Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Tri Knight]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of Toon Link players and pre-Ultimate Link players for that matter dropped him for young Link. It kind of makes sense, though, and it was talked about before. Young Link has pre-Ultimate Link's moveset while also being Melee young Link, so he is faster in general, especially in fall speed compared to Toon Link where some might consider Toon Link as a replacement for young Link after Melee until he returned for Ultimate.

Hayato still plays Toon Link and there's also another Hayato who plays Toon Link. I can't remember what region the other Hayato is from, though. Twitch chat asked about a Hayato who was playing Toon Link on stream a week or two ago and I think it was juddy96 who said it was a different Hayato, but Hayato still plays Toon Link. I hope that wasn't confusing. Not sure about the other Toon Link mains in Japan like Ri-ma and Sigma.

Edit here: Ri-ma might, probably, maybe still plays Toon Link. Here's two, online matches of Ri-ma vs. KEN's Sonic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-5I6vNgKc, and Ri-ma vs. Rozen!'s Ike and Cloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAA-p_wUnZw. I say this since this tournament was from almost a month ago.

Anyway, point being is that Toon Link is losing some representation. Does not help with how large the roster is in this game nor does it help that there's three Links each with their own little quirks.


I have no idea if this is a rhetorical question or not. Shogun and Souther among others, new and old Snakes. There's only room for one Boss and one Snake. Speaking of which, the Boss as a Snake echo would have been pretty awesome and they could easily solve censoring issues by not unzipping her sneaking suit because who freaking does that in the middle of a fight.

Incidentally, Souther played Captain Falcon in SSB4, but like Shogun, he went back to Snake. I couldn't find much on Eda, Pichi, or Saiya. That is to say, I don't even know if they still play Smash.


SETHsational, a Michigan player, still plays Capt. and does well with him. It's just the Midwest exists and only exists.

What's ultimately gonna kill is purely the lack of representation but I think he could technically be just as great as and or maybe even better. Not many players find him interesting though, at least at a high enough level. He's the campiest of the three which makes him really great but I think that playstyle is why it seems people aren't as interested. He'll likely be lowest of the three in tiers but its gonna be solely due to lack of representation.
That last tier list posted looks pretty. seems to have a lot of hype around him. I personally hate him but does anyone have any insight on this guy? Definitely top tier material or nah?

 

[trickroom]

Because Fatality is pretty much the only player who understands the new Falcon. He requires more technical skill to master. SSB4 Falcon was never that hot in Japan in the first place.

SETHsational, a Michigan player, still plays Capt. and does well with him. It's just the Midwest exists and only exists.

Nick C, from the New York area, is also a very strong Falcon rep who placed 13th at Let's Make Moves, meaning he outplaced CaptainZack, Tamim, Cosmos, and Mr. E among others. He played the character in Sm4sh as well.

I'm curious how good Falcon will be in this game when the dust settles. It at least seems like he's been nerfed quite a bit, but it could also just be trimming the fat from tools he doesn't actually need to perform well (like Mewtwo). Getting Melee-style Raptor Boost back (i.e. no kill potential but low endlag) is...interesting, I guess, but his dashgrab got gutted from Sm4sh too. I think the amount of faith Falcon players still have in him says something, but I personally still worry he'll suffer from Sheik's power-creep syndrome moving into this game. At least he benefits from the new dash FAF.

 

[Omastar]

On the subject of Marth I'm sure he's going to climb the tier lists as players get more acclimatized to the pace of the game. Melee is much faster paced than Ultimate and he was top tier in that game. He still spaces well and has the disjoint of a sword, and sourspot isn't always a bad thing. He can use them to combo more at earlier percents and tipper futile and f smash still kill really early in this game. Dair spike is also really strong.

Marth is top tier in melee for different reasons. I am no Melee pro, but I can try to outline why Marth won't be as strong and it isn't a great comparison. I will be using Tai's Marth guide as a reference.

