Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NairWizard]

Sora's edgeguarding is actually pretty bad/average. He doesn't really have tools that launch you into the blastzone from offstage outside of counter and deep b-air--if your recovery gets countered, that's a bad look for you, because Counterattack is just that strong, and it stops things like Banjo side-b in their tracks. But fortunately, you're rarely getting Counterattacked because Sora is too floaty to get there in time. Doesn't really frametrap your airdodges while edgeguarding, either, because of the same reason. Thundaga traps near ledge are pretty compelling, though, so there's that, but yeah, overall this isn't a character I would frequently edgeguard with.

On the flipside, overall kill power/confirms seem better than I thought, outside of edgeguarding. May be more of a ledgetrap character.

Right now looking like bottom 20-30 in the cast, with a ceiling of top 30? Which, I don't need to remind you, probably, is really pretty good in this game. More than enough to snag a top 8 once or twice.

 

[Idon]

If Sora could actually quickly reach the depths he could recover from, he'd be a monster, but the zero-G movement kinda prevents that lol.

 

[meleebrawler]

If Sora could actually quickly reach the depths he could recover from, he'd be a monster, but the zero-G movement kinda prevents that lol.

That's what down air Hurricane Blast is for. You totally can recover from using that offstage, and maybe even make one more attempt before having to go back.

It's not so much him chasing you offstage that's scary, it's that he tends to just... float there menacingly for an unnervingly long time in a way that forces a reaction without him necessarily having to throw anything out.

 

[blackghost]

Sora edge gaurding is gonna be one of the last things to take hold in his meta. People are still trying top figure out neutral. Once again out of the 82 characters in this game sora is more comfortable offstage than more than 75 of them.

edge gaurding isnt necessarily about knocking your opponent into the blast zine outright, it's about pushing them far enough away they simply cant recover.

Sora's edgeguarding is actually pretty bad/average. He doesn't really have tools that launch you into the blastzone from offstage outside of counter and deep b-air--

I'd be shocked if this turns out to be true. I think his ceiling is the 2nd best edge guarder in the game.

 

[Thinkaman]

Sora's Counter is 1.5x with a minimum of 9 and a max of 30, before multipliers.

In edge cases you can hit targets with both the counter and the reflected projectile. (1.4x) Piranah Plant and Olimar come to mind, as well as boomerangs.

 

[Cheryl~]

I really don't see how Sora's edgeguarding can be bad. He's got a lot of options to slowly push you into the blastzone, and nobody mentions this but floatiness becomes a big plus for reading your opponent's options when offstage, cause you simply got more time. Can't tell me how other floaties like Mewtwo, PK boys, Lucina got some of the best edgeguarding in the game and then Sora isn't that good.

 

[NotLiquid]

These are the Top 20 characters currently occupying the TTS. Whether or not they have a claim at being the actual game's Top 20, they are the characters people are playing, and by association, the characters that Sora has to contend with at a top level.



Out of these characters, at least half of them are known to exhibit disadvantage flaws that can very much render their survivability inert. Roy, Wolf, Pyra, and (debatably) Pokémon Trainer can't really afford to throw out redundant aerials. They, alongside Mario and Captain Falcon, are often times only granted one chance at making a good recovery count. Sephiroth, Ness, and to a lesser extent Peach are counter bait. Joker and Min Min have to deal with the spurious reliability of a tether (or occasionally in the case of the former, a lengthy but marginally vulnerable recovery). Even several ones that can put up with off-stage abuse like ROB have a lengthy time getting back on stage to the point that he frequently gets bullied for extra credit during the process. Hypothetically, if Sora does end up the type of character who has a very easy time scoring stray hits that don't kill but sends the character further to the edges of the blast zone, that's not actually all that bad. Characters that have such a bias toward recovering high like Snake probably even have to think smarter about contending with stuff like Thundaga.

