I have to say overall I'm pretty disappointed with how the balance team handled
. I know that's kind of silly to bring up now after he finally got some buffs, but unfortunately I don't really see much coming from the buffs in this particular patch. Not that I'm complaining about them in particular, but there's also a reason nobody is really talking about them.
It's pretty widely known that the three characters who got kneecapped by nerfs the hardest early on were
,
and
, with the former two being considered probably the two most nerfed characters in the game, at least within Smash ultimate itself. It's frustrating because there are characters who already were better and have been better for longer that have gotten off with much smaller nerfs and changes, some not even getting nerfed at all.
later had some nerfs pulled back, as well as a few other little buffs, but
was basically ignored after I think around 4.0 was the last patch that specifically changed him. Losing things like pellet cancelling and the ability to drop items during hitstun are nerfs I agree with because that's the sort of thing I wouldn't want to define the character. I'd be curious to see what he could have done with those abilities and if counterplay could have formed, but if they were gonna nip it in the bud, I'm fine with it. But then they went on to nerf all projectiles against shields, they nerfed leaf shield multiple times, and in the wake of all of the nerfs they never gave Megaman anything other than a buff so insignificant most people don't know about it and it basically only existed so that prior to this final patch, I couldn't literally say Megaman never got buffed.
Meanwhile so many characters were getting buffed around Megaman. Sometimes those buffs would even have a disproportionate effect on Megaman. For example
and
. The tatsu buffs they got that made them invincible to projectiles. That effects more of Megaman's tools than any other character in the game simply because Megaman is the only character whose moveset is made up of more than 50% projectiles. To say nothing about DLC characters and things like bounce existing.
Meanwhile
has 3 multi-hit moves that all too often fail to connect properly that the balance team never even attempted to address. Now the balance team has tried to address a few multi-hit moves and haven't always succeeded, but at least they made an effort to make the moves connect properly. If you'd like to see the moves I'm talking about I'd suggest looking into Maroof's Twitter. They have videos of Crash Bomb, Leaf Shield, and Spark Shock all failing to connect way more often than they should. That's not even to mention things like Top Spin, which drops characters before the final hit if they weren't grounded or near the ground when it connects, or the hitbox on Mega Upper sour spotting on characters who are too close because the hitbox for the sweet spot doesn't actually cover Megaman's hand.
With this last patch, if they weren't going to attempt to fix any of
's moves then they seemed to pick good moves to buff. Dash attack and down smash were probably his two worst moves, and seeing them buff them slightly is nice, but the buffs are so minor they don't really make the moves any better. Dash attack coming out faster isn't going to stop it from dropping characters. It's still probably the worst dash attack in the game. The hit box buff on down smash is going to help at ledges, but it's still too big of a commitment for not enough reward the vast majority of the time. The damage buff on Crash Bomber is nice, and probably the thing that will see the most use simply because unlike those other two moves, it's a move that was good enough to see regular use in a match.
I don't mean to complain about buffs mind you, but they don't really fix any of the issues the character had, and unlike other characters the issues have nothing to do with the type of character he is. It's just multi-hit moves failing to work properly. The buffs were given to some of the right moves, but they don't seem to change things enough to really matter at all.
That's why nobody is talking about them, and unfortunately, I don't see the changes doing anything at all to stem the decline of
's success and usage.
All that to say, I don't think it's really surprising that
has seen nothing but a steady to sharp decline in both usage and results, with many of his mains switching or dropping him for other, better characters that either got substantial buffs, or came into the game stronger and never got nerfed to the same level.
I also don't think it's surprising that people are starting to consider him more of a mid-tier character as a result, for whatever that's worth to you.
He's just too much work in the way the meta has shaken out, and even one of the best things about him, the consistency of his gameplan, is thrown off by moves not working the way they are supposed to too often. Not something you want to have on a character that already has to put in a lot of work to keep pace with the cast.
