Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[KakuCP9]

Not gonna say anything about character viability, but feel as the game on, falling aerials being used either as an approach or cover landing will rendered moot thanks to the parry mechanics. Game's gonna be hyper ground focused with characters that have strong OOS options and ground games standing at the top
(and Snake who just throws crap everywhere).

 

[Galgatha]

It's really stupid that Miis got banned in smash 4 when Bayo and Cloud are on the top tier train.

True, I never really understood that tbh. Glad that we can play as them online now in Quickbattle and Elite Smash, so people can train with then and against them. There is no reason they should be banned now.

 

[Shaya]

The pits could be better than Lucina/Marth this time around.
To make the bold claim they're better than Chrom and Roy might be a bit much right now, everyone's getting unga bunga'd and the new freedom of smash attacks definitely lend well to the characters with the fastest/biggest/best koing power fsmashes in the game, but I digress.

The Pits are
VERY
VERY
VERY
Strong.

Earth did not let them down. In fact any Pit player should probably consider themselves apart of the "Earth's Special Forces" now; your role is to destroy Cell Inklings before they can absorb the Androids every existing top 8 tournament placement.
Or don't, then wait for some potential nerfs and then people will realise the sleeper top tier hiding in the bushes.
It'll be more obvious if the FE swordies get hit with some minor nerfs (which they might, thanks to everyone spamming the crap out of them and complaining) - asides from chrom's up-b suiciding combos I'm not seeing too much problem thus far.

If you have a semblance of neutral capabilities (or even if not, I think they're a great character to learn with and to adjust to the new tempo of this game), like Brawl styled punish/mid-range game focus, like going as deep or deeper than Inklings and Meta Knight off stage, enjoy LOLing at the fact you have an angleable projectile that'll end someones life off stage easily if you hit with it [Dark Pit's still very applicable, will require going off stage and falling/jumping to an appropriate height], and find comfort in knowing you can actually just fsmash (or any smash/side-b) read or EZ frame trap with them for stocks reliably now, while still having a completely functional grab game from S4 and an amazing dash dance spec...

People: but Chrom unga bungaing
Me: just get one dash attack (or dash grab) and pick one of your 50 options to cover their disadvantage over and over again until a simple button press when they're off stage and they die (or just outright kill them before hand).

Meanwhile,
Pits have jumps. Multiple Jumps.

And does down air even have a sour spot?
I'm just going to throw out this move near the ledge with some meagre consideration for timing, and if you don't have K Rool's helicopter above your head and you just happen to die, it's your own fault.
(Pro Tip: helicopter's lose to arrows).

I don't believe they have the tools necessary to dominate match ups far and wide (yet, but I could be very wrong), but his jack of all trades kit definitely has some indications of mastery to them this time around - their arrows and shield/reflector might not be matching against other (projectile) zoners freely, which is where the better mobility specs of Chrom and Roy are really shining through comparatively; but I doubt he'd be losing by much, if at all. But really, you shouldn't expect them to be able to out-do every class of characters in everything like S4 Sheik did early on - sorry.

Their large amount of multi hits might also lend towards them being more susceptible to parrys in the long term, but right now I doubt you're going to have consistent problems.

 

[Galgatha]

Man I would love to get into this conversation, >_> but no Switch and SSBU kinda makes that a little difficult lol

 

[ARISTOS]

I have heard plenty of people claim that, in SSBU, pretty much every character is ACTUALLY tournament viable, including the . I understand that, of course any character can be played in a tournament, but often people claim that "such and such isn't viable" and so on. I get that the game is still really new, but I was wondering what are other people's thoughts on this?

Early meta talk.

Characters will be filtered out with time. ~Enjoy it while it lasts~

 

[Rizen]

I have heard plenty of people claim that, in SSBU, pretty much every character is ACTUALLY tournament viable, including the . I understand that, of course any character can be played in a tournament, but often people claim that "such and such isn't viable" and so on. I get that the game is still really new, but I was wondering what are other people's thoughts on this?

