Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Arthur97]

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.

People take it too far, and it's obviously not most of the players, but hiding the tech to avoid it getting patched wasn't exactly a great move to make people like you.

 

[williamsga555]

his shovel basically winning nearly every exchange, especially his fair,

It's all well and good to mention your gripes about things like frame data and skewed risk-reward, but this particular point is, frankly, exaggerated nonsense. There's no special property about his shovel or fair that makes it "win nearly every exchange," it's just a stubby disjointed move. Plenty of characters can outspace this without much issue.

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?

100% I believe it would. This isn't unique to Smash, but player bases will always want to complain about whoever happens to be at the top, regardless of the game -patch culture has largely just shifted the discourse from "I can't figure out how to overcome these strong tools" to "I can't figure out why the devs haven't changed these strong tools."

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.

South Australia also banned Hero pretty early on in release for similar complaints of him being unhealthy for competition. As we know, Hero went on to become a problem in other scenes that failed to follow their lead (/s if it wasn't clear).

This isn't meant to be a knock on Australia's competitive judgement (it's coincidental that the Hero ban came from the same country), but just an example to point out that these bans don't always reflect how things are elsewhere. Yes, the exact rationale for these bans were different, but the point is to be wary of using one supporting case as confirmation that one side must be correct as a result.

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

They don't. It would be nice of course, but they've delivered their product already -they're not under any obligation to come back. Again, yes, it would be great if they showed continued support, but they're not beholden to it.

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.

As someone who thinks Steve is fine as is, the issue I take with people who cry for bans against him is a lack of good-faith arguing. You look at someone like NairWizard practically begging for some in-depth counterarguing and no one obliges. The anti-Steve posts typically harken to the same vague platitudes: bullet-point listing his strengths without going much into why those strengths are uncompetitive, instead insisting that anyone who "can't see it" must be acting disingenuously.

Like, let's look at the post you quoted as having summed up your stance nicely:

Gameplay wise, it becomes readily apparent that the character has absurd frame data, sheild safety and damage.

I agree, Incineroar does have these traits in spades, especially if Revenge is active!

I mean yeah, I'm being facetious here because he does mention more specifics, but others simply listing positive traits in a vacuum like this out-of-context quote doesn't promote meaningful discussion, it's grandstanding to people who already agree with their side.

with the only real base stat weakness is slow movement, which means very little thanks to side and neutral special.

Same with handwaving of character shortcomings. Let's add "poor range" to this for a list of Slow Movement and Poor Range being the supposed only base weaknesses, and delve into that a little more with a more recent example:
Here's Game 2 from Tweek and あcola's GF set from this Summit.

あcola goes a full minute (7:40-8:39) without getting a single meaningful hit in on Tweek's Seph, and it's not from camping! He's trying to get in and pressure Seph, and Tweek is playing around his attempts well. At 8:40 he finally lands up-tilt→bair and shortly thereafter gets another callout bair around 8:48 -he then goes another 20 seconds of trying to get in and simply being unable to get anything going until Tweek gets caught by minecart at 9:15 after going for back-to-back full stage shorthop bairs.

It's easy to rebuff this by suggesting あcola could've camped instead (he did have the lead at the time), but the point is that we can see an instance of this character struggling in a very real way at applying pressure against a character that has the mobility and range to keep him out. This doesn't seem like some "doesn't matter" weakness on paper, this is a legit issue that lead to him getting zero-to-death'd in this match.

...the audience gets to watch drawn out and dull matches where the same strategy is repeated over and over.

These kinds of talking points are tough -it has absolutely nothing to do with how competitive Steve's kit is, and everything about a subjective enjoyment factor which really can't be discussed, but I get it. Streams rely on consistent viewership to help keep funds rolling, and if public opinion hates watching it, then it could lead to problems for some scenes. I disagree with it being dull (as I've stated in previous posts, I enjoy seeing characters break through zoning. Circle camping is what I dislike, which, yes, I know, Steve is capable of on some stages as well, but I digress), but there's nothing we can really debate here. There are people who hate seeing these matches, and there are people who don't. Useful for potential ban discussion, not useful for competitiveness discussion, if that distinction actually matters to people at large.

To put short, while Steve is not truly 'broken beyond belief' he is most definitely uncompetitive and shoud be dealt with accordingly.

Where is this conclusion coming from, though? Listing things people dislike and find distasteful doesn't equate to being "uncompetitive" in and of themselves.

If people truly believe he's so good as to be uncompetitve, let's open the discussion up and show why that is. Provide examples that show the other player lacking reasonable counterplay and let's do some analysis. People don't have to scour through hours of VODs, just link a point in a match of something egregious so we can actually get something meaningful going on this dead horse (this isn't directed directly at Aligo, but rather an open invitation for anyone to do so).

 

[Aligo]

I will need to learn to do video timestamps for the match evidence stuff, but I will give it a go if I figure it out.

But as far as incineroar goes, while he may have brilliant moves and damage (ish) he actually has to suffer from his poor mobility due to worse burst movement. Despite being weighing a lot more than Steve, the fire kitty has worse overall defense due to a larger hurtbox, a worse disadvantage and a predictable recovery (the distance is pretty good for the archetype though).

