Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[blackghost]

Some standard, and not so standard things to look over:

- 8 ROBs were in the Top 64 of the tournament, and yet, once more, not a single one managed to make Top 8. Either this tournament reinforces your thoughts that ROB is a top 3/5 threat because of his widespread presence, or reinforces your belief he's overrated because a character with this level of presence has yet to reach the same level of peaks as other, less represented characters have. In other words, the number of reps vs. peak placements war rages on lol. One thing to keep in mind is that some ROBs failing to place as far they did was a result of friendly fire - most notably in the case of BigBoss, who defeated both Epic_Gabriel and WaDi in his loser's run.


- Haven't really done the math in my head in terms of how much point accumulation this tourney does for each character, but judging off of looks alone, ROB is the expected prime beneficiary from this tournament with how much players he has. Aside from the obvious however, are benefitting well from having 3 players in Top 48 each, and multiple reps placing high bodes well for despite Tweek's and Kola's underperformance relative to their seeding overall.

The Bayonetta placements and the number of ROBs are inherently linked. In ultimates history i believe everytime (in america at least) when a bayp sneaks into top 32 or better it was a ROB heavy event. Its part f the reason i cannot ever look at bayo as anything above mid tier. When she starts running into character like diddy, palutena, roy, and other common high placing character her shortcomings are put on full display and hte diffference in player calibur from top 32 to top16 also heavily hurts her. Lima is the best bayo in the world he could barely combo Lui$ not because he is bad but because bayonetta is so affected by your opponents DI knowledge and execution that she goes from combing character to being punished for landing huts as we saw when Lima faced diddy and palutena.

As for Brr. first its great to see his performance here, but its pretty clear riddles and axiom are above him for a few reasons. his micro deicision making (when to push advantage, when to back off) arent where they need to be yet. 2. his execution isnt on point. if kazuya lands either a grab, trip, or side b at close range you should take 70 or die that has to be near automatic. 3. he didnt use the command grab effetcively at all. paritcualrily vs pyra cosmos often threw out blazing edge and would shield or attempt to jump away if it missed that shouldnt work. both command grabs beat those options.

Leo is better than everyone else he truly understands the game and what his gameplan should be and you can see him adjust on th efly rather than trying to attempt the same failing approach over and over.

 

[Trunks159]

Nah Sephiroth is not hard. In fact outside of Aegis he's probably the most standard to play in FP2 (irrespective of what comes out tomorrow lol) and probably third behind Aegis/Byleth. Sephiroth seems to do fine in the 95-99% range (to borrow Thinkaman's terminology) but falls off at the 99%.

He does lack a good mash button, in that I mean both his OOS and ability to engage shields in close quarters is really bad, which limits him in a way that Byleth/Min Min are not as limited. If someone hits your shield and you can't grab them, you likely aren't punishing them at all - really bad when top players are spacing very well and these scramble options often lead to early kills. Outside of nair there's nothing strong at close range either so there's no threat to just getting in and forcing the scramble, because if you do it's >>>>> in your favor - and nair is pretty slow with a smallish hitbox.

Additionally, (and primarily) Sephiroth is prime parry bait. The timing of everything is just slow enough yet precise that once you're aware of the MU and keyed into the spacing you can begin to parry things on reaction (because he has to stand in the same spots a lot of the time). This is super scary because a parried fair/bair makes Sephiroth a sitting duck, you have all day to punish. Byleth suffers a bit from this as well but nair forces some pause.

In a game with more nuanced movement he'd probably be better but others could also space around his moves more easily ehh kinda a wash

I think a proper dtilt + uptilt + sword jab would help his limited neutral a lot.

 

[Game7a1]

- Other notable runs with "hidden boss characters" include BassMage's Top 16 placement with , KirbyKid's Top 48 with , and Skyjay's Top 48 with . Skyjay and KirbyKid's runs went as they were expected to seeding-wise, but BassMage's trek is one of the most impressive in Smash history considering how early he was upsetted in pools. After that loss where he accumulated 8 wins in a row, most notable of which includes Scend , varun and Javi .

To add on, BassMage also beat BluStriker (which was considered an upset) and SHADIC . He also lost to a Wii Fit Trainer in round 1 pools, so it was interesting that he beat varun in top 32. I don't think BassMage had an easy run to top 16 considering the players and matchups he ran into (most of which are losing for Puff), and his performance, despite being a single one, should make people question where Jigglypuff is on the tier list. Is she truly a bad low tier or could she be considered somewhere higher, like in mid-tier? She does have her struggles, but I think BassMage showed off how effective her strengths can be in the streamed matches (and how bad her flaws can be like seen against Goblin).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Japanese major next week. Seibu Geki capped at 191 entrants and it features numerous PGR/OrionRank Japanese players. It's Kanto region only, so no Tea/Kome/Atelier.

https://smash.gg/tournament/8-11/attendees

Edit: BTW Sparg0 is picking up , no idea if this is going to be a serious thing or not like with Leo. But if it does it means we see another top 10 player using the character.

