Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[TumblrFamous]

Whoops, didn't see that a few pages ago!

Jr. is weird. I think he has improved quite a bit but some of his terrible qualities still remain from 4, along with the general perception of him. His specials and mobility are a lot better but damn is his recovery still garbage. And his throws are still pretty lackluster.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

So I haven’t seen a lot of high level Pit play at all and was wondering this because I thought I heard that they can. Can Pit’s arrows do the hard stop/zone out tail gimp thing that PK Thunder’s tail does or is that unique to PK Thunder? Further question does Lucas’s tail on PK Thunder have the same hard stop property as Ness’s?

I mean I know there are low knockback projectiles but I was curious if any worked in exactly the same way as PK Thunder

Na they can't do that. Um as for pit players you could check out kiraflax he seems to switch between the two pits. He did just take a game off of MKleo.

 

[MG_3989]

Whoops, didn't see that a few pages ago!

Jr. is weird. I think he has improved quite a bit but some of his terrible qualities still remain from 4, along with the general perception of him. His specials and mobility are a lot better but damn is his recovery still garbage. And his throws are still pretty lackluster.

The Matchup Chart is new though!

And I honestly have no desire to play Jr. Yeah they’re a character and they’re there and I honestly forget about them until I face one on quickplay lol

And mean maybe with grab games being a little less important in Ultimate than before and even top and high tiers having exploitable recoveries the game maybe caters to him a little more than 4. Keep in mind I know nothing about him

Na they can't do that. Um as for pit players you could check out kiraflax he seems to switch between the two pits. He did just take a game off of MKleo.

Definitelt gonna check this out later. For some reason it was in my head that the arrows could do the tail gimp thing. That would make them really really good

 

[Impax]

Yeah we were talking about the Samsora tier list a couple pages back. I guess he thinks Bowser Jr. has some potential. I didn’t play Smash 4 but I don’t know how bad Bowser Jr. actually was or if they were just held back by being seen as a terrible character so nobody explored them. Not that I’ve seen anyone explore them this game and I’ve never played them personally but I’ve heard a couple positive opinions about Bowser Jr. A few pages back somebody posted some really nice Bowser Jr. combos in this thread too, I forgot who

Also I like all these match up charts. I think ultimately (if accurate) they’re much more useful than tier lists. I wish one of the top Ness mains would do that but I highly doubt that because other than Jtails (who is only kind of a Ness main) none of them create content. I can pretty much figure it out but it would still be nice to have a guideline to look at and see what top players are struggling with and doing well against vs what I’m struggling with and doing well against

Tweek mained bowser jr last game. They just werent any good.


Edit:
On the peach matchup chart I find it interesting peach loses to 3 of the top 4 characters samsora has in the game. He only considers lucina favorable. Can a top 5 character have that many losing matchup to the other top tier characters ?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Tweek mained bowser jr last game. They just werent any good.


Edit:
On the peach matchup chart I find it interesting peach loses to 3 of the top 4 characters samsora has in the game. He only considers lucina favorable. Can a top 5 character have that many losing matchup to the other top tier characters ?

That's pretty much what I was thinking. For a consensus top tier character, her matchup spread didn't look all that stacked.

Re: Wolf's blaster, I was greatly amused to find out that Inkling can low profile the shots by dashing underneath them, although the timing can be tricky.

 

[Tiltedssb]

this aged poorly.

Haven't really participated in competitive discussions before but I've been using a handful of fighters and here's some of my thoughts:

: Never played him in Sm4sh, but I can say he's still pretty damn good. I believe the only differences I can notice from gameplay footage of Sm4sh and Ultimate is that his counter is a bit less powerful and side b works a bit differently now? Regardless I think he's still a high tier pick, but not as far up as he was ranked in Sm4sh.

: Actually super good, don't know why he's ranked so low. The biggest selling points with Incineroar are his counter, side b, and throws. His counter is almost essential and imo it's the BEST counter in the game. Why? Ever other fighter's counters react to a move instantly and the power scales based on the power of the attack countered. Incineroar on the other hand, can proc Revenge off of little projectiles or tickle damage and gets a flat damage bonus on his next hit and that damage bonus is absolutely scary when combined with side b's lariat, dash attack, a smash, or a throw. The only way it's removed from what I've seen is from being grabbed/thrown, KO'ing or landing a hit, and crazily enough, landing a hit on a shield doesn't use it up. His recovery is pitiful, but his ground game is just SO strong that I think placing him in lower brackets is silly.

: Probably the best character in the game tbh. Has insane speed and combo potential, and the ink damage bonus just pushes Inkling from really strong to basically godly. I've seen people 0% > KO with Inkling super quickly. Combine the combo potential, damage output, mobility, and ranged abilities with their very high recovery and you have possibly the best fighter in the game.