 

[Emblem Lord]

The counterplay argument is moot imo because no Steve player or Smash player is EVER going to play optimally. They will never disengage to the point where it's truly meta defining.

Smsah really is a campfest when you have the lead, but players will rushdown or play footsies even when they have a stock lead. It's actually amusing.

People are talking about counterplay when the vast majority of the community is absolutely terrified of being demonized if they don't play aggro to at least some degree. The counterplay has a glass ceiling because it's not a counter to the true upper limit of the game or what Steve can truly do.

I can't even blame the player's for not being as abusive as possible because the Smash community is toxic. People get death threats for camping, it's insane. People get threats sometimes just for winning with top tiers. Absolutely disgusting.

The game is what it is at this point. No point in talking about patches.

This is the game. No one is forcing you to stay if you don't like it.

 

[Aligo]

The counterplay argument is moot imo because no Steve player or Smash player is EVER going to play optimally. They will never disengage to the point where it's truly meta defining.

Smsah really is a campfest when you have the lead, but players will rushdown or play footsies even when they have a stock lead. It's actually amusing.

People are talking about counterplay when the vast majority of the community is absolutely terrified of being demonized if they don't play aggro to at least some degree. The counterplay has a glass ceiling because it's not a counter to the true upper limit of the game or what Steve can truly do.

I can't even blame the player's for not being as abusive as possible because the Smash community is toxic. People get death threats for camping, it's insane. People get threats sometimes just for winning with top tiers. Absolutely disgusting.

The game is what it is at this point. No point in talking about patches.

This is the game. No one is forcing you to stay if you don't like it.

The whole toxicity thing isn't unique to smash but efforts should still be made to mitigate it. As far disengagement goes as a strategy yes it is very powerful, but only certain characters can pull it off in certain matchups, as losing stage control and thus having less space to maneuver acts to counteract passive play. Funnily enough two of the only characters who can actually play with disengagement are Sonic and Steve, the most controversial characters in the game.

As far as patches go, increased usage of pmlg and other glitches online will draw the attention of Nintendo sooner or later. They have recently done an enormous balance overhaul in MK8D in response to complaints, and ultimate still needs updates for new tournaments and amiibo support.
In fact, spreading awareness of the bug issue in smash will help increase the possibility of a balance patch.

If such cannot happen, community patches and bans have potential as fallback options.

Even if the situation is bad perseverance is key. Don't give up hope, thing can change for the better.

 

[the king of murder]

Looks like Steve actually doesn't hurt viewership as much as we thought.

The Smash Ultimate Summit 6 becomes the most popular event of the series | Esports Charts

The Smash Ultimate Summit 6, seemingly the last in the legacy-defining series, set new viewer milestone for the event and sent organizer Beyond The Summit out on a positive note

escharts.com

 

[williamsga555]

But as far as incineroar goes, while he may have brilliant moves and damage (ish) he actually has to suffer from his poor mobility due to worse burst movement. Despite being weighing a lot more than Steve, the fire kitty has worse overall defense due to a larger hurtbox, a worse disadvantage and a predictable recovery (the distance is pretty good for the archetype though).

Don't worry, I 100% agree that Incineroar is not as good as Steve. I was pointing out that just listing strengths by themselves doesn't tell us much because other (worse) characters might have those exact same strengths. If someone complained about Steve because his damage-to-frames ratio is crazy, someone could assume that Incineroar would be busted as well for the same reason, which would be silly!

 

[Aligo]

Looks like Steve actually doesn't hurt viewership as much as we thought.

The Smash Ultimate Summit 6 becomes the most popular event of the series | Esports Charts

The Smash Ultimate Summit 6, seemingly the last in the legacy-defining series, set new viewer milestone for the event and sent organizer Beyond The Summit out on a positive note

escharts.com

To be fair, it is the literal era ending event. It was going to have high viewership regardless.

 

[NairWizard]

I've been hearing that acola's reaction time is unbelievable, even among top players. People are pointing out that consistently spotdodging Sephiroth d-smash on reaction means he must be super fast. Is it true? Let's look at the numbers.

Sephiroth d-smash comes out on frame 21 and is active 21-22, and the charging hitbox starts on frame 8. Steve's spotdodge is intangible from frame 3 to 17. So if you want to react to arbitrary charge of Sephiroth d-smash with the first frame of spotdodge, it looks like you have 10 frames to react (13 frames between charge hitbox and first active frame minus the 3 frames of spotdodge startup, assuming you can recognize the release of charge frame 1). But, since Ultimate has a 6-frame input delay, you really have 4 frames to react. A 4-frame reaction time would be pretty impossible, so that's not what's happening.

But if you have a good enough read on Tweek that he won't charge d-smash, you can start reacting to the d-smash startup instead of the charge hold and that gives you at least 20 frames to react.

Realistically though you're not reacting to the first frame of d-smash because it's highly ambiguous what Sephiroth is doing there and he could just run up grab or f-tilt instead. If you tried this, sometimes you would end up spotdodging what you believed to be a d-smash, but we didn't see many instances of acola accidentally trying to spotdodge a different attack, so clearly he is reacting to what he knows to be d-smash.

