Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Sucumbio]

Does anyone know Riddles' record against Sonix or Ken in the Kazuya vs Sonic matchup? Or if they've ever even played?

 

[Rizen]

I feel like Kazuya's weaknesses have been exaggerated. He seems kind of bad on paper but his reward on hit is extremely high. He can destroy you off of 2 or 3 interactions (or less) and his armored command grab makes any interaction very dangerous. Plus he has staying power. He's heavy and has a pretty good recovery that doesn't cause freefalling. Fighting game characters are powerful archetypes and Terry and less-so Kazuya feel like the shotos with DLC privilege.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Does anyone know Riddles' record against Sonix or Ken in the Kazuya vs Sonic matchup? Or if they've ever even played?

He has a losing record to both, with/without Kazuya. Sonix beat him x2 at CEO Grand Finals and KEN beat him at BOBC4 to make it into top 8.

 

[Sucumbio]

He has a losing record to both, with/without Kazuya. Sonix beat him x2 at CEO Grand Finals and KEN beat him at BOBC4 to make it into top 8.

Interesting. IIRC Tea also beat Riddles... I wonder if his training since those defeats have the potential to upset these players.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Interesting. IIRC Tea also beat Riddles... I wonder if his training since those defeats have the potential to upset these players.

Tea beat Riddles in the Kazuya ditto back at UW4. They'll probably play the ditto again the next time they play.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 12 of L' Odyssee

Winners
MuteAce vs Paseriman
Cosmos vs Tea

Losers
Bloom4Eva vs Mr. R
Shuton vs Raflow
Sisqui vs Asimo
Gackt vs Fatality

 

[Sucumbio]

Maesuma TOP #10 Ultimate Singles - Seeding Initial

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

View attachment 362293

Maesuma TOP #10 Ultimate Singles - Seeding Initial

Bit late, that tourney's already started lol. Top 64 and top 8 is tonight actually.

 

[Frihetsanka]

View attachment 362293

Maesuma TOP #10 Ultimate Singles - Seeding Initial

Zackray that low feels strange, but understandable given that he only recently came back to Smash. Also, it would be cool to see Yoshidora in an NA or EU tournament. Apparently Japanese players think very highly of Yoshi compared to NA/EU players.

 

[F4lcoMain]

I feel like Kazuya's weaknesses have been exaggerated. He seems kind of bad on paper but his reward on hit is extremely high. He can destroy you off of 2 or 3 interactions (or less) and his armored command grab makes any interaction very dangerous. Plus he has staying power. He's heavy and has a pretty good recovery that doesn't cause freefalling. Fighting game characters are powerful archetypes and Terry and less-so Kazuya feel like the shotos with DLC privilege.

His only weakness on paper I think is his frame 7 Jumpsquat, which I think matters less given how ridiculous his ground moves are. Particularly on FD, I have seen some players do some ridiculous stuff with him, like spam Electric wind god fist and it literally just working on some characters because they don't have anything that can reasonably challenge it.

The reward for using him seems unreasonably high given how ridiculously strong his finishers are too.

 

[Frihetsanka]

In practice, one of Kazuya's greatest weakness is that he's hard to learn and hard to play. This is probably one of the main reasons why it took people so long to really start believing in him, but now as more and more players (Riddles in particular) are learning him, we finally get to see what Kazuya is capable of. Also, most Smash players seem reluctant to camp hard, which means that "just camp him" won't actually come in play most of the time. It doesn't help that camping is somewhat stigmatized, so if a top player started camping really hard versus Kazuya that top player would risk getting a bunch of hate directed towards them.

I've noticed some some players, such as DDee, seem to now believe that Kazuya is a top 5 character. I think it's fairly safe to say that Kazuya is not the mid tier or lower high tier character that many people originally thought he was. Even Riddles used to think Kazuya wasn't top tier.

We're in a time period where Kazuya, Steve, and Sonic are arguably top 5 characters, with no patches in sight. I don't think any character is going to get banned. I imagine we'll see Kazuya players develop gameplay and other players will develop counter-play (and, perhaps, stop playing mid tiers in order to have a better chance against some of the dominant top tiers in this game). I don't think any of these characters are as strong as Smash 4 Bayonetta or Brawl Meta Knight, though.