1. He outranges every single character in Melee with his sword, in this game there are many characters who can effectively challenge his disjoints.
2. He has some of the best movement in Melee with a combination of a good wavedash and a long/fast dash , where everyone more or less on the ground has similar options if not better in this game.
3. One of the best edgeguarders in Melee with fair, dair, bair, up b, counter, nair, even side b to style. In Ultimate he can do more or less the same but aren't as effective because recoveries by in large are much better than in Melee and there is no ability to edgehog.
4. He has one of the best punish games vs fastfallers (eg. fox and falco). His ability to keep them in the air via up tilts, up throws, fairs and if it doesn't end in a ken combo, being able to tech chase them on stage or edgeguard them off is what makes him one of the best characters against some of the best characters. He can also combo characters like Peach and Samus into oblivion and has the disjoints to fend them off making for long methodical matches. In Ultimate of course not too much has been explored, but his ability to punish is hindered by the speed of the game and the combo engine working much more differently.
5. Consistency for the most part will always be key. Pros will opt for Lucina more as you can win more neutral interactions and still kill early whereas with Marth you could potentially get an f smash or ftilt tipper and kill ridiculously early, but the likelihood of that happening often and consistently will be hard especially at top level.

Now this isn't to say that he won't get better, or that he is a whole two tiers below Lucina like some pros suggest, but comparing him to Marth in Melee isn't a good comparison as they are great characters for different reasons in entirely different games. He will have to succeed by his own merits in this game.

 

[MG_3989]

Nick C, from the New York area, is also a very strong Falcon rep who placed 13th at Let's Make Moves, meaning he outplaced CaptainZack, Tamim, Cosmos, and Mr. E among others. He played the character in Sm4sh as well.

I'm curious how good Falcon will be in this game when the dust settles. It at least seems like he's been nerfed quite a bit, but it could also just be trimming the fat from tools he doesn't actually need to perform well (like Mewtwo). Getting Melee-style Raptor Boost back (i.e. no kill potential but low endlag) is...interesting, I guess, but his dashgrab got gutted from Sm4sh too. I think the amount of faith Falcon players still have in him says something, but I personally still worry he'll suffer from Sheik's power-creep syndrome moving into this game. At least he benefits from the new dash FAF.

My friend who’s a pretty good player is a Falcon main and he says he loves the way he feels in Ultimate it’s just different. He’s doing just as well if not better with Falcon than he was doing in Smash 4. He thinks Falcon is nowhere close to low tier but I honestly know nothing about him in Smash 4 or Ultimate so that’s all I’ve got on the subject

 

[Storm0943]

Nick C, from the New York area, is also a very strong Falcon rep who placed 13th at Let's Make Moves, meaning he outplaced CaptainZack, Tamim, Cosmos, and Mr. E among others. He played the character in Sm4sh as well.

I'm curious how good Falcon will be in this game when the dust settles. It at least seems like he's been nerfed quite a bit, but it could also just be trimming the fat from tools he doesn't actually need to perform well (like Mewtwo). Getting Melee-style Raptor Boost back (i.e. no kill potential but low endlag) is...interesting, I guess, but his dashgrab got gutted from Sm4sh too. I think the amount of faith Falcon players still have in him says something, but I personally still worry he'll suffer from Sheik's power-creep syndrome moving into this game. At least he benefits from the new dash FAF.

Personally, I believe Falcon is mid-tier, that might push for a bit higher. He just doesn't feel the same anymore.

 

[Rizen]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of Toon Link players and pre-Ultimate Link players for that matter dropped him for young Link. It kind of makes sense, though, and it was talked about before. Young Link has pre-Ultimate Link's moveset while also being Melee young Link, so he is faster in general, especially in fall speed compared to Toon Link where some might consider Toon Link as a replacement for young Link after Melee until he returned for Ultimate.

's faster than in run and air speed. Their frame data is often within a frame of the other's and goes back and forth.
TL/YL
Jab f5/6
Ftilt 9/10
Utilt 8/9
Dtilt 9/8
Fsmash 16/15
Usmash 11/10
Nair 6/4
Bair 7/6
Uair 11/5
Dair 17/13
Arrows 18/14
Spin Attack 6/9
All other attacks are tied in startup. TL, having single hits, ends his attacks sooner but doesn't frame trap as well.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Personally, I believe Falcon is mid-tier, that might push for a bit higher. He just doesn't feel the same anymore.

