Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Kokiden]

This win is only about acola and acola's skill. It has nothing to do with Steve.

Please try to disassociate results from the characters. acola won today because he was the best player at the venue, and he's been winning the most in general because he's the best player in the world, and that's really the only conclusion you can come to.

Tweek only had to take one game, one stock, of smash to win this entire tournament. A character difference didn't cause that one stock loss. acola caused that one-stock loss.

I think that's a bit far fetched come on. Both player and character is important.

I am separating Steve being a very badly balanced and designed character from Acola's win, meaning I am ONLY talking about the character here.

He is not balanced properly at all, and I would be shocked if anyone here would actually disagree and think he IS balanced perfectly.

 

[Idon]

This win is only about acola and acola's skill. It has nothing to do with Steve.

Please try to disassociate results from the characters. acola won today because he was the best player at the venue, and he's been winning the most in general because he's the best player in the world, and that's really the only conclusion you can come to.

Tweek only had to take one game, one stock, of smash to win this entire tournament. A character difference didn't cause that one stock loss. acola caused that one-stock loss.

He won because he's the best player at using the best character in the game.

You literally cannot divorce a player and the character, they are the tools in which the player is allowed to DO the things that they do. It's deflecting of the highest order to look at the bull**** Steve pulls on a regular basis PER game and then say "Nah, it's just the player that let Steve do that."

 

[Rizen]

The problem with isn't that his character design is bad, it has it's strengths and weaknesses, but rather that he's grossly overtuned. He gets %50+ off spammable moves like Utilt and jab, then Usmash and anvil kill at 100% with minekart killing soon after. Not to mention diamond weapons. The devs assumed that Steve's overpowered moves would be balanced by the element that he must collect resources to use them but that's also extremely easy for Steve to do. He can create a wall of blocks and mine under a platform for well enough time. A very easy fix for Steve would be to nerf Usmash, make it take 1.5 times as long to mine each material, and remove the hitstun canceling glitch. Unfortunately it doesn't look like that will happen. Should we ban Steve? IDK, it really depends on how much of an issue the glitch is in the future.

 

[NairWizard]

He won because he's the best player at using the best character in the game.

You literally cannot divorce a player and the character, they are the tools in which the player is allowed to DO the things that they do. It's deflecting of the highest order to look at the bull**** Steve pulls on a regular basis PER game and then say "Nah, it's just the player that let Steve do that."

Tweek had plenty of tools to win that match, and didn't. Leo had plenty of tools to win his match with acola too, and didn't. Proto has two characters with the tools to beat Steve, and didn't. sparg0 can beat acola any day of the week with his toolkit and didn't because he didn't even make it to acola. It's not because of Steve that those players failed to use their tools. Sephiroth kept Steve in disadvantage sometimes for 30-40 seconds at a time in this set; without exceptional disadvantage decision-making and parries, acola would have lost. With slightly better advantage conditioning, Tweek would have won.

There was nothing in that last set that made Steve-Sephiroth seem like it was Steve-favored to me.

I'm sure there are arguments to be made for Steve being overtuned, but you can't blame Steve if the players playing Steve's harder matchups don't show up and outplay acola.

 

[Garo]

What is this imaginary threshold for "proper" and "perfect" balance that only Steve seems to step over?

 

[Kokiden]

I have no idea what the smash team was thinking when they decided to cut support and patches that soon after the last DLC character dropped.

That is the most baffling thing to me about this game.

I'd even go so far as to say that they have done a very strange job with balancing overall when it comes to FP2. Most likely due to covid, but even then, just keep balancing the game even after Sora dropped?

To think that Steve just remaining that broken ass, overtuned way, for basically the entire lifetime of the game now, which is many more years to come since this is Nintendo we're talking about, just further kills any remaining enthusiasm I have for this game.

Just balance him properly. That's it, but even now it's too late.

What a depressing meta period this game is in right now. At least I got SF6 to move onto but man... it really bums me out seeing the game in the state it's in now because I really do love Smash. It's why I stuck around for so long.

I'm sure there are arguments to be made for Steve being overtuned

That is exactly what we are talking about now?

You can't just attribute ALL success to only the player, like you did earlier, and completely leave out the character.

That's just the flip side of the coin for someone thinking a player is 100% carried by their character (which no one in summit was)

Acola won because he's a darn good player, but let's not pretend and say Steve didn't help him with the MANY tools and positives that comes with playing the character.

It looks just as bad saying someone won with pure skill with no contribution by their character, as it is to say they were purely carried by their character, because that's just outright denial either way.

What is this imaginary threshold for "proper" and "perfect" balance that only Steve seems to step over?

Do you think Steve is fine as is?

Maybe I used the wrong words, but if you're trying to tell me that Steve is balanced in a way that makes him proportionate to fight against given his weight, tools, frame data, combo game, etc, then I don't think we can continue talking because that's just someone denying how overtuned he is.

 

[superjm]

Do you think Steve is fine as is?

Maybe I used the wrong words, but if you're trying to tell me that Steve is balanced in a way that makes him proportionate to fight against given his weight, tools, frame data, combo game, etc, then I don't think we can continue talking because that's just someone denying how overtuned he is.

There are a ton of characters and tools that need to be toned down to reach this platonic ideal of "perfectly balanced" that people keep talking about, but that's not something we ever could have realistically expected, and even if Nintendo tried it's not like they'd be able to accumulate enough data in the mere 5ish years of this game's existence in order to do so. Frankly, I still think Aegis is more busted than Steve in many respects but even if I concede the idea that Steve is uniquely overtuned, all I can say is: so what? The best characters are the best and that's how it's always been, players just gotta grin and bear it and deal with it, just like they dealt with Brawl MK and currently deal with Melee Fox.

 

[Idon]

Tweek had plenty of tools to win that match, and didn't. Leo had plenty of tools to win his match with acola too, and didn't. Proto has two characters with the tools to beat Steve, and didn't. sparg0 can beat acola any day of the week with his toolkit and didn't because he didn't even make it to acola. It's not because of Steve that those players failed to use their tools. Sephiroth kept Steve in disadvantage sometimes for 30-40 seconds at a time in this set; without exceptional disadvantage decision-making and parries, acola would have lost. With slightly better advantage conditioning, Tweek would have won.

There was nothing in that last set that made Steve-Sephiroth seem like it was Steve-favored to me.

I'm sure there are arguments to be made for Steve being overtuned, but you can't blame Steve if the players playing Steve's harder matchups don't show up and outplay acola.

It is the disparity of the tools that is the issue. In some sort of hypothetical bizarro-world Skyjay, god player of the world would guess right on every single command grab and take the tournament sweeping everyone and absolutely no one would complain because everyone knows Incineroar is just a worse character. Acola had plenty of parries and spot-dodges but those are used in tandem with Steve's other broken ass offensive and defensive bag of tricks. This is why that "Wow, so crazy that he could've also won with Chrom" copypasta exists, because it's obviously untrue at its face value.

And if you don't see what about Steve's performance tonight wasn't bull**** you're wearing blinders. The situations that Steve uniquely puts anyone in are disgusting and unpredictable with little, if any, risk.

