Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Arthur97]

Yeah Robin's tilts are a problem.

His jab and Smash are fairly good at doing their jobs, but Robin would love it if his tilts had more range. They're all designed as pokes or get off me tools, but they don't have enough range to do that. His best tilt is probably up tilt because it can at least hit from below platforms on occasion.

I don't even want to talk about the travesty that is his Forward Tilt.

What's really worse, forward or down tilt? Down may be fast, but it's at the very least shorter.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I'm curious on the general opinions on Pit, given that's been the topic of discussion on Smash Twitter and r/smashbros due to Zackray's insane run. Zackray typically only plays characters that are top/high tier, and I know some players beforehand thought Pit was good like Aaron and ShinyMark, though the majority put him as a mid tier.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I'm curious on the general opinions on Pit, given that's been the topic of discussion on Smash Twitter and r/smashbros due to Zackray's insane run. Zackray typically only plays characters that are top/high tier, and I know some players beforehand thought Pit was good like Aaron and ShinyMark, though the majority put him as a mid tier.

I mean Zackray kind of plays whatever he feels like because he is that type of player. This is the same person who won a major with Sora on the first month of his release, then never touched him again afterwards.

That being said, I never thought Pit was bad at all. However, he was always a very awkward character to place in a tier list since the character has made essentially close-to-no impact in high level play all throughout Ultimate's lifetime despite all of the tools he possesses. That is, until today.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I mean Zackray kind of plays whatever he feels like because he is that type of player. This is the same person who won a major with Sora on the first month of his release, then never touched him again afterwards.

That being said, I never thought Pit was bad at all. However, he was always a very awkward character to place in a tier list since the character has made essentially close-to-no impact in high level play all throughout Ultimate's lifetime despite all of the tools he possesses. That is, until today.

Your first point is very true, he's probably in the top 5 best players fundamentally wise for Ultimate alongside Leo, Sparg0, Tweek and acola/Shuton. He can actually play whoever he wants and make top 8 or higher with any solid character.

 

[NairWizard]

Pit is "bad" and some of the matchups that Zackray were winning are bad, but there is a niche for Pit and there are some matchups that actually look genuinely good. Pit's extra jump and arrow let him lock down the air against floaty/air-heavy characters -- Umeki's Peach, Yoshidora's Yoshi, and Kameme's Sora are great examples.

Most players just didn't know the matchup though. There are nearly 90 playable characters in this game, and it's impossible to know all the matchups, so you can't blame people for being caught off guard. A big part of Ultimate's balance is just having a huge roster that no one can possibly keep an iron grip of matchup knowledge on.

There was literally a moment where Eim was charging needles while Zackray was up-bing vertically to the lip of the stage. All you have to do is a time a back-air, Pit has no hitbox on his up-b and there's no variance there.
Or how many times did you see Ken's Sephiroth up-air or side-b in a matchup where it's super easy to get both?

But that matchup knowledge aside, zackray's Pit was a work of art.

I'm not sure that it was a lot of neutral fundies that I was seeing -- what I saw was incredibly consistent reaction-based advantage state play. zackray confirmed from almost every aerial in almost every position. He reacted to drift crossups on his shield, he reacted to platform options and covered everything, he reacted to Sephiroth's up-b to ledge and hit it with Pit back-air. Seriously try doing that to Bladedash; it might look easy but it definitely isn't. Bladedash has f25 startup (and maybe 6-7 frames of travel time in this case) and Pit b-air has f10 startup, and you have to position yourself just as Sephiroth gets into position, and realize that he's going to do it horizontally, and space and time the b-air.

In soft-advantage positions, he reacted to every roll out of the corner while continuing to pressure the corner and choosing a defensive option while doing it -- he'd actually spotdodge in the Sephiroth MU and if Ken rolled behind him he'd instant dash attack, and if Ken didn't he'd punish Ken for standing in front of him. That is insane; reacting to roll while also reacting to what your opponent does in front of you is something that not even most top players can do, even with their otherworldly skillsets.