I've heard that Falcon now loses to swords, and there are a bunch of swords in top and high tier. Furthermore, he likely loses to Pikachu and Pichu as well, and probably Inkling too. The current top and high tiers seem rough for him, to say the least, so unless something changes I don't think he's going to be a high tier character in this game.

Don't sleep on him though, mid tiers are still scary.

 

[KamikazePotato]

That last tier list posted looks pretty. seems to have a lot of hype around him. I personally hate him but does anyone have any insight on this guy? Definitely top tier material or nah?

The general consensus I've seen in this topic is "high tier but top tier is pushing it". Shulk has been significantly improved from Smash 4 and he has a bunch of top players signing his praises to no end, but his tournament results aren't quite there yet. A big problem being that not many people play him due to a variety of factors (difficult to play, wasn't good in Smash 4, Xenoblade is niche, ect.). Due to that, you can't cite stats like "Shulk placed highly in a jillion tournament" like you can for, say, Snake, and there's not that as much footage of Shulk to view to get as good an impression of him as other highly-lauded characters. Unless his playrate improves, that won't change.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Nick C, from the New York area, is also a very strong Falcon rep who placed 13th at Let's Make Moves, meaning he outplaced CaptainZack, Tamim, Cosmos, and Mr. E among others. He played the character in Sm4sh as well.

I'm curious how good Falcon will be in this game when the dust settles. It at least seems like he's been nerfed quite a bit, but it could also just be trimming the fat from tools he doesn't actually need to perform well (like Mewtwo). Getting Melee-style Raptor Boost back (i.e. no kill potential but low endlag) is...interesting, I guess, but his dashgrab got gutted from Sm4sh too. I think the amount of faith Falcon players still have in him says something, but I personally still worry he'll suffer from Sheik's power-creep syndrome moving into this game. At least he benefits from the new dash FAF.

Speaking of NickC, he just beat TheReflexWonder 2-0 at Glitch 6 .

 

[J0eyboi]

On the subject of Marth I'm sure he's going to climb the tier lists as players get more acclimatized to the pace of the game. Melee is much faster paced than Ultimate and he was top tier in that game. He still spaces well and has the disjoint of a sword, and sourspot isn't always a bad thing. He can use them to combo more at earlier percents and tipper ftilt and f smash still kill really early in this game. Dair spike is also really strong.

Omastar said most of what's to be said on this topic, but there are a couple of other things I'd like to add.

For starters, Marth thrives on microspacing, and Melee is full of microspacing options. More precise dashdancing, the ability to crouch out of a dash, a faster and less committal short hop, and wavedashing all make it quite easy to control Marth's spacing. In Brawl, Marth really only had walking and short hops for microspacing, but the slower pace made it easier. In Smash 4, he had perfect pivoting to make microspacing easier. In Ultimate, he can only really walk and short hop, just like in Brawl. This doesn't sound so bad, Marth has the highest walk speed in the game, after all, but there's a little problem with that plan: Marth also has terrible walk acceleration, meaning he takes a while to start walking. This is not a good thing to have in a microspacing option. He can also short hop to space himself, but Marth's short hop isn't great either; his SHFF is something like 28 frames, which is not exactly quick. So a character who needs to space himself well at all times has lackluster ways to do so.

Also, needing to space yourself well means it's kinda necessary to have stage control, which is now much harder to regain when lost because you can't run through people. Not nearly as big an issue, but still a problem.

Marth's sourspots don't really help his combos at early percents. If anything, they hurt them; Marth's sourspots in this game don't really have enough hitstun to combo well at low percents. They do mean he can combo better at mid percents, but the lower damage at low percents means it's about net neutral at best.