Frame 4 is when the sword hilt is visibly behind Sephiroth's head; before that, he looks like he could be running or doing something else. So let's say that it takes you 4 frames to clearly recognize d-smash, then your reaction time, then Ultimate's input delay of 6 frames, then 3 frames for your spotdodge to come out. That's 13 frames of other "stuff" and about 8-9 frames of reaction time--which means acola's reaction time is somewhere between 133 and 150 ms.

That's pretty insane, probably means that he's faster than Light.

 

[the king of murder]

To be fair, it is the literal era ending event. It was going to have high viewership regardless.

I mean, if you read the article, the most watched sets were the ones with Acola in it. Even Skyjay vs Kurama didn't reach those numbers and they play two hype characters.

Point is, there is no evidence that Steve tanks viewership atleast since one of the arguements to ban him was declining viewership which would "kill" smash(even though the arguement in itself is flawed since it would open up a pandora box where we might as well ban every character that is perceived as viewership killers like Sonic).

 

[meleebrawler]

The whole toxicity thing isn't unique to smash but efforts should still be made to mitigate it. As far disengagement goes as a strategy yes it is very powerful, but only certain characters can pull it off in certain matchups, as losing stage control and thus having less space to maneuver acts to counteract passive play. Funnily enough two of the only characters who can actually play with disengagement are Sonic and Steve, the most controversial characters in the game.

As far as patches go, increased usage of pmlg and other glitches online will draw the attention of Nintendo sooner or later. They have recently done an enormous balance overhaul in MK8D in response to complaints, and ultimate still needs updates for new tournaments and amiibo support.
In fact, spreading awareness of the bug issue in smash will help increase the possibility of a balance patch.

If such cannot happen, community patches and bans have potential as fallback options.

Even if the situation is bad perseverance is key. Don't give up hope, thing can change for the better.

Bugfixes are still possible, but you have to consider that Nintendo also only really started paying attention to MK8 balance issues once they committed to getting more revenue out of it via the Booster Course Pass, purchased standalone or arguably more importantly, obtained as part of their premium online subscription.

Smash Ultimate has no money left to offer them in their eyes, not just in purchasable updates but also competitively as they're probably tired of constant scandals.

And I'm not sure if this community is ready for the things Smash would have to do in order to have their perpetual balancing...

 

[Aligo]

Bugfixes are still possible, but you have to consider that Nintendo also only really started paying attention to MK8 balance issues once they committed to getting more revenue out of it via the Booster Course Pass, purchased standalone or arguably more importantly, obtained as part of their premium online subscription.

Smash Ultimate has no money left to offer them in their eyes, not just in purchasable updates but also competitively as they're probably tired of constant scandals.

And I'm not sure if this community is ready for the things Smash would have to do in order to have their perpetual balancing...

If you are pushing for paid online, it helps to keep your main attractions playable, considering smash is one of the main reasons for buying online.

 

[meleebrawler]

If you are pushing for paid online, it helps to keep your main attractions playable, considering smash is one of the main reasons for buying online.

Thing is, 85% of the playable content available in Ultimate doesn't require online. Even excluding single-player, options for playing locally are far more varied and streamlined than anything online can offer. Amongst everything that went into the development and support of this game, I can't see online play having ever been the primary focus.

 

[Aligo]

Thing is, 85% of the playable content available in Ultimate doesn't require online. Even excluding single-player, options for playing locally are far more varied and streamlined than anything online can offer. Amongst everything that went into the development and support of this game, I can't see online play having ever been the primary focus.

I suppose that is a good point.

 

[Rizen]

After watching Summit 6, I've been thinking about Steve's matchups. Initially I thought he has a handful of slightly losing MUs, often to big disjoints like Sephiroth. But Acola overcame a few MUs that Steve should lose. It's possible Acola just outplayed the opponents but I've been wondering, considering how successful Steve all around has been, if Steve is overtuned enough that he has even MUs at worst? That Steve's damage output and kill power are so high that they might close the gap in supposedly bad MUs?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Something I can truly confidently say: I just ate my own words, Nintendo just indeed posted a new balance patch to the game, over a year after the last one. The changes themselves are kinda bizarre, and no mention of Steve bug fixes, but I am sure it will be fixed as well.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I actually decided to post a YouTube video showing off my thoughts on these notes, if anyone is interested or anything...

 

[Hippieslayer]

After watching Summit 6, I've been thinking about Steve's matchups. Initially I thought he has a handful of slightly losing MUs, often to big disjoints like Sephiroth. But Acola overcame a few MUs that Steve should lose. It's possible Acola just outplayed the opponents but I've been wondering, considering how successful Steve all around has been, if Steve is overtuned enough that he has even MUs at worst? That Steve's damage output and kill power are so high that they might close the gap in supposedly bad MUs?

They def do. Steve has fundamental weaknesses even with all his tools. Those weaknesses would hold him back a lot more if he didn't have his crazy damage output and kill power.

Doesn't help that no one has really been able to consistently pressure Steve to the extent that he gets resource starved and can't access his kill power (at least when it comes to Acola). He has too many moves that deal with a rushdown playstyle really well.

 

[Rizen]

If it wasn't for the patch notes on nintendo's site, I would have thought this an April Fool's.

Nintendo Support: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Update Ver. 14.0.0 - Fighter Adjustments

en-americas-nintendo.com

These changes suck. They didn't adress anything meaningful in Kazuya, Steve's minecart's power got nerfed but it's harder to escape the command grab and he got other slight buffs, a few good changes, then a bunch of weird **** that doesn't really help the game balance. If they don't fix the Steve glitch I'm going to be really pissed.