I just picked up byleth and ngl I'm already the second best byleth 👁️

— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) October 5, 2021

 

[Lacrimosa]

That stage looks super legal.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Sora having some of those air combos it seems.

 

[Firox]

Sora having some of those air combos it seems.

My thoughts exactly. Hope we don't end up with another Sm4sh Bayo scenario where he's dropping 0-death combos left and right while the devs team walks away.

 

[Rizen]

Sora looks like a combination of Bayonetta and Robin: able to combo in the air with good burst options and fire limited spells. He'd have to be extremely under tuned to end up a bad character. It's interesting his counter doesn't reflect projectiles forward. This takes away a huge chunk of utility against zoners. Sora also seems like a monster offstage.

 

[meleebrawler]

Sora looks like a combination of Bayonetta and Robin: able to combo in the air with good burst options and fire limited spells. He'd have to be extremely under tuned to end up a bad character. It's interesting his counter doesn't reflect projectiles forward. This takes away a huge chunk of utility against zoners. Sora also seems like a monster offstage.

From the looks of things, he basically has to be in order to kill opponents within a reasonable timeframe. Being very lightweight and floaty only exacerabates how others can kill him faster in any other scenario.

 

[Aligo]

I think the low damage output, and the flashy but not very useful projectiles will keep him from being too opressive, despite the movement options.

 

[BlazGreen]

That stage looks super legal.

I can see some people complaining about the transformation part but I think importantly the locations of the ledges seem to be roughly the same.

 

[Aligo]

I can see some people complaining about the transformation part but I think importantly the locations of the ledges seem to be roughly the same.

It would be real nice to have another legal stage.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ESAM posted early Sora frame data

Sora's frame data
Jab 6
f-tilt 13
utilt 8
dtilt 9
f-smash 16
usmash 16
d-smash 24
dash attack 7
nair - 9
fair 10
bair 13
uair 10
dair 13-15?
grab 7
dash grab 10
firaga 16-19
blizzaga 15
sideb 20
downb 7
upb 10

— ESAM (@imESAM) October 5, 2021

 

[Eremurus]

That stage looks super legal.

It is a really nice stage. I would say it should be a starter, and have Smashville/T&C be counterpicks.

 

[Thinkaman]

It's interesting his counter doesn't reflect projectiles forward. This takes away a huge chunk of utility against zoners.

Well, it's honestly like most Counters outside of Palu/KRool/Arsene. The fact that it does at least take ownership of the project really only puts it 1% of the way towards being a Counter+Reflector hybrid.

In terms of Sora's broader viability, there's a lot riding on the specific behavior of side-b and what ends up being true, both leading into and out of it in addition to the links themselves.

Firaga looks pretty attractive as presented. If you could freely repeat it in neutral, it would probably be too oppressive--forcing you to cycle lets it be a better/safer projectile than would otherwise be allowed.

OoS looks mediocre. What, you have grab and maybe nair?

----------

A little off-topic because this thread isn't for predictions, but after mostly predicting the base roster right and subsequently going 0/11 on the DLC characters, it feels good+weird to absolutely nail the last one.

I wasn't perfect--I didn't predict magic cycling for one. I also got all the alts right except Timeless River. (thought he'd have a Riku-colored alt instead). Obviously got the Ansem spirit instead of Xion wrong. I thought his Final Smash would be more or less exactly what it was (cutscene kill, keyblade beam), but gave a ~20% chance it would be Drive Form and a 1% chance they would actually get Disney rights and be a Donald+Goofy Unison Attack. Didn't guess KH3 cloud streaming, or that I.5 and II.5 would be (further) bundled.

After saying it was gonna be Lloyd (or Travis) every time and ending up like Charlie Brown and his football, getting 1-in-12 right is a relief!

 

[Aligo]

ESAM posted early Sora frame data

Sora's frame data
Jab 6
f-tilt 13
utilt 8
dtilt 9
f-smash 16
usmash 16
d-smash 24
dash attack 7
nair - 9
fair 10
bair 13
uair 10
dair 13-15?
grab 7
dash grab 10
firaga 16-19
blizzaga 15
sideb 20
downb 7
upb 10

— ESAM (@imESAM) October 5, 2021

Huh, it is slower than I expected.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

pic.twitter.com/byS8gA1zyb

— rohan doge (@RohanDoge) October 5, 2021

With the comparisons people have made for and , this DLC wave really does seem a bit familiar.

