Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Goodstyle_4]

Really shocked Gluto got washed like that. He's usually so good against Roys.

 

[toonito]

Really shocked Gluto got washed like that. He's usually so good against Roys.

There's levels to characters and players and he ran into the best Roy in the world. You're not just fighting a character's kit you're also fighting the player.

 

[NairWizard]

Relevant because we just talked about reaction time so much: Kola's reaction time is insane. He reacts to drifts in positions that I didn't even think it was possible to react to, but it's certainly a reaction just because of how consistently he gets it and how ambiguously his opponents do it. It's wild.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I might be drawing a blank but I think this is 1st major win not just in Ultimate but in any Smash game

InfinityCON Tally 2021 is counted as a major by OrionStats, and was also won by Kola.

Edit: Results for WINNER #6

本日のリザルト結果になります。
優勝者のしゅーとん選手(@syu_tolimar )、準優勝者のプロトバナム選手(@ProtoBanhamSSBU )には、第7回WINNER!の優先参加権が付与されます。 pic.twitter.com/xhhDO2MJWz

— WINNER! 平日スマブラ大会 (@WINNER_smashsp) December 6, 2021

 

[blackghost]

InfinityCON Tally 2021 is counted as a major by OrionStats, and was also won by Kola.

Edit: Results for WINNER #6

本日のリザルト結果になります。
優勝者のしゅーとん選手(@syu_tolimar )、準優勝者のプロトバナム選手(@ProtoBanhamSSBU )には、第7回WINNER!の優先参加権が付与されます。 pic.twitter.com/xhhDO2MJWz

— WINNER! 平日スマブラ大会 (@WINNER_smashsp) December 6, 2021

wow look at that dead character min min still placing well.... Dabuz is so right that shes worthless now. /S

this was fatality's nbest chance for a major win.


Overall i found CEO really boring. so many top players not present.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

wow look at that dead character min min still placing well.... Dabuz is so right that shes worthless now. /S

this was fatality's nbest chance for a major win.


Overall i found CEO really boring. so many top players not present.

Proto used Min Min entirely before facing off against Shuton's Pyra/Mythra at 5th which he lost. Then Proto went solo Lucina throughout losers and got to Shuton again, got the reset and then lost in the second set. He was certainly mostly Lucina here, but he did use Min Min occasionally.

Edit: And it wasn't just Dabuz saying the character was dead, so was Min Main, Pink Fresh and even Proto himself was sad over them.

 

[NotLiquid]

Proto used Min Min entirely before facing off against Shuton's Pyra/Mythra at 5th which he lost. Then Proto went solo Lucina throughout losers and got to Shuton again, got the reset and then lost in the second set. He was certainly mostly Lucina here, but he did use Min Min occasionally.

Edit: And it wasn't just Dabuz saying the character was dead, so was Min Main, Pink Fresh and even Proto himself was sad over them.

Dabuz is the only one of those four that outright dropped her over it, though he was already very cynical about her long before the nerf and was clearly moving away from her before. MinMain and Pink Fresh said they're still maining her while Proto said on Twitter the other day that he feels more confident about playing dual mains.

Winner#6 was also not the only post-patch Proto sets in the last few days, he played on Day 3 of Kept's Eastern Powerhouse Invitational where he mostly went Min Min, using her to take one game off of Kirihara's Sheik, two off of Jagaimo's Palutena, and three off of Akakikusu's Hero, with the latter being a reverse 3-0 and the set with his only losing games. The finals coming up will have players like KEN, Tea, Nietono and Shuton in bracket. Watching his set against Shuton today at Winner#6, it was a close set though I'm mostly trying to understand the logic of counterpicking Yoshi's Story against Aegis considering how close the games were. Terrible Min Min stage made all the worse by being a good Aegis stage and dying by being carried off the side.

Trying to extrapolate whether Min Min is no longer viable at this point based on the early results (spoiler: she still is) is a waste of hypothesizing when it's only been a week and when she's getting the same types of results from largely the same amount of people as before. Proto running close sets with Shuton and counterpicking based on a mixture of factors isn't the new vogue; it's been the script. It'll be a while before opponents learn to take advantage of the nerfs and players learn to adjust to her new incarnation. Given we're over a year removed from release and people never wound up truly adjusting to her pre-patch incarnation, I'm not fully convinced a magical solution will present itself to people in the near-term.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Sakurai stated in am interview their balance method was big nerfs and general and if they nerf a it would ve fairly minor and would not take away from the overall strengths of the character or how they play.

Post 3.1.0 version patches you can see they mostly stuck to that. But the 13.0.1 and final balance patch seems give Min-Min a several. nerfs that do seems to quite impact her viability. It was argued that she really did not need any more nerfs and was for the most part manageable


So what happened. Was the Japan's smash community hatred of that loud to see Min-Min nerfed 3 times?

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Terrible Min Min stage made all the worse by being a good Aegis stage and dying by being carried off the side.

Yea, that was an odd choice to go against Aegis.

 

[blackghost]

So what happened. Was the Japan's smash community hatred of that loud to see Min-Min nerfed 3 times?

makes sense it was the smash community hatred of bayo that got her into her state at ultimate's launch. never really found minmin to be opressive prob because i grew up fighting terrifying zoners like morrigan or hilde (blaze blue not soulcalibur).

either way most playerbases would love to have their character be minmin level of viable.