Dair is not a good spike, and this goes for both Marth and Lucina. Besides being kinda weak and having years of endlag, the spike hitbox is out for exactly 1 frame and still requires you sweetspot it (though unlike his other moves, the spike sweetspot outprioritizes the sourspot, so that's nice ig). It's decently fast at frame 12 (for the spike, the hitbox comes out frame 9), but it's too hard to land, too risky to use, and not rewarding enough on hit. I'd suggest edgeguarding with literally anything else.

 

[Mr. Jack]

I just really really really hope this doesn’t happen to PK Fire because people are too bad to play around it. I’ve already seen a TON of unjustified complaining about it and I’ve literally had players jump off stage three times when they saw I was playing Ness. Not looking good atm. It’s a completely fair move and while just one move in Ness’s kit it’s completely intregal to it. My main is finally a high tier viable character and to have that taken away from him over scrubby play, lag, and complaints would be heartbreaking

Disclaimer: this post is coming from an excited and a little biased Ness main but the content is valid

Also Ness continues to have among if not the best tournament results in the game and it seems like more players are picking him up and actually seeing results. Yeah I know it’s early, yeah I heard about the Smash 4 hype, and yeah I know about his recovery problems (which are overblown and I’d take Ness’s recovery over Cloud’s without limit, Chrom’s, Belmont’s, and maybe a couple others). His double jump and movement options in the air including PSI Magnet air dodge maunvers gives him great versatility when recovering and PKT2 can straight up trade stocks or kill while trying to gimp it. Can we at least say he’s solidly high tier now with low top tier potential? Yeah he has potential to drop and he has flaws just like every other current top or high tier character but I think it’s more likely that he’ll stay right where he is.

Again I’m cool with people sleeping on him and not seeing him as a threat and putting him in mid tier or even low mid in some tier lists I’ve seen. That just makes him more dangerous. The results are getting impossible to ignore though and although they’re early and we don’t know how the meta is going to shape up Ness is making a strong statement for a big place in it

I wholeheartedly agree with this. PK Fire is not broken in the slightest and it's EXTREMELY important to Ness's gameplan. Nerfing it would remove an important zoning tool that allows Ness to actually be a threat a mid-range, compared to every other Smash where he just got bopped at mid-range because he had no options aside from trying to get in closer. This is even more important when you take into account just how many good swordfighters there are in this game and the swordfighter archetype essentially thrives on trying to keep you at mid-range. A loss of PK Fire as a zoning tool via a stupid nerf would significantly nerf Ness. Though, if it makes you feel any better, I rarely hear scrubs complain about this or ragequit just by seeing me play Ness online. I personally think they're too busy complaining about K. Rool and the Belmonts to worry about PK Fire. Those three are way more in danger of being nerfed because of scrubs than Ness is. Heck, he's not even the most complained about MOTHER character. I see way more people complaining about Lucas' PK Freeze than I do PK Fire, which is ironic when you think back to people predicting Lucas was going to be a bottom three character just because he lost his down throw combos. Just goes to show how much people overreact to a character that 99% of them know nothing about (because, let's be honest, how many of the people saying Lucas was gonna be trash do you think actually mained Lucas in a prior Smash game).

On the topic of Ness's potential though, I know he's totally underrated. You're not even a biased Ness main saying that. It's a fact that Ness has what? The third best results out of the entire cast right now. To put a character with that good of results in mid-tier where a lot of people put him is just absurd. I personally would rank him in high tier. I mean, I suppose you could make an argument for top tier based off results, but I still think his weaknesses are too exploitable for him to be top tier. Though, I perfectly agree with you about his recovery not being as bad as everybody says. I don't even think it's his biggest weakness. Instead, that would be his difficulty dealing with non-absorb-able projectiles. It causes him to have a few pretty bad matchups against characters with lots of projectiles like Villager and the Belmonts. Also, he benefits a ton from the fact that Rosalina got nerfed hard and nobody uses her now. However, I'm completely fine with people sleeping on him because it's literally the best of both worlds. I get to main a good character but not get crap for doing it. I'm personally looking forward to see how he'll do at Genesis next month

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Bringing up Glitch 6 again, man What a set between Nairo and ZD. that game 3 man Nario's DI from that b-air was unreal

 

[trickroom]

Tweek vs. WaDi put on a clinic for why I think ROB isn't anywhere in top 10 -- he is absolutely a high tier, and far from top tier. Tweek, after barely losing with Wario (a character that ROB might beat from a matchup perspective), got 3 wins in a row with Young Link by abusing ROB's lacking frame data, disadvantage, landing game, and recovery with YL's nair and neutral B, among other moves. ROB will not be getting better with the passage of time.