"tournament viable" is such a vague phraise. You can probably do decently with most of the cast but actually winning is another story. Ganon for example is what I see as a mid tier who can compete but not win. He's gotten a lot better and can out-play opponents but doing it again and again through the bracket with such poor frame data is another story. In such a large cast it wouldn't surprise me if maybe 20 characters can win. You'll see wider character variety but we'll still have a handful of top tiers taking most tournaments and another few handfuls cleaning up the rest.

 

[Galgatha]

Early meta talk.

Characters will be filtered out with time. ~Enjoy it while it lasts~

Hopefully not. That is, imo, the worst part about competitive Smash. Characters filtering out of the meta and then stagnating.

 

[Rocketjay8]

"tournament viable" is such a vague phraise. You can probably do decently with most of the cast but actually winning is another story. Ganon for example is what I see as a mid tier who can compete but not win. He's gotten a lot better and can out-play opponents but doing it again and again through the bracket with such poor frame data is another story. In such a large cast it wouldn't surprise me if maybe 20 characters can win. You'll see wider character variety but we'll still have a handful of top tiers taking most tournaments and another few handfuls cleaning up the rest.

Considering the fact that they can change their specials, I doubt that they will be any lower than mid-tier.

 

[arbustopachon]

Pokemon trainer seems pretty good right now, Squirtle is a combo machine, ivysaur is pretty good at zoning and juggling and zard has decent recovery and nasty edgeguarding.

What makes this character is pokemon change.

Having the ability to esentially airdodge twice is pretty darned good. Struggling to land as Zard? pokemon change, nair/airdodge do whatever.

You lost your jump as squirtle and can't make it to the ledge? Drift to the ledge, Pokemon change, up b to reset the change timer, pokemon change, use zards extra jump and up b.

Plus you know being able to counterpick your opponent is kinda neat.

Worst case scenario pokemon trainer will become Squirtle featuring extra step to recovery frog and recovery lizard.

 

[Galgatha]

Here is something I was thinking about, considering this game recieved a huge influx of them, who would you say has the most versitile or useful command grab out of the current cast?

(XX3X) [yes, I am including bite/inhale as a command grab]

I'm curious what the community thinks is the most useful.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Pokemon Change isn't really that great as a defensive tool. It's 40FAF, 1-18 invincible iirc and it stalls your falling momentum. If you're trying to land as Zard I really wouldn't recommend going for it, especially when Squirtle is so light.

I'm honestly a bit down on Pokemon Trainer, but I'm probably just not used to the new Squirtle (he feels really gutted) and Charizard's changes throw me off. Need more time with them. Ivysaur is pretty great, though. Razor Leaf seems crazy lol.

 

[UberMadman]

Here is something I was thinking about, considering this game recieved a huge influx of them, who would you say has the most versitile or useful command grab out of the current cast?

(XX3X) [yes, I am including bite/inhale as a command grab]

I'm curious what the community thinks is the most useful.

Diddy, easily. Also worth noting that Isabelle’s fishing rod can be blocked, so it’s a little different than the rest of these.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Diddy, easily. Also worth noting that Isabelle’s fishing rod can be blocked, so it’s a little different than the rest of these.

Isabelle's is the only one that can use throws mid-air.

 

[J0eyboi]

Here is something I was thinking about, considering this game recieved a huge influx of them, who would you say has the most versitile or useful command grab out of the current cast?

(XX3X) [yes, I am including bite/inhale as a command grab]

I'm curious what the community thinks is the most useful.

Diddy's is easily the most useful, but that feels disingenuous because the actual command grab kinda sucks. You use it for the movement, not the grab.

Isabelle's can tether and is very good for ledgetrapping, but has slow startup that makes it bad in neutral, and it's technically a hit-throw, not a command grab.

I'd say in terms of use as a command grab, Incineroar's is the best, doing a ludicrous 25% and killing as early as that would imply, which is only further boosted by Revenge.