 

[Arthur97]

Hopefully it doesn't kill the mid tier scene. It's been so nice seeing the level of fighter diversity in Ultimate. Would be a shame to lose that over the likes of Kazuya. That said, the fact the mid tiers have still done so well I think kinda flies in the face of dominant top tiers. Top tiers may be good, but they're generally manageable.

And lets hold off on the talk of him being top five. This tends to happen after breakout results.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

In Dallas, there is a bit of a worry that Steve and Kazuya will kill the local scene due to lower viewership, and less entrants at locals with even one top Texas player quitting. This is honestly probably worse then their effect at majors. Someone did a video on it and discussed his overall opinions on the matter. It's a good video IMO and well balanced in terms of arguments.

 

[F4lcoMain]

In Dallas, there is a bit of a worry that Steve and Kazuya will kill the local scene due to lower viewership, and less entrants at locals with even one top Texas player quitting. This is honestly probably worse then their effect at majors. Someone did a video on it and discussed his overall opinions on the matter. It's a good video IMO and well balanced in terms of arguments.

Interesting he mentions Falco Down Tilt as a strong option vs Kazuya. I've had this opinion for a while since the moves range and speed can let Falco more safely pressure Kazuya and start his combos. Still not a matchup I like playing though.

That being said, IDK if I think Kazuya or Steve should be banned necessarily since a large part of the reason I don't like fighting them is that they play in a very weird way that I am not use to (and I'd imagine its the same way for others). I probably dislike fighting Sephiroth more than Steve or Kazuya since his crazy range makes getting in on him feel impossible, particularly as a slower character like Doc or Falco.

 

[superjm]

Yaura continuing the yearlong trend of Samus players just crashing top cut brackets with impunity by taking out Proto in losers 3 - 1 to reach the top 4 of Maesuma TOP #10, this after losing to him in winners 3-1.

Even if he stalls out against the remaining opponents, it really feels like a matter of time before Samus breaks through with a Major win.

 

[NairWizard]

If you didn't watch Maesuma Top #10, you missed out on some great smash. Acola took 1st with what looked like a very good Aegis secondary, dropping only 4 games the entire tournament; meanwhile, zackray got 49th and Proto got 5th.

Based on results and level of play, acola's pretty much guaranteed #1 this season at this point, unless something crazy happens.

 

[StrangeKitten]

a large part of the reason I don't like fighting them is that they play in a very weird way that I am not use to

And this, imo, is the reason Steve and Kazuya are so strong right now. They require a more specific playstyle to beat compared to other characters, and there's probably not much about that that's universal across the cast. Joker probably has to do a lot of different things to fight Steve and Kazuya than Bowser would, as an example. So figuring out the counterplay is a slow process.

I think another thing that makes the two strong, is they're some of the best anti-air characters in a game where aerials are such good options. Steve sets up a wall and is busy mining, and Kazuya isn't as strong with air-to-airs as he is grounded, so it's only natural to want to come in on them with an aerial. Problem is, unless you're playing a swordie with a big disjoint, Steve's up tilt and Kazuya's armor will likely beat that out. So there's something I've noticed while fighting them that may prove helpful.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for L'Odyssee

1. Tea
2. Cosmos
3. MuteAce
4. Paseriman
5. Bloom4Eva
5. Gackt
7. Shuton
7. Asimo
9. Mr. R
9. Raflow
9. Sisqui
9. Fatality
13. Glutonny
13. Flow
13. Oryon
13. KEN

 

[Aligo]

All this talk about bans has got me thinking about the potential for another balance patch.

I mean , elden ring got massive changes for balance after a community response, and with Nintendo taking a minute amount of interest in the competitive scene, it could be possible, if demand was directed enough. Probably helps that some bugs still remain, so that provides additional incentive to do another patch.

 

[The_Bookworm]

To me, I think a lot of modern fighting game communities are kinda spoiled on the fact that patches are even a thing, and relies on them to fix all of their problems. For over two decades, fighting game players had to deal with games that have no patches at all, with the only thing resembling patches being full game revisions (SF2 & SF4 says hello!), but they still play and enjoy them regardless if there an unbalanced mess at all. I mean look at Melee, a notoriously unbalanced & broken game with no balance patches at all (outside of later revisions having minor changes), but it is still played and loved by many.

Don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that patches do exist. The vanilla versions of SSB4 and Ultimate are significantly less balanced than what the current versions of both of those games are (especially regarding the low/bottom tiers), and both of those games had some annoying mechanics that would be fixed later (nerfing vectoring, nerfing shields, nerfing projectiles on shields, fixing some stick buffering weirdness, etc.).