 

[Rizen]

Tweek vs. WaDi put on a clinic for why I think ROB isn't anywhere in top 10 -- he is absolutely a high tier, and far from top tier. Tweek, after barely losing with Wario (a character that ROB might beat from a matchup perspective), got 3 wins in a row with Young Link by abusing ROB's lacking frame data, disadvantage, landing game, and recovery with YL's nair and neutral B, among other moves. ROB will not be getting better with the passage of time.

Tweek uses YL now? Is there a video link?

I think is a character who can improve as time goes on. He's very dependent on knowing MUs for both spacing and combo %s. All his combo followups are based on %s, which correlates to weight and gravity. As one example, Fair 1>land optimally combos to Dtilt>Nair at low %s. At mid-high %s you can replace Nair with Dair/Fair. At higher %s you might as well kill with Fair1>Dsmash. But then Dtilt stops working because Fair1 pops up the opponent too much. Dsmash seems to work slightly later than Dtilt due to bigger hitbubbles but it stops working too. You have a small window where Fair1>Fsmash works at high %s but if Usmash kills it's easiest to just use that after Dsmash %s, unless you're by the ledge where Ftilt will kill but Usmash won't. Usmash is the final finisher. All this is heavily dependent on the weight and floatiness of the opponent as well as their damage and maybe slight rage influence.

The point being, optimal YL damages more and kills earlier but requires extensive knowledge of MUs and awareness of stage positioning. It's always fun to see top players like T get the most out of him.

 

[Bloop]

Tweek uses YL now? Is there a video link?

Here you go:

 

[NotLiquid]

Yeah I'm not sure how much I agree with Salem's opinion that Link is better than Inkling. The fact that he only won his fifth game against a less-than-optimal Cosmos with a lucky hit was sort of telling.

Link also seems to have a garbagio matchup against Fox. Salem had to switch off to ZSS when he went up against Light.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

So here is the top 8 Glitch 6

Winners Side
Tweek vs Nairo
MKLeo vs Light

Losers Side

Salem vs ZD

Tamim vs WaDi

Yea there is little denying Fox is one of the best characters right now.. ZD with that reverse 3-0 on Ally to make it was absurdly clutch. Also wow, Tamin made top made top 8 with Bayo.. Who ever thought THAT would ever be a surprise?

 

[Kellojolly]

- Light vs Salem was interesting where Salem's Link was having a very difficult time against Fox.

- I was also quite surprised by how good Tweek's YL has been so far.

- Lucina seems like she made a good showing throughout the tournament.

- Also, I find it interesting how Leo says his best character is Cloud (Zero told him in his face that's not true and that Ike's Leo's best) while also claiming "Cloud's not very good anymore" few days ago. And he never pulled out Cloud in the singles tournament.

 

[The_Bookworm]

So here is the top 8 Glitch 6

Winners Side
Tweek vs Nairo
MKLeo vs Light

Losers Side

Salem vs ZD

Tamim vs WaDi

Yea there is little denying Fox is one of the best characters right now.. ZD with that reverse 3-0 on Ally to make it was absurdly clutch. Also wow, Tamin made top made top 8 with Bayo.. Who ever thought THAT would ever be a surprise?

Tamim had a very nice bracket in comparison to everyone else. He only fought one really big top player in this tourney (and lost to that said player, who was Light), and kind of cruised through the lower leveled players. Not saying that 8BitMan or Shoyo James are not top players, but those matches are considerably easier in terms of matchups and experience in comparison to say... fighting Tweek or Salem.