You need incredible reaction time to do half of what zackray was doing, so this kind of Pit is probably not accessible to the average player, but wow was it absolutely beautiful to watch. Stayed up until 3 to watch it.

 

[Rizen]

doesn't have any glaring weaknesses but he lacks significant strengths too. He's well rounded but gets outmatched by characters who are much stronger in certain aspects. The problem is Pit can't force his gameplan on anyone outside of gimping them, which he's good at. It's better to be really good at one thing like Roy than okay at a lot of things. Pit loses to better CQC from swordies with bigger swords, projectiles from better projectile specialists, and lacks the significant damage output or kill power to really be hard for anyone. He's a little undertuned. IMO lower mid tier.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Imo good reaction time comes from being able to predict what's going to happen.

 

[NairWizard]

Imo good reaction time comes from being able to predict what's going to happen.

It's one part physical and one part gameplan.

You determine what you're able to physically react to, and then you keep putting your opponent in situations where you're able to react.

 

[Sucumbio]

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Every character's all time best placement at these supermajors:

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And post covid separate

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[NotLiquid]

The only interesting statistical outlier that stands out to me among that list is Banjo. Characters rising throughout the lists can easily just point to more developed metas, and most of the characters one would expect to have dropped in results during a more developed post-meta environment tracks with the peak results (Ike, Inkling, and Pichu being the clear notables in that regard), but Banjo's drop from 5th to 9th is only a two placement deviation in a supermajor for a character who quickly fell out of favor after his first month in the scene, and is commonly considered low tier.

If I'm seeing right, then I assume that said placement is Raito's 9th place finish at Kagaribi 5 (same tournament where Zackray did a first place finish with Sora), so a little over a year ago. I never saw his sets from that tournament, so I don't know how much he ran that tournament with Duck Hunt as a sub, but if it was mainly Banjo then that's pretty impressive. Doesn't seem like Raito's results have stayed particularly consistent since then sadly.

 

[Hippieslayer]

It's one part physical and one part gameplan.

You determine what you're able to physically react to, and then you keep putting your opponent in situations where you're able to react.

I agree with that. But isn't it also the ability to react immediately when something happens but before you are able to consciously see what that something is by being able to correctly assume what it is. In the case of Zackray's reacting I thought that was what was happening in a lot of situations, but I dunno maybe I'm not seeing it right. What I mean is when you react the moment you detect movement.

 

[NairWizard]

I agree with that. But isn't it also the ability to react immediately when something happens but before you are able to consciously see what that something is by being able to correctly assume what it is. In the case of Zackray's reacting I thought that was what was happening in a lot of situations, but I dunno maybe I'm not seeing it right. What I mean is when you react the moment you detect movement.

Yeah, you've got it right; you don't have time to figure out what's happening and also react to it. You have to know what you're going to react to in advance, and then do it in response to some visual cue (or audio cue -- we can actually react faster to sound than to sight). When I'm reacting to someone rolling behind me I don't have time to figure out if it's a roll or not. I just see their character model moving to the right or left and know that it's a roll because I'm expecting it. You can't fake out rolls too easily, but there are some situations where you can fake your movement so you bait an opponent's reaction.

For example, if you're waiting beneath a platform to up-smash or up-air me on reaction I can drift toward the platform like I'm going to land in position for it and then jump away at the last frame so that your up-smash whiffs.

Don't try to do this on WiFi though; no one really reacts there and you're better off just reading your opponent's option and calling it out rather than baiting out a response.

 

[Aligo]

How does one play on WiFi? For the past couple of years I have only played offline, and when I try online, it feels... Off.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

How come are considered bad?

 

[DougEfresh]

How come are considered bad?

Most top players will partly say because he's over-reliant on wonderwing, but that's not really the case with good players that know how to reserve its uses or even confirm into it from breegull blaster.