 

[Kokiden]

There are a ton of characters and tools that need to be toned down to reach this platonic ideal of "perfectly balanced" that people keep talking about, but that's not something we ever could have realistically expected, and even if Nintendo tried it's not like they'd be able to accumulate enough data in the mere 5ish years of this game's existence in order to do so. Frankly, I still think Aegis is more busted than Steve in many respects but even if I concede the idea that Steve is uniquely overtuned, all I can say is: so what? The best characters are the best and that's how it's always been, players just gotta grin and bear it and deal with it, just like they dealt with Brawl MK and currently deal with Melee Fox.

Brawl and Melee didn't have balance patches back then, whereas Ultimate was released in a time where balancing a game even after it's initial release is still possible, so I don't think that's a good comparison sorry to say, although I do get what you're saying.

Because there really is nothing to do but grin and bear it. It's just frustrating that Nintendo abandoned the game so early, because if they actually cared, we shouldn't have to when it is a fixable issue.

I don't think there's a "perfect" way to balance, but whatever Steve is? That is nowhere near the level of how the rest of the cast is.

Like I said before, it's just coming from a place of pure frustration and disappointment because I love Smash, I really do, but seeing the **** Steve can do, and other characters maxing out their capabilities against him and still not being anywhere close to catching up to him, is just disappointing to watch.

To me, he is the worst thing to come in Smash Ultimate. I never wanted him in the game even before he got announced so this just makes it even more depressing he's also killing the game for me too.

They did a terrible job balancing him, that's all I can say to this.

 

[Rizen]

Frankly, I still think Aegis is more busted than Steve in many respects but even if I concede the idea that Steve is uniquely overtuned, all I can say is: so what? The best characters are the best and that's how it's always been, players just gotta grin and bear it and deal with it, just like they dealt with Brawl MK and currently deal with Melee Fox.

I thought Aegis were more busted than Steve at first but for a while Steve's been out-preforming them. I admit Steves the best character but I do think Aegis are a close second.

 

[StoicPhantom]

Kurama: Regularly ladders from low percents with Super (safe) Jump Man

Big D: 2v1s opponents with Vortex and Down Tilt of Doom

Tweek: completes a Winners run to place at Grand Finals with Triple Jump Man and Banana Spamma

(Japanese character)cola: completes a Losers run and wins the tournament by beating all the aforementioned players with a Loony Toon

(Japanese character)cola: places first

Tweek: places second

Big D: places third

Kurama: places fourth

???

ZOMG STEVE SO BROKEN!!!1!



They are all complete horse****.

 

[Kokiden]

Kurama: Regularly ladders from low percents with Super (safe) Jump Man

Big D: 2v1s opponents with Vortex and Down Tilt of Doom

Tweek: completes a Winners run to place at Grand Finals with Triple Jump Man and Banana Spamma

(Japanese character)cola: completes a Losers run and wins the tournament by beating all the aforementioned players with a Loony Toon

(Japanese character)cola: places first

Tweek: places second

Big D: places third

Kurama: places fourth

???

ZOMG STEVE SO BROKEN!!!1!



They are all complete horse****.

I guess you haven't seen the multitude of players who pick Steve up and, out of nowhere, did really well in tournaments.

Even Jake himself, who played Steve, had no issues with admitting in one of Hbox's streams, that he played the character because it was easy to win with him. Yonni himself also thinks he's overtuned and plays him because he enjoys the character, but also think it's funny that he's broken.

If people who play the character have no issue admitting that he is overtuned in balance, why are others so quick to deny it?

No hate to the players at all btw. People play to win. It's a game.

It's the character I entirely have an issue with.

If you think your post does anything to discount those who have actual issues with how Steve plays in this game, it honestly just makes you look ridiculous.

There is a distinction between really good players doing wild **** with their mains, and a really good player doing broken dumb **** with theirs when it shouldn't be a thing in the first place, or should have been heavily fine tuned before the character got released.

 

[NairWizard]

And if you don't see what about Steve's performance tonight wasn't bull**** you're wearing blinders. The situations that Steve uniquely puts anyone in are disgusting and unpredictable with little, if any, risk.

What were you seeing that has you concerned? Perhaps if you walk me through it, I can show you why I think it's not so bad.

As for me, no, I don't see it. I don't see the disparity of the tools, either. I saw some inklings of it with Onin's win at smash con, but tonight, a full season later with counterplay developed, I saw nothing related to the character and everything related to the player.

I saw acola take plenty of risk to even get in on Sephiroth and Byleth and I saw him forced to roll in situations where he could have died without a strong read on his opponent. I saw him completely unable to avoid Sephiroth high up-air in a way that is completely unique to Steve, and counterplay it with creative block placement in lieu of aerial drift, and I also saw him bait Proto in a way that no one else at this tourney was able to do, even Tweek (Proto's only other loss all weekend). All of this impressed me.

4 other top 10 players were playing characters that have winning options vs. Steve, and two of them showed it. I didn't see Steve dominate this Summit. I saw a player rise slightly above his competition.

 

[StoicPhantom]

I guess you haven't seen the multitude of players who pick Steve up and, out of nowhere, did really well in tournaments.

Most of top level Ultimate is full of little kids mashing in their first fighting game and players who never did anything noteworthy in other games. That's not unique to Steve because Ultimate isn't exactly a deep game with a high skill floor.

There is a distinction between really good players doing wild ** with their mains, and a really good player doing broken dumb ** with theirs when it shouldn't be a thing in the first place, or should have been heavily fine tuned before the character got released.

It's a distinction that lives entirely in your head because most characters on display had some aspect about them that could solo like 80% of the cast. All of the players who placed top 8 were sporting characters that do massive damage and can KO early. All the players who played characters that could be considered more reasonably balanced were literally at the bottom.

Remember that time when Min-Min was destroying entire stocks solely through edgeguards and ledgetraps?

Remember that time when Sephiroth literally stabbed Steve's block wall to boost himself over?

Remember all the times Mario mashed super safe Up-airs to do 80% ladder KOs?

Remember when Ice Climbers could play neutral almost solely through spamming Squall Hammer?

Remember when Wario won games he was guaranteed to lose because he had an instant KO move that could be comboed from safe aerials?

Remember when Snake ran around and blew up literally everything completely free because his opponent is forced to play around him?

Remember when Incineroar did literally anything?

That isn't good players doing wild **** with their mains, that's just horribly unbalanced character design that people like yourself give free pass to. And we haven't even gotten to Peach and her Float and RNG shenanigans.

Almost every character you see in top 32 at a major obsoletes most of the cast. The idea that Ultimate is so balanced that any character could win if only Steve and Kazuya didn't exist is a complete myth. Trying to single out one character in a league of horse**** that had to make a losers run because they couldn't win all of their games like Tweek is completely silly. All going down that road is going to lead to is あcola picking up Rob or whoever and proceeding to embarrass everyone who entertained the idea that he was carried.

 

[superjm]

Acola's defense against Tweek was downright insane. He was escaping from dire disadvantage situations that should not have been possible to escape without playing 12D chess, tons of situations where other Steve players would just unceremoniously die. This dude spotdodge'd sweetspot down smash multiple times and converted those into reversals that gave him much needed initiative. Who even does that? That's not Steve jank at work, that's Tweek getting better player'd multiple times.

I'm sympathetic to complaints about Steve's BS, because there is plenty to complain about, but let me also remind you that Tweek won game 1 of set 1 on a down throw bair at the ledge that killed at 45% because wing is stupid. Nearly every character has stupid nonsense like this, that's just the cost of doing business.