However, there will come a time that we will have to accept the current gamestate as it is. The game has been patched for 3 years since release, and it has now been nearly a year since it was last patched, with the 13.0.1 being announced as the game's final balance update. I highly doubt there would be any new balance patches anyways, especially since all of the primary ban talk seems to be left behind since it was brought up about 3-4 months ago, and I doubt that the dev team would suddenly come back to patch the game after nearly a year, ESPECIALLY since they already announced that would be final one.

They did release an emergency patch for Bayo in SSB4, but it was only a few months after her release, so the dev team were only fresh off of finishing the game, and vanilla SSB4 Bayo was definitely a super pressing issue that nothing in Ultimate's history could come even close to matching.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Definitely a shame that balance patches ended so soon. The perfect middle ground to complaints about Steve and Kazuya would be to lower their damage output a bit, but it's unlikely that the team will come back to do that.

 

[Arthur97]

Yeah, on one hand you shouldn't expect patches to fix everything, but on the other hand, what were they expecting ending patches so relatively early? Pyra and Mythra suffering from early success as well compared to later bloomers.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Yeah, on one hand you shouldn't expect patches to fix everything, but on the other hand, what were they expecting ending patches so relatively early? Pyra and Mythra suffering from early success as well compared to later bloomers.

It is not as early as you would expect. By the time the final balance patch dropped, Aegis was already released 9 months ago. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a pretty long time. Steve was released over a year before the final balance patch dropped, with the character exploding in results about 4 months after the final balance patch. Steve was a very, VERY late bloomer.

For reference, by the time the planned final patch of SSB4 (1.1.5) was released, Cloud was released only 3 months prior and Corrin/Bayonetta was released only 1 month prior.

The patch cycle for Ultimate already far exceeded SSB4's patch cycle, as SSB4's was less than 2 years of updates while Ultimate's was about 3 years. Granted that the DLC cycle was much longer for Ultimate, but the final patch was still released about 2 months after Sora's release, so still a decent amount of time, and the final character time wasn't overtuned this time.

 

[Arthur97]

It is not as early as you would expect. By the time the final balance patch dropped, Aegis was already released 9 months ago. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a pretty long time. Steve was released over a year before the final balance patch dropped, with the character exploding in results about 4 months after the final balance patch. Steve was a very, VERY late bloomer.

For reference, by the time the planned final patch of SSB4 (1.1.5) was released, Cloud was released only 3 months prior and Corrin/Bayonetta was released only 1 month prior.

The patch cycle for Ultimate already far exceeded SSB4's patch cycle, as SSB4's was less than 2 years of updates while Ultimate's was about 3 years. Granted that the DLC cycle was much longer for Ultimate, but the final patch was still released about 2 months after Sora's release, so still a decent amount of time, and the final character time wasn't overtuned this time.

That is true, but look how 4 ended up even with an emergency patch. You also have to consider how little development happened during that time as opposed to normal.

That said, while the balance team has overall done superb work, there have been a few questionable decisions. Min Min may have been over nerfed for one, and K. Rool probably didn't need nerfs even if he was a noob stomper. Some of the arguably worst decisions seem almost like kneejerk please the Twitter mob type ones though. At least when it came to what they did do. There is also stuff they didn't do like fixing Falcon's up special.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Min Min may have been over nerfed for one, and K. Rool probably didn't need nerfs even if he was a noob stomper.

Well considering that is still considered to be rather strong, especially in the right hands, I'd say the nerfs were fine overall in hindsight. She is a character only reserved for specialists, which I am honestly fine with.