 

[NairWizard]

Sora seems alright. Avoiding the obvious things like "air mixups!" and "edgeguarding!", it seems like his ledgetrapping is decent, for starters, with lots of active frames on important moves, the 1-2-3 mixup on n-air against all kinds of ledge options, and neutral b. Not sure if getting off the ledge is going to be hard or not? You can't really use side-b directly off the ledge like Pikachu Quick Attack since it seems like you have to use all 3. I suppose you could ledge jump with that huge midair jump, head to the skies and then find a way to land on a platform with side-b mixups. There's also Thundaga.

Seems like he'll be another solid character, probably not among the best characters based on current info (unless d-tilt really confirms into up-smash at generous percent windows). Glad he made it in; so many of my friends wanted him.

 

[Thinkaman]

Glad he made it in; so many of my friends wanted him.

I made a little poster for a friend who really wanted Sora to get in. We were super optimistic that he would, especially with KH3 coming soon.

This was 2007.

 

[ARISTOS]

Damn it's like I'm back as a kid with this character - I remember my friends and I being hyped for the original release of Kingdom Hearts back in 2001 and watching all the Disney Channel footage. Definitely a happy send-off for me, irrespective of character viability

 

[RonNewcomb]

I'm too old to have any attachment to this Mickey Mouse franchise, but Sora seems like he'd be... really natural to play as? You know, like the opposite of a Kazuya. I may main this character just on the gameplay alone.

Marthcina-style edgeguarding: just jump offstage and press f-air, a lot.

Pit-like airborne swordie.

Megaman-ish 3-string off jab, tilt, aerial. Easy.

FGC "you better hit-confirm that" combo routes.

Link-esque projectiles, more for occupying space than true zoning.

And that Smash side-b. Combo tool, recovery tool, edgeguarding tool, mixup tool, I bet it'll walk your dog too.

The Shulk counter/reflector seems poorer than Marth's or Pit's but I guess I can't have everything.

OoS is the Greninja/Falco school of just jump really darn high.

I also wonder about his shield safety. Sakurai called him an air fighter so being really unsafe vs shields could be a limiting factor.

Otherwise is probably better than scrubkiller Seph whose sword-zoning is tanking offline as I said it would day 2.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Random thoughts:

• Very vanilla compared to most DLCs we had, which is kind of a nice change of pace.
• This neutral b is what hero menu should have been lmao, it seems fun to use, I'm really looking forward to combine this + b-reverses + that floatiness.
• Recovery seems good obviously. FAF and frame data on side b will be very important to see its value in neutral - part of bayo's side b strenght is the amount of mixups she gets after even on shield against most chars.
• That physic is super intersting, might be the floatiest character in the game? Landing options will be big for him so that he doesn't get juggled to death, but dair/side b seemed decent at that. Makes for crazy edgegard tempo.
• I like the potential 3-hit combo cancels shenanigans, you can fast fall after 2 as a mixup apparently? The closest thing it makes me think of is brawlhalla's broadsword. Seems like the highest skill-ceiling on the character at first glance since the rest of the kit seemed pretty straightforward.
• People making s4 bayo comparisons are just trying to farm likes lol.
• New stage! Was slightly worried at first about transitions being too eye-catchy but they seemed fine to me during sakurai's gameplay, didn't feel too hard to follow the main action since there weren't a lot of super bright light moments.
• I didn't realize how much of a perfect fit he was before they showed him, the artstyle is completely in tone with smash (as opposed to like, steve) and the wonky aerial based gameplay just works well. Also that stage is goooorgeous.
• Only 9 songs You can feel that this was a logistical and corporate nightmare lmao.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

pic.twitter.com/byS8gA1zyb

— rohan doge (@RohanDoge) October 5, 2021

With the comparisons people have made for and , this DLC wave really does seem a bit familiar.

Look closely right as Wario is locked on by side b. He’s not in hitstun anymore and can act. Don’t think Bayo S4 ladders will be a thing, especially with how much they went out of their way to make sure laddering wasn’t near as effective for Bayo in Ultimate.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Firstly, super happy for everyone who wanted him in. A close friend of mine wanted him badly, and in my case, I have some familiarity with him, so I'm happy in a way.

Secondly, that Timeless River outfit. Easily one of the coolest alternate costumes, period.