 

[Kokiden]

Most of top level Ultimate is full of little kids mashing in their first fighting game and players who never did anything noteworthy in other games. That's not unique to Steve because Ultimate isn't exactly a deep game with a high skill floor.


It's a distinction that lives entirely in your head because most characters on display had some aspect about them that could solo like 80% of the cast. All of the players who placed top 8 were sporting characters that do massive damage and can KO early. All the players who played characters that could be considered more reasonably balanced were literally at the bottom.

Remember that time when Min-Min was destroying entire stocks solely through edgeguards and ledgetraps?

Remember that time when Sephiroth literally stabbed Steve's block wall to boost himself over?

Remember all the times Mario mashed super safe Up-airs to do 80% ladder KOs?

Remember when Ice Climbers could play neutral almost solely through spamming Squall Hammer?

Remember when Wario won games he was guaranteed to lose because he had an instant KO move that could be comboed from safe aerials?

Remember when Snake ran around and blew up literally everything completely free because his opponent is forced to play around him?

Remember when Incineroar did literally anything?

That isn't good players doing wild **** with their mains, that's just horribly unbalanced character design that people like yourself give free pass to. And we haven't even gotten to Peach and her Float and RNG shenanigans.

Almost every character you see in top 32 at a major obsoletes most of the cast. The idea that Ultimate is so balanced that any character could win if only Steve and Kazuya didn't exist is a complete myth. Trying to single out one character in a league of horse**** that had to make a losers run because they couldn't win all of their games like Tweek is completely silly. All going down that road is going to lead to is あcola picking up Rob or whoever and proceeding to embarrass everyone who entertained the idea that he was carried.

Steve, out of all the characters on the roster, has had more people win tournaments with who came out of nowhere.

Some out of the blue, who never saw success before, like Yonni and Onin.

Kinda regret using the term perfect balance earlier, but all the characters you referenced are nowhere near the level of overtuned as Steve is.

You can argue that a lot of characters have dumb **** to them, because they do.

But to the extent, that Steve has? To his degree? With all the tools he has? With how dumb his frame data is? And his weight? His fair coming out that fast, and strong, with a killer knock back?

That there is absolute horse ****.

If you want to sit there and tell me that Steve is perfectly fine as is, and is NOT overtuned at all... then you're just blinded by favouritism.

I'm sympathetic to complaints about Steve's BS, because there is plenty to complain about, but let me also remind you that Tweek won game 1 of set 1 on a down throw bair at the ledge that killed at 45% because wing is stupid. Nearly every character has stupid nonsense like this, that's just the cost of doing business.

Basically this poster gets it at least.

Thanks for at least acknowledging why people hate him, while also being balanced about it by saying a lot of characters have stuff like that too, because they do.

Yes, nearly every character has stupid ****, that's just how this game is, but what I'm talking about is the degree and consistency of it. None to the extent of Steve at least. It is literally all laid out there for you to see in the vods.

I honestly can't believe that some people out there actually think there is absolutely nothing wrong with Steve, and that is what I take issue with (speaking generally with my last 2 sentences there superjm, not directed at you)

 

[NairWizard]

I keep hearing the sentiment that I’m blind to Steve’s clear brokenness, but can someone actually walk me through a VOD (and preferably don’t cherry-pick a particularly bad MU) and show me what they believe doesn’t have counterplay or has too little risk associated with it?

It’s a lot easier to be sympathetic to the anti-Steve arguments if the anti-Steve folks actually take the time to show everyone else what we are so evidently silly for overlooking.

Starter: don’t just say anvil and minecart or list qualities in a vacuum.

 

[KirbySquad101]

After losing to Big D early, this was Acola's losers run:

• 3-0 MKLeo
• 3-0 Glutonny
• 3-2 ProtoBanham
• 3-1 Kurama
• 3-0 Big D
• 3-2 Tweek
• 3-1 Tweek

Ngl, I don't know how anyone is going to beat this kid if he continues to play the way he did during Summit. Those spotdodges and parries against Tweek were some of the best anti-swordie counterplay I've seen from anyone in a long time.

 

[Hippieslayer]

He won because he's the best player at using the best character in the game.

You literally cannot divorce a player and the character, they are the tools in which the player is allowed to DO the things that they do. It's deflecting of the highest order to look at the bull**** Steve pulls on a regular basis PER game and then say "Nah, it's just the player that let Steve do that."

Come on dude character matters too and you know it. Acola may still be the best player but he's playing an overtuned character.

You are usually very reasonable. I don't get why you are so categorical about this. Maybe my reading comprehension is faulty and I'm misunderstanding you.

I think you are categorica about this because you have an agenda against anti Steve people and that's understandable. I'm kind of anti Steve but I have to admit that us anti stevers and most of our arguments don't hold up to scrutiny.

There is counterplay to Steve. The main issue is not that there's nothing you can do against him. The issue is that several of his moves do too much damage and have too much knockback. Diamond moves are one example of this. Down Air is another. And there are more but I don't want to bring up any more right now because I don't have time to look at data.

These overtuned moved in combination with his punish game letting him get opponents to kill percents in one interaction is what is the issue.

 

[Sucumbio]

After losing to Big D early, this was Acola's losers run:

• 3-0 MKLeo
• 3-0 Glutonny
• 3-2 ProtoBanham
• 3-1 Kurama
• 3-0 Big D
• 3-2 Tweek
• 3-1 Tweek

Ngl, I don't know how anyone is going to beat this kid if he continues to play the way he did during Summit. Those spotdodges and parries against Tweek were some of the best anti-swordie counterplay I've seen from anyone in a long time.

Yeah it's actually telling that only banham and twerk could take him to game 5. Kid's just on another level right now. We talk about consistency in results and it's clear acola wins this category. Even with the absence of Light I don't see this tournament ending much different.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I haven't really played much Smash in a while, so I couldn't really say if he's banworthy or not.

But as an outsider looking in, I can't help but look back at all the calls to ban Snake and Olimar and wonder if this is a boy who cried situation.

It's hard to take cries for bans seriously when Reddit and Twitter has been full of them since before the game even dropped.

Edit: Also I know this isn't relevant now but it's funny how it was always "nerf Pika" but "ban Olimar/Snake" despite everyone seeming to think the rat was more broken.

Most of top level Ultimate is full of little kids mashing in their first fighting game and players who never did anything noteworthy in other games. That's not unique to Steve because Ultimate isn't exactly a deep game with a high skill floor.

Let's see how far you make it in the next major before you talk smack about kids who are probably much better at the vidya game then you.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I haven't really played much Smash in a while, so I couldn't really say if he's banworthy or not.

But as an outsider looking in, I can't help but look back at all the calls to ban Snake and Olimar and wonder if this is a boy who cried situation.

It's hard to take cries for bans seriously when Reddit and Twitter has been full of them since before the game even dropped.

I think really any comparison to those instances is a false equivalency. The ban Steve argument is not only a lot stronger than any of those arguments were, but it is much more widespread. Id compare the Ban Steve argument now to the Ban Bayo or Cloud in 4 or Ban Meta Knight in Brawl arguments.

Even if I think it is too soon to ban Steve, I think by the summer the bottom will fall out and most of the NA community will have at least local level Steve bans. The primary goal of local TOs is not to uphold some ideal of balance: it is to keep their local alive and healthy. Even if Steve is not banworthy, even if PMLG is not widespread yet, these TOs will have to look at Steve and ask a few questions. Is Steve helping or hurting our usual membership? Does it affect potential stream views? Would banning Steve have a net positive or negative impact on our scene?