Since it now brought up, I do like to get in my two cents on the early nerfs. Of course, the reasons for nerfing him is for the "noob stomping" means and the fact that players used to be pretty bad in dealing with his gimmicks, similar to how Little Mac was nerfed early on in SSB4.
However, the funny part about these nerfs is that they, in retrospect, didn't actually affect the character.
The Blunderbuss duration nerf didn't really change the way players approached the move. Similar to Mii Swordfighter Gale Strike spam at ledge early on, players were simply bad in dealing with it at first.
The up B hitbox nerf was probably the only nerf that actually affected the character, but it also didn't really change the way players approached on edgeguarding the character. Awareness on how to edgeguard him really made the waves close to when the hitbox nerf happened.
The down throw nerf, turns out, isn't actually a nerf. It was a rework that actually ended up working in his favor, especially after his later buffs. The way they changed down throw is that it uses different modifiers for the bury duration (90 frames + 0.5*damage → 60 frames + 0.75*damage), meaning that it has less bury duration pre-125%, but more bury duration post-125%. This makes KO confirms post-125% far more consistent, and any KO confirms pre-patch that happened prior to 125% only really worked on players who are bad at mashing. The only silver lining is that it makes early percent combos essentially non-existent with the throw. This was seen as a notable nerf...... until K. Rool players later in the game's life discovered that forward throw -> dash attack is a thing (which works even with pre-patch K. Rool), which is easy, consistent, and nets far more damage than what pre-patch down throw did.

I think the reason why players thought these changes actually mattered to K. Rool is A) these changes are specifically towards players having trouble with the scrubby aspects of the character, and B) these changes were applied around the same time players discovered how bad of a character he was. The truth is that vanilla K. Rool was a garbage character and the 2.0.0 changes only made him marginally worse.

In the end, the 2.0.0 changes wouldn't even matter in the end considering the laundry list of buffs he would get later on (actually the down throw rework would work even better to his favor), but it is funny in retrospect how inconsequential the 2.0.0 changes were to K. Rool's viability even back when they first dropped.

There is also stuff they didn't do like fixing Falcon's up special.

They did fix his up special, at patch 11.0.0.

 

[Arthur97]

Min Min nerfs might not have been too bad, they probably weren't necessary by the end.

So they did fix the up special. Somehow missed that. Still weird that it took so long.

But yes, they have done an overall good job. They seemed to almost panic after Joker, then people started to fear in FP2, but I don't think they made any super serious errors. Now, nerfing Little Mac in Smash 4 may be one of the worst nerfs in fighting game history.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Their biggest mistake was probably nerfing Pichu super hard, that character went from top tier to mid tier. He later got buffed which helped but it's unclear whether he's still mid tier or high tier now, regardless he's a shell of his former self, and counter-play was being developed anyways when the buffs arrived.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seeding for Ludwig Smash Invitational

Seeding for LCQ of Ludwig Smash Invitational

This tournament is ****ing stacked.
Edit: 12th seed is supposed to be Peabnut, not yonni.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Their biggest mistake was probably nerfing Pichu super hard, that character went from top tier to mid tier. He later got buffed which helped but it's unclear whether he's still mid tier or high tier now, regardless he's a shell of his former self, and counter-play was being developed anyways when the buffs arrived.

The only thing they should have nerfed about Pichu was forward tilt. And even then, they shouldn't have gutted its kill power as much as they did. Pikachu was always better due to being heavy enough to not die to a slight breeze, having the hitbox on Quick Attack, and being able to freely spam Thunder Jolts. Pichu was a strong early game character who would drop off a good amount once people got more used to playing against it, because more matchup knowledge means hitting Pichu a lot more, which is huge when it's the lightest character in the game. VoiD was going to drop Pichu even before the nerfs for reasons such as these.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I know that whining about Steve and Kazuya is in vogue for a large part of the Smash community. I personally do not think they are issues, though there is one aspect of the game that has made Kazuya in particular much stronger: our stage lists.

Outside of our triplats left in Hazards off (Battlefield, Yoshi's Story, and the very rare Lylat), Most of the stages we have are flat, no frills stages with 1-2 platforms. Aka, the kind of environment that makes it much easier for characters like Kazuya to be problematic.

Let's take a look at the Genesis stage list being used at the Ludwig Invitational this weekend.

• Starters: Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Pokemon Stadium 2, Town and City
• Counter-picks: Small Battlefield, Kalos Pokemon League

Only one stage is not flat with 1-2 platforms, and it isnt even running Hollow Bastion. Stage lists like this are just going to exasperate the issues with Kazuya. Obviously there is counterplay to Kazuya: camp him out, do not hold forward, and space better. But let's be real, people are going to hold forward. People like to hold forward and hit the enemy gamer. Obviously at top level this will weed out a bit, but we need to think about how the scene itself will go.