 

[Rizen]

I've been watching Port 6 with Spargo and think 's nerfs were more impactful than I initially thought. The reason for this is the nerfs both affected one of the key elements that made Pyra or Mythra viable on their own. Pyra has an amazing advantage state and good kill options but can struggle in neutral. sideB gave her one of the best projectiles in the game for controlling midrange. It helped her neutral immensely and that was made less safe and so footstool combos wouldn't work as well. Mythra was a neutral monster who struggled to kill due to poor power. Fsmash actually gave her a pretty good kill option but now it's nerfed. What this means is both characters will be more reliant on each other to cover their own weaknesses.

 

[NairWizard]

If Aegis didn't exist, Roy would have a great case for #1 in the game right now.

• By the data, he's in top 3 on OrionStats, so he enjoys success at all levels, weighted for top.
• He has multiple successful players who can get into top 8s, something that ROB can't do.
• One of those players can even top 1 events.
• Goblin and Kola play very different styles of Roy.

Roy's strength is that it's hard to condition him, or well, if you condition Roy at mid percents, he gets counterconditioning for free and sometimes you make things worse for yourself. When Roy is d-tilting you trying to get a d-tilt techchase f-smash, your inclination is to jump over the d-tilt and hit him, like you would with ROB or something. But ROB doesn't get anything if you approach him diagonally unless he commits to jump f-air, so this is a guess for ROB--Roy, meanwhile, can just jab you. So now you might be inclined to dash back out of range of Roy's tilts instead, but now you put yourself closer to the corner where jab b-air becomes a kill confirm.

You can avoid this situation if you have a big sword aerial like Cloud b-air or Byleth f-air, but Roy has answers to this too. Not only is Roy's dash fast, but when Roy dashes, he crouches low, so it's hard to punish him for dashing in without spacing very low to the ground, which makes your aerials easier to parry.

The risk-reward is almost always out of your favor at mid percents, no matter what character you are, so Roy has a strong case for (2nd) best in the game.

Also, I know Shaya no longer posts here, but he made this tier list and I thought it was pretty accurate/interesting so I'll share it here!

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Remember! No tier lists! However, I feel that Roy also has many substantial weaknesses. His recovery is serviceable at best and very intercept able as well as easy to tech. A weak sex kick can kill him offstange very easy if he has no jump. His brawler design also presents problems. The main strength of sword fighters is their range and disjoints. Inverse tippers do the opposite, making him more susceptible to characters without disjoints. Dk is a great example, as he has greater disjointed range with tilts than Roy. More over, he is easier to beat OOS than it looks, especially due his nature as a mashy character. Whats worse is his struggle against projectiles, like most swordies. He is really good, but I am more pessimistic than most on Roy.

 

[NairWizard]

Remember! No tier lists!

Shaya is a very special case. There are few people in the smash community with better understanding of the game than Shaya. I have no idea why he stopped posting here, but since his tier list is public, it's worth considering it, at least.

 

[NotLiquid]

It's a shame Shaya doesn't post here anymore since I'd be really interested to hear their thoughts on some of these placements and I admittedly miss a lot of their character specific insight. For one thing I'm pretty sure they were one of the first here to insist that ZSS was top tier material before Marss re-established her as a competitive threat. Characters like Wario, Olimar, Peach, Pit and Bayonetta are characters in spots I wouldn't quite expect them to be placed in, even if I can probably conjure a decent approximation of why someone would rank them that way.

On an unrelated note, WaDi announced a bit earlier today that he's dropping Mewtwo to dual main ROB and Samus.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

The u-smash buff is more than just the cherry on top too, as it's a super relevant kill option for Link.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but this is a massive buff. Link Up-Smash used to be deceptively weak. Most of the time, people hit by it would survive until they hit about 125% to… 150%! This was most notable against heavies, as calling out jumps with up smash is such a huge commitment, and the reward was very subpar. I noticed that now it killed about 20% earlier. This is great, and a well needed buff for his upsmash.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Also, I know Shaya no longer posts here, but he made this tier list and I thought it was pretty accurate/interesting so I'll share it here!

View attachment 339692

While I do have some issues with this tier list (such as how very low Lucina is and how very high Hero is), the top 5 does catch my interest.

What I mean is that is kinda similar to my personal top 5 in the game. For reference, my personal top 6 (do note that I haven't adjusted it since before 13.0.1):
Aegis > Joker > R.O.B. > Palutena > Roy > Pac-Man

It likely isn't going to change too much today, but we do share the same general characters. He did put Palutena as #8, but close enough.

What is great about these characters is that not only they range from decently popular to insanely popular, but they tend to be very consistent at it.
1) Aegis and Palutena are both very popular, but they place well at high levels events, plus being piloted by two of the top Mexican players (Sparg0 and Chag).
2) Joker doesn't have the benefit of MkLeo as of right now, but his strengths are very well demonstrated, and he has players like Zackray continue to rep him.
3) R.O.B. is the most popular character, with the biggest high level playerbase in the game, but he only occasionally breaks into top 8s at majors.
4) Roy is also very popular, but breaks top 8s more consistently, with players like Kola and Goblin repping him very well.
5) Pac-Man, while not as popular as the above-mentioned characters, places extremely consistently well at all levels of play, with Tea being chief among them. Game & Watch is mostly similar with Maister, a character I also put at top 10, but Pac-Man seems to be king at this currently.