Obviously there's a wrinkle to it; well two actually. Sora's best attack that grants coverage is his DAir, but that's an attack that sends the opponent flying vertically, so in essence it only really suffices as a standard kill move at higher percents. They were really careful with this move, so if you're aiming to score the reliable early gimps you're still going to need a decent (if possibly lower than average) degree of precision from other moves, and I would assume this is where NairWizard's comment about Sora having better ledgetrapping may have a ring of truth to it. Edgeguarding always carries a risk of having to relinquish stage control, and if you do end up betting wrong against a character like Roy, that might carry a whole host of compounding ramifications if he manages to slip through the cracks (and I use Roy as an example particularly since I imagine he might be one of Sora's tougher MUs in the top tier). It may be difficult to regain that control which would pose less risks if Sora stays on stage, but the question then becomes whether or not Sora's edgeguarding will develop to the point that those gambles are worth taking, alongside other factors like how Sora fares on the ledge if he's had the situation flipped on him.

MKLeo implied in his own impressions video the other night that he's actually pretty impressed with Sora's edgeguarding, experimenting with some concepts like using Thundaga off-stage after FAir chains to force opponents into certain options. He doesn't think he'll be maining the character but he seems optimistic about him, so I'm curious to see how his intricacies will develop.

 

[Thinkaman]

What do you guys think is the best Little Mac buff for the current meta and why is it the ability to full hop onto Hollow Bastion's platform?

Edit: Also does anyone know if it's possible to somehow/easily download someone else's save file for Switch games? Asking for a dearly beloved friend.
Edit2: Apparently it's not actually the save file, your account needs a record of having played the game. Alas.

 

[NairWizard]

MKLeo implied in his own impressions video the other night that he's actually pretty impressed with Sora's edgeguarding, experimenting with some concepts like using Thundaga off-stage after FAir chains to force opponents into certain options. He doesn't think he'll be maining the character but he seems optimistic about him, so I'm curious to see how his intricacies will develop.

I personally trust Nairo more than Leo when it comes to edgeguarding, though I'd trust Void the most. Nairo's one of the best in the business when it comes to just ending you offstage; he finds edgeguarding opportunities that others don't even think about. I tuned in very briefly to his stream, as I was interested in hearing his thoughts on edgeguarding since I was very unimpressed with what I saw from Sora's toolkit, and right at that moment he talked about how middling Sora's edgeguarding is, particually because of the floatiness/covering airdodge problem, and partly because of Thundaga's numerous blindspots.

Being floaty can help you edgeguard in some situations, but I mean, Ness has yoyo and PK Thunder and Mewtwo has Shadow Ball and a huge very lethal b-air. They don't necessarily need to go deep or commit too hard to kill people, so when they are going deep and using their floatiness to space an edgeguard it's because they have a good read on their opponent's trajectory.

Ultimately, the best edgeguarders aren't the ones who can kill you, they're the ones who can force an option out of you, kill you, and also abort and ledgetrap in time if that fails (or have good ways out of reversals like Pikachu).

I'm willing to buy that something will develop in this area over time and from time to time we'll see some insane edgeguards from Sora, but with current impressions, I don't think it's going to be anywhere near fundamental to the gameplan, which is personally quite disappointing, because when I saw the trailer I was thinking, "oh, wild, one of the best edgeguarders in the game!" I'd be pleased to find out that I'm wrong about my revised impression.

 

[meleebrawler]

It is true that the knockback on most of Sora's moves tend to be upwards, which in of itself doesn't particularly lend to setting up difficult recovery scenarios. What this does do for Sora is that practically every neutral exchange he wins gives him a juggle scenario, and a Sora that's underneath you is very annoying, having both a set of moves that are particularly lethal near the top (Hurricane Sweep, Thundaga, uair, dair weirdly), or are efficient at catching landings (utilt, dash attack, Sonic Blade, Firaga). This leads to gravitating towards the ledge to get away from him.

You have to be flexible in how you handle situations, not force them, as cycling spells demands that you don't always use the same solution for a given problem every time.

 

[NairWizard]

Yeah, that's more or less what I'm saying (though I'd take it a step further and say that it's not just the angle of his knockback, it's his threat range too)--Sora has strengths in other areas, like confirms, juggling, and ledgetrapping, so I don't think he's bad. Plenty of characters do the juggle and ledgetrap game better than that, though, so that also makes him seem less than great. Just good. A normal good.

But if you (general you) think he's good because of edgeguarding, you may riding on the wrong train, and I think you'll find yourself losing a lot if you try to play him to that perceived strength.

Or, I don't know, if you guys disagree with the idea so hard, prove me wrong, show us what Sora can do offstage (consistently) against competent opponents. I would totally love to be wrong here, so I welcome it. The metagame exploration phase of a new character release is my favorite to watch!