: Really fun and strong imo. I find it almost ESSENTIAL to have a Gyroid planted at all times to control more of the arena. Her Fishing Rod is perfect for recovery as well as a somewhat niche tool to get players away from you. Her smash attacks are all pretty strong, and her aerial game is basically the same as Villager's. Her jab is terrible imo and dash attack is okay at best. I'd say she's a mid-tier character. She excels in arena control mainly, which is very strong utility, but outside of this, she doesn't have amazing combo game and she doesn't necessarily kill early on much either.

: If Inkling isn't the best character in the game, I'd say K. Rool is. Holy cow. He's a heavy with super armor on a LOT of his hard hitting abilities, he's the only heavy with actual GOOD range and phenomenal recovery, and he's actually pretty fast too. He has a LOT of options to go for to rack up damage safely and then he has so many moves that kill at low %'s since he's a hard-hitting heavy. I think ALL of his moves are very good, while some have some drawbacks such as horrible recovery time from using them or potential to screw up terribly, they are all very solid and strong choices in most scenarios. Seriously, if you haven't tried him, I'd consider you do that ASAP.

: Ugh... I was hoping to be amazed by how good Pichu became in Ultimate, but I find myself disappointed. He's just not good. Especially when Pikachu is far superior in every single way. Pichu relies on getting in his opponent's faces and attempting to combo and kill early(as he can actually do this) but him being a lightweight and damaging himself on nearly 75% of his moves makes him such double-edged sword that it's not even funny. Most games I lose with Pichu is a result of my self-inflicted damage being the main cause of my downfall. I really hope that the self-damage is reduced in future updates.

: Actually not bad. He builds up a LOT of damage pretty fast and his selling points for me are side-b and down-b. You can dish out SO much damage with down-b if you land the sweetspot, and his side-b is a crazy good option to really mess your opponents up. The only problem with side-b is how easy it is to punish before you land it or after you miss. His neutral b is actually a really good zoning tool that builds up damage fast, but can be punished due to it's wind-up time. His recovery is... not amazing, despite being a alien dragon... pirate. He's a strong pick against a handful of characters, and decent against others. I've seen a lot of people just claim he's bad and nothing more to it, but I think he's just below mid-tier.

: Pretty much in a slightly better spot than he was in Sm4sh. He got some minor buffs and tweaks, but nothing to make him a stand out character in either direction. I'd say he's low mid-tier just like Ridley, he has a great kit, the problem is that he has very little reliable or decent kill options in general. His aerials and throws just don't cut it and tilts are decent at best. If his specials weren't as good as they currently are, he'd be bottom tier imo.

Gonna try out Mewtwo, Ness, and Greninja a bit more before I comment on them, but I can say that Zelda is FAR better than any of her previous incarnations. She's no longer bottom tier imo, she's probably a high tier now.

Pichu=bad. K Rool=good. Incineroar=good. WOW this aged poorly too

 

[MG_3989]

That's pretty much what I was thinking. For a consensus top tier character, her matchup spread didn't look all that stacked.

Re: Wolf's blaster, I was greatly amused to find out that Inkling can low profile the shots by dashing underneath them, although the timing can be tricky.

Yeah it doesn’t make much sense to me either. Maybe he’s being modest with the matchups and putting some in even that may be +1 and some in -1 that may be even? Idk, pulling a reverse ESAM?

 

[Repli.Cant]

I didn’t play Smash 4 but I don’t know how bad Bowser Jr. actually was or if they were just held back by being seen as a terrible character so nobody explored them.

Jr. was just... unfinished in S4. Tweek still pulled some stuff with him but at some points it was obvious he was pushing the character to his limits.

Ultimate's Jr. is waaaaay better in comparison. Being a functioning character for one, but at this point I think the only non-functional character is like... Little Mac. And he can probably be fixed with enough careful tweaks here and there.

ITT: I am only useful for Jr. talk :]

 

[Gérard Majax]

Whoops, didn't see that a few pages ago!

Jr. is weird. I think he has improved quite a bit but some of his terrible qualities still remain from 4, along with the general perception of him. His specials and mobility are a lot better but damn is his recovery still garbage. And his throws are still pretty lackluster.

Uthrow combos into uair strings at low and mid % (and when I say "uair strings" I mean "uthrow uair uair uair uair uair lol you went from 0 to 60"), bthrow kills at the ledge around 130 and dthrow sends at an horizontal angle, which either forces a tech or puts the opponent in a undesirable position offstage. I wouldn't call that lackluster.

He was complete garbage in smash 4 because he had no aerial game, canonball was complete garbage, worse combos, jab was literally broken, worse mobility (side b took your double jump back then), and a ****ty grab in "Grab and Shield : the game". Tweek went from an niche Bowser Jr player to a frigging top 3 player when he made the switch to top/high tier characters, Jr was that bad.