Idk that I go so far to say he's low tier, but what holds him back is terrible airspeed (iirc, I think it's 6th worst in the game), has mediocre to bad framedata with low damage output per hit compared to a lot of the cast, bad oos, and a bad initial dash (making it much harder to bait opponents with movement).

His grenade egg is a great tool, but has a timer of about 2.5 seconds, so his mix ups with it are limited compared to other characters with item play like Snake, diddy, ROB, etc. Egg shot is a great lingering hitbox to make their ledge trapping pretty annoying for some characters, but again, takes a while to come our, and while breegull blaster has cool combos and techs, it takes a lot of work to do them consistently beyond a couple shots in uair or nair or BB>Utilt, and it's still abysmal damage overall. He does have some nice disjointed pokes with ftilt, dtilt, and bair though, and fair is pretty strong and good in neutral with decent shield pressure with good spacing.

In short, is (imo) a mid tier that is just a bit undertuned in that he has a lot of "almost" tools that are just short from allowing them to truly shine in a high or top level meta. They either get stuffed out too easily because of the poor airspeed and/or slow start up frames, or whiff-punished too easily because of high cooldown (i.e., wonderwing, usmash) and/or landing lag (nair, bair). These aren't good things to be exploited by in a meta full of high mobility swordies or characters with obscene punish games like .

I sometimes wonder if, without covid causing the world to go online for a year or more, BK may have had a shot at getting the QoL changes or buffs that would make them a reasonably viable character that still needs a secondary for their atrocious matchups, but oh well.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Most top players will partly say because he's over-reliant on wonderwing, but that's not really the case with good players that know how to reserve its uses or even confirm into it from breegull blaster.

Idk that I go so far to say he's low tier, but what holds him back is terrible airspeed (iirc, I think it's 6th worst in the game), has mediocre to bad framedata with low damage output per hit compared to a lot of the cast, bad oos, and a bad initial dash (making it much harder to bait opponents with movement).

His grenade egg is a great tool, but has a timer of about 2.5 seconds, so his mix ups with it are limited compared to other characters with item play like Snake, diddy, ROB, etc. Egg shot is a great lingering hitbox to make their ledge trapping pretty annoying for some characters, but again, takes a while to come our, and while breegull blaster has cool combos and techs, it takes a lot of work to do them consistently beyond a couple shots in uair or nair or BB>Utilt, and it's still abysmal damage overall. He does have some nice disjointed pokes with ftilt, dtilt, and bair though, and fair is pretty strong and good in neutral with decent shield pressure with good spacing.

In short, is (imo) a mid tier that is just a bit undertuned in that he has a lot of "almost" tools that are just short from allowing them to truly shine in a high or top level meta. They either get stuffed out too easily because of the poor airspeed and/or slow start up frames, or whiff-punished too easily because of high cooldown (i.e., wonderwing, usmash) and/or landing lag (nair, bair). These aren't good things to be exploited by in a meta full of high mobility swordies or characters with obscene punish games like .

I sometimes wonder if, without covid causing the world to go online for a year or more, BK may have had a shot at getting the QoL changes or buffs that would make them a reasonably viable character that still needs a secondary for their atrocious matchups, but oh well.

I mean the weaknesses listed here are pretty dang bad. Slow in the air, poor frame data, and poor damage output are all, by itself, extremely indicative of a low tier character, even without counting their other flaws and all of the their listed tools. The fact that BK's tools also come with their own distinct weaknesses, or are weaker than other character's equivalent tools, does not help whatsoever.

BK kind of has the same issue as Gunner where the character is very reliant on keeping opponents in disadvantage to utilize their best attributes, but doesn't have the best means of reliably forcing said situations in most relevant matchups thanks to their weaknesses. At least in Gunner's case, when they do eventually put you in disadvantage, it is one of the most suffocating presences in the entire game to escape from.

Fair is also a bit overrated as while the move has good KO power and a good arc, it is a pretty slow aerial for how much it lacks in range, while it also has considerable amount of landing lag if not autocanceled.