Edit: I just saw the previous sets, and the players demonstrated 0 DI on any of Bayonetta's combos. No wonder they lost.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Yeah I'm not sure how much I agree with Salem's opinion that Link is better than Inkling. The fact that he only won his fifth game against a less-than-optimal Cosmos with a lucky hit was sort of telling.

Something people seem to forget is that matchups matter more than tier placement. A mid tier can have a decent matchup vs a top tier (such as Smash 4 Duck Hunt vs Diddy Kong), even if the character itself isn't great. I don't know who wins the Link-Inkling matchup, but a character can be better or worse even if one player wins. It's not like Salem was claiming that Link has a massive advantage in the Inkling matchup. Even -1 matchups are very winable (see Smash 4 Cosmos Corrin beating Sheik and Fox players).

With all this being said, I personally believe that in this patch, Inkling is better than Link.

 

[Cheryl~]

As much as Tamim’s performance with Bayonetta is impressive, he only had to fight 2 R.O.B.s to get into Top 8 (8BitMan and WaDi), and if you’ve seen those sets it’s pretty clear that matchup is hot garbage for R.O.B. However, I am interested to see how Tamim fares against the other players, because he might just win and show that it wasn’t bracket luck after all.

 

[The_Bookworm]

As much as Tamim’s performance with Bayonetta is impressive, he only had to fight 2 R.O.B.s to get into Top 8 (8BitMan and WaDi), and if you’ve seen those sets it’s pretty clear that matchup is hot garbage for R.O.B. However, I am interested to see how Tamim fares against the other players, because he might just win and show that it wasn’t bracket luck after all.

Doesn't help that both ROB players demonstrated no DI against Bayo's combos, even if ROB is a big body. Level 9 CPUs demonstrated better DI than both of them (and that is saying a lot considering that CPUs tend to not DI much at all).

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

the matchup isn't hot garbage, the issue is that R.O.B players really like to autopilot, and the character doesn't have good get off me options so they eat like 80% until they go back to neutral, but still throw proyectiles and play dumb defense game, in both cases tamin was the better player isn't even a question.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

MKLeo vs Light is going to be interesting: might give us some more insight into why that Wolf player in Japan switches off of Wolf and to Ike for facing the spacies. Traditionally Fox has been an "explosive on both ends but ultimately slightly disadvantage" MU for Ike in the previous games. Would be nice to have data on that particular MU this time around, could be that Ike's Nair is now enough to tilt the MU over to his favour.

Bayo vs ROB is pretty hot garbage yeah, that's pretty obvious. Giant body without really large disjoints or get off me options is just going to be free combo food for her. Lack of DI doesn't help.

 

[Rizen]

Link also seems to have a garbagio matchup against Fox. Salem had to switch off to ZSS when he went up against Light.

This has always been the case. After Sheik, Fox was Link's worst MU in SSB4. Link's good but he has real issues. I was wondering how long it would take for Salem to switch off Link. He's not a "top 5 character".

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

MKLeo vs Light is going to be interesting: might give us some more insight into why that Wolf player in Japan switches off of Wolf and to Ike for facing the spacies. Traditionally Fox has been an "explosive on both ends but ultimately slightly disadvantage" MU for Ike in the previous games. Would be nice to have data on that particular MU this time around, could be that Ike's Nair is now enough to tilt the MU over to his favour.

Bayo vs ROB is pretty hot garbage yeah, that's pretty obvious. Giant body without really large disjoints or get off me options is just going to be free combo food for her. Lack of DI doesn't help.

Light 3-1 over mkleo switched off of ike after game two.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Light 3-1 over mkleo switched off of ike after game two.

Good to know, I'll be looking for the VODs later. Who did he get the 1 game with?

 

[KamikazePotato]

Good to know, I'll be looking for the VODs later. Who did he get the 1 game with?

Cloud. Ike had no answers to Fox going in and...well, being Fox, and Cloud didn't fare much better.