On an other note (because I feel like I'm correcting Jr misconceptions in half of my posts), Samsora's tier list looks really pessimistic for what he (and everyone) thinks is a top 5 character. 3 -2 matchups, losing matchups against wolf pichu and olimar (the other top 5 characters, he thinks peach > lucina though). Maybe he just has a different way to rate matchups (because -2 is usually "switch to secondary or you are gonna have a bad time" territory).

His list of losing matchups is really interesting though. Projectiles seems to be a difficulty for peach (Wii Fit, Young Link, Pichu, Ivysaur, Olimar, Wolf, P A C M A N), along with some swordies (and Dedede for some reasons?). Also why are Shulk, Cloud and Ike all significantly harder for Peach than Lucina? I would love to hear some peach mains input on this.

 

[SwagGuy99]

His list of losing matchups is really interesting though. Projectiles seems to be a difficulty for peach (Wii Fit, Young Link, Pichu, Ivysaur, Olimar, Wolf, P A C M A N), along with some swordies (and Dedede for some reasons?). Also why are Shulk, Cloud and Ike all significantly harder for Peach than Lucina? I would love to hear some peach mains input on this.

I can explain some of these.

First off, while I think she does lose to though I would argue that is a much worse matchup simply becuase he is a much better juggler than . Becuase of slow air speed and slow fall speed, if predicts her landing and she isn't holding a turnip or have her float left, he can just up-air her forever. This applies to other slow floaty characters as well like and . Secondly, she struggles against most sword characters because they out-range her.

She has good range which is why she can do well against characters like and who lack range, but against characters with larger disjoints like or , she's going to have a lot harder of a time getting in on them.

To be honest, I don't understand why is a losing matchups either. She has nutty combos on him due to his fast falling speed, she is one of the characters who can edgeguard him efficiently, and she's faster than him. My best guess is that he thinks has trouble with gordos or that she gets outranged by him too severely to take advantages of her strengths (which seems kind of odd but I understand where he would be coming from if that was the case).

Lastly, the reason I think she struggles against characters like or is because turnip is her only projectile and it isn't very effective at dealing with other character's projectiles. She doesn't have a reflector, fast ground speed, or a really fast attack that beats out a lot of projectiles so while her opponent chips away at her damage, she can't really do much about it. Not to mention that and are some of the only characters that can edgeguard effectively which makes those matchups specifically even worse.

Also I'm not a main but I understand how she works and maining a character with similar attributes in regards to movement speed () helps. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

[MG_3989]

As far as the Ness matchup goes from my experience he’s right that they’re even. He can effectively edgeguard Peach but she can edgeguard him with turnip so I guess it’s a trade off (although she can get cold feet edgeguarding against PKT2 and it’s risky to go out with turnip). I’d take turnip over PK Fire but definitely not PK Thunder as a projectile. I do think Ness outzones her a bit though and the disjoints on his aerials can give her problems (I don’t know if many other characters can contest Peach in the air)

However he can’t really out box her consistently because she can float above him and he has to use a risky PK Thunder or a very on point uair and she can fastfall into a super quick fair, nair, or bair whenever she wants to cut off both of those options and punish Ness. Both of them have their positives in the matchup and both of them have their negatives but overall I’d say it evens out and Samarosa was correct to rate it that way. It’s a very back and forth matchup. That’s the most I can give on the matchup chart really

 

[Augi]

How is the blue bomber these days?

Since release, I heard very little about him, most just threw him in the middle of the pack in the rankings, but now he seems quite a bit higher? At least according to some tier lists.

What's brought him up through the rankings?

 

[Lavani]

Also why are Shulk, Cloud and Ike all significantly harder for Peach than Lucina?

Not a Peach main and possibly off about this, but I'd guess the perception comes from how much losing neutral hurts in the matchup. Lucina's sword may outrange Peach, but Peach can afford to lose more interactions against her than the others while staying ahead in the damage race. I don't feel like that alone would make as huge a difference as claimed by the chart, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Impax]

Lastly, the reason I think she struggles against characters like or is because turnip is her only projectile and it isn't very effective at dealing with other character's projectiles. She doesn't have a reflector, fast ground speed, or a really fast attack that beats out a lot of projectiles so while her opponent chips away at her damage, she can't really do much about it. Not to mention that and are some of the only characters that can edgeguard effectively which makes those matchups specifically even worse..

Wii fit and Mii gunner probably also fit the projectile issue.
Wii fit has good edgeguarding too but I dont know if that comes into play here. Also utilt. Would be interesting to hear from samsora on it.