A good chunk of these TOs probably are thinking back to Smash 4 or Brawl. They know the impact that community discontent could have. If they think it will be best for their scene, they will ban him. They might say that PMLG bans are too hard to enforce especially in a high stakes environment. It's a hard to notice tech that would be very dangerous to the game if optimized.

We can sit here and debate whether the threshold for a ban is met right now for Steve, but it doesn't really matter. Personally, if you divorce PMLG from the situation and we can in theory enforce a hard tech ban, I would say he's fine. No other Steve besides &cola is even close to that level of dominance. Sure, there are other great Steves like Onin, but none come close to &cola. The results for Steve are just pretty solid, like you would expect for a top 5 or top 1 character. Even if I think Steve is fine, I can recognize which way the winds are sailing. Popular discontent is against Steve. TOs have a clear motivation to act on this if discontent stays high.

I think Steve bans will trickle out throughout the next few months, then sometime this summer the bottom will fall out.

 

[L9999]

I'm impressed how much online whining can affect the balance decisions, but I think the bigger problem with this Steve thing is that the Smash team has no consistency when it comes to their balance standards, which in all fairness it's hard to do in a game with 80 damn characters.

We can take the bait and say Smash has had its broken characters and they just dealt with it, as brought up earlier . Those are special cases that should be evaluated in their proper context. Melee was rushed, a miracle the game is even playable, but if it was rushed it is obvious the balance isn't gonna be the best, Fox doesn't have a bad attack in his kit while Game and Watch and Roy are unfinished. Why do people "deal with it?" Because the game is a sacred cow, their players would rather eat a rotten skunk than let Melee die.

For Brawl the Subspace Emissary was a huge venture that left the crew understaffed and spread out, and Sakurai was firm on his belief to make the game "casual," it was obvious the balance was gonna be bad, and the game was dead on arrival. Whether MK was banned or they "dealt with it," the degenerate trio of ICs, Diddy, and Olimar would remain, MK kept the degeneracy in control at the expense of the rest of the game, but here is where standards come in, when do you draw the line? You ban MK, do you ban the degenerate trio too? And you can keep going until you ban all the game.

Smash 4 also went on a venture by wasting precious dev time on custom moves, but this time whining on the Internet could deal with the problem, anybody here remember the Hoo-hah? Yeah, people like to blame Bayo and Cloud for killing Smash 4 but it was dead on arrival. If there were no patches you would get into the same situation as Melee and Brawl. Do you "deal with it" or do you ban Diddy? If you ban Diddy what's stopping you from banning the blonde trio too? Or maybe those four seem so broken because almost every other character is trash, just like Brawl and Melee? It is the latter, even after Diddy and the blonde trio got butchered in patches they still were much better than the rest, the only thing Bayo and Cloud did was cement the idea all the other characters sucked. And Smash 4 actually banned a character purely based on powerlevel, Mii Brawler, but lmao, it's Miis, who cares right?

So those three games are absolute disasters due to a lot of wasted time or lack of time, Ultimate supposedly represents their ideal balance given they have time and staff. Well, here comes what I would call the "design & balance" powercreep," which started in Smash 4 because of the presence of DLC and hype baiting trailers.

So, we have Marth, he is the sword guy. Well, I want to have a sword guy with a bigger sword, Shulk. But I want a sword guy with longer range than Shulk, so I'm gonna make Corrin whose FSmash outranges him and he also has better frame data in everything. But Corrin is too boring for me as a range guy, so I'm gonna make the Belmonts, but they have too much range, so I'll make them bad at EVERYTHING to compensate. Awful movement, awful hitboxes, awful recovery, yes, the perfect formula for a range guy. But now I want to make another range guy who has better range than the Trashmonts. Min Min baby, better range and better hitboxes, range so big her arms are better projectiles than the cross.

It is a complex evolution of standards in a system in which to keep the consumers eating you have to make the new guy more appealing than the last one. Coming from Marth we also got the evolution of counters. The DLC trailers got so ridiculous because they tried to hype counters by saying they are counters AND reflectors, but if everyone has that then it's nothing special.

And on the subject of Marth the swordies evolved beyond what little standards where at the start. Cloud's uber Uair and Dair in Smash 4 were Shulk's Uair and Dair if they weren't total trash, and he broke the sacred tradition of no projectiles on swordies that aren't Link (at least that's what people say because Mii Swordfighter broke the law first, but nobody cares about him). While Belmonts and Min Min went "too far" into the range guy idea they worked on the swordie idea, Corrin is too boring for their taste so they'll make Byleth, who has bigger and betterer range, complete with a broken Nair. But then Byleth is too boring, so we make Sephiroth, whose sword is huge and better. But then Sephiroth is too boring, so we make Aegis, some Frankestein monster made of Joker, Lucina, and Ike, with some Bayonetta Bat Within sprinkled in.

With Cloud himself it seems he got too boring for their tastes, so they made Joker, with a bigger and betterer limit (that they nerfed). Then Joker was too boring so they made Terry. THEN Terry was too boring, Sephiroth has a limit too. THEN Sephiroth is too boring, so Kazuya Mishima has a limit too for no reason whatsoever. Everybody got a limit! If Zelda was a DLC I guarantee you that she would have a limit break that would be even betterer than Kazuya Mishima's, and she would have a reflector that was also a counter. So does the Smash team care about balance? Yes and no, if their standards about bad recoveries, frame data, range, and so on were consistent we wouldn't have the wacky DLCs, but if they were lameasses like Banjo nobody would buy them, and if the base characters weren't brought up to the new standards through patches is because A) it is a monumental task B) they don't care.

I find it amusing how people complain about how bad Sheik is compared to Steve when people whining on the Internet are partially responsible for getting her butchered into the empty shell she is today, she got nerfed in every Smash 4 patch. And Bayonetta, some people said they felt bad because how much she sucked, who were the ones who boo'd when MK Leo did a ladder combo on Plup? In Smash Ultimate whining and kneejerk reactions are what killed many characters. Pichu barely had any consistency yet he got butchered into a dysfunctional mess, Ike got nerfed even though he sucks, just because of how overrated he was, Olimar like Pichu was butchered, his meta is almost dead, ZSS also got butchered. Peach, Palutena, Wario, Wolf, Pokemon Trainer, all of them got nerfed too. When people complain about Steve and Kazuya and say they miss the "glory days of early Smash Ultimate" I feel like reminding them of who was the one whining about how broken Palutena was, or how broken Pichu was, or how much they hated Olimar, and how "MK Leo was carried by Joker."

In some way this community deserves Steve and Kazuya, for how whiny they are about any character being good, whether they are truly broken or not, and to show through obvious example that good characters have priviledges over bad characters.

 

[Aligo]

That... is a fundamentally bad faith argument, especially since it would further indict the Steve playerbase as they deliberately hid bugs and tech until the last patch to avoid nerfs. There is viable 'ammution' for both sides of the argument, and that line of thinking will just cause heightened issues.