 

[Kellojolly]

I was surprised from Leo's game. Light was parrying him pretty well and Ike's NAIR was powerful but wasn't as dominantly used in this matchup. I initially thought Leo was panic switching to Cloud but Leo may not have been lying when he said Cloud is his best character. At this point, players like Light and Samsora (recently) have shown that parrying Ike's NAIR can be a major problem for Ike players (I personally can't parry too consistently but Im sure pros can). I'm still glad Leo lost using Cloud since I was scared my main would do well and people will ask for nerfs (it seems like the large oportin of community does).

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Yeah, as I and many others have suspected, parries hurt Ike a lot. It also didn't help Cloud very much.

 

[Omnos]

Tweeks is nutty!

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

this game reward smart defensive game, this is one of the things that will set apart averange players from great players, some smash 4 players still doesn't adapt and return to bad habits.

 

[Rizen]

Tweeks is nutty!

I feel like Tweek's YL is fundamentally good but still primitive (compared to someone like T's YL). Tweek's killing late with Nairs, which is a great move to throw out, but he could have sealed stocks a lot sooner. He relies on repeating certain moves, like arrows. I'm not saying he's bad at all; Tweek's a top 10 player and it shows. He has a lot of room for optimization, like everyone.

 

[NotLiquid]

It's kind of tragic that they basically had to break Bayonetta to balance her.

 

[Untouch]

Lucina (and the other 3 Marths) don't deal with projectiles since they don't have a way to reflect them.
I think the shield changes is one of the major reasons for this, shielding is an actual commitment now unlike Smash 4.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

ZD with a major choke vs Nairo. Parries are looking very strong. A lot of parry usmash coming from these fox players.

 

[Kellojolly]

Yeah, as I and many others have suspected, parries hurt Ike a lot. It also didn't help Cloud very much.

Yeah I knew Samsora was usually doing very well against Leo via parries but it was awesome to see Light do the same. I still think Cloud gave light significantly harder time and that Leo, if he gets the chance, should use Cloud against Light's Fox, not Ike.

 

[trickroom]

the matchup isn't hot garbage, the issue is that R.O.B players really like to autopilot, and the character doesn't have good get off me options so they eat like 80% until they go back to neutral, but still throw proyectiles and play dumb defense game, in both cases tamin was the better player isn't even a question.

I'm not sure how much 'autopilot' actually applies to the best of the best (WaDi and 8Bit both have strong results on non-ROB characters in Sm4sh, not to mention the fact that autopiloting as a concept is not really conducive to adaptation and improvement).

He is extremely autopilot for mid-level players, though. Just pure brain poison. I refuse to play him in ultimate because I actually want to learn fighting games instead of pretending spamming gyro/laser/nair is fun and viable.

I think the matchup is still tough as well, because bayo preys on a lot of ROB's weaknesses. Her huge side-b and up-b and aerial hitboxes allow her to easily keep him in prolonged juggles, exploiting one of his large weaknesses on stage, as well as exploit the lack of hitbox on his recovery (and his reliance on protecting himself with nair/uair) by again just the diesel fuel out of him over and over again until he dies or barely gets back. Her moves even allow her to easily get past the situation he *wants* in the matchup, which is to be on the other side of the stage of her, pelting her with projectiles. The cherry on top of all of this, of course, is the classic Bayo combo game with upb stuff, which may not be killing too often but will still be doing nice damage-racking. She can also witch time gyro and get a free dashgrab occasionally.

 

[Guido65]

This has always been the case. After Sheik, Fox was Link's worst MU in SSB4. Link's good but he has real issues. I was wondering how long it would take for Salem to switch off Link. He's not a "top 5 character".

It would probably take a ton to do that considering most links are gigantic character loyalists(T said link was his favorite character and he still uses adult link sometimes for example).

Anyways not related to link but I did see you talking about mii swordfighter in a post mentioning gale strike being overrated and I will fully agree on it. It's generally much better when the opponent is clueless about it, but when people actually learn to play around it the moves much harder to land and I think his players will probably have to learn how to actually play the game instead of relying on gale strike hitting and getting them easy kills.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Nairo destroyed mkleo. But I thought Ike was thr nest character ever and needed to be nerfed....