He has multiple successful players who can get into top 8s, something that ROB can't do.

Says that as R.O.B. literally just now got top 8 at a major. There is also BigBoss getting 4th at Port Priority 6.
So while R.O.B. is definitely not as consistent getting top 8s as Roy, the character definitely got some top level placements to its credit.

On an unrelated note, WaDi announced a bit earlier today that he's dropping Mewtwo to dual main ROB and Samus.

If that is true, then that is a notable blow to Mewtwo's meta. His Samus has been definitely evolving in the past few weeks of streams, so it is exciting to see what will come of it when he brings it out in bracket.

 

[Nah]

His brawler design also presents problems. The main strength of sword fighters is their range and disjoints.

This is an unpopular opinion, but I've long felt that people kind of overstate how much of an advantage being a swordie is. I get why to some degree, it's like, why would you ever want to put out a hitbox while simultaneously extending your hurtbox (answer: you wouldn't)? But I don't think it works out in practice as much as people seem to think, at least in this game.

It's kind of telling that the only top tier swordie in Ultimate is the Aegis, whose strength is derived primarily from how you can quickly switch between two fully functional characters in a series where traditionally half or more of the roster goes "well ****, I literally have no tools/options for this (not uncommon) situation, I guess I just get ****ed now". And then a genuinely solid contender for top 3 or so is (Ch)Roy, who is not really a swordie, but a brawler animal who just happens to be holding a sharp object. Meanwhile Marth, the poster child for traditional swordplay in Smash is, after being top or high tier in every game since his debut, generally considered Not Very Good.

Every other swordie in the game is high tier or less*

*I mean, some people probably consider Lucina top instead of high, but even if she really is top, she's likely just an outlier, but either way, it's not like my 2 brain cells could ever concoct a half-decent explanation

Also, I know Shaya no longer posts here, but he made this tier list and I thought it was pretty accurate/interesting so I'll share it here!

View attachment 339692

Did there happen to be any sort of reasoning attached to the list? I'm not really questioning it, it's just that like NotLiquid I'm mildly curious to hear his thoughts since I'm not unfamiliar with the general quality of Shaya's posts (even though it's been a long time).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

OrionStats update

OrionStats character update for the first week of December! Wolf & Palutena continue to trade spots near the top, but things are increasingly well-molded. Pikachu and Lucas did notably have good weeks though. pic.twitter.com/baJ86S6uAf

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) December 6, 2021

 

[NairWizard]

There's some reasoning, but I don't really want to speak on his behalf. I think most of it is self-evident/speaks for itself. Suffice it to say that it's unordered (just ordered alphabetically within tiers).

(such as how very low Lucina is and how very high Hero is),

I'll speak to this one point though. Shaya seems to believe that there is practically no good reason to use Lucina over better alternatives within her niche. She doesn't cover matchups that you couldn't cover more convincingly with someone like Cloud, even if Lucina is generally better than Cloud (which isn't certain). This is a really fair take on the character. While Lucina is solid across the board, she doesn't exactly dominate any character.

Every other swordie in the game is high tier or less*

Yeah, like I said in a post earlier, you really need a backup gameplan if you want to play the traditional swordie game these days. Sometimes you can get away with it (Kola's Cloud basically just walled MuteAce's Peach the entire LF of CEO), but this is highly matchup-dependent. Maybe you're walling Mario and Peach, but you're definitely not walling a Wolf or a Joker.

Says that as R.O.B. literally just now got top 8 at a major. There is also BigBoss getting 4th at Port Priority 6.
So while R.O.B. is definitely not as consistent getting top 8s as Roy, the character definitely got some top level placements to its credit.

The point of comparison is that it happens more frequently that there are like 4 ROBs in top 32, but 0 in top 8, while a Roy sneaks into top 4-8. Addendum noted, though. It's nice to see more ROB results.


With all this said, despite Roy's strong case for top 3, I think Aegis is trending toward clear #1 right now, and it probably won't be long before that's true in both top 8s and major wins, especially if Leo picks up the character in the way he's suggesting. Unless the meta trends buck and cave, I predict that we're going to have a pretty serious Aegis saturation at top-level competition by mid 2022.

If I had to construct an Aegis matchup chart (I play a lot of Aegis), I'd probably have no losing matchups on it (though maybe Fox is hard?). The data we have suggests that your style with Aegis matters more than anything else when it comes to matchups. Cosmos, sparg0, and Shuton can't seem to agree on a single losing matchup. Cosmos beats IcyMist regularly but sparg0 switched to Cloud for the MU. Cosmos did well against ESAM in friendlies but sparg0 thinks the matchup is losing, etc.

Meanwhile, they have some really dominant MUs; Mythra invalidates certain neutrals.

I've never had a single balance concern in the history of Ultimate, and I think the devs have gone a great job with the nerfs and buffs. This time, I am a little wary based on what I'm seeing in the gameplay. I’m not saying that there is for sure a problem (or that it’s going to be seriously damaging for the game), but I said something similar in S4 about Bayonetta right after Salem won Collision. I’ll give it a 50-50 shot.

hero

Shaya's Hero placement makes sense to me. This is something that not a lot of people consider about Hero, but he's actually a very unique spin on the Charge Shot character archetype.