 

[Aaron1997]

At this point your going to be disappointed if your expecting something like to happened. The goal of the patches is not to make characters good but to make them more desirable to play. This game has 90+ characters and there are only so many good traits you can give a character. Trying to make everyone good is just going to hurt the game.

Ultimate devs clearly prioritize maintaining a character's core identity over pure improvement in patches. A Speed buff is what would help the most, but he is defined by his slow grappler archetype. Devs keep buffing his strengths to make it worth dealing with his speed problems. Even if Incineroar never becomes a High tier (or even a Mid tier) there is more reason to play him as a lumbering Low tier than if he was just buffed into another speedy neutral monster that feels the same as 30 other fighters.

is the poster child for this design philosophy. Despite being arguably the worst character in the game, he has received very few buffs. This is because Ganon's playstyle is already immensely popular. He was the most used character in Elite Smash at one point. Even if he isn't good, his identity is appealing enough for him to see loads of play. So the devs don't worry as much about him. In contrast, characters like , , , etc were all fairly indistinct and thus got buffs that help assert their niches. This also explains why the jack-of-all-trades top tiers like frequently get nerfed, since they run the greatest risk of invalidating characters whose similar strengths come at the cost of extreme weaknesses.

is what the devs are trying to avoid. Even though they are solid there is no reason to play them over other characters and they don't bring anything to the table that would set them apart from . Characters like see way more play despite being much worse because they actually bring something unique to the table. The goal of patches is to avoid making more Corrins.


If I could guess, these characters are probably the most likely candidates for changes if patches continue.

Buffs :

Nerfs:

 

[TCT~Phantom]

At this point your going to be disappointed if your expecting something like to happened. The goal of the patches is not to make characters good but to make them more desirable to play. This game has 90+ characters and there are only so many good traits you can give a character. Trying to make everyone good is just going to hurt the game.

Ultimate devs clearly prioritize maintaining a character's core identity over pure improvement in patches. A Speed buff is what would help the most, but he is defined by his slow grappler archetype. Devs keep buffing his strengths to make it worth dealing with his speed problems. Even if Incineroar never becomes a High tier (or even a Mid tier) there is more reason to play him as a lumbering Low tier than if he was just buffed into another speedy neutral monster that feels the same as 30 other fighters.

is the poster child for this design philosophy. Despite being arguably the worst character in the game, he has received very few buffs. This is because Ganon's playstyle is already immensely popular. He was the most used character in Elite Smash at one point. Even if he isn't good, his identity is appealing enough for him to see loads of play. So the devs don't worry as much about him. In contrast, characters like , , , etc were all fairly indistinct and thus got buffs that help assert their niches. This also explains why the jack-of-all-trades top tiers like frequently get nerfed, since they run the greatest risk of invalidating characters whose similar strengths come at the cost of extreme weaknesses.

is what the devs are trying to avoid. Even though they are solid there is no reason to play them over other characters and they don't bring anything to the table that would set them apart from . Characters like see way more play despite being much because they actually bring something unique to the table. The goal of patches is to avoid making more Corrins.


If I could guess, these characters are probably the most likely candidates for changes if patches continue.

Buffs :

Nerfs:

I mean I get what you are saying to an extent, but patches have helped plenty of characters actually become viable threats in the meta. While the only Sm4sh Mewtwo tier buffs we got were to very early on, we have still gotten a lot of solid buffs that have made characters viable and good. Being conservative, and all got patches thta made them much more viable in this game. Obviously, not everyone will get that miracle patch like Mewtwo did in 4 turning him from a bottom 10 to a top 10 character overnight, but plenty of characters have gotten a lot of love to help them become actually usable characters. Even in this patch, we can see elements of this. got some pretty solid buffs with Jab 1 Down Smash being a thing, and got one of her core moves buffed a good bit and some of her weaker ground moves given a good bit more utility. Heck, even got some much needed love, with SL being an actual usable move and Up Tilt almost filling the void Sm4sh down tilt left. Obviously, there have not been any true zero to hero buff stories with the possible exception of Sheik, but all of the pre 13.0 buffed characters i mentioned went from Mid or low tiers to high tier arguably.