 

[Frihetsanka]

After watching Summit 6, I've been thinking about Steve's matchups. Initially I thought he has a handful of slightly losing MUs, often to big disjoints like Sephiroth. But Acola overcame a few MUs that Steve should lose. It's possible Acola just outplayed the opponents but I've been wondering, considering how successful Steve all around has been, if Steve is overtuned enough that he has even MUs at worst? That Steve's damage output and kill power are so high that they might close the gap in supposedly bad MUs?

Cloud seems pretty bad for Steve, at least. Sonic seems rough too.

 

[Arthur97]

Wait, it's real? Like...really? And they decided to give Steve any buffs at all? But nerf Mario?

 

[meleebrawler]

Wait, it's real? Like...really? And they decided to give Steve any buffs at all? But nerf Mario?

How is decreased knockback on uair a nerf for Mario? Doesn't that mean longer combos? For killing off the top aren't tornado and super jump punch better anyway?

 

[Arthur97]

How is decreased knockback on uair a nerf for Mario? Doesn't that mean longer combos? For killing off the top aren't tornado and super jump punch better anyway?

Oh, right. Still weird. Why buff him at all? Like, he's really good. Not tippity top, but really good.

 

[superjm]

That's not a real patch, that isn't even Nintendo's site (look closely).

It's definitely a funny joke though.

 

[meleebrawler]

Oh, right. Still weird. Why buff him at all? Like, he's really good. Not tippity top, but really good.

These changes were made to make characters feel better to play, not to upend any sort of meta. Such has been the case for most of the patches where they primarily nerf overcentralizing options and buff/change parts that aren't working as well as intended.

They care more for whatever "vision" they have for any given character than however they may affect competitive play. The Peach/Daisy changes here are a prime example: nerfing dair's linking for both to discourage constant fishing for loops involving that move, while finally giving a hint of distinction between the two again by having Peach get more Bob-Ombs while Daisy gets more Mr. Saturns. It doesn't matter that there hasn't been a lot of Peach action in tournaments lately, they just saw people constantly go for dair loops over anything else which annoyed them.

Edit: Well, if it is a joke, kudos to whoever responsible for actually paying attention to the trends of Ultimate patch history and not just posting tongue-in-cheek big changes for shock value.

 

[Rizen]

That's not a real patch, that isn't even Nintendo's site (look closely).

It's definitely a funny joke though.

Yeah I checked on the smashbros game itself and it didn't mention any patches.

 

[superjm]

To clarify what I mean, these patch notes are posted on an entirely different domain name (en-americas-nintendo.com) that's made to look like the subdomain you usually see patch notes at, that being en-americas-support.nintendo.com

It's kind of a pity though, Steve aside some of these changes are pretty interesting and amusing.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I actually thought people were playing along as part of the joke. I think it's a fairly safe assumption that we're not getting a new balance patch for the Switch version of Ultimate.

 

[Rizen]

Cloud seems pretty bad for Steve, at least. Sonic seems rough too.

I thought that about Sephiroth and Byleth but Acola pulled through on those MUs. Not to take anything away from Acola; he played amazing in summit but looking at things like Orion stats, Steve is the #1 character and there are a lot of solo mains. I've seen pros MU charts saying Steve has bad MUs but it looks more and more like those were pessimistic. Steve is really overtuned. I think he loses MUs in theory but makes up for it in actual play with his reward on hit being so high.
It's the same reason but reversed of why Young Link doesn't destroy everyone. YL has THE best neutral in the game imo; he beats practically everybody. But he's light, has a mediocre disadvantage state and bad kill power. So somewhere in the process of YL out neutraling the opponent to 150% but not killing them, they're going to make a read or hit him offstage at 80% and suddenly YL's down a stock. It's very possible to lose neutral but make up for it in advantage, in Steve's case.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Steve does have some noticeable weaknesses. If you can stop him from getting materials he's going to be at a disadvantage. If he can't get diamond on stock 1 before he dies he's playing at a disadvantage, moreso if you can keep pressuring him. There was a game where Onin decided to craft diamond around 150% at stock 2, died, and then could never really come back into the game since his opponent wouldn't let him mine another diamond.

Something worth keeping in mind is that crafting diamond takes longer than other tools. You might be able to stop him from crafting diamond or punishing him for doing it. Keep in mind that the Steve player knows this and might try to counter your counter-play, so be careful!

Steve's range is also somewhat subpar. Sure, give someone like Mario these disjoints and it would be nasty, but Steve has relativity small disjoints on a slow character. This makes playing at mid-range occasionally tricky. Someone like Cloud who can wall him out can be really annoying for Steve to deal with.

Is Steve overtuned? Probably. Many of his tools are too strong, his combo game is amazing, his comeback potential is great (especially if he gets to mine, and stopping him from mining is often easier said than done), and he has so, so many mixups. Oh, and he can build walls and platforms and traps. Steve is nasty. Even so, I do think he has some matchups that he loses.