Personally also not quite sure if no quarantine era would incentivize the devs to buff the character more. The character saw low level of play even during that era (where they are definitely at their strongest), but still didn't really get any help. They did eventually give the character buffs at 12.0.0, but they were one of the most pointless set of buffs in the entire game's patch cycle. In the end, some lower tiered characters simply end up more blessed than others when it comes to balance patch attention (Ganondorf says hi!).

 

[NairWizard]

How does one play on WiFi? For the past couple of years I have only played offline, and when I try online, it feels... Off.

Substitute low-endlag drift and jump reads for reactive advantage state.

e.g., you might not be able to punish their neutral getup, but you might be able to up-air their jump off ledge

 

[DougEfresh]

I mean the weaknesses listed here are pretty dang bad. Slow in the air, poor frame data, and poor damage output are all, by itself, extremely indicative of a low tier character, even without counting their other flaws and all of the their listed tools. The fact that BK's tools also come with their own distinct weaknesses, or are weaker than other character's equivalent tools, does not help whatsoever.

BK kind of has the same issue as Gunner where the character is very reliant on keeping opponents in disadvantage to utilize their best attributes, but doesn't have the best means of reliably forcing said situations in most relevant matchups thanks to their weaknesses. At least in Gunner's case, when they do eventually put you in disadvantage, it is one of the most suffocating presences in the entire game to escape from.

Fair is also a bit overrated as while the move has good KO power and a good arc, it is a pretty slow aerial for how much it lacks in range, while it also has considerable amount of landing lag if not autocanceled.

Personally also not quite sure if no quarantine era would incentivize the devs to buff the character more. The character saw low level of play even during that era (where they are definitely at their strongest), but still didn't really get any help. They did eventually give the character buffs at 12.0.0, but they were one of the most pointless set of buffs in the entire game's patch cycle. In the end, some lower tiered characters simply end up more blessed than others when it comes to balance patch attention (Ganondorf says hi!).

Yea, these are fair points and I don't necessarily disagree with them. I was just trying to balance some positives with the (many) negatives heh, even though it's valid to say that fair is a bit overrated, for instance. Totally speculative on my part that no quarantine would've made any differences in other buffs BK would've gotten too, was just a thought that came to mind since they're perceived to be much better online compared to offline (which in some ways, I agree, but to a lesser extent than that claim was/is commonly made with).

 

[Rizen]

I disagree. Banjo's upper mid tier. His poor airspeed is offset with multiple jumps, wonderwing and an upB that doesn't cause free falling. Pair that with his ability to rain down grenade eggs and he actually has a good disadvantage state. He's very hard to gimp. His damage might not be great but it's not bad either. He has strong projectiles to play keep away from CQC specialists. His Dthow buries for kills and he has pretty good disjoints. Yeah, he's not a great character but he's certainly not a low tier.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I disagree. Banjo's upper mid tier. His poor airspeed is offset with multiple jumps, wonderwing and an upB that doesn't cause free falling. Pair that with his ability to rain down grenade eggs and he actually has a good disadvantage state. He's very hard to gimp. His damage might not be great but it's not bad either. He has strong projectiles to play keep away from CQC specialists. His Dthow buries for kills and he has pretty good disjoints. Yeah, he's not a great character but he's certainly not a low tier.

I mean, 75% of the cast have a lot of good things about them and some of those are still low tiers. Low Tiers in Ult aren't completely unviable, DK is a low tier and he has a lot of good things about him, including intangible hitboxes, some of the best advantage state in the game, grab confirms that can kill especially early and his back air being really good.

I'd argue that Banjo is a low tier, but at the top of low tier (or at best, low mid tier). His positive traits are just because Ultimate is a really well balanced game rather then him being a solid character.

 

[Rizen]

I mean, 75% of the cast have a lot of good things about them and some of those are still low tiers. Low Tiers in Ult aren't completely unviable, DK is a low tier and he has a lot of good things about him, including intangible hitboxes, some of the best advantage state in the game, grab confirms that can kill especially early and his back air being really good.