In my opinion, the goal of patches should be to do what they can to make sure every character is usable at the end of the day. This is the most balanced smash we have ever got and there are very few characters that I think are outright unviable in this game. Gun to my head, the number of low tiers is probably 8-9. Heck, the mid tiers themselves for the most part are ok as well, even if they could use some buffs as well. The vast majority of the cast is at least viable at top level play, though some might require a secondary for a few matchups.

If I had to try to pinpoint likely targets for buffs and nerfs.

Buffs:
Nerfs:

 

[NairWizard]

One thing that Tweek mentioned earlier is that Sora's n-air is one of the best ledgetrapping tools in the game, since it covers neutral getup into shield, jump, and roll, and Sora's kit already encourages you to do an immediate ledge option (since you don't want to be hit by d-tilt or unreactable instant dash attack). Has anyone tried doing this, and if you have, what counterplay did you encounter? It sounds really broken if it works out the way he's describing it, but I haven't seen anyone do it (and don't have access to the training mod pack to test right now).

 

[Thinkaman]

Speaking in purely mathematically terms, this patch further increased the correlation between OrionStats and number of times a character was targetted with balance changes.

This is despite the fact that older results data (2019) insisted Lucario was fine, find his buff here unnecessary/inappropriate, and penalize this value accordingly.

The closest thing to an outlier for modern results is Zelda. She has been doing really great in OrionStats 2021, almost top half! She is far and away the highest performing buffed character this patch, 2nd closest is Doc. But Zelda has always underperformed her usage pretty severely (despite strong performances by a few key players), with performance historically similar to DK on most metrics. We know that this seems to be a major factor into the balance team's decision making; see Ness and Cloud.

But even so, that's just 2021 data. According to lifetime data, it's totally expected that she would be buffed.


As far as predictions go, for starters I wouldn't expected any of these characters to get adjusted again. 13.0.0 continued a very clear trend of not adjusting characters who were adjusted in the last (several!) patches.

I think all the FP2 DLC are on the table for a tune up/down; isn't that the primary point of having a post-DLC patch scheduled at all?

Otherwise, are the obvious most likely candidates for further buffs, with acknowledgement of 's strange existence as well as the Miis. would each also be plausible, but I wouldn't expect them in a typical sized patch. Maybe and/or get one last haircut, but my gut doubts it.

 

[Lancerech]

One thing that Tweek mentioned earlier is that Sora's n-air is one of the best ledgetrapping tools in the game, since it covers neutral getup into shield, jump, and roll, and Sora's kit already encourages you to do an immediate ledge option (since you don't want to be hit by d-tilt or unreactable instant dash attack). Has anyone tried doing this, and if you have, what counterplay did you encounter? It sounds really broken if it works out the way he's describing it, but I haven't seen anyone do it (and don't have access to the training mod pack to test right now).

I've been using Nair for ledge traps and it is really good. It's how I get a lot of my kills since Nair-Fsmash is such a strong confirm. You can just short hop, wait and react to the opponent's option. The only issue I've had is that the back hit can be finicky. Most of the time, it'll send the opponent in front of you or above you, which is expected and you can react with the correct smash attack. But occasionally, the back hit will launch them towards center stage instead of towards the ledge and you can't get a combo. It seems like a hitbox thing and it's semi-easy to recreate the effects, it seems like a specific couple frames of the attack on the outward edge, it launches in a way that doesn't allow for combos. It's really weird.

 

[Nobie]

One thing that Tweek mentioned earlier is that Sora's n-air is one of the best ledgetrapping tools in the game, since it covers neutral getup into shield, jump, and roll, and Sora's kit already encourages you to do an immediate ledge option (since you don't want to be hit by d-tilt or unreactable instant dash attack). Has anyone tried doing this, and if you have, what counterplay did you encounter? It sounds really broken if it works out the way he's describing it, but I haven't seen anyone do it (and don't have access to the training mod pack to test right now).

MKLeo was also talking about this, but specifically doing an offstage nair as a form of ledgetrapping that covers ledge get-up and hanging. The back hit actually drags the opponent to the front of Sora, allowing it to combo as well.

As for Incineroar, they may have turned Cross Chop into an actual kill move, which makes challenging it a little scarier, and gives Incineroar a better OoS option.