Keep in mind that "losing" a matchup isn't necessarily that bad. People win losing MUs all the time, and lose winning matchups all the time. Just look at Big D or Skyjay, two players that play characters with a ton of losing MUs, yet they still do well. Steve's losing MUs are probably only slightly losing, but that's still losing.

People also have a tendency to think that -2 MUs aren't -2 just because some players win. -2 doesn't mean "impossible" or even "close to impossible", it mostly just mean that it's bad and you'll have to work harder. -3 or -4, on the other hand... Those are really bad. Like Brawl Meta Knight versus Brawl Ganondorf bad. Thankfully, Ultimate has very few -3 MUs, and probably no -4 MUs. Perhaps Ganondorf is the only character with -3 MUs, and that character isn't exactly tournament viable (generally agreed to be the worst character in the game).

Oh, and winning/losing MUs assume that people know how to play the MU. Cosmos made the Ice Climber/Aegis MU look Even largely because he didn't really know the MU (and I can't really blame him since there are few Ice Climber players near Big D's level, so it's probably hard to get MU practice). But hey, even acola lost a set to Big D, and that's probably a +2 MU for Steve. acola adapted and played better in the runback, though.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Something I can truly confidently say: I just ate my own words, Nintendo just indeed posted a new balance patch to the game, over a year after the last one. The changes themselves are kinda bizarre, and no mention of Steve bug fixes, but I am sure it will be fixed as well.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I actually decided to post a YouTube video showing off my thoughts on these notes, if anyone is interested or anything...

Damn, right before I was gonna post my new tier list

 

[Sucumbio]

Any major upsets at Major Upset??

 

[The_Bookworm]

Any major upsets at Major Upset??

ESAM 1-2 Ludo (ESAM would get eliminated at 33rd by Skittles, while Ludo is currently fighting Leo for winner's top 8)
BassMage 1-2 FizzMint (both are in top 16 loser's currently)

Outside of these two, not really any other notable upsets.

 

[Hippieslayer]

It's all well and good to mention your gripes about things like frame data and skewed risk-reward, but this particular point is, frankly, exaggerated nonsense. There's no special property about his shovel or fair that makes it "win nearly every exchange," it's just a stubby disjointed move. Plenty of characters can outspace this without much issue.


100% I believe it would. This isn't unique to Smash, but player bases will always want to complain about whoever happens to be at the top, regardless of the game -patch culture has largely just shifted the discourse from "I can't figure out how to overcome these strong tools" to "I can't figure out why the devs haven't changed these strong tools."


South Australia also banned Hero pretty early on in release for similar complaints of him being unhealthy for competition. As we know, Hero went on to become a problem in other scenes that failed to follow their lead (/s if it wasn't clear).

This isn't meant to be a knock on Australia's competitive judgement (it's coincidental that the Hero ban came from the same country), but just an example to point out that these bans don't always reflect how things are elsewhere. Yes, the exact rationale for these bans were different, but the point is to be wary of using one supporting case as confirmation that one side must be correct as a result.


They don't. It would be nice of course, but they've delivered their product already -they're not under any obligation to come back. Again, yes, it would be great if they showed continued support, but they're not beholden to it.



As someone who thinks Steve is fine as is, the issue I take with people who cry for bans against him is a lack of good-faith arguing. You look at someone like NairWizard practically begging for some in-depth counterarguing and no one obliges. The anti-Steve posts typically harken to the same vague platitudes: bullet-point listing his strengths without going much into why those strengths are uncompetitive, instead insisting that anyone who "can't see it" must be acting disingenuously.

Like, let's look at the post you quoted as having summed up your stance nicely:

I agree, Incineroar does have these traits in spades, especially if Revenge is active!

I mean yeah, I'm being facetious here because he does mention more specifics, but others simply listing positive traits in a vacuum like this out-of-context quote doesn't promote meaningful discussion, it's grandstanding to people who already agree with their side.


Same with handwaving of character shortcomings. Let's add "poor range" to this for a list of Slow Movement and Poor Range being the supposed only base weaknesses, and delve into that a little more with a more recent example:
Here's Game 2 from Tweek and あcola's GF set from this Summit.

あcola goes a full minute (7:40-8:39) without getting a single meaningful hit in on Tweek's Seph, and it's not from camping! He's trying to get in and pressure Seph, and Tweek is playing around his attempts well. At 8:40 he finally lands up-tilt→bair and shortly thereafter gets another callout bair around 8:48 -he then goes another 20 seconds of trying to get in and simply being unable to get anything going until Tweek gets caught by minecart at 9:15 after going for back-to-back full stage shorthop bairs.

It's easy to rebuff this by suggesting あcola could've camped instead (he did have the lead at the time), but the point is that we can see an instance of this character struggling in a very real way at applying pressure against a character that has the mobility and range to keep him out. This doesn't seem like some "doesn't matter" weakness on paper, this is a legit issue that lead to him getting zero-to-death'd in this match.


These kinds of talking points are tough -it has absolutely nothing to do with how competitive Steve's kit is, and everything about a subjective enjoyment factor which really can't be discussed, but I get it. Streams rely on consistent viewership to help keep funds rolling, and if public opinion hates watching it, then it could lead to problems for some scenes. I disagree with it being dull (as I've stated in previous posts, I enjoy seeing characters break through zoning. Circle camping is what I dislike, which, yes, I know, Steve is capable of on some stages as well, but I digress), but there's nothing we can really debate here. There are people who hate seeing these matches, and there are people who don't. Useful for potential ban discussion, not useful for competitiveness discussion, if that distinction actually matters to people at large.