I'd argue that Banjo is a low tier, but at the top of low tier (or at most, low mid). His positive traits are just because Ultimate is a really well balanced game rather then him being a solid character.

Banjo has a lot more going for him than DK though. For one disadvantage state. Banjo probably has a top 20 disadvantage state from things I mentioned earlier where DK is probably bottom 5. DK is huge, a relatively slow faller and has no real tools to escape juggling plus a bad verticle recovery. Banjo has a pretty good projectile game where DK has none. Wonderwing is a good punish tool however not good in neutral but gives Banjo a good advantage state and a dangerous disadvantage state. DK's advantage is good like all super heavies but he lacks tools in neutral and disadvantage that Banjo has. Banjo's a much more rounded character than DK without crippling weaknesses. Banjo's main weakness is that his strengths are fairly average imo. That and he struggles vs sword disjoints.

 

[DougEfresh]

Banjo has a lot more going for him than DK though. For one disadvantage state. Banjo probably has a top 20 disadvantage state from things I mentioned earlier where DK is probably bottom 5. DK is huge, a relatively slow faller and has no real tools to escape juggling plus a bad verticle recovery. Banjo has a pretty good projectile game where DK has none. Wonderwing is a good punish tool however not good in neutral but gives Banjo a good advantage state and a dangerous disadvantage state. DK's advantage is good like all super heavies but he lacks tools in neutral and disadvantage that Banjo has. Banjo's a much more rounded character than DK without crippling weaknesses. Banjo's main weakness is that his strengths are fairly average imo. That and he struggles vs sword disjoints.

Just to add to this: While Banjo certainly lacks vertical chasing ability due to his low jump height, up air is a big disjoint in particular that is good for some short juggles to get opponents to use up resources, and his solid run speed with the Kazooie talon trot makes him better at catching landings than one might think (especially with wise WW usage). If you play him as a patient bait and punish character with more reactive play, he can get neutral resets and some decent tech chases that do add up to some solid damage (even if each sequence isn't all that impressive in terms of damage output individually). Fsmash, while slow-ish at 19f, is great at catching aggressive jump-ins with solid range, basically doesn't have a sweet/sourspot distinction during its active frames, and can even 2 frame (even though there are better moves for this like dtilt, down-angled ftilt, and dsmash).

Anyway, all this is to say that I agree with you. The limitations are certainly there, but there's more thought and creativity that goes into using Banjo well than meets the eye even 3.5 years after his release, and only a handful of characters truly give him a hard time like Palu, Olimar, Falco, and the faster swordies like Roy and Pythra (most other MUs are usually considered even or slight losses/wins). All that makes him mid to upper mid tier imo, as he's not like a Doc Mario, Ganon or Little Mac with an almost entire MU spread of losing MUs.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Comparing Gunner to BK one of the things that stand out is Gunner having a way higher damage output per interaction. Gunners projectiles deal a lot of damage and Gunner has a lot of easy two hit combos that do serviceable damage and come about naturally from their neutral play, not requiring much in terms of risk taking. Gunners normals are pretty good too, u-tilt, u-smash, fair, and nair stand out but the rest of them aren't bad either, they all have uses except for dair which ****ing sucks. If Gunners normals where on a character that wasn't super slow I reckon they'd be considered pretty damn good. Don't think the same can be said for BKs.


Gunner doesn't have a third jump or a burst option like wonderwing and they aren't good, but they feel more rewarding to play. Dunno which is the better character.

Capitancito has been able to push Gunner far. He is great but he does have a tendency to throw away his own stocks via lazy disadvantage play. Like getting hit off stage and dying because he's autopiloting while recovering and throwing out bombs or missiles to cover himself not noticing that his opponent is chasing him down until it's too late. Imo he has the potential to go further if he can work on that.