Charge Shot is a frightening tool typically gated by the user's floatiness. Samus, Lucario, and Mewtwo have great uses for their Charge Shots but can have a hard time ambiguously landing if they threaten an aerial Charge Shot. Because Hero's gravity is higher than theirs, he can mix up SHFF aerials and Charge Shots and is generally favored when he takes this risk. This is, surprisingly, an underexplored area of the Hero meta, even though you see it in Aka's gameplay; Hero players today prioritize the menu for buffs.

But in fact Hero can mostly ignore the menu and just focus on projectile and sword zoning. This opportunity cost frequently gets ignored, but buffs cost a lot of MP and also sacrifice positioning and zoning time. Fish for buffs in the matchups where the opponent wants to camp (like vs. Pacman), and aggressively zone all the rest. I think Hero would have a pretty good shot at upper high or even top tier if the menu were used less.

it's not like my 2 brain cells could ever concoct a half-decent explanation

I'm only replying to this because I've seen it in this thread a few times, but I think you dramatically undersell yourself as both a player and a thinker. When I played you, you showed some signs of really good play and creativity.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Shaya's Hero placement makes sense to me. This is something that not a lot of people consider about Hero, but he's actually a very unique spin on the Charge Shot character archetype.

Charge Shot is a frightening tool typically gated by the user's floatiness. Samus, Lucario, and Mewtwo have great uses for their Charge Shots but can have a hard time ambiguously landing if they threaten an aerial Charge Shot. Because Hero's gravity is higher than theirs, he can mix up SHFF aerials and Charge Shots and is generally favored when he takes this risk. This is, surprisingly, an underexplored area of the Hero meta, even though you see it in Aka's gameplay; Hero players today prioritize the menu for buffs.

But in fact Hero can mostly ignore the menu and just focus on projectile and sword zoning. This opportunity cost frequently gets ignored, but buffs cost a lot of MP and also sacrifice positioning and zoning time. Fish for buffs in the matchups where the opponent wants to camp (like vs. Pacman), and aggressively zone all the rest. I think Hero would have a pretty good shot at upper high or even top tier if the menu were used less.

There is, however, a big issue with the Frizz series of spells: you completely lose your stage of charge when you cancel it, unless you reach the fully charged state. Frizz, has limited range and combos only certain ranges. Frizzle is admittedly a very solid projectile, but it probably suffers the most from the fact that you lose charge when you cancel it, because the Hero player has to charge up to that stage instead of being able to release it instantly.

Most Hero players don't go for Kafrizz because you lose out on the earlier, more unique stages of the Frizz series, while Kafrizz itself requires a whopping 36 MP to even use. It is basically Charge Shot with higher pay out if it hits, but if not, then the opportunity cost is too big.

Short zoning is definitely something the character can do well, but this is limited in comparison to other sword zoners, due to his limited mobility in comparison to other sword zoners, as well as his frankly awful frame data (and the moves that don't have poor frame data are very stubby). Unlike Shulk who does have frame data issues, Hero's sword buttons are only around average size, with his forward air, back air, and up tilt, being the ones with above average range (and the former two are very slow).

It is similar stuff Mii Swordfighter, another projectile-sword zoner, suffers from. However, Hero does not suffer from these flaws to the same extent because Hero... is not Mii Swordfighter.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

I think Hero would have a pretty good shot at upper high or even top tier if the menu were used less.

Hard no as a Hero player. All of his buffs are incredibly important, the slash spells are insane 2 frame moves, nearly of the the projectiles are amazing, and they are what makes Hero so strong. With less menu, he is, quite frankly, a bad character. With less menu, he is a subpar zoner who has slow moves and a weak grab game with an exploitable recovery with special moves locked behind a resource. Jump on hero from diagonally above and he can’t hit you without hard committing with full hop fair. In my opinion, menu is the thing, that makes him great in my eyes.

“This is something that not a lot of people consider about Hero, but he's actually a very unique spin on the Charge Shot character archetype.

Charge Shot is a frightening tool typically gated by the user's floatiness. Samus, Lucario, and Mewtwo have great uses for their Charge Shots but can have a hard time ambiguously landing if they threaten an aerial Charge Shot. Because Hero's gravity is higher than theirs, he can mix up SHFF aerials and Charge Shots and is generally favored when he takes this risk. This is, surprisingly, an underexplored area of the Hero meta, even though you see it in Aka's gameplay; Hero players today prioritize the menu for buffs.”

I somewhat agree and disagree. While I believe that Kafrizz is generally underutilized, to call him a charge shot archetype is a bit of a stretch. I feel that if Hero had a move he revolved around, it would be zap, zapple, and kazap. They control a smaller space, but are actual disjoints so no reflectors, and safer. They kill at later zap and zapple %, but they make up for that in that Kazap kills way earlier. They also stack with buffs.