Wishing and inflicting pain on others in response to inconveniences, perceived or real, has been a bane to society both in the past and now. Cycle of hatred and all that. We should want a Steve that is fun to play against and watch, as well as being balanced, not punish mains of the character. The same goes the other way too, if Steve continues to impact online (has already been a big issue) and the local level then he has to go for the sake of literally everyone else playing the game.

 

[NairWizard]

Come on dude character matters too and you know it. Acola may still be the best player but he's playing an overtuned character.

You are usually very reasonable. I don't get why you are so categorical about this. Maybe my reading comprehension is faulty and I'm misunderstanding you.

I think you are categorica about this because you have an agenda against anti Steve people and that's understandable. I'm kind of anti Steve but I have to admit that us anti stevers and most of our arguments don't hold up to scrutiny.

Did you mean to tag me instead of Idon?

I have no anti-anti-Steve agenda, but I'm often somewhat frustrated reading responses on forums like here and on reddit because it's so clear that so few people look at the gameplay; most just respond to the results and use those results to confirm what they already believe without a shred of nuance.

I'm watching Tweek's Sephiroth come in with innovations that should destroy Steve and seeing acola develop live counterplay to these innovations enough to overturn the matchup within a 5-game set. That level of adaptation cannot be attributed to Steve no matter how deep his bag of tricks, yet here we are with so many on different forums having a ban Steve discussion in light of these results.

Some people will use any data point that supports their view regardless of the context of that data point. Leo won a tournament over acola? It's just because he's Leo. But acola won a tournament? See, I told you, Steve is broken!

Even with a less controversial character like Incineroar it's the same. Incineroar does well -- well, Skyjay is just that good! Incineroar does poorly -- poor Incineroar, he's such a bad character!

I want to see hard analysis, not "yeah we need to ban Steve what I'm seeing is so bad, you aren't seeing it bro? Come on, you must be blind!" Just an utterly ridiculous way to make a point imo.

 

[Aligo]

Steve is the only character that people purposefully avoid using tech for not for the difficulty of execution or lack of effectiveness, but to avoid a character ban.

Gameplay wise, it becomes readily apparent that the character has absurd frame data, sheild safety and damage. Most characters would go up many placements by even getting one of Steve's wooden tool moves. Heigh weight for the archetype, a top 3 recovery and an exceptional disadvantage even without hitstun cancelling with the only real base stat weakness is slow movement, which means very little thanks to side and neutral special.

Then look at the optimal playstyle for Steve. In the most polite way possible, Steve has sonic syndrome, where the camping allows for an easy and low risk high reward gameplan that is very easy to pull off. It is however, absolutely horrible for both the other player, who has to put more effort into the game than the Steve player to win, and the audience gets to watch drawn out and dull matches where the same strategy is repeated over and over.

Normally this kind of gameplay puts off any would be players for obvious reasons yet Steve is the most used character according to smash.gg, and has an inflated win rate.

In the case of Acola, yes is a truly excellent player (also the only true good Steve main), but so is everyone else at that level. Using Steve helps stack the deck so to speak, but the effect is most serious at the low and mid levels.

To put short, while Steve is not truly 'broken beyond belief' he is most definitely uncompetitive and shoud be dealt with accordingly. Think Pokémon with the Moody ability in Pokémon competitive or planking strategies in melee.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Did you mean to tag me instead of Idon?

I have no anti-anti-Steve agenda, but I'm often somewhat frustrated reading responses on forums like here and on reddit because it's so clear that so few people look at the gameplay; most just respond to the results and use those results to confirm what they already believe without a shred of nuance.

I'm watching Tweek's Sephiroth come in with innovations that should destroy Steve and seeing acola develop live counterplay to these innovations enough to overturn the matchup within a 5-game set. That level of adaptation cannot be attributed to Steve no matter how deep his bag of tricks, yet here we are with so many on different forums having a ban Steve discussion in light of these results.

Some people will use any data point that supports their view regardless of the context of that data point. Leo won a tournament over acola? It's just because he's Leo. But acola won a tournament? See, I told you, Steve is broken!

Even with a less controversial character like Incineroar it's the same. Incineroar does well -- well, Skyjay is just that good! Incineroar does poorly -- poor Incineroar, he's such a bad character!

I want to see hard analysis, not "yeah we need to ban Steve what I'm seeing is so bad, you aren't seeing it bro? Come on, you must be blind!" Just an utterly ridiculous way to make a point imo.

I read both of your posts during lunch break at work and had little time to reply. I think I mixed both posts up in my head and thought that Idons post was written by you, because I thought I was replying to you. Sorry, it's been 3 days of 2 hours sleep because I didn't notice I was running out of my antipsychotic sleeping pills and then when I did I couldn't reach my doctor and then the weekend came and I had to wait until today before I could get a hold of her. My head's a mess and I'm having hallucinations lol.

Anyway you have a point. I don't think Steve can't be overcome, just that he's unfair. The damage output and the kill power is too much. Like why is his dair so strong? Footstool dair is disgusting.

Steve players seem to have kind of collectively agreed to not use the tech. This makes arguing for a ban a bit harder.

But tbh I think me and most others were just waiting for an excuse to get rid of Steve. The tech is very unfair and all but I don't think it would make Steve so much better that he's crosses some line in terms of how powerful a character gets to be before they need to be banned. It's more that cancelling hitstun is seen as an unholy thing and people already wanted him gone.

Maybe I'm wrong since we never got to see it optimized in action at top level but I don't think so.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I think it's also important to note that a certain subset of the community wants Steve banned not for any reasons on competitive brokeness. You have the people who were egged on by ZeRo (who should not interact with competitive Smash at all after what he has done) to harass Onin, a minor, for using Steve. You have the people who will spam death threats to &cola because he uses Steve. &cola is also a minor. Jake and yonni as well for instance got a ton of crap from certain parts of the community just because of their character choice and they upset a fan favorite player.

People do not just hate Steve: they hate Steve mains. They harass them for being "carried" for playing a top tier character. Nevermind the fact that plenty of top players use top tier characters. You do not see the same widespread harassment towards Light or Kola or MuteAce for their character choices. But that kind of section of the community will spam twitch chat with awful things if a "lame" character is playing or winning against a "hype" character. Obviously, most smash players have condemned this kind of toxic behavior on Twitch or Twitter, but it is important to remember that a very vocal minority already has had their minds made up on Steve since &cola won the gimmvitational.

Obviously, not everyone who wants Steve banned is in that camp. But the well on Steve discourse in some ways has been poisoned for a while. People love to say Steve players are carried and only got results with Steve/after Steve came out. This ignores a ton of other corroborating factors. Many Steve mains would have been too young to get reliable transportation into the scene (which I will add was notably more dangerous for minors prior to 2020, with alcohol openly at most events for example). People also ignore the fact that they could have just gotten better, especially with how many people have been grinding the game. If Sparg0 or Riddles goes from having decent results to being great, they are goated. If it's Onin though, he's carried. You also have people that act like Steve has no losing mus, where prior to the PMLG debacle people were learning to optimize their Steve counterplay more and more. There is a reason at top level, only &cola and to a lesser extent Onin have managed to stick around compared to the sea of Steve results we were seeing lower in bracket.

Personally, I think if we can enforce a PMLG ban, I think Steve is fine. I do not think he meets the threshold of even a Smash 4 Cloud would in terms of action that needs to be taken. Ultimate is still a very diverse game. Sure, Steve is annoying, but that is not stopping players from learning the counterplay to one more overtuned top tier. I think the ban side just wants Ultimate to return to the "hype" era of before the pandemic, before "dlc ruined the game".