 

[Sucumbio]

Bayonetta and Sora irritate the **** out of me.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for EON: Revelation

1. Quidd
2. Zomba
3. Yoda Cage
4. GuyGuy
5. Myles
5. Jakal
7. Gatsby
7. Syrup
9. Quandale Dingleingleton
9. Bobo
9. Noku
9. Mr. E
13. Gen
13. WaDi
13. Stocktaker69
13. IcyMist

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Footstool Dair OOS has been discovered for Pyra/Mythra and used in tournament play. Works on most of the cast.

 

[NotLiquid]

Banjo's main problem is just damage output.

Most of his advanced combo strings don't net you a whole lot of percent, meaning he has to win neutral a lot. And unlike a "designed to win neutral" character like Cloud, his neutral is mostly average.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Footstool Dair OOS has been discovered for Pyra/Mythra and used in tournament play.

This is hardly new tech, it's been talked about since 2021. Not sure why the video called it "new tech", clickbait or ignorance? I've gotten some cool stuff off of it, but it's definitely harder to do than Steve footstool > dair. It's probably a bit underused though and I'm not too surprised that many non-Aegis players don't know about it (and even many Aegis mains never go for it).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

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Looks like we're finally getting the "official" tier list done by a combination of top players, just as there was for Brawl and Smash 4

 

[Frihetsanka]

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As usual, take results with a grain of salt. Some thoughts:

Steve remains #1, but ROB is not far behind. Joker is up to #4 now, Aegis down to #7. Mario #9, Cloud #10 are both very interesting. Ken #19 is really interesting as well. Toon Link #29 is interesting, I think he's a bit underrated since his best players are in Japan, but I think he could be an upper mid tier character. Corrin #33, only half a point behind Byleth who is #32. Lucina #49, huh. Pit up to #52, Dr. Mario #53 now, Pikachu #56 (best character in the game confirmed?), Chrom #64, with Roy #8.

Obviously this is very limited data.

 

[Arthur97]

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Looks like we're finally getting the "official" tier list done by a combination of top players, just as there was for Brawl and Smash 4

Err, take that with a lot of salt. Just look at Pikachu's tier placements.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Err, take that with a lot of salt. Just look at Pikachu's tier placements.

Pikachu doesn't seem to be considered as highly now by top players outside of ESAM and ShinyMark, and Japan is overall not favourable towards him. I don't think he'll be that high on the tier list (and by that I mean top 5) but I might be wrong.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I also don't think Pikachu will end up as top 5, but likely top 10. Steve #1 seems like a safe bet. Ganondorf the worst is likely another safe bet. Aegis/Joker in top 5. Sonic, ROB, Roy top 10 (some might be top 5). Palutena top 10.

 

[Arthur97]

Pikachu doesn't seem to be considered as highly now by top players outside of ESAM and ShinyMark, and Japan is overall not favourable towards him. I don't think he'll be that high on the tier list (and by that I mean top 5) but I might be wrong.

No, probably not now, but it used to be despite not that much changing between then and now just maybe that it got harder and harder to justify it.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Thanks for all the response regarding Banjo & Kazooie. The discussion has been really interesting.

Another question I have is if Mewtwo didn’t have a tail hurtbox, would it be a top 20 character?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Thanks for all the response regarding Banjo & Kazooie. The discussion has been really interesting.

Another question I have is if Mewtwo didn’t have a tail hurtbox, would it be a top 20 character?

Depends.

If the hurtbox is reduced to simply the SSB4 version (about halfway through), then it wouldn't really do anything to help its viability.

Being a light, fall, and floaty character are all very undesirable traits to have, making Mewtwo's disadvantage one of the worst in the game. The reason why SSB4 Mewtwo is top tier is because it had an absolutely busted airdodge that heavily mitigates said weaknesses (and it was much lighter in that game!), but now with Ultimate's airdodge system, it completely lost that while also having one of the laggier airdodges in the game due to its floaty nature. This is primary thing that killed Mewtwo's viability in Ultimate in comparison to its SSB4 self, not the tail hurtbox.
SSB4 Mewtwo down tilt spam was also difficult to deal with for quite a lot of characters. Down tilt spam was essentially killed off in Ultimate. While it did receive slightly more endlag (3 frames to be exact), the main thing that killed it is the fact that characters actually can move in Ultimate. The aerial spam nature of some characters certainly does not help.