 

[Galgatha]

Isabelle's is the only one that can use throws mid-air.

's backdrop could be considered a throw lol.

 

[J0eyboi]

So 1.2.0 is live now. We don't know the full changes yet, but we do know who was specifically changed.

Adjusted Fighters

Donkey Kong, Link, Kirby, Luigi, Ice Climbers, Young Ling(sic), Olimar, Toon Link, Villager, Greninja, Pac-Man, Duck Hunt, and Isabelle

inb4 Greninja was nerfed

 

[SiO2]

Feels a lot worse to me. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels like his range on everything important (Fair, Bair, Uair, grabs) are worse, which hurts his ability to get in and do anything. He is still as gimpable off stage as ever, but at least they buffed his double jump armor. Egg Toss also gives noticeably more vertical lift.

Throws no longer seem to reliably combo into anything either, which hurts him at low percents.

That said, his air speed is still insanely fast, and he still hits like a truck. Uair seems even more easy to combo with, and seems to more easily hit airborne opponents.

His Down B also got a noticeable buff, in that Yoshi can now choose to fall through platforms with it. On the flip side, it doesn't seem to break shields as easily as in Sm4sh.

He is definitely not high tier. Probably somewhere in mid tier.

 

[Gamegenie222]

oh this thread is back aww yeah a reason to use smashboards again

 

[KakuCP9]

Do Dark Samus and Samus have any differences outside of Dark Samus having a working Usmash?
Also how do people feel about Falcon having a proper dash dance when he was already a menace in S4?

 

[Rizen]

Pokemon Change isn't really that great as a defensive tool. It's 40FAF, 1-18 invincible iirc and it stalls your falling momentum. If you're trying to land as Zard I really wouldn't recommend going for it, especially when Squirtle is so light.

I'm honestly a bit down on Pokemon Trainer, but I'm probably just not used to the new Squirtle (he feels really gutted) and Charizard's changes throw me off. Need more time with them. Ivysaur is pretty great, though. Razor Leaf seems crazy lol.

FAF 40 isn't bad; that's how long it took Link to pull a bomb in SSB4 and I did that after being launched all the time.

 

[trickroom]

Here is something I was thinking about, considering this game recieved a huge influx of them, who would you say has the most versitile or useful command grab out of the current cast?

(XX3X) [yes, I am including bite/inhale as a command grab]

I'm curious what the community thinks is the most useful.

Bowser's is in the running easily. The kill power, grab-box, and damage are very, very good. Was true in Sm4sh too, not that you would use it that often when your upthrow was right there. With his grab stuff mostly gone now, we're going to see that that move is very strong

 

[Y2Kay]

God damn it.

 

[Galgatha]

Greninja’s down Tilt was nerfed.

God damn it.

View attachment 182891

How was it nerfed??

 

[trickroom]

Greninja’s down Tilt was nerfed.

God damn it.

I'm not buying it until it's in the patch notes thread. idc idc

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja’s D Tilt x 3 combo no longer works. Greninja Discord is in shambles rn, I’ll hit y’all up when it clears up.

 

[Galgatha]

Greninja’s D Tilt x 3 combo no longer works. Greninja Discord is in shambles rn, I’ll hit y’all up when it clears up.

So, prior to this patch, Dtilt combod into itself 3 times? Does it at least combo into itself twice? I know different game but in Smash4 I used to start combo strings with Greninja by stringing 2 dtilts together at low %s

 

[Zinith]

Feels a lot worse to me. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels like his range on everything important (Fair, Bair, Uair, grabs) are worse, which hurts his ability to get in and do anything. He is still as gimpable off stage as ever, but at least they buffed his double jump armor. Egg Toss also gives noticeably more vertical lift.

Throws no longer seem to reliably combo into anything either, which hurts him at low percents.

That said, his air speed is still insanely fast, and he still hits like a truck. Uair seems even more easy to combo with, and seems to more easily hit airborne opponents.