 

[PK Gaming]

I've been watching Port 6 with Spargo and think 's nerfs were more impactful than I initially thought. The reason for this is the nerfs both affected one of the key elements that made Pyra or Mythra viable on their own. Pyra has an amazing advantage state and good kill options but can struggle in neutral. sideB gave her one of the best projectiles in the game for controlling midrange. It helped her neutral immensely and that was made less safe and so footstool combos wouldn't work as well. Mythra was a neutral monster who struggled to kill due to poor power. Fsmash actually gave her a pretty good kill option but now it's nerfed. What this means is both characters will be more reliant on each other to cover their own weaknesses.

Yep

It absolutely matters that Pyra's neutral skip option was worsened and Mythra's ability to KO with Smash was noticeably weakened

Surprisingly good balance changes imo

 

[Rizen]

This is an unpopular opinion, but I've long felt that people kind of overstate how much of an advantage being a swordie is. I get why to some degree, it's like, why would you ever want to put out a hitbox while simultaneously extending your hurtbox (answer: you wouldn't)? But I don't think it works out in practice as much as people seem to think, at least in this game.

It's kind of telling that the only top tier swordie in Ultimate is the Aegis, whose strength is derived primarily from how you can quickly switch between two fully functional characters in a series where traditionally half or more of the roster goes "well ****, I literally have no tools/options for this (not uncommon) situation, I guess I just get ****ed now". And then a genuinely solid contender for top 3 or so is (Ch)Roy, who is not really a swordie, but a brawler animal who just happens to be holding a sharp object. Meanwhile Marth, the poster child for traditional swordplay in Smash is, after being top or high tier in every game since his debut, generally considered Not Very Good.

Every other swordie in the game is high tier or less*

*I mean, some people probably consider Lucina top instead of high, but even if she really is top, she's likely just an outlier, but either way, it's not like my 2 brain cells could ever concoct a half-decent explanation



Did there happen to be any sort of reasoning attached to the list? I'm not really questioning it, it's just that like NotLiquid I'm mildly curious to hear his thoughts since I'm not unfamiliar with the general quality of Shaya's posts (even though it's been a long time).

While technically not sword wielding characters I consider several characters with big disjoints to be swordies like Palutena. I also consider Roy a swordie/rushdown hybrid because he still has the strong advantage state of his reach even when hitting with sourspots. If he hits with a sour spot it's not a bad thing for him; it just means his advantage is reset. And the swordie archetype is extremely strong in the meta. There's Kola with Roy and Cloud winning CEO. Roy, Palutena and Aegis in the top 5 of Orion stats. There's MKLeo with Byleth winning or getting second in everything.

There is, however, a big issue with the Frizz series of spells: you completely lose your stage of charge when you cancel it, unless you reach the fully charged state. Frizz, has limited range and combos only certain ranges. Frizzle is admittedly a very solid projectile, but it probably suffers the most from the fact that you lose charge when you cancel it, because the Hero player has to charge up to that stage instead of being able to release it instantly.

Most Hero players don't go for Kafrizz because you lose out on the earlier, more unique stages of the Frizz series, while Kafrizz itself requires a whopping 36 MP to even use. It is basically Charge Shot with higher pay out if it hits, but if not, then the opportunity cost is too big.

Short zoning is definitely something the character can do well, but this is limited in comparison to other sword zoners, due to his limited mobility in comparison to other sword zoners, as well as his frankly awful frame data (and the moves that don't have poor frame data are very stubby). Unlike Shulk who does have frame data issues, Hero's sword buttons are only around average size, with his forward air, back air, and up tilt, being the ones with above average range (and the former two are very slow).

It is similar stuff Mii Swordfighter, another projectile-sword zoner, suffers from. However, Hero does not suffer from these flaws to the same extent because Hero... is not Mii Swordfighter.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's not the nuke spells that make Hero threatening, it's the buffs. It's also not hard for him to get buffs either. The meta for Hero should revolve around frequent use of the menu because he gets such ridiculous payoff from it. With the right buffs Hero can instantly break shields, has SSB4 Palutena's lightweight skill which is amazing, and bounce is by far the best reflector in the game. I played a Hero last week who focused on menus and he destroyed my YL with frequent accelerates and bounces. He didn't use a single Frizz. I think it's one of YL's worst MUs. Hero can make himself significantly better.
Hero's frame data is on the slower side but it's not awful. F6 jab, 9 Ftilt, 8 Utilt, 6 Dtilt, 9 Dsmash, and 8 Nair all give him reasonably fast attacks to work with for a sword and projectile user.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Yep

It absolutely matters that Pyra's neutral skip option was worsened and Mythra's ability to KO with Smash was noticeably weakened

Surprisingly good balance changes imo

Side B wasn’t really a neutral skip as it was a situational advantage extender and recovery protector. But those are even stronger abilities in my eyes, so the buff was even more impactful in those rights. Mythra being able to kill was a crime, so they being nerfed is incredibly good.

 

[NairWizard]

Hero is a complicated character and there are a lot of subtleties to his moveset. I'm not talking about Menu. I mean the entire moveset.

For example, Kafrizz impressively does the DLC hurtbox shifting that everyone raves about with others like Joker and Pyra/Mythra. Hero leans back so far that close-range grabs can miss. This is something that you can easily exploit if you know about.
A number of his moves look stubby or bad but actually have great active frames. Both Hero d-tilt and up-air have 5 active frames. d-air lingers for 9 frames.
Woosh is transcendent so it will never clank--if you want to reactively zone short-range characters Woosh should be part of your toolkit, not just sword normals.