If it a complete removal of the tail hurtbox, similar to vanilla PM Mewtwo, then that is a completely different story.

Edit:
Actually thinking about it more, complete removal of the hurtbox would still make the prospect of a huge viability increase still iffy. Even without tail hurtbox, its disadvantage is still extremely problematic. It would just turn into an extremely polarizing character imo.

Btw, to reference on the difference between SSB4 and Ultimate tail hurtbox, here is a frame from Ultimate Mewtwo's up tilt.

Spoiler

The only difference between the SSB4 and Ultimate tail hurtbox is that the outermost hurtbox would be removed in SSB4, but the two bigger innermost hurtboxes would still be intact. Removal of outermost hurtbox does give it notably more disjoint, but it is still a lot of hurtbox remaining, so again, I highly doubt removing the tail hurtbox to be like SSB4 would change Mewtwo's viability by any significant degree, especially with its disadvantage in its current state.

 

[L9999]

What happens with Mewtwo is being a large target of glass without much cannon.

Just for comparisons of glass cannon, Fox dies to any decent kill move, but he is so hard to hit because he isn't a giant piñata like Mewtwo, his moves can pressure shield so hard he can spam Bair and Nair and trying to punish them is a commitment that might lead to one's own punishment, rather than being not broken like Mewtwo's.

Pikachu is also made of glass and doesn't have as many OP moves as Fox to keep you on shield, but he is tougher to hit compared to Fox, his combo strings can leave a character in compromising positions, and he has a broken Up B, at the cost of weird hurtbox shenanigans it combines the versatility of Fox's Fire Fox angles, and the get out jail nature of Palutena's or even Mewtwo's Warp, on top of dealing damage. Of course the obvious, Pikachu isn't a giant piñata.

Mr. Game and Watch is also glass like Mewtwo but he is not a giant piñata, unlike Pikachu and Fox he doesn't have anything that is that good at pressuring shields or in neutral, but he makes up for it with a silly get out jail card in Up B and having a sick juggling game with Uair, and his Smash attacks being deceptive in how safe they are.

Other glass cannons Jiggs and Pichu. Both are much smaller than Mewtwo, but both are so light many rage moves kill them, and they don't have much that is remarkably broken to make up for being made of thin glass. Rosalina is big, floaty, and light, Luma is strong enough to make the character not a total potato.

Mewtwo has some of that charge shot pressure Samus has but the difference is that Samus is heavy, and doesn't have a large ass tail that says "hit me for free." The most you can say about Mewtwo in relation to his competition is that he has a moveset and mobility, unlike Zelda who has the same flaws of being big and light but has no moveset or mobility.

On the subject of big characters R.O.B stands out as the largest, everything and everyone has a combo string on R.O.B. But he has a broken DTilt, a broken Side Special, a good DThrow, a good Uair, a good Nair, a good Fair, and Gyro as a great control tool, on top of being so heavy it sometimes is hard to kill him. You can't just say "lmao, big character, he sucks ass." He has tools that are scary to good characters.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Zackray does it again

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[Sinister Slush]

Even though the discussion was almost a week ago and I tend to be pessimistic towards characters I've played over the years. Personally I feel like Banjo is a solid mid tier and could potentially almost scrape himself to top of mid tier with time. Truly unfortunate 2 years of this games lifespan was deleted but most of 2022 showed the rise of some characters and slowly that became the duo for a handful of mains that stuck around.