His Down B also got a noticeable buff, in that Yoshi can now choose to fall through platforms with it. On the flip side, it doesn't seem to break shields as easily as in Sm4sh.

He is definitely not high tier. Probably somewhere in mid tier.

None of the aerials you listed as having worse range really that. Their hitboxes were shifted around, in particular fair and uair. You say that it hurts his ability to get in, but those are more for punishing rather than attacks to win neutral (which is ftilt. Holy Bajeebus is that move so good!!!). 80% of what you were used to with Smash 4 Yoshi has changed and I'd call it "different" not "worse." (I swear, Yoshi players are the only ones with that "different equals bad" kneejerk mentality.)

And he never really had great combos with his throws to begin with in 4...

Also I should point out that Egg Toss no longer cancels his DJ momentum so it's a significant recovery buff...

aMSa himself worked on the game. Have faith in the little guy. I don't want "mid-tier Yoshi" to become a self-fulfilling prophecy

 

[KakuCP9]

*redacted in light of patch notes*

 

[Rizen]

I've been fighting Pika and it has serious potential for top tier. Pika has better range on his aerials than YL. I've had falling Nair from above lose to Pika's Bair. The little rat is quick, spammy and has great combos. Move over FE gang.

 

[aarchak]

They seriously nerfed Greninja? Why must this joke be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

 

[bc1910]

No changes to Greninja's Dtilt have been confirmed. Dtilt x3 was character dependent and very iffy pre-patch.

Not to backseat mod but I'd suggest we steer clear of talking about the balance changes (particularly with characters like Greninja where the placebo effect will be rife) until we have more concrete evidence of changes.

To keep things vaguely on-topic...

Shaya I agree with you regarding the Pits. Haven't seen them mentioned much, but when I do it's often about how strong they are. Aside from their short hop aerial game still being a little lacklustre particularly against short characters, they don't have much in the way of abusable weaknesses.

 

[trickroom]

Yeah I doubt they would change Greninja right now. The Greninja changes in Sm4sh stemmed from everyone constantly never shutting up about him (at the time). Today, he's flying really under-the-radar, so they would only change him for a bugfix right now. We should worry about them nerfing Inkling or Chrom before we know better, not about them changing a (currently) forgotten character

 

[Shaya]

Please don't discuss anything patch related here unless it's completely confirmed.
Any instances of doing so from this post onwards will be infracted.

 

[Y2Kay]

Please don't discuss anything patch related here unless it's completely confirmed.
Any instances of doing so from this post onwards will be infracted.

My bad Shaya

 

[CodeBlue_]

Hi guys, it's nice to see this thread back up for Ultimate! I'm going to my first local for Ultimate tomorrow, so it's super exciting to come back into the scene after a few years.

I was a lurker here in Smash 4, but I'm going to try as much as I can to follow the competitive Smash Ultimate scene this time around! Honestly, looking back at CCI for Smash 4, I appreciate how moderated this thread is. This is one of the few places on the internet to have a dedicated discussion and I really learned a lot over the years from people like Thinkaman and Shaya (the GOATs of this site) from reading these threads.

Nonetheless, there was one really frustrating topic that was discussed far too often, one which I have been dreading for Ultimate since its reveal: Echo Fighters. I genuinely forsee us making this discussion into a Yellow Topic or even potentially doing what Smogon does and banning discussion of certain characters in the future. The Lucina/Marth debates were honestly some of the most ridiculous circlejerks I have seen on this site.

Now, of course, I think it is good to discuss these characters and their impact on the meta (if there are subtle differences). However,
in a game with seventy five playable characters with even more coming in the next year, why did we think it was necessary to spend a ridiculous number of pages on two characters that have nearly identical impacts on the metagame? I would be fine if these discussions were related to how said differences affect certain very specific match ups but I don't honestly think a lot of discussion was about that.