And so on.

In my estimation of the character you have to know how to use the unique properties of his kit, or even know that they're there, for Hero to truly shine, and every time you use Menu, you choose not to set up another normal or not to use some of those unique properties. There is an opportunity cost to Menu over-usage (similar to Pyra over-usage), and I think it's costing Hero players sets.

Menu is indeed strong, though, no one is arguing against that. If you never use it, the opponent never respects it, and you lose. We all know about 2-frames and Zoom offstage and all the other great applications of Menu.

Actually, even with Menu, there are some lesser-known interesting applications. Sizzle has so much hitlag that you can combo from it. You can b-reverse the Menu aerially (B-reverse Hatchetmen sends you two full Heros away because of the momentum shift). You can react quickly to the MP values instead of to the Menu item names (this is even language-independent). etc.

There's just so much there. If there's any character in the game who still has the potential to be another Byleth Story, imo, it's Hero.

 

[Slime Master]

There is, however, a big issue with the Frizz series of spells: you completely lose your stage of charge when you cancel it, unless you reach the fully charged state. Frizz, has limited range and combos only certain ranges. Frizzle is admittedly a very solid projectile, but it probably suffers the most from the fact that you lose charge when you cancel it, because the Hero player has to charge up to that stage instead of being able to release it instantly.

This is actually a common misconception; you can store Frizzle. The reason it doesn't appear that way is the charge time from Frizz to Frizzle is very short while the time from Frizzle to Kafrizz is very long, so a full charge from Frizzle doesn't look much different from a full charge from nothing.

 

[NairWizard]

I love that posting about Hero brings out a bunch of users with Slime avatars.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Hero is a complicated character and there are a lot of subtleties to his moveset. I'm not talking about Menu. I mean the entire moveset.

For example, Kafrizz impressively does the DLC hurtbox shifting that everyone raves about with others like Joker and Pyra/Mythra. Hero leans back so far that close-range grabs can miss. This is something that you can easily exploit if you know about.
A number of his moves look stubby or bad but actually have great active frames. Both Hero d-tilt and up-air have 5 active frames. d-air lingers for 9 frames.
Woosh is transcendent so it will never clank--if you want to reactively zone short-range characters Woosh should be part of your toolkit, not just sword normals.

And so on.

In my estimation of the character you have to know how to use the unique properties of his kit, or even know that they're there, for Hero to truly shine, and every time you use Menu, you choose not to set up another normal or not to use some of those unique properties. There is an opportunity cost to Menu over-usage (similar to Pyra over-usage), and I think it's costing Hero players sets.

Menu is indeed strong, though, no one is arguing against that. If you never use it, the opponent never respects it, and you lose. We all know about 2-frames and Zoom offstage and all the other great applications of Menu.

Actually, even with Menu, there are some lesser-known interesting applications. Sizzle has so much hitlag that you can combo from it. You can b-reverse the Menu aerially (B-reverse Hatchetmen sends you two full Heros away because of the momentum shift). You can react quickly to the MP values instead of to the Menu item names (this is even language-independent). etc.

There's just so much there. If there's any character in the game who still has the potential to be another Byleth Story, imo, it's Hero.

Yea, this post is spot on. Downtilt is amazing for 2 framing, and up air combos heavies insanely well. Whoosh just beats spotdodges, free. Dair lingering is okay I guess. It’s unsafe on hit at low % though, and the sour spot is EXTREMELY weak. I’m surprised you haven’t talked about NAIR though. That move is a great disjoint, a million active frames, and is relatively quick.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Yep

It absolutely matters that Pyra's neutral skip option was worsened and Mythra's ability to KO with Smash was noticeably weakened

Surprisingly good balance changes imo

Min-Min's nerfs on the other hand seem a bit too harsh, and kinda goes against the balance philosophy Sakurai and the Smash team were going for. In that it changes the ways she has to be played. I cannot be the only one to think she was mostly fine as she was right.. She has gotten strong results yes. But it mostly in the Japan scene because of Protobaham..not to mention his offline resutls were not due to Min-Min alone.


Now with the nair nerf Min-Min has even worse-disadvantage in the air and will have more trouble landing, and the Sheild stun will affect her mid range pressure.So now the most optimal way to play Min-Min is to now play as lame and keep-away as possible. Because much of her options besides that are weaker now

Even if Min-Min was that much weaker now, we will have to see from resutls. I can kinda can see how many of her mains are upset ith how the last balance patch left her.


Maybe she was nerfed harshly because she is such an extremely polarizing character when it comes to Matchups. Moreso than characters arguabally better than her.

I mean when you even trying to play the likes of or vs Min-Min... I am sure you would rather go against Joker/Aegis/Pika any day of the week

 

[NotLiquid]

Worth pointing out that the shield advantage changes strictly concerns her NAir. The shield damage nerf is unnecessary in the sense that players will likely prefer or find opportunities of running in (possibly because the designers realized that Min Min doesn't actually hate people jumping in on her that much), but it doesn't have much bearing on whether or not there's a greater window of punishing her for throwing out a grounded move.