I can't recall the rankings they showed up in cause there's so many of them around on twitter lately after PG shot themselves in the foot basically so everyone is scrambling to take the spot of top dogs in stats and PR making, but I believe it was Orionranks maybe doing NA EU and JP lists. Anyways 3 Banjo's managed to get into top 50/100s in Wolfen OwlsBB and Toriguri. While it's not an exorbitant amount of players like obvious top tiers or even high tiers like Samus something was definitely figured out with the character to show up compared to other low or mid tiers.


Think Banjo-Kazooie's real problems is honestly kill options at times cause their chase potential vertically is pretty poor with almost Little mac levels of DJ distance and of course as mentioned damage output which means breaking hands for 40%+ if you can do KFC combos and needing to do that 2 to 3 times to get a stock off someone. Meanwhile top tiers, an egregious example of course like kazuya, does 16-25%+ on singular moves that're aerials and not even smashes.
Grenade/projectiles in general, normals, range, frame data is all average or even pretty amazing (projectiles especially) and they even sport a decent weight but their damage output for a couple of their moves is absolutely laughable. You'd basically need to land raw hits like Fair or smashes to get huge amounts of damage or be incredibly good at landing neutral B KFC shenanigans to get it converted into Utilts Wonderwings or Fsmash. I don't think a lot of people know Kazooie's disjoints is sword levels of range while also a few of the Kazooie related moves don't even have a hurtbox so the disjoints will always win.
While it's nothing to be scared of, Uair chains to keep people in the air and tack on small amounts of 8% constantly is a good example, Bair is good for neutral and has big enough range to scoop people into it accidentally, then Ftilt is pretty damn fast and has moderate range for a poke tool.

One thing brought up of the two being slow in the air isn't that much of an issue when they can ignore disadvantage almost entirely while offstage cause of Wonderwing to ledge that can't be stopped by anything except Sora DownB, grenade stall tactic to reach top blastzone to recover if needed over going to ledge and just landing onstage, two double jumps to psyche out recovery or even landing options along with upb not putting you in freefall and preserving DJ if you didn't use any so even more tricky to catch him from landing similarly to kazuya upb and DJ looking somewhat the same and catching people offguard. Even moreso mobility in the air not an issue when he has runspeed that's I think almost top 10 in the game.
Tradeoff of not that great aerial acceleration/speed in favor of invincible get out of jail free card Side-B at least 5 times a stock if needed somehow realistically infinite recovery if you can do grenegg stall which isn't too hard to get down after awhile (tearbear was timing people out with this regularly when he was playing on a semi consistent basis)


People definitely underestimate the versatility of grenegg even if it has a short lifespan along with the annoyance and gimp potential of regular Neutral B or dtilt.
Will also bring up while the buffs they kept getting in patches was pretty booboo like global ledge getups or regular getups onstage a handful of random characters kept getting, the last set of changes like Bair having angles changed around actually helped killing offstage horizontally 10+% earlier I believe it was and with 2 DJ it's unironically a blessing in disguise for us to go deep offstage and not be accidentally saving them with the old angle sending them more up. Fsmash killing much earlier is a welcomed buff as well cause I've seen plenty of matches with uncharged rage around 60-80% area Fsmash killing opponents sub 50% near ledge due to said buffs.

The two are a completely average, maybe even barely above average, character that could've maybe done with a good chunk of moves getting even 1-4% more damage buffs along with less lag on WW and Usmash hits connecting better would be good ways to help them out tbh. Being on platforms and hitting Usmash only for the last few hits to miss entirely doesn't feel good, outside of Utilt off egg or dthrow his uair and Usmash is basically out of the question for 90% of the games to be considered putting them in lethal range. Most likely your kills are gonna be off egg setups (blue eggs and grenegg) Utilt, Bair offstage, or rogue smashes/WW to seal the deal on stocks.

I didn't directly reply to a handful of people that I could've and I most likely parroted some points others have made but I just felt like chiming in on Banjo Kazooie for once over Yoshi.

 

[Sucumbio]

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Not entirely sure what I think, honestly.