 

[StrangeKitten]

MKLeo was also talking about this, but specifically doing an offstage nair as a form of ledgetrapping that covers ledge get-up and hanging. The back hit actually drags the opponent to the front of Sora, allowing it to combo as well.

As for Incineroar, they may have turned Cross Chop into an actual kill move, which makes challenging it a little scarier, and gives Incineroar a better OoS option.

It was always a kill move, just inconsistent and (barring down throw -> Cross Chop spikes at 0) killed later than most of his other moves. I had been experimenting with uses for it pre-patch, and found it nice for situational kills. It being better now has me excited!

 

[Planet-Neptune]

Otherwise, are the obvious most likely candidates for further buffs, with acknowledgement of 's strange existence as well as the Miis. would each also be plausible, but I wouldn't expect them in a typical sized patch. Maybe and/or get one last haircut, but my gut doubts it.

I can see Kirby getting buffed in the future, and not because of Sakurai bias. Clearly he is not getting enough love from him if we're looking at their viability. Kirby seemed like a weird omission from the patch notes, given that a few mid tiers with similar issues as him were buffed in some way.

I think DK is done for. Even if he gets buffed, he just feels like a naturally ill fitting character for this game's meta. His disadvantage is so bad, and every DLC seems to have a unique way of just trampling him. I would like to be pleasantly surprised, especially since he's such a fun character, but I've made up my mind.

Lucas would be nice, but I'm doubtful of any potential buffs changing anything. I don't think he has any glaring problems, but there isn't much that can be done to offset the issue of a barren player base. Unless a Lucas player steps out from the shadows and destroys some high level players of course.

Don't have much to say on everyone else. Haven't been following them or giving them much mind lately. Would like to see more underutilized characters getting buffed regardless.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Random sora notes:

• Buttons seem pretty good! Dtilt and smashes are all generous on hitboxes, jab 1 has a good vertical hitbox as well that's pretty neat to cover ground + short hops. Up b's range is pretty neat as well and you can side-b mixup if you whiff (although it remains to be seen how good side b is at landing against knowledgeable opponents, my guess would be "not too great" lol).
• Dash attack is suuuuper good, crosses up like no tomorrow and goes a far distance. That combined with his ok dash (i think? it felt ok to use at least) and dtilt + spells might make his ground game better than expected. Haven't seen the frame data on it yet though but its always nice to have such a burst option (both to punish landings and get out of corner).
• Blizzard spell has been better than i thought? The range isn't so bad and it has a bunch of active frames so its good at covering space at least.
• Landing uair gives me chroy vibes (although it has some odd blindspots?).
• Side b... not sure yet how to feel about that move lol it's weird. Having to keep ur stick neutral to avoid doing all 3 + the first one being forced to be horizontal makes it a bit less versatile than i'd like it to be but it's probably decent.
• Am I bad or is it actually difficult to input the 3-hit ftilt, I have no issues with jab/nair/fair but that one eludes me.

So far the thing I'm most excited to see pushed forward is his combo game/edgegarding potential - coz he's got a looot of options and mixups with spells multihit cancels and stuff. The thing I'm most worried about is his disadvantage - floaty + weird dj + light isn't a great combo, he does have landing mixups and a good recovery though.

Still waiting to try him out more but he's the most excited I've been to play a DLC so far, it's nice to have a simple-yet-with-depth kit rather than 5 different gauges 3 command inputs and a swap special for once lol.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Who has good disadvantage besides Zero Suit?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Who has good disadvantage besides Zero Suit?

, and are usually considered up there.

 

[Rizen]

Who has good disadvantage besides Zero Suit?

...just kidding. Disadvantage generally means several things: escaping juggles in the air, recovering and getting off the ledge. all come to mind at excelling in all those. Some characters like ROB have great recoveries but can get ledge trapped hard.

 

[Kokiden]

Is Hollow Bastion a legal stage? It's being used in shock wave atm, and it's a really nice stage with music too.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Is Hollow Bastion a legal stage? It's being used in shock wave atm, and it's a really nice stage with music too.

It’s blastzones and stage size are just FDs, the platform can be full hopped by little mac, and Disney only dmcas the intros and Disney world songs. It’s kosher.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Is Hollow Bastion a legal stage? It's being used in shock wave atm, and it's a really nice stage with music too.