Thirdly, curious about a lot of things about the character that would probably require a hands-on experience with:

• Sonic Blade definitely looks like Pika Quick Attack on crack from a first glance, but the laggier start-up along with end lag numbers will most likely say more about how accurate that assessment is. If it is true that Side B ladders won't be true as Envoy points out, then that draws another unfavorable comparison to Quick Attack and its chaining hitboxes.
• People are talking about his edgeguarding potential, but his disadvantage seems crazy good with the plethora of recovery options he has along with multiple ways to mix-up his landings between his stall-then-fall, Sonic Blade, and Aerial Sweep. And his hurtbox, while not Kirby or G&W levels of tiny, definitely looks like it's on the smaller end of the cast if his size relative to Pit/MK in the showcase is anything to go by (though that might also hurt his range in the long run despite the disjoint). The one thing that probably hurts them in this case is his Mewtwo/Ness esque double jump which may make it hard for him to escape certain juggle scenarios.
• Curious about how how the knockback changes during his combo attacks will pan out for the character. Depending on how they play out, they look like they've got strong potential for combos or set-ups.
• Overall first impressions kinda give me more of a Pika or Sheik vibe rather than someone like Mythra or Cloud. A character with movement options up the wozoo along with strong zoning tools, but also a frail character who's most likely going to have to work for his damage (in terms of damage per-hit) and neutral-based kills given that his smash attacks don't look all that impressive or easy to land. His edeguarding game is going to do him wonders in that regard, but that's probably what he's going to rely on to seal stocks.

Fourthly, with how much options this kid gets in the later games, and with how - to be frank - utterly ridiculous and overpowered they get (cough cough Limit Forms), I'm surprised his moveset is so.... tame? I guess more like Watmat said, it feels very close to pre-Brawl Smash character, but that's not a bad thing at all lol. I've actually kind of become less fond of some of Smash Ultimate's more recent uinque mechanics on characters (mainly OWA and Steve's Mining), so the fact that the most out there thing about Sora currently is his aerial movement is something I can actually get behind. Between his stage being Hallow Bastion, his Counterattack stance being taken right from KH1 along with how his spells work, Sora's overall moveset/representation seems a lot closer to KH1 then any of the other KH games. Which is fine by me, KH1's the best game in the series anyway (I know what I said lol).

Anyways, very excited for this character when he lands!

 

[blackghost]

Sora having some of those air combos it seems.

LOL not really. He only has her fair on upair and fair, but he's not designed to combo like her. His side b is nice but his up b is not gonna help his combo game that much. but he is the closest thing to another edgegaurder at her level tho.

Miss me with this smash 4 bayo fearmongering. Some of ya'll have no ability to make logical conclusions.

i think he'll be solid and the people that love him will use him longer than some other DLC fanbase used their beloved character.
Overall a good edition, he will be competitively relevant and thats always fun.

Can't wait to watch how his stage get banned by stage conservatives, since they always win.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Can't wait to watch how his stage get banned by stage conservatives since they always win.

Tbf music copyright may be an issue.


Also, I'm wondering how Sora's Min Min matchup will go as his counter stuns a wellspaced Byleth who used f smash, but it doesn't proc the stun on projectiles even if Sora lands the counter hit so I think the move's coded to specifically stun physical moves

 

[Firox]

KH1's the best game in the series anyway (I know what I said lol).

Almost a 100% accurate comment, but you just had to do it...lol

 

[meleebrawler]

Tbf music copyright may be an issue.


Also, I'm wondering how Sora's Min Min matchup will go as his counter stuns a wellspaced Byleth who used f smash, but it doesn't proc the stun on projectiles even if Sora lands the counter hit so I think the move's coded to specifically stun physical moves

It's the clanking animation it forces on opponents, you know, the one for two ground moves clashing.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

It's the clanking animation it forces on opponents, you know, the one for two ground moves clashing.

Call me easily pleased but I think this is the only time in the game a counter can really affect her then. I'm very curious to how Sora works cause his biggest strength seems to be that if he doesn't get killed by an attack, he'll get back on stage, I believe Sakurai also said he's designed to be easy to use which gives me Smash 4 Cloud vibes

 

[Nah]

I can see some people complaining about the transformation part but I think importantly the locations of the ledges seem to be roughly the same.

idk, I get the feeling that if anything will kill the legality of the stage, it'll be how the main fighting space is moving all around Hollow Bastion. People are probably gonna go "it's distracting!" but then inevitably someone will be like "it gives me motion sickness", and that'll be where it really dies.