I think people need to realize that some echo fighters might be completely inferior to their counterparts. While it might be upsetting that Lucina might not be good as Marth, I really don't see the point in adamantly defending them to such a degree. There are other characters to talk about, why make it simply about your character being "poorly" underrepresented? If you think your character can do something in the meta, then go out there and show it to everyone! It isn't too hard just to practice and leave this discussion to actually discussing the majority of the game and not just two ****ing characters.

For now, I am perfectly fine with a solid amount of echo fighter discussion, but, as you can see, I do have some initial concerns with how this will play out in the future, especially when there are over a half a dozen echo fighters in Ultimate. I really do not want 90% of the discussion to devolve into these debates when this thread starts to pick up. I do have faith the mods will do their best to keep things going in the right direction, but I really hope the community can accept one character being worse than the other.

Anyway, it's good to meet all of you and hope you guys have fun with Ultimate!

Apologies if this is a red topic, I'm not sure whether this is an on-topic discussion~

 

[PK Gaming]

(Redacted out of respect for the staff)

 

[Shaya]

If you want to speculate about the patch, what have two patches in a week signify to the future patch cycle of this game, or whatnot, the patch discussion thread would be the place for it right now.
I may regret that if we start getting a large influx of spotted changes, but if that's the case i'll cut them out of that thread and make a new one from them.

https://smashboards.com/threads/v1-2-0-patch-discussion-thread.465466/

 

[TDK]

Hi guys, it's nice to see this thread back up for Ultimate! I'm going to my first local for Ultimate tomorrow, so it's super exciting to come back into the scene after a few years.

I was a lurker here in Smash 4, but I'm going to try as much as I can to follow the competitive Smash Ultimate scene this time around! Honestly, looking back at CCI for Smash 4, I appreciate how moderated this thread is. This is one of the few places on the internet to have a dedicated discussion and I really learned a lot over the years from people like Thinkaman and Shaya (the GOATs of this site) from reading these threads.

Nonetheless, there was one really frustrating topic that was discussed far too often, one which I have been dreading for Ultimate since its reveal: Echo Fighters. I genuinely forsee us making this discussion into a Yellow Topic or even potentially doing what Smogon does and banning discussion of certain characters in the future. The Lucina/Marth debates were honestly some of the most ridiculous circlejerks I have seen on this site.

Now, of course, I think it is good to discuss these characters and their impact on the meta (if there are subtle differences). However,
in a game with seventy five playable characters with even more coming in the next year, why did we think it was necessary to spend a ridiculous number of pages on two characters that have nearly identical impacts on the metagame? I would be fine if these discussions were related to how said differences affect certain very specific match ups but I don't honestly think a lot of discussion was about that.

I think people need to realize that some echo fighters might be completely inferior to their counterparts. While it might be upsetting that Lucina might not be good as Marth, I really don't see the point in adamantly defending them to such a degree. There are other characters to talk about, why make it simply about your character being "poorly" underrepresented? If you think your character can do something in the meta, then go out there and show it to everyone! It isn't too hard just to practice and leave this discussion to actually discussing the majority of the game and not just two ****ing characters.

For now, I am perfectly fine with a solid amount of echo fighter discussion, but, as you can see, I do have some initial concerns with how this will play out in the future, especially when there are over a half a dozen echo fighters in Ultimate. I really do not want 90% of the discussion to devolve into these debates when this thread starts to pick up. I do have faith the mods will do their best to keep things going in the right direction, but I really hope the community can accept one character being worse than the other.

Anyway, it's good to meet all of you and hope you guys have fun with Ultimate!

Apologies if this is a red topic, I'm not sure whether this is an on-topic discussion~

...why? Discussion on echoes has been really healthy so far and the only reason I can see you bringing this up is to stir the pot, which is not a good idea.

Anyways, I was going to discuss Olimar but with the chance that that could all be rendered redundant now, I'll discuss my other character, instead.