Its a pretty cool stage.

My main concern over its legality is it being redundant with Smashville. At least with Northern Cave vs Kalos, I feel that there are enough differences to warrant separate stage selection spots competitively, with the existence of walls vs no walls being the main example. With Hollow Bastion vs Smashville, all I can tell is minor blastzone changes and the platform being slightly lower for the former stage.

If we adopt a hazards on ruleset, then Hollow Bastion is an absolute must, especially since Smashville's platform will be moving again in order to differentiate the stages further. Background isn't too distracting from my point of view (less are happening than with Northern Cave), and the transition to the Dive to the Heart (which admittedly can be a bit distracting) only happens at moments when the opponent just obtained the advantage.

As a matter of fact, the addition of Hollow Bastion just might be the very thing that enables the Smash community to at least start experimenting around with hazards on rulesets.
Here is a mock stage ruleset that I randomly came up with as a proof of concept:

Spoiler

Starters
Battlefield
Final Destination
Small Battlefield
Hollow Bastion
Town & City

Counterpicks
Fountain of Dreams*
Yoshi's Story**
Smashville
Northern Cave
Lylat Cruise

*Patch 8.0.0 fixed the frame drop issues, at least without Wario's Bike careening around (which will hardly ever happen).
**Patch 13.0.0, the one released with Sora, finally fixed the Fly Guys carrying food even when food items are turned off.

Oh yeah, in Yoshi's Story, the Shy Guy food dropping thing finally got fixed this patch, so that is interesting to consider.

FYI: it is also a crime that the Dive to the Heart phase does not occur when hazards are turned off.
Oddly enough, turning hazards off also turns off the transition in the Battlefield/Omega versions of the stage. I believe this makes it the only stage in the game where the hazard toggle influences the Battlefield/Omega version of the stage.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

So apparently, ‘s counter works on’s Wonderwing? I wonder if that will get fixed in a patch?

 

[Frihetsanka]

There is actually a thread specifically for stagelist discussion: https://smashboards.com/threads/ssbu-stagelist-discussion.464895/

Anyway, to briefly comment: With hazards off, it's quite likely that running both Smashville and Hollow Bastion would be a bit too similar, and Hollow Bastion would likely not be legal. With hazards on, both stages will almost certainly be legal (and Hollow Bastion's inclusion is probably the main reason we might see a shift to hazards on).

Lylat Cruise will not be legal hazards on. I think Smashville should be a starter over Town & City (it was sometimes called "Starterville" in Smash 4, being one of the most popular starters).

I think moving to hazards on would solve some issues with redundancy and difficulty making a solid and balanced and varied stage list, at the cost of losing Pokémon Stadium 2. Given all the potential benefits it's worth testing, at least.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Its a pretty cool stage.

My main concern over its legality is it being redundant with Smashville. At least with Northern Cave vs Kalos, I feel that there are enough differences to warrant separate stage selection spots competitively, with the existence of walls vs no walls being the main example. With Hollow Bastion vs Smashville, all I can tell is minor blastzone changes and the platform being slightly lower for the former stage.

If we adopt a hazards on ruleset, then Hollow Bastion is an absolute must, especially since Smashville's platform will be moving again in order to differentiate the stages further. Background isn't too distracting from my point of view (less are happening than with Northern Cave), and the transition to the Dive to the Heart (which admittedly can be a bit distracting) only happens at moments when the opponent just obtained the advantage.

As a matter of fact, the addition of Hollow Bastion just might be the very thing that enables the Smash community to at least start experimenting around with hazards on rulesets.
Here is a mock stage ruleset that I randomly came up with as a proof of concept:

Spoiler

Starters
Battlefield
Final Destination
Small Battlefield
Hollow Bastion
Town & City

Counterpicks
Fountain of Dreams*
Yoshi's Story**
Smashville
Northern Cave
Lylat Cruise

*Patch 8.0.0 fixed the frame drop issues, at least without Wario's Bike careening around (which will hardly ever happen).
**Patch 13.0.0, the one released with Sora, finally fixed the Fly Guys carrying food even when food items are turned off.

Oh yeah, in Yoshi's Story, the Shy Guy food dropping thing finally got fixed this patch, so that is interesting to consider.