Where is this conclusion coming from, though? Listing things people dislike and find distasteful doesn't equate to being "uncompetitive" in and of themselves.

If people truly believe he's so good as to be uncompetitve, let's open the discussion up and show why that is. Provide examples that show the other player lacking reasonable counterplay and let's do some analysis. People don't have to scour through hours of VODs, just link a point in a match of something egregious so we can actually get something meaningful going on this dead horse (this isn't directed directly at Aligo, but rather an open invitation for anyone to do so).

That's some copium thinking Steve is fine as he is. He's not breaking the game, but he is annoying and def not fine as he is.

There is counterplay to Steve, I don't think anyone is denying that. Everyone knows a lot of the swordies do relatively well vs him. The issue is that he's so overtuned that he can win despite said counterplay. That right now even his worst matchups don't really seem to be matchups that he loses. There's nothing particularly complex about this that requires that much analysis, it's evident when you look at the matches. I think the answers you are asking for can only really be provided by the people who have fought Acola multiple, they could weigh in on this with some authority. Don't think the rest of us can. Even if we were to do a detailed analysis of Acola's game's with multiple timestamps.

Perhaps the counterplay can be refined to the point that Steve does end up with some losing matchups. You can't really know that. Analysis is perhaps gonna increase the likelihood of ones guess being correct about whether or not that will end up being the case. It could just as well end up being the case that Steve players will refine his meta to the point that he wins even vs characters like Cloud. It's all gonna be speculation though. Analysis has it's limits.

Right now though we have a character with no apparent losing matchups and it sucks having such a character for obvious reasons. You ask for links to something egregious. Why? It's apparent what is egregious. His combo game letting him rack up damage in a way that no other character can with the same consistency as Steve. Several of his moves doing too much knockback and damage.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for MAJOR UPSET

1. Sparg0
2. MkLeo
3. Riddles
4. Big D
5. Jakal
5. Kurama
7. BassMage
7. Chase
9. Zomba
9. Ludo
9. MFA
9. Ouch!?
13. skittles
13. Fizzmint
13. Aaron
13. embo_z
17. Quinn
17. Dark Wizzy
17. Lui$
17. Konga
17. Kreeg
17. MKBigBoss
17. Rocke
17. JoJoDaHoBo

 

[The_Bookworm]

Three notable events just concluded now: a major in Major Upset, a super-regional in Battle for the South 2023, and a Hawaii regional in Kawaii Kon 2023.

Results for MAJOR UPSET

1. Sparg0
2. MkLeo
3. Riddles
4. Big D
5. Jakal
5. Kurama
7. BassMage
7. Chase
9. Zomba
9. Ludo
9. MFA
9. Ouch!?
13. skittles
13. Fizzmint
13. Aaron
13. embo_z
17. Quinn
17. Dark Wizzy
17. Lui$
17. Konga
17. Kreeg
17. MKBigBoss
17. Rocke
17. JoJoDaHoBo

AAARRRGGG YOU BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH!!!
Ahem, anyways...

Ironically, this tournament didn't have that many major upsets. lmao

Bet this tournament felt great for MkLeo and Sparg0 after their slump from Summit.
MkLeo pretty much used this event to iron out the Aegis. He hilariously had to go through a gauntlet of 3 of the best Marios in the world in a row before encountering Sparg0 in winner's/grand's. The Aegis looked amazing during the Kurama set and for some moments of brilliance during the numerous sets he played versus Sparg0. However, there is still some room for improvement.

SmashWiki says that he used Byleth at one point in the tournament but I cannot for the life of me recall when that happened.

Also, shoutouts to BassMage's run in this tournament. He was one of the few that got upsetted in this tournament, versus Fizzmint in pools. He then proceeded to win 7 consecutive sets, including wins over moxi, skittles, and Zomba, to get 7th in this event.


Battle for the South 2023
1st: ApolloKage
2nd: Lima
3rd: Goblin
4th: Anathema
5th: Peabnut
5th: MPg
7th: MuteAce
7th: Kobe
9th: Vendetta
9th: omega
9th: Jahzz0
9th: Ave~
13th: Peanut
13th: Juanpi
13th: Teaser
13th: BeastModePaul

Fairly standard tournament overall, but it is nice to see Goblin place highly again and ApolloKage still keeping up his momentum as a player.
Double Mega Man at 5th is amusing.


Kawaii Kon 2023
1st: Tweek
2nd: Glutonny
3rd: Marss
4th: Bananime
5th: Smallleft
5th: VoiD

Not very noteworthy tournament outside of the four standouts (Tweek, Glutto, Marss, VoiD).
Shoutouts to Bananime winning convincingly over VoiD and taking a game off of Glutonny.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Three notable events just concluded now: a major in Major Upset, a super-regional in Battle for the South 2023, and a Hawaii regional in Kawaii Kon 2023.



AAARRRGGG YOU BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH!!!
Ahem, anyways...