I think that's what prevented a past stage from becoming tourney legal....if I'm remembering things right....which I might not be

 

[Nekoo]

idk, I get the feeling that if anything will kill the legality of the stage, it'll be how the main fighting space is moving all around Hollow Bastion. People are probably gonna go "it's distracting!" but then inevitably someone will be like "it gives me motion sickness", and that'll be where it really dies.

I think that's what prevented a past stage from becoming tourney legal....if I'm remembering things right....which I might not be

Not in France.
We still play NC instead of Kalos, because **** Kalos. Also for the amount of % that people will whine about motion sickness. That's barely anything

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I've never played KH so I have no strong opinions on Sora as a character, but I do appreciate that we're rounding out the DLC with an amazing example of "wait how dafuq did the lawyers manage to make this happen?" He does seem to tick a lot of the boxes I like in my Smash characters (projectile, freeform combo game, deep edgeguards, floaty) but I'll wait until his release before going any further into that.

I do need to ask, though -- Sora was flying around in the trailer when he first appeared. Like, for a while. Is that a thing he does in KH?

 

[Nekoo]

I do need to ask, though -- Sora was flying around in the trailer when he first appeared. Like, for a while. Is that a thing he does in KH?

He can glide/fly thanks to Tinkerbell pixie dust.

Yes.

That Tinkerbell.

 

[meleebrawler]

He can glide/fly thanks to Tinkerbell pixie dust.

Yes.

That Tinkerbell.

Flying, yes, though the glide as far as I can tell is a toggleable skill available for most playable characters in the series.

 

[Nekoo]

Flying, yes, though the glide as far as I can tell is a toggleable skill available for most playable characters in the series.

Which he learn after getting Pixie-Dust From Tinkerbell.
That's how he learn it in KH1 and how Ventus Learn it in BBS while Aqua and Terra CANT glide.
In other game ,they just give alt methods to learn it

I'm literally replaying that moment right now lmao, but this is not the place to discuss KH lore

 

[Thinkaman]

A lot of KH cutscenes and battles feature the characters floating/flying at will when they are in some sort of ethereal environment. They also all feature a Glide ability that allows losing generously little height, on top of the stereotypical double jump.

Sakurai was not exaggerating that the games have extremely aerial combat.

 

[meleebrawler]

A lot of KH cutscenes and battles feature the characters floating/flying at will when they are in some sort of ethereal environment. They also all feature a Glide ability that allows losing generously little height, on top of the stereotypical double jump.

Sakurai was not exaggerating that the games have extremely aerial combat.

Though ironically in my limited experience with the DS entries, when you eventually go up against truly dangerous bosses (rule of thumb being that the more human your opponent is, the more dangerous they are, dragon Maleficent aside), you actually want to keep your feet planted as much as possible so that all of your defensive options are available, and only really go airborne to fight if they do so first. I wonder how much of this will remain true against player-controlled opponents?

Sora would very much like it if you could jump at him so that he can get you with his barely-refined key-flailing uninhibited, and everything else he does, such as basic magic zoning or darting frustratingly around the stage will likely serve to try and rile up such behaviour.

 

[Thinkaman]

I didn't measure it myself, but it looks like Sora has some extent of Bayonetta's "the more specials you chain, the longer landing lag you get."

If you didn't catch it, while you can side-b out of up-b, you still go into up-b's special fall at the end all the the same. (With seemingly additional landing lag) This crucially means you can't uair at the end of a full ladder.

Side-b also appeared to have way more cumulative landing/endlag after hitting Bayonetta's shield.

Sakurai's wording (or at least the translation?) made it sound like you don't HAVE to do all 3 parts of side-b. He said "if you tilt a direction" it moves, and holding the button does the lock-on instead. But not once did we see him only doing 1 or 2, unless I missed it.

 

[ligersandtigons]

I didn't measure it myself, but it looks like Sora has some extent of Bayonetta's "the more specials you chain, the longer landing lag you get."

If you didn't catch it, while you can side-b out of up-b, you still go into up-b's special fall at the end all the the same. (With seemingly additional landing lag)

Sakurai's wording (or at least the translation?) made it sound like you don't HAVE to do all 3 parts of side-b. He said "if you tilt a direction" it moves, and holding the button does the lock-on instead. But not once did we see him only doing 1 or 2, unless I missed it.

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23:43

 

[Thinkaman]

You're right! I was too preoccupied with the up-b -> side-b dynamics to notice it was right there the entire time. Okay whew, that makes it a way more reasonable option. I wouldn't be surprised if, keeping with the Bayo mechanics, doing fewer side-Bs has less landing lag.