She feels great, but not good, if that makes any sense. She got a lot of solid quality of life buffs that gave her better kill power, combo game, and zoning game, which is all really nice. Side-B in particular got bigger, stronger, and the angles were reworked to become more useful. The buffs to her up tilt and jab give her a better way to fight grounded opponents, she has a pseudo combo throw now, and Deep Breathing is legitimately amazing now, buffing damage, knockback (not just because of the higher damage), Run speed, walk speed, and fall speed at once for 10 seconds while healing. This is what she should've been in smash 4: a functional fast zoner that can heal and fight up-close if she has to.

However, it honestly feels a bit like too little, too late. She still has all the same issues smash 4 wii fit did, including trouble with short characters (better thanks to jab and soccer ball hitbox buffs + dtilt not being useless now but still not good), which extends to still having mediocre hitboxes all around. All her hitboxes are exactly where you'd expect and nowhere else, meaning in a game where even the brawlers come packing some disjoint she doesn't match up. Her killpower is better but honestly still well below average, and her combo game falls into that too. Bury changes are nice because Bury Jab - Fsmash can be a kill option if the opponent mashes fast enough, but it's nowhere near Splat Roller or K Rool Dthrow in terms of bury length, so it's more of a mixup than anything.

She feels good in a void but when stacked up against 70 other characters she falls a bit flat. I don't see her as a contender (take this with a grain of salt, but currently I feel like are the weakest) for the worst and she's certainly usable this time around, but I can't help but feel like they didn't really do enough.

Here's some other isolated thoughts that I don't care to write a paragraph on:

- Everyone saying Pichu is too light to be the best should be thankful that Pichu's that light, because the character's actually insane and would be the best if she didn't blow up at 70.

- Pokémon Trainer, Olimar, and Snake are probably all going to be under-the-radar top tiers that get discussed less for various reason, the first two especially.

- Diddy's still a contender for the best and his new Banana might be the best single move in the game.

- Ridley probably has the least cohesive kit in the game.

- Incineroar is a meh character with probably the most absurd comeback factor in the game. It's also worth noting that revenge can Stack if you keep countering hits without missing one (Probably more noticeable for Olimar players since he can revenge the pikmin stuck on him over and over).

- Cloud is still very, very good.

- This isn't a competitive impression or anything, but with both SonicFox and GO1 using the Belmonts I wonder if they appeal to other FGC players in general, or if that's just coincidental.

 

[trickroom]

- Diddy's still a contender for the best and his new Banana might be the best single move in the game.

I agree 100%. It's a little annoying that Diddy is flying under the radar because of the "new toy" syndrome on Chrom and Inklings. This character is a much closer copy-paste from Sm4sh than people like to think, which means that he's basically automatically a top tier. I mean, I don't know how The Character Who Gets To Throw A Banana At You In Neutral could ever be bad, but this one sure isn't it. He has everything he used to have plus the best part of him got buffed, and that's not even mentioning the engine changes (haha when he makes me trip he can do more moves out of run as punishes). When ZeRo talks about how Diddy is only a high tier or unplayable for him or whatever, I really get the feeling he's trying to dodge Diddy nerfs until Genesis or something.

 

[Rizen]

I agree 100%. It's a little annoying that Diddy is flying under the radar because of the "new toy" syndrome on Chrom and Inklings. This character is a much closer copy-paste from Sm4sh than people like to think, which means that he's basically automatically a top tier. I mean, I don't know how The Character Who Gets To Throw A Banana At You In Neutral could ever be bad, but this one sure isn't it. He has everything he used to have plus the best part of him got buffed, and that's not even mentioning the engine changes (haha when he makes me trip he can do more moves out of run as punishes). When ZeRo talks about how Diddy is only a high tier or unplayable for him or whatever, I really get the feeling he's trying to dodge Diddy nerfs until Genesis or something.

Zero's always underrated Diddy. Top players' tier lists are insightful but shouldn't be used as evidence of a character's viability. And some top players are just crazy