Ironically, this tournament didn't have that many major upsets. lmao

Bet this tournament felt great for MkLeo and Sparg0 after their slump from Summit.
MkLeo pretty much used this event to iron out the Aegis. He hilariously had to go through a gauntlet of 3 of the best Marios in the world in a row before encountering Sparg0 in winner's/grand's. The Aegis looked amazing during the Kurama set and for some moments of brilliance during the numerous sets he played versus Sparg0. However, there is still some room for improvement.

SmashWiki says that he used Byleth at one point in the tournament but I cannot for the life of me recall when that happened.

Leo used Byleth in pools, apparently.

 

[williamsga555]

That's some copium thinking Steve is fine as he is. He's not breaking the game, but he is annoying and def not fine as he is.

I should first say that "fine as he is" for me doesn't mean "not overtuned." I use it as "assuming that patches are finished, is the game in a decent spot with this character as they are now" and I believe that answer is yes, personally. Doesn't mean Steve is perfect or that I wouldn't want to change anything about him. I should've been more clear in my first post about this, so my apologies.

Yes, I think Steve is one of the best characters in the game, potentially the best. He has enough tools to deal with any matchup and he can shutdown a decent number of lesser characters. He's absolutely overtuned, but I don't see that as being unacceptable in and of itself. I mentioned it a bit in that prior post, but the top characters are always going to be overtuned in a game with unique character mechanics. I think being overtuned is only unacceptable if it's to such a degree that counterplay is unreasonable -for example, Smash 4 Bayo all but requiring heavy SDI as part of her "counterplay" was pretty unreasonable in my eyes.

You ask for links to something egregious. Why? It's apparent what is egregious.

Ordinarily, I find it tiring to read through this routine (not from you specifically, just speaking generally) every time the community largely becomes convinced that some character is just too good and/or too annoying. We all went through it for literal years with Pikachu in this game, we went through it with Joker at the height of Leo's usage with him, we went through it with R.O.B. and the Aegis too at several points; a number of people talking about how busted their strengths are without much effort getting put towards discussing how to potentially counter those traits, or looking into whether the eyetest is backed by anything (or vice-versa).

Ultimately that's fine if people aren't terribly interested in that kind of analysis. This is first and foremost an "impressions" thread, so I know that wanting deep dives into matchup breakdowns and whatnot is a me problem.

The difference here, however, is that ban discussion is getting brought up, and I think that's a big deal. I believe that if people are serious about removing a character from the game (and in this instance, the Steve ban talk has obviously garnered a lot of traction over the past month or so), they should be able to defend that stance with more than just doubling down on it "being apparent." I don't want reasons why Steve is the best, I want to know why he's uncompetitive, and I'd certainly appreciate having more to go off of than just claiming it's obvious.

For the record, I've come out of lurking to try and challenge talks of banning Hero back in the day as well, so this isn't just a Steve thing specifically for me, if anyone was thinking that.

His combo game letting him rack up damage in a way that no other character can. Several of his moves doing too much knockback and damage.

To the second point, I agree, I think some of his moves do too much knockback. Minecart shouldn't launch as far as it does given how much other utility it has on top of that. Anvil I would be okay with if it weren't for footstool OoS being so potent, but alas. I'm okay with Diamond f smash being crazy but iron f smash doesn't need to be that potent given how much easier it is to acquire.

The first point I just completely disagree with, however. Plenty of characters have access to damage racking comparable with Steve (some examples just quickly off the top of my head: Kazuya, Terry, Mario, Peach/Daisy, Fox, Falco, Ken, even Bowser Jr. has a relatively easy access to 40-60% just through upthrow→upair followups. This list isn't even counting more situational combo-centric characters like Snake or PAC-MAN, let alone any the silliness someone like Incineroar can pull out with revenge). Yes, Steve's combo game is excellent, but it's well within the wheelhouse of what Smash has deemed acceptable for ages.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Reddit made a new tier list: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/...cial_rsmashbros_tier_list_january_march_2023/

I think this one might be one of the more agreeable tier lists I've seen. I pretty much agree with the top 6 characters (although I might order it slightly differently but it's hard to order). Pikachu at #10 seems reasonable, not too high, not too low. Snake getting some respect at #11 seems reasonable too. Shulk's placement seems fairly reasonable as well. Terry might be a bit overrated? I'm not quite that sold on Young Link yet and might put some more characters above him. It's nice to see that Bayonetta and Corrin are in high tier now, although I think both of them could be higher.

Skyjay pushing Incineroar into Mid+ is fairly impressive. Given Skyjay's recent results I don't think it's unreasonable. It will be interesting to see if Skyjay will keep performing well or if people will figure out how to deal with the big cat.

I'm glad to see that Duck Hunt and Banjo are both voted Low+, I think that's a good placement for them. It's a shame that we don't see Raito much at US majors anymore but the character doesn't seem to do well in this meta.

Overall, while I don't agree with everything I think it's a fairly solid tier list.

 

[Aligo]

I should first say that "fine as he is" for me doesn't mean "not overtuned." I use it as "assuming that patches are finished, is the game in a decent spot with this character as they are now" and I believe that answer is yes, personally. Doesn't mean Steve is perfect or that I wouldn't want to change anything about him. I should've been more clear in my first post about this, so my apologies.