Personally, I think that we should expand our stage list. Mixed Hazard s would be a nice boon. Getting better Yoshi's Story and getting Fountain of Dreams would add a lot to the meta. We could also try to stress test more stages as well for hazards off. Obviously people might be slightly opposed, but we do have a few solid options that could be feasible counterpicks. I think the stage list should get a hard look before people do something dumb like custom balance or force steve or kazuya to have two stocks.

also dont have fd as a starter k tnx bye

 

[Sucumbio]

I think the argument over picking stage first vs chr first keeps TO from engaging the issue with keeping a simple stage list where outliers like Kazuya or Steve (or DLC p2 lol) mostly thrive regardless.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Jake DQ, hence seed #64. MkLeo as #3 seed feels strange, but it makes sense given recent tournaments.

The only thing they should have nerfed about Pichu was forward tilt.

That's what I'm thinking too, and maybe the hitbox. The self-damage nerfs were unnecessary, and I don't think f-smash really needed a nerf given how light Pichu is (if he messes up he might die for it). Maybe keep the self-damage nerfs for bair to keep bair loops reasonable.

I also think Pikachu was already better than Pichu. People overrated Pichu at the time.

• Starters: Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Pokemon Stadium 2, Town and City
• Counter-picks: Small Battlefield, Kalos Pokemon League

Kalos should be removed from this list, and Small Battlefield should be a starter (over Town or FD). Dabuz made a good video on why Kalos should be banned:

Character before stage feels like nearly an inevitability at this point, most of Europe already runs that and more and more local scenes in NA are doing it too. The advantages are obvious, and I don't see too many reasons to go with stage first.

As for mixed hazards: I've tried a hazards on ruleset and I think it works decently well, with Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Hollow Bastion, Town & City, and Small Battlefield. Fountain of Dream did not feel like a good stage to play on in practice, and Yoshi's Story was pretty terrible with Randall the Cloud (worse than in Melee). I think a hazards on ruleset (not mixed hazards, probably too messy) might work, but I think it's a bit too late to change to that, and people were reluctant to play on hazards on for long. So I don't think it has much of a future.

Adding stages in general is probably not going to happen. Removing stages is more likely, and it's decently likely we'll end up with a stage list of 6-7 stages, assuming Kalos, Lylat, and Yoshi's Story all get cut (the latter two are already cut on most non-European rulesets I think, and Kalos should be removed as well, see the Dabuz video for some reasoning + there are other reasons as well that Dabuz didn't mention).

 

[Sucumbio]

Pokemon stadium 2 or GTFO

(I like BF the best tho)

But yeah I watched one tournament where it was PS2 almost every match it seemed.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Pokemon stadium 2 or GTFO

That's unironically one of the main reasons people didn't like hazards on, probably the biggest issue for hazards on rulesets. Oh, and some people didn't like Smashville with the moving platform.

I don't get why some tournaments have Small Battlefield as a counter-pick, it's such an obvous starter in my opinion, and one of the most picked starters at my locals (that and Pokémon Stadium 2).

 

[StrangeKitten]

Shame that Lylat seems mostly banned. Is it just the slants that make people dislike it? It's kinda small with smaller side blast zones, and plats to retreat to. Benefits rushdown and heavies quite nicely compared to the big, flat stages, which is why I like it. Regardless, Small Battlefield should absolutely be a starter since it's one of few small stage options, and FD should be a counterpick.

 

[Sucumbio]

I seem to recall FD being thought of as better classified as a cp than as a starter in previous games ... But I dunno I think BF, SBF, PS2, Town, SV and FD are all ok as Starters with CPs being any of those plus Kalos, Lylat and Hollow Bastion. Fountain of Dreams hurts my eyes. But I tend to prefer a liberal stage selection.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Is it just the slants that make people dislike it?

Mostly the slants, yeah. I personally think it should probably be legal but at this point it seems like a lost cause. The ledge can be tricky for some characters to recover to as well.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Mostly the slants, yeah. I personally think it should probably be legal but at this point it seems like a lost cause. The ledge can be tricky for some characters to recover to as well.

I know there was a good bit of fixing done in regards to the ledge. Hopefully doesn't have many issues anymore.

 

[Arthur97]

Never underestimate how much the Smash community hates slopes. Or variety for that matter. Now there's talk of reducing the stage list even further? Granted, what's the point when so many of the games are played on PS2? It's almost like they don't like the platform part of platform fighter so much outside of standard tri and bi plats.

 

[Sucumbio]

The quad plats of warioware are cool except for the tiny blast zones. The Penta plats in Norfair are tons of fun too just not the lava lol