 

[NairWizard]

I guess tournaments lately have not been very exciting. It's too bad that we can't get an Incineroar in 2nd place of a supermajor or an Ice Climbers player getting 3rd place in the final Summit of all time. That'd be pretty hype, but alas, we're stuck with Steve and Kazuya.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I guess tournaments lately have not been very exciting. It's too bad that we can't get an Incineroar in 2nd place of a supermajor or an Ice Climbers player getting 3rd place in the final Summit of all time. That'd be pretty hype, but alas, we're stuck with Steve and Kazuya.

Shh... that does not conform to my narrative. Steve and Kazuya are dominating every top 8 in Ultimate and I will not rest until both of them are nerfed into the ground by Sakurai himself /s

 

[Arthur97]

And on the subject of Marth the swordies evolved beyond what little standards where at the start. Cloud's uber Uair and Dair in Smash 4 were Shulk's Uair and Dair if they weren't total trash, and he broke the sacred tradition of no projectiles on swordies that aren't Link (at least that's what people say because Mii Swordfighter broke the law first, but nobody cares about him). While Belmonts and Min Min went "too far" into the range guy idea they worked on the swordie idea, Corrin is too boring for their taste so they'll make Byleth, who has bigger and betterer range, complete with a broken Nair. But then Byleth is too boring, so we make Sephiroth, whose sword is huge and better. But then Sephiroth is too boring, so we make Aegis, some Frankestein monster made of Joker, Lucina, and Ike, with some Bayonetta Bat Within sprinkled in.

How are Shulk and Cloud's up air's remotely similar?

 

[Aligo]

I guess tournaments lately have not been very exciting. It's too bad that we can't get an Incineroar in 2nd place of a supermajor or an Ice Climbers player getting 3rd place in the final Summit of all time. That'd be pretty hype, but alas, we're stuck with Steve and Kazuya.

Steve is less of an issue at the very top (most of the playerbase is kinda poopy), but for everyone else... It is best to look at low and mid level first, I think humanity should have learned that trickle down economics don't work by now. No other character has to be purposely handicapped for normal play. It is like saying Zacian-C was balanced in gen 8 because it could be checked by quagsire.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Isn't Incineroar kinda lame? Icies are exciting sure but Incineroar.. he requires the opponent to know their and his **** really well because there's little room for error fighting him execution has to be on point.. He's got good moves overall but what makes him work is revenge and his side-b being highly active with a deceptively big grab box or whatever you call it.

I've only fought incineroar at tiny European local levels of play so what Im gonna say might not be applicable but I'ma say it. He's really annoying to fight with most characters, but if I go Mii Gunner vs him he can't touch me, I don't need to care about revenge because I'm throwing out multiple projectiles or following my projectiles up with attacks. He can revenge a projectile but then he's getting hit afterwards before his revenge animation is done.

He's so slow he can't get in easily and if I just fire projectiles and attacks non stop without respecting revenge things get hard for him. Smash input missiles, bomb drops and fair wall him out almost completely. The missiles especially are devastating because of how far they send him horizontally.

Baiting him into using revenge with bomb drop only to hit him with a smash input missile
directly after really sucks for him because of how far they push him away horizontally. His slow speed means there's plenty of time to set up a barrage of projectiles that's very difficult for him to deal with everytime he gets sent away horizontally. He has to work really hard just to touch me at all. Sure he may deal an absurd amount of damage when he does but it happens so seldom it's not enough.

I don't see what Incineroar can do to counter this way of dealing with him. And there's gotta be more characters who can wall him out like this. To me he's kind of lame because the easy and effective approach is to not fight him by counterpicking a high volume output zoner and not let him play the game.

Imo Ultimate has too many characters who are super polarized in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and Incineroar is one of them.

 

[blackghost]

ive said this community as a whole is only puedo competitive at best for a while now. other games are dominated by dlc characters (SFV, Dragonball, Tekken 7, and guilty gear strive) and you dont see their community sending death threats to thier mains. also there is little to no consistency with this community. People complain about kazuya when theres how many doing well consistently with him?
what does this community want? do you want players to be invested in their characters regardless of tier placement that reward dedication and practice to fin tech? or do you want to incentive players to hide tech because online outrage wil literally render their work and time investment worthless.

until smash fixes its attitude the toxic segments and removes them this community wont be taken seriously we really have posts here getting mad the best player won. that itself is not a competitive mindset or approach. maybe im too old or maybe im just tired of the antics but im personally checking out. banning character unjustly or calling for bans as a threat to make people change character is wrong. especially when n one semes to be able to show me what is so utterly broken IN A MATCH not practice mode youtube vids. not liking a character style isnt grounds for anything.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Smash 4 also went on a venture by wasting precious dev time on custom moves, but this time whining on the Internet could deal with the problem, anybody here remember the Hoo-hah? Yeah, people like to blame Bayo and Cloud for killing Smash 4 but it was dead on arrival. If there were no patches you would get into the same situation as Melee and Brawl. Do you "deal with it" or do you ban Diddy? If you ban Diddy what's stopping you from banning the blonde trio too? Or maybe those four seem so broken because almost every other character is trash, just like Brawl and Melee? It is the latter, even after Diddy and the blonde trio got butchered in patches they still were much better than the rest, the only thing Bayo and Cloud did was cement the idea all the other characters sucked. And Smash 4 actually banned a character purely based on powerlevel, Mii Brawler, but lmao, it's Miis, who cares right?

Minor nitpick but while diddy kong was an absurd character on its own, pre nerf sheik would have been the true smash 4 killers if no patchnotes happened.
The character got nerfed pretty much every patch until removing her dthrow uair 50/50 finally knocked her out of god tier into arguably still top 7. Iirc she was statistically more dominant than bayo was at the end of the game.

Sad that acola winning brings up silly ban debates again (how dare he win from losers sides with 3-2 close games on his path) because this summit was pretty fresh overall, skyjay void and big D were such treats to watch. Character variety was top notch in general, peach mario and even pichu were a nice callback to the early meta of this game. Even got to see the mkelo meta knight as a counterpick!

NaetorU's is still a few mistakes a game away from being a top contender - ledge was tough at times - but his advantage state keeps impressing me, the option coverage and conversation abilities are both terrifying. SDI being legitimate counterplay against fair and dsmash in some situations does worry me a bit about the meta of the character though, but man you can't whiff anything against this guy or he'll somehow grab you from half screen and delete you lol (speaking from experience).

Skyjay's movement and ability to confirm stocks on advantageous RPS is wonderful - between good aerials and side b snake just exploded on half his landings. Revenge was also a factor in a lot of games and can be surprisingly difficult to punish properly, all the frame data buffs really helped on that side. Didn't get to catch his games against mario though, but am not surprised that these kinds of grab heavy frame data spam matchups would be complicated to deal with. Would have been curious to see him against Proto too, I am quite puzzled as to how incineroar is supposed to deal with min min at all.

Decent showing from void, didn't get to catch his game against spargo but seeing so much 90/100% kills during pools was an amusing nod at sheik's supposed lack of kill power. Although well to be fair that did become an issue when opponents went out of kill confirm range, but that % range seems terrifying to face when she can kill you from check notes safe lingering aerials and one of the most flexible projectile in the game? Even though he didn't win that much games in the end it was a good reminder that the character is a reasonable threat.