FYI: it is also a crime that the Dive to the Heart phase does not occur when hazards are turned off.
Oddly enough, turning hazards off also turns off the transition in the Battlefield/Omega versions of the stage. I believe this makes it the only stage in the game where the hazard toggle influences the Battlefield/Omega version of the stage.

Yeah here's a good spitball tweet on the idea:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

IMO, there's plenty of benefits behind this list. (Tho I personally would cut Town)

-No more large Pokemon stages, so less lame playstyles
-No more Town platform nonsense
-No Lylat
-Randall & SV Balloons
-Final Fantasy & Kingdom Hearts music
-Stain glass frames at the end of Hollow Bastion

I kind of wanna see it.


Edit: Does the Dive to the Heart transition stay during Quickplay?

Hope it does.

 

[Idon]

-Final Fantasy & Kingdom Hearts music

Well the problem is the Final Fantasy music.

Several content creators have had their videos demonetized due to Northern Cave's FF7 music rights holders putting out a claim. I hope the same isn't true for Kingdom Hearts, but if so, things won't look too good.

 

[Kokiden]

Honestly I just want to hear KH and FF music in tourneys. The stages are nice too and it'd be nice to not have to look at town and city or battlefield all the time.

 

[BlazGreen]

I'm sure if Northern Cave has any music issues you can use the smash remixes since they shouldn't be affected.

 

[Idon]

I'm sure if Northern Cave has any music issues you can use the smash remixes since they shouldn't be affected.

That still might be a problem actually:

Not sure how these things usually go, all I know is that I know a few smash content creators and pros got some of their videos demonetized by NC.

 

[Nekoo]

Genuine question, isn't tournament rules and integrity more important than set replays being demonetized?
I know that's why we're running NC in france.

 

[Kokiden]

Genuine question, isn't tournament rules and integrity more important than set replays being demonetized?
I know that's why we're running NC in france.

You do need funding in order to keep running the tournaments though.

Nintendo isn't helping at all, so they gotta make money somehow.

 

[Nekoo]

You do need funding in order to keep running the tournaments though.

Nintendo isn't helping at all, so they gotta make money somehow.

And...it's the same for us here tho?

 

[Cutie Gwen]

So apparently, ‘s counter works on’s Wonderwing? I wonder if that will get fixed in a patch?

It won't as it works as intended, Sora's counter disrupts all physical attacks and Wonderwing isn't meant to be fully invincible anyway. Otherwise they'd have patched Pyra's side B to be Pocketed and well, I don't think I need to explain why they're not gonna change that

 

[StrangeKitten]

, and are usually considered up there.

Sorry this reply is a bit late, I fell asleep before I could finish typing this up!

Adding to this:
Pretty small so he isn't that susceptible to combos, can cover the space beneath him with Hydrant, best recovery in the game.
Also not very susceptible to combos due to his attributes (can escape them with Spring, too), also a really strong recovery.
Is thin and therefore tricky to hit, can cover beneath him using Gun, frame 3 counter, aerial gun dashes aid an already good recovery.

Honorable mention: While he is comboable and has a somewhat weak recovery, he is kinda small for a super heavy, Revenge helps out a ton, and being able to act out of Cross Chop and Alolan Whip gives him more flexibility in recovery than a good chunk of the cast. Not great, but surprisingly better than one might think!

 

[Cap'n Jack]

It won't as it works as intended, Sora's counter disrupts all physical attacks and Wonderwing isn't meant to be fully invincible anyway. Otherwise they'd have patched Pyra's side B to be Pocketed and well, I don't think I need to explain why they're not gonna change that

I believe counters are only meant to ignore Wonderwing, not retaliate against it. Sakurai explained Wonderwing as a move that can only be blocked or grabbed, so I am not sure why only Sora’s counter damages Wonderwing when someone like Marth’s does not.

 

[Space thing]

From my testing against gnw's up (during the intangible portions), sora's counter still seems to stun him, so it's not just wonderwing. Sora's just seems to ignore both invincibility and intangibility somehow (though I would like to test it against ledge grab intangibility to be sure, I'm not sure how excluding projectile interactions, which seem to work a little differently). It seems like it may be best to think of Sora's counter stun effect to be most similar to a Witch Time or a Foresight effect in terms of reliability?