some characters by nature of their design are either bad or overpowered. I would rather have a bad character and a fun game then the other way around.

Some characters are unfun to fight, I would rather they be bad so people are less tempted to play them.
Some characters have gimmicks that, in theory, necessitate them being overall weaker, i.e. .

In a perfect world, every character would be good and fun.

 

[Grunky Peep]

What would you consider to be the worst matchups for Ike and Ganondorf?

 

[Marmotbro]

What would you consider to be the worst matchups for Ike and Ganondorf?

If your opponent is good, watch out for:
Always be careful of .

 

[Lonewolf14]

What would you consider to be the worst matchups for Ike and Ganondorf?

for i'd say every character with a sword and that can just don't make him approach like and
for characters that are way faster than him and that can edge guard him really well like and

 

[Rizen]

the new short-hop macro makes them easier to spam than ever.

What do you mean by this?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

What do you mean by this?

Pressing the jump and attack buttons at the same time does an automatic short hop aerial.

 

[Y2Kay]

Pichu definitely feels mad overrated rn.

He explodes way too easily. His neutral, advantage, and disadvantage are all pretty good but his self damage mechanic makes him it very hard for him to recover from stock deficits.

Not bad at all, but there are way too many safer picks to be calling him top tier rn.

 

[J0eyboi]

I don't know well enough whos gonna be top 10 or bottom 10, it is too early to tell imo. I only think so far that Fox is gonna be in top 10 cuz he's just busted in this game.

Check this out. Utilt to upsmash is true kill confirm. Cuz why not right? He needed to be better in this game.
https://twitter.com/CharlieCerezaFP/status/1073111486053068800?s=19

Utilt upsmash really isn't practical. It has a highly specific % range and requires you to hit the forward to hit of Utilt vs a grounded opponent. You basically have to fish for it.

What would you consider to be the worst matchups for Ike and Ganondorf?

Sheik still sucks for them, though I'd imagine slightly less. Wolf gives them a hell of a time, between lasers and his combo game.

Pichu definitely feels mad overrated rn.

He explodes way too easily. His neutral, advantage, and disadvantage are all pretty good but his self damage mechanic makes him it very hard for him to recover from stock deficits.

Not bad at all, but there are way too many safer picks to be calling him top tier rn.

I'd argue he also has serious range issues. He can kinda make up for them by being small and fast, but he's still going to struggle to get in in a lot of MUs.

 

[DavemanCozy]

or anyone else with a sweetspot aerial should be approached cautiously these days. Those sweetspots seem reaaaally easy to land this time around and the new short-hop macro makes them easier to spam than ever.

I'm pleasantly surprised by Zelda myself as well. I'm iffy about her viability in top level play right now, but she is definitely much stronger this time around.

Utilt upsmash really isn't practical. It has a highly specific % range and requires you to hit the forward to hit of Utilt vs a grounded opponent. You basically have to fish for it.

Yea, it definitely is not really practical, especially considering it needs to be sourspotted at the front and the range is pretty small there. I just thought that it is still neat to have the option if you can plan the setup and space correctly.

Main reason I'm impressed with Fox is really that UpSmash range buff. He didn't need it, no one certainly was asking for it, but he got it, and that is what really surprises me most, the fact that an already good character - albeit a very volatile character with polar advantage and disadvantage states - got even better in the transition to SmashU.

 

[GhostYB]

I personally feel like Lucina (and all the other marths basically) are being slept on. THEY'RE SO GOOD. They have great aerials and mobility and dancing blade is so much better. They can juggle opponents so well have have little lag. Plus they're spacing is really good too. They aren't top tier, but they're better than most people say they are.

 

[Y2Kay]

Trust me man nobody sleeping on the FE Gang lol. It's pretty clear they're the early game meta picks.

 

[Repli.Cant]

Gonna try this for the first time but here's some (more) stuff

I don't think she's low tier in this game. She's straight up better in every aspect, minus maybe one or two things that I'll get into. Nair is essentially what 's fair was. Can be combo'd into, starts combos, has virtually no landing lag, can kill at higher %s. I'd argue it's her new best aerial, but fair is also really good too since I has pure range. Bair and uair still excel at what they were used for in s4 as well.

Her smash attacks and tilts have all seen drastically reduced endlag, and usmash's hitbox can now persist through most spotdodges and still hits with no sourspot.

Dthrow is still a great combo starter, but dthrow uair is harder to perform this time around. Jab grab is gone but Jab is still a great poking tool and rapid jab sends them away to keep up zoning. Bthrow kills at the ledge same as before, though I heard through the grapevine that it's stronger now too.

Speaking of zoning, Autoreticle locks on and fires almost instantly now. It's actually usable and a button I love to press. Explosive Flare is also a lot better than I had envisioned. Edgeguards like nothing else and at an extremely safe distance. Close ranged ver. can combo into nair at low %s, which leads into more things. The hitbox lasts a while and can force your opponent to slow down when used correctly. Counter feels great to use and lasts a deceptively long time, and doubling as a Reflect makes her feel so much more fluid.

She feels like a complete character in this game and I love it. Top players like ZeRo are saying she's underrated as well. Overall, I just don't think she's low tier.

 

[MapleBeasts]

I personally feel like Lucina (and all the other marths basically) are being slept on. THEY'RE SO GOOD. They have great aerials and mobility and dancing blade is so much better. They can juggle opponents so well have have little lag. Plus they're spacing is really good too. They aren't top tier, but they're better than most people say they are.

I wasn't aware there are people who think they aren't good. Chrom and Lucina in particular feel like the best two.

 

[Galgatha]

I have heard plenty of people claim that, in SSBU, pretty much every character is ACTUALLY tournament viable, including the . I understand that, of course any character can be played in a tournament, but often people claim that "such and such isn't viable" and so on. I get that the game is still really new, but I was wondering what are other people's thoughts on this?

 

[Rocketjay8]

I have heard plenty of people claim that, in SSBU, pretty much every character is ACTUALLY tournament viable, including the . I understand that, of course any character can be played in a tournament, but often people claim that "such and such isn't viable" and so on. I get that the game is still really new, but I was wondering what are other people's thoughts on this?

It's really stupid that Miis got banned in smash 4 when Bayo and Cloud are on the top tier train.