Yes, I think Steve is one of the best characters in the game, potentially the best. He has enough tools to deal with any matchup and he can shutdown a decent number of lesser characters. He's absolutely overtuned, but I don't see that as being unacceptable in and of itself. I mentioned it a bit in that prior post, but the top characters are always going to be overtuned in a game with unique character mechanics. I think being overtuned is only unacceptable if it's to such a degree that counterplay is unreasonable -for example, Smash 4 Bayo all but requiring heavy SDI as part of her "counterplay" was pretty unreasonable in my eyes.


Ordinarily, I find it tiring to read through this routine (not from you specifically, just speaking generally) every time the community largely becomes convinced that some character is just too good and/or too annoying. We all went through it for literal years with Pikachu in this game, we went through it with Joker at the height of Leo's usage with him, we went through it with R.O.B. and the Aegis too at several points; a number of people talking about how busted their strengths are without much effort getting put towards discussing how to potentially counter those traits, or looking into whether the eyetest is backed by anything (or vice-versa).

Ultimately that's fine if people aren't terribly interested in that kind of analysis. This is first and foremost an "impressions" thread, so I know that wanting deep dives into matchup breakdowns and whatnot is a me problem.

The difference here, however, is that ban discussion is getting brought up, and I think that's a big deal. I believe that if people are serious about removing a character from the game (and in this instance, the Steve ban talk has obviously garnered a lot of traction over the past month or so), they should be able to defend that stance with more than just doubling down on it "being apparent." I don't want reasons why Steve is the best, I want to know why he's uncompetitive, and I'd certainly appreciate having more to go off of than just claiming it's obvious.

For the record, I've come out of lurking to try and challenge talks of banning Hero back in the day as well, so this isn't just a Steve thing specifically for me, if anyone was thinking that.


To the second point, I agree, I think some of his moves do too much knockback. Minecart shouldn't launch as far as it does given how much other utility it has on top of that. Anvil I would be okay with if it weren't for footstool OoS being so potent, but alas. I'm okay with Diamond f smash being crazy but iron f smash doesn't need to be that potent given how much easier it is to acquire.

The first point I just completely disagree with, however. Plenty of characters have access to damage racking comparable with Steve (some examples just quickly off the top of my head: Kazuya, Terry, Mario, Peach/Daisy, Fox, Falco, Ken, even Bowser Jr. has a relatively easy access to 40-60% just through upthrow→upair followups. This list isn't even counting more situational combo-centric characters like Snake or PAC-MAN, let alone any the silliness someone like Incineroar can pull out with revenge). Yes, Steve's combo game is excellent, but it's well within the wheelhouse of what Smash has deemed acceptable for ages.

Since you have asked, I will try to explain to the best of my ability.

Yes, a select few characters can match Steves damage output, and some can kill even earlier. However, none of those characters have a great disadvantage or recovery.

Steve has a top 3 recovery thanks to a most likely unintended angle being possible with elytra, allowing Steve to get back to the stage from the bottom corner, and can stall offstage for long periods thanks to blocks. Disadvantage is also dangerous for the opponent, as at any time Steve can either drop a large projectile that does 20+% damage and kills stupidity early or can escape either using the armoured mine cart or angled elytra to ledge. Steve also has a pretty high weight of 92. Other characters with the same weight or above tend to either have trash disadvantage or recovery, and more comparable characters are far lighter.

In short Steve excels in far too many areas to be balanced. The only real weaknesses Steve has is stall, as while Steve can approach, his ability to do so is average- which means it is terrible relative to the rest of his kit. Any character with 80% of kazuyas damage, 60% of Sonic's stall, and 90% of Sora's recovery would be classified as overturned, and Steve fits this category.

Continuous pressure to prevent resource gain isn't the solution is is often cited to be as the low grade tools, even wood, are really damn good and are still capable of dealing huge damage and closing out stocks at reasonable percents. On top of that, Steve does not lose resources upon stock loss, which means there is now way to get rid of the resources gained unless the Steve uses them.

The main things holding back Steve currently is the dilution of the playerbase due to a high number of fighters, top players being reluctant to play the character for the most part and a player base that is very weak relative to its size.

Please feel free contest me on any of the points, I may learn about things that I overlooked prior.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Reddit made a new tier list: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/...cial_rsmashbros_tier_list_january_march_2023/

I think this one might be one of the more agreeable tier lists I've seen. I pretty much agree with the top 6 characters (although I might order it slightly differently but it's hard to order). Pikachu at #10 seems reasonable, not too high, not too low. Snake getting some respect at #11 seems reasonable too. Shulk's placement seems fairly reasonable as well. Terry might be a bit overrated? I'm not quite that sold on Young Link yet and might put some more characters above him. It's nice to see that Bayonetta and Corrin are in high tier now, although I think both of them could be higher.

Skyjay pushing Incineroar into Mid+ is fairly impressive. Given Skyjay's recent results I don't think it's unreasonable. It will be interesting to see if Skyjay will keep performing well or if people will figure out how to deal with the big cat.

I'm glad to see that Duck Hunt and Banjo are both voted Low+, I think that's a good placement for them. It's a shame that we don't see Raito much at US majors anymore but the character doesn't seem to do well in this meta.

Overall, while I don't agree with everything I think it's a fairly solid tier list.

It closely resembles the official tier list too, with some minor differences. In fact I think the top 7 are in nearly the exact order.