Big D just got 3rd with god damn solo ice Climbers and I love him omg

 

[Hippieslayer]

I'm impressed how much online whining can affect the balance decisions, but I think the bigger problem with this Steve thing is that the Smash team has no consistency when it comes to their balance standards, which in all fairness it's hard to do in a game with 80 damn characters.

We can take the bait and say Smash has had its broken characters and they just dealt with it, as brought up earlier . Those are special cases that should be evaluated in their proper context. Melee was rushed, a miracle the game is even playable, but if it was rushed it is obvious the balance isn't gonna be the best, Fox doesn't have a bad attack in his kit while Game and Watch and Roy are unfinished. Why do people "deal with it?" Because the game is a sacred cow, their players would rather eat a rotten skunk than let Melee die.

For Brawl the Subspace Emissary was a huge venture that left the crew understaffed and spread out, and Sakurai was firm on his belief to make the game "casual," it was obvious the balance was gonna be bad, and the game was dead on arrival. Whether MK was banned or they "dealt with it," the degenerate trio of ICs, Diddy, and Olimar would remain, MK kept the degeneracy in control at the expense of the rest of the game, but here is where standards come in, when do you draw the line? You ban MK, do you ban the degenerate trio too? And you can keep going until you ban all the game.

Smash 4 also went on a venture by wasting precious dev time on custom moves, but this time whining on the Internet could deal with the problem, anybody here remember the Hoo-hah? Yeah, people like to blame Bayo and Cloud for killing Smash 4 but it was dead on arrival. If there were no patches you would get into the same situation as Melee and Brawl. Do you "deal with it" or do you ban Diddy? If you ban Diddy what's stopping you from banning the blonde trio too? Or maybe those four seem so broken because almost every other character is trash, just like Brawl and Melee? It is the latter, even after Diddy and the blonde trio got butchered in patches they still were much better than the rest, the only thing Bayo and Cloud did was cement the idea all the other characters sucked. And Smash 4 actually banned a character purely based on powerlevel, Mii Brawler, but lmao, it's Miis, who cares right?

So those three games are absolute disasters due to a lot of wasted time or lack of time, Ultimate supposedly represents their ideal balance given they have time and staff. Well, here comes what I would call the "design & balance" powercreep," which started in Smash 4 because of the presence of DLC and hype baiting trailers.

So, we have Marth, he is the sword guy. Well, I want to have a sword guy with a bigger sword, Shulk. But I want a sword guy with longer range than Shulk, so I'm gonna make Corrin whose FSmash outranges him and he also has better frame data in everything. But Corrin is too boring for me as a range guy, so I'm gonna make the Belmonts, but they have too much range, so I'll make them bad at EVERYTHING to compensate. Awful movement, awful hitboxes, awful recovery, yes, the perfect formula for a range guy. But now I want to make another range guy who has better range than the Trashmonts. Min Min baby, better range and better hitboxes, range so big her arms are better projectiles than the cross.

It is a complex evolution of standards in a system in which to keep the consumers eating you have to make the new guy more appealing than the last one. Coming from Marth we also got the evolution of counters. The DLC trailers got so ridiculous because they tried to hype counters by saying they are counters AND reflectors, but if everyone has that then it's nothing special.

And on the subject of Marth the swordies evolved beyond what little standards where at the start. Cloud's uber Uair and Dair in Smash 4 were Shulk's Uair and Dair if they weren't total trash, and he broke the sacred tradition of no projectiles on swordies that aren't Link (at least that's what people say because Mii Swordfighter broke the law first, but nobody cares about him). While Belmonts and Min Min went "too far" into the range guy idea they worked on the swordie idea, Corrin is too boring for their taste so they'll make Byleth, who has bigger and betterer range, complete with a broken Nair. But then Byleth is too boring, so we make Sephiroth, whose sword is huge and better. But then Sephiroth is too boring, so we make Aegis, some Frankestein monster made of Joker, Lucina, and Ike, with some Bayonetta Bat Within sprinkled in.

With Cloud himself it seems he got too boring for their tastes, so they made Joker, with a bigger and betterer limit (that they nerfed). Then Joker was too boring so they made Terry. THEN Terry was too boring, Sephiroth has a limit too. THEN Sephiroth is too boring, so Kazuya Mishima has a limit too for no reason whatsoever. Everybody got a limit! If Zelda was a DLC I guarantee you that she would have a limit break that would be even betterer than Kazuya Mishima's, and she would have a reflector that was also a counter. So does the Smash team care about balance? Yes and no, if their standards about bad recoveries, frame data, range, and so on were consistent we wouldn't have the wacky DLCs, but if they were lameasses like Banjo nobody would buy them, and if the base characters weren't brought up to the new standards through patches is because A) it is a monumental task B) they don't care.

I find it amusing how people complain about how bad Sheik is compared to Steve when people whining on the Internet are partially responsible for getting her butchered into the empty shell she is today, she got nerfed in every Smash 4 patch. And Bayonetta, some people said they felt bad because how much she sucked, who were the ones who boo'd when MK Leo did a ladder combo on Plup? In Smash Ultimate whining and kneejerk reactions are what killed many characters. Pichu barely had any consistency yet he got butchered into a dysfunctional mess, Ike got nerfed even though he sucks, just because of how overrated he was, Olimar like Pichu was butchered, his meta is almost dead, ZSS also got butchered. Peach, Palutena, Wario, Wolf, Pokemon Trainer, all of them got nerfed too. When people complain about Steve and Kazuya and say they miss the "glory days of early Smash Ultimate" I feel like reminding them of who was the one whining about how broken Palutena was, or how broken Pichu was, or how much they hated Olimar, and how "MK Leo was carried by Joker."

In some way this community deserves Steve and Kazuya, for how whiny they are about any character being good, whether they are truly broken or not, and to show through obvious example that good characters have priviledges over bad characters.

I don't get how your conclusion is that the community is to blame and not the devs. Power creep is not a new phenomenon. The devs should not have let it happen to the degree that they have. The devs should also know that if you just do what the community wants you to do you are guaranteed to get a crap game. Not something new either. The community is just people and they are gonna act like people. The devs are to blame for what they did to Pichu. They should have known better because making games is their job. They acted in haste eager to please. You shouldn't do that.

You should listen to the community as a developer but you should also be aware of common pitfalls that have ruined other games. Japanese developers in particular are bad at this because they have a tendency to not look outside their bubble to the degree that they should.

 

[Aligo]

ive said this community as a whole is only puedo competitive at best for a while now. other games are dominated by dlc characters (SFV, Dragonball, Tekken 7, and guilty gear strive) and you dont see their community sending death threats to thier mains. also there is little to no consistency with this community. People complain about kazuya when theres how many doing well consistently with him?
what does this community want? do you want players to be invested in their characters regardless of tier placement that reward dedication and practice to fin tech? or do you want to incentive players to hide tech because online outrage wil literally render their work and time investment worthless.

until smash fixes its attitude the toxic segments and removes them this community wont be taken seriously we really have posts here getting mad the best player won. that itself is not a competitive mindset or approach. maybe im too old or maybe im just tired of the antics but im personally checking out. banning character unjustly or calling for bans as a threat to make people change character is wrong. especially when n one semes to be able to show me what is so utterly broken IN A MATCH not practice mode youtube vids. not liking a character style isnt grounds for anything.