The NAir nerf mostly hurts in the sense that it's what allowed Min Min to play scrappy in close quarters engagements. It was by no means unpunishable though; every character with a good out-of-shield could punish it for free with their standard options given that the most optimistic window of punishing on block was 15 frames (something almost every top tier has a kill option for) while now it's 20. It was still a very solid move to use when spaced that was generally dangerous to get hit by and was like an asterisk to her low tier disadvantage, and now it's much more of a risk proposition. Post-nerf, players are exploring landing UAir as an option instead, which is certainly nowhere near as good, but it'll probably have some fringe uses. Conversely NAir will still be a decent get-off-me option on its own, a dangerous ground and air-to-air, and a solid combo tool even when some select confirms were either lost or made much harder. Rising NAirs were just as much of a strength to this character as landing NAirs were.

The fact that they want the character to have weak landing options is them saying they want this character to be more about calling out opponents' options instead of having a playstyle largely dictated by neutral flexibility. "If you're gonna land with NAir, do it against an opponent that visibly committed to something". The kicker with that is that, for a character who is commonly thought to "play lame" because of the stigma that zoner adjacent characters attract in Smash, her pre-patch incarnation was perhaps marginally less inclined to lean reactive and defensive, so ultimately we're left with a character who still has the same weaknesses to take advantage of as before, with a mostly similar propensity to pile up the opponent's mental stack, except now you may see those players be a lot more passive. Though whether or not the visibility of that happening is telling of something in its own right ain't something I'd be confident of answering right now while Min Min counterplay has yet to become endemic across all levels of play.

 

[Nobie]

I'm of two minds when it comes to WaDi dropping Mewtwo for Samus.

Regardless of specific tier list placements, Mewtwo seemed to fit WaDi best, even more than ROB. I think it's the combination of strong conditioning and hard-read tools (Shadow Ball, Disable) with explosive mobility on top.

But then I think about it, Samus is sort of the midpoint between Mewtwo and ROB in terms of attributes and fighting styles. It's that compromise where WaDi might do better as Samus.

 

[sleepy_Nex]

Since people say the pythra nerfs really did a number on her i'll chip in my opinion on the topic: First off i didn't want them nerfed at all because it would be funnier to have that one broken char Twitter can hate on but uh yeah.

The Pyra nerf hardly matters if at all. Footstool might be harder but this wasn't a great option to begin with. Sure you can get good reward sometimes but it mostly fails from what i've seen and then your opponent just resets to neutral instead of being in disadvantage. The greatest thing i can see where it matters might be offstage since it shortens the window to get on ledge with airdodge by 4 frames. Regarding it's safety: It went from 52 to 56 which is still absurdly safe for a move like this. This is only because they decided to compensate that with the missing sword. Robin for example won't get punished for arcfire if he uses it in the correct spacing and that move is something over 60 frames faf. People still won't punish palu ef even and that thing is stationary and 71 frames faf.

As for Mythra as far as i know it kills around 5-7% later. I'm sure she can live with hitting one more move before killing.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

If Aegis didn't exist, Roy would have a great case for #1 in the game right now.

• By the data, he's in top 3 on OrionStats, so he enjoys success at all levels, weighted for top.
• He has multiple successful players who can get into top 8s, something that ROB can't do.
• One of those players can even top 1 events.
• Goblin and Kola play very different styles of Roy.

Roy's strength is that it's hard to condition him, or well, if you condition Roy at mid percents, he gets counterconditioning for free and sometimes you make things worse for yourself. When Roy is d-tilting you trying to get a d-tilt techchase f-smash, your inclination is to jump over the d-tilt and hit him, like you would with ROB or something. But ROB doesn't get anything if you approach him diagonally unless he commits to jump f-air, so this is a guess for ROB--Roy, meanwhile, can just jab you. So now you might be inclined to dash back out of range of Roy's tilts instead, but now you put yourself closer to the corner where jab b-air becomes a kill confirm.

You can avoid this situation if you have a big sword aerial like Cloud b-air or Byleth f-air, but Roy has answers to this too. Not only is Roy's dash fast, but when Roy dashes, he crouches low, so it's hard to punish him for dashing in without spacing very low to the ground, which makes your aerials easier to parry.

The risk-reward is almost always out of your favor at mid percents, no matter what character you are, so Roy has a strong case for (2nd) best in the game.

Also, I know Shaya no longer posts here, but he made this tier list and I thought it was pretty accurate/interesting so I'll share it here!

View attachment 339692

That Lucina placing is interesting considering she is still getting good results. And who else remembers early Ultimate when Chrom was considered the better one?

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

That Lucina placing is interesting considering she is still getting good results. And who else remembers early Ultimate when Chrom was considered the better one?

I feel that recovery has become a bigger and bigger requirement of being a great character. As characters and people have gotten better at edgeguarding, having a bad recovery just means you will die offstage constantly. Chrom just dies if the opponent has a counter, his airdodge to ledge is easily telegraphed, and he doesn’t have the weight to stay close to the ledge consistently. Chrom also had his suicide comeback option greatly nerfed as well, so it’s more of a coin toss when using it thats blatantly not in Chroms favor. Lucina on the other hand has better ways to mix up her recovery. Up b snaps ledge so counters rarely work (unless its Sora), side b stalls, and she is much floatier.

 

[PK Gaming]

I don't see Hero ending up like another Byleth because Byleth skyrocketed due to a ridiculously potent Up B buff + other minor changes that added up making his kit a lot more effective.

Also his normals are generally just way better than Hero's, and consequently has a way better OoS game as well.

Hero's definitely unexplored and has potential, but I do think his normals hold him back.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

Hello all!

I'm not the most knowledgable of the competitive scene/meta for Ultimate, but I was wondering if someone could answer a question I had regarding my main and perhaps clear up a misconception.

We're talking

In regards to tier lists, I noticed that he's usually placed somewhere in mid-tier (which, to me, is the perfect ranking). But then there's a lot of tier lists that place him in low tier, and I was wondering, was that because of his lack of tournament presence? Or do people believe he's really not that viable of a character?

I find it to be a shame that Lucas is overshadowed by Ness. I do agree that, regarding most situations in battle, Ness is the more viable pick. It's just that Lucas has so much technicality to his moveset that sometimes he can pull the weirdest things off that end up covering his typical weaknesses. At this point in the Ultimate meta, I doubt he'd be explored any further because the viable characters are pretty set in stone now that the last patch is out, but man, Lucas is one of those absolutely bizarre characters that I'd love to learn as much as I can about.

 

[blackghost]

we are in the endgame now.
people out here having actual hero discussion. and not using running to the rng approach

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

we are in the endgame now.
people out here having actual hero discussion. and not using running to the rng approach

I know, crazy right?

TheBeastHimself The reason I would say that Lucas isn’t seen very often is… I don’t know. I think Lucas is better than Ness. He has similar kill power with (IMO) better edgeguarding, better disjoints, better frame data, and the only thing he can’t really do well is create obnoxious combos. He also has a better recovery and a zair. He isn’t particularly difficult, and is decently easy to pick up. I wish we saw more Lucas representation, as he has some genuinely scary and cool stuff.

 

[SKX31]

Hello all!

I'm not the most knowledgable of the competitive scene/meta for Ultimate, but I was wondering if someone could answer a question I had regarding my main and perhaps clear up a misconception.

We're talking

In regards to tier lists, I noticed that he's usually placed somewhere in mid-tier (which, to me, is the perfect ranking). But then there's a lot of tier lists that place him in low tier, and I was wondering, was that because of his lack of tournament presence? Or do people believe he's really not that viable of a character?

I find it to be a shame that Lucas is overshadowed by Ness. I do agree that, regarding most situations in battle, Ness is the more viable pick. It's just that Lucas has so much technicality to his moveset that sometimes he can pull the weirdest things off that end up covering his typical weaknesses. At this point in the Ultimate meta, I doubt he'd be explored any further because the viable characters are pretty set in stone now that the last patch is out, but man, Lucas is one of those absolutely bizarre characters that I'd love to learn as much as I can about.

TheBeastHimself The reason I would say that Lucas isn’t seen very often is… I don’t know. I think Lucas is better than Ness. He has similar kill power with (IMO) better edgeguarding, better disjoints, better frame data, and the only thing he can’t really do well is create obnoxious combos. He also has a better recovery and a zair. He isn’t particularly difficult, and is decently easy to pick up. I wish we saw more Lucas representation, as he has some genuinely scary and cool stuff.

He's in a weird spot at the moment. Partly since - like you've said - he isn't seen a lot but does have some notable results to his name. Think it's partly because Ness has a lot of more straightforward followups and advantage state overall, and Lucas is kind of reliant on a lot of unorthodox stuff to keep that going. That's not to say Lucas is ineffective mind - he's still got quite a lot going for him, such as a strong advantage state, a pretty good boxing game (via F-Tilt / D-Tilt) and a legitimately great edgeguard game. His defense is not anywhere near great, but if you'd ask me he has enough to compensate for that. I'll leave a lot of the details to others here who have discussed Lucas in the past.

I find it personally very difficult to place him exactly because of what you said, but if things go his way I could see opinions on him rising.

While he doesn't have a huge presence in any of the regional scenes, he does have one major representative in each main region currently:

* ChocoTaco's the main American player (hailing from Florida). Started out during the Wii U days, was mostly a regional player but did make some noise recently by placing 17th in the DQ-heavy-but-still-major CEO 2021, going 6-2 in sets en route. He defeated notable DK main ChunkyKong and Chrom main Gidy before falling to Jake, one of the best Steve mains.


* Nitox is his main representative in France / EU. A relative newcomer to the scene, he has seen some success at the tournaments he has attended. Most notably Temple: Hermes Edition, where he placed 13th with a 7-2 set count (including 3 straight LB wins) - the highest a Lucas player has gotten at a supermajor. And the competition was steep in that tournament too, with quite a few top-level EU, American and Japanese players in attendance. In particular, Nitox's set vs. American Bowser main LeoN is worth noting since it was rather close and LeoN placed 4th that event:

* Rinkururu is probably the JP main with the most going for him currently. Uses him and , he has been mainly regional but did get 25th at Kagaribi 4 with a 4-2 set count - it was a national where most of Japan's absolute best participated. He did pull off several upsets in that run: vs. Ken main Takera, then vs. Pit main Tet and then vs. Pichu main Nietono in losers (here's his set vs. Tet).

Several other players are of note here, such as Mekos and 8Mitsuki. However, they seem to be inactive at the moment.