If you are looking for evidence, just play smash online or look at the smash.gg data for play an win rates, top play means very little balance wise for those outside of it, while pmlg is an increasingly common sight in quickplay and online arenas. Though, saying that I will admit that some folks are pro-ban for very much the wrong reasons. It isn't the fault of the players, people naturally want to win, but of releasing an unfinished character who was not fixed.

Also your solution to toxicity in smash... is to increase toxicity in smash. That is not at all the right solution to the situation.

 

[Kokiden]

Steve is the only character that people purposefully avoid using tech for not for the difficulty of execution or lack of effectiveness, but to avoid a character ban.

Gameplay wise, it becomes readily apparent that the character has absurd frame data, sheild safety and damage. Most characters would go up many placements by even getting one of Steve's wooden tool moves. Heigh weight for the archetype, a top 3 recovery and an exceptional disadvantage even without hitstun cancelling with the only real base stat weakness is slow movement, which means very little thanks to side and neutral special.

Then look at the optimal playstyle for Steve. In the most polite way possible, Steve has sonic syndrome, where the camping allows for an easy and low risk high reward gameplan that is very easy to pull off. It is however, absolutely horrible for both the other player, who has to put more effort into the game than the Steve player to win, and the audience gets to watch drawn out and dull matches where the same strategy is repeated over and over.

Normally this kind of gameplay puts off any would be players for obvious reasons yet Steve is the most used character according to smash.gg, and has an inflated win rate.

In the case of Acola, yes is a truly excellent player (also the only true good Steve main), but so is everyone else at that level. Using Steve helps stack the deck so to speak, but the effect is most serious at the low and mid levels.

To put short, while Steve is not truly 'broken beyond belief' he is most definitely uncompetitive and shoud be dealt with accordingly. Think Pokémon with the Moody ability in Pokémon competitive or planking strategies in melee.

Was about to come in and explain why I think Steve is just badly balanced for the game, and this post sums it up nicely.

His damage output being what it is, combined with its frame data, his low risk high reward design, and his shovel basically winning nearly every exchange, especially his fair, is absurd.

People who think he is absolutely fine as is, where he poses no issues whatsoever, just have their head in the sand for some reason.

Also, let's not pretend that the dev team dropping the balancing that quickly after Sora dropped was a good idea. The characters, especially FP2, still need some balancing.

It's very easy to blame the community, but would the discourse be what it is today if they stayed on, and tuned some characters up overtime? I feel like just because a few bad apples get on the ban train for the wrong reasons, that means anyone else who has actual criticism over some balancing concerns gets ignored. It gets lumped together when it shouldn't.

Australia just banned Steve because he was unhealthy for the scene. That's an indication that he IS a problem, and should not just be left as is, but some would rather stick their head in the sand than acknowledge that.

The dev team need to come back and do some more balancing.

 

[Aligo]

Minor nitpick but while diddy kong was an absurd character on its own, pre nerf sheik would have been the true smash 4 killers if no patchnotes happened.
The character got nerfed pretty much every patch until removing her dthrow uair 50/50 finally knocked her out of god tier into arguably still top 7. Iirc she was statistically more dominant than bayo was at the end of the game.

Sad that acola winning brings up silly ban debates again (how dare he win from losers sides with 3-2 close games on his path) because this summit was pretty fresh overall, skyjay void and big D were such treats to watch. Character variety was top notch in general, peach mario and even pichu were a nice callback to the early meta of this game. Even got to see the mkelo meta knight as a counterpick!

NaetorU's is still a few mistakes a game away from being a top contender - ledge was tough at times - but his advantage state keeps impressing me, the option coverage and conversation abilities are both terrifying. SDI being legitimate counterplay against fair and dsmash in some situations does worry me a bit about the meta of the character though, but man you can't whiff anything against this guy or he'll somehow grab you from half screen and delete you lol (speaking from experience).

Skyjay's movement and ability to confirm stocks on advantageous RPS is wonderful - between good aerials and side b snake just exploded on half his landings. Revenge was also a factor in a lot of games and can be surprisingly difficult to punish properly, all the frame data buffs really helped on that side. Didn't get to catch his games against mario though, but am not surprised that these kinds of grab heavy frame data spam matchups would be complicated to deal with. Would have been curious to see him against Proto too, I am quite puzzled as to how incineroar is supposed to deal with min min at all.

Decent showing from void, didn't get to catch his game against spargo but seeing so much 90/100% kills during pools was an amusing nod at sheik's supposed lack of kill power. Although well to be fair that did become an issue when opponents went out of kill confirm range, but that % range seems terrifying to face when she can kill you from check notes safe lingering aerials and one of the most flexible projectile in the game? Even though he didn't win that much games in the end it was a good reminder that the character is a reasonable threat.

Big D just got 3rd with god damn solo ice Climbers and I love him omg

Yeah, I think that sheik has more problems with low weight and hit trading as she has really reliable kill confirms and does well on ledge too.

Also having played incineroar in locals I can confirm it is a very volatile character that can take games in a flash due to immense punishes. Has some really horrid matchups though - good thing there was no samuses or min mins in Skyjays bracket - good safe grabs are a real pain to deal with on top of being outranged.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Isn't Incineroar kinda lame? Icies are exciting sure but Incineroar.. he requires the opponent to know their and his **** really well because there's little room for error fighting him execution has to be on point.. He's got good moves overall but what makes him work is revenge and his side-b being highly active with a deceptively big grab box or whatever you call it.

I've only fought incineroar at tiny European local levels of play so what Im gonna say might not be applicable but I'ma say it. He's really annoying to fight with most characters, but if I go Mii Gunner vs him he can't touch me, I don't need to care about revenge because I'm throwing out multiple projectiles or following my projectiles up with attacks. He can revenge a projectile but then he's getting hit afterwards before his revenge animation is done.

He's so slow he can't get in easily and if I just fire projectiles and attacks non stop without respecting revenge things get hard for him. Smash input missiles, bomb drops and fair wall him out almost completely. The missiles especially are devastating because of how far they send him horizontally.

Baiting him into using revenge with bomb drop only to hit him with a smash input missile
directly after really sucks for him because of how far they push him away horizontally. His slow speed means there's plenty of time to set up a barrage of projectiles that's very difficult for him to deal with everytime he gets sent away horizontally. He has to work really hard just to touch me at all. Sure he may deal an absurd amount of damage when he does but it happens so seldom it's not enough.

I don't see what Incineroar can do to counter this way of dealing with him. And there's gotta be more characters who can wall him out like this. To me he's kind of lame because the easy and effective approach is to not fight him by counterpicking a high volume output zoner and not let him play the game.

Imo Ultimate has too many characters who are super polarized in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and Incineroar is one of them.

"Make heavies good"
"Wait no"

Anyway I'm tired and rusty but maybe these matches will show how a good Incin deals with defensive play.

Revenge doesn't seem to be a huge crux in neutral, rather something he uses more for reversals or when he's got the download.

A lot of his success here seems to be more about his ability to sufficate the zoners once he does get close and shut off their escape options. You can even see that Skyjay seems to struggle more in the earlier matches but does better and better as he figures out his opponent's defensive habits.

Man I am inspired to get back into Ultimate though, too bad circumstances are making that tough.