 

[|RK|]

I don't think Pichu beats Wolf in any capacity. Pichu's lack of burst options outside of dash attack make it difficult for her navigate lasers and his giant ground buttons discourage Pichu from fighting him on the ground (and her low fast- fall speed discourages aerial approaches too). Sure she can duck the lasers, but that won't help her against Wolf's buttons.While Pichu can edge-guard Wolf, he can ledge-trap Pichu in return with little difficulty due Pichu's upb not having a hitbox but that's forgetting how difficult it can be for Pichu to win neutral in the first place. Fox is honestly way more difficult to fight that Pichu.

I think you're thinking too linearly. As in, "what can Pichu do if Wolf uses laser?" First, tjolt and laser don't interact. If Wolf is shooting a laser, he can't reflect a tjolt in time. Second, platforms aid Pichu/Pikachu in using their jolts and avoiding Wolf lasers.

Beyond that alone, Pichu's ground movement is significantly superior to Wolf's. Dash attack isn't her only burst option - her own mobility allows her to zone break. At that point, it's a matter of extending the punish and using her small size to avoid hits.

I think that's it's not smart to only use one pit over the other. They are bothe the exact same except for specials, there is zero reason to not use them both.

Unfortunately, you can't say the same for characters like With aerials that come out at frame 10.

Serious question - do you guys jump at sword characters?

Ideally, Kirby wants to use his grounded options vs swords, save for bair. Ftilt has solid range, especially sliding. Dash attack, so on. I will go to my grave saying projectiles ruin Kirby more than swords. Projectiles force you to rely on an aerial approach. Swords do not.

From there, the main question is "how good is your reward once you get in?" And for Kirby... it varies wildly by character. But basically, you shouldn't be worried about aerials that aren't bair in sword MUs.

 

[Lore]

I find it fascinating that so many of these matchup charts have Greninja at a 50-50. I think it says a lot about the character's under representation: either the character is that good, or these pros have little experience against the character.

I'm hoping for the former.

 

[ON-2]

How is the blue bomber these days?

Since release, I heard very little about him, most just threw him in the middle of the pack in the rankings, but now he seems quite a bit higher? At least according to some tier lists.

What's brought him up through the rankings?

I'll throw in my 2 cents on the topic since I play Megaman. I do mainly lurk and don't spend too much scene on the competitive scene so correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

Megaman in this game has been overall buffed and semi reworked since 4. Sure his footstool combos are useless now and the loss of his macro cancel in the recent patch hurts too but he still feels more viable in Ultimate than Smash 4. His pellet range has been increased to make up for the fact that the game speed has been increased, his fsmash is usable now, fair is a kill move, and the new air dodge mechanics help a lot since he can air dodge out of a Up B, giving him a fourth recovery.

Personally I love the new leaf shield as well. The old one had its uses but it felt kinda gimmicky at times. Megaman has to commit to the leaf shield when using it now since he can't do anything but throw it but at the same time the leaves actually connect into another and rack up damage quickly instead of just vanishing on hit so it makes for a good 'get off me' move when used properly. As a projectile it can help Megaman win projectile wars since only a few moves in the game can outright beat it.

Long story short Megaman isn't as good up close as he was in Smash 4 and I'm not sure how significant the macro cancel loss will be in the long run, but he's still stronger than he was in 4 and when I do see him on stream people tend to talk positively about him.

Again feel free to correct me on any points if needed. I just want to stir up some Megaman talk since the character does fly under the radar a lot in discussions.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I am kinda Surpised Samsora put Wolf as a losing MU for Peach/Daisy . They can basically take Wolf from 0-60% with a single combo and I would think they are good at ledgeguarding him.

Hmm I can see that they would really hate his blaster or have issues with his better range on normals.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Interesting that Samsora thinks Ridley/Bowser/DK/Charizard lose to Peach when I've always felt they went even or even won. Especially Ridley considering he has a sword for a tail.

It's probably because Peach combos them so hard, but on the flip side, heavies tend to outrange Peach and juggle her hard in advantage since they aren't scared to trade with her. She has a projectile but its not spammy enough to keep really them out.

But hey, maybe none of the Peaches I've fought were good enough.

 

[Lore]

Zachmac, I lean towards the fact that heavies are still facing quite a bit of bias. In the past games, they usually weren't viable, and it's going to take time to shift those opinions. They may not be top tier, but I strongly believe that they are viable.

Heck, I fall into it myself online. I constantly go into Ganon matches and assume it's just going to be an easy win.

 

[MG_3989]

Zachmac, I lean towards the fact that heavies are still facing quite a bit of bias. In the past games, they usually weren't viable, and it's going to take time to shift those opinions. They may not be top tier, but I strongly believe that they are viable.

Heck, I fall into it myself online. I constantly go into Ganon matches and assume it's just going to be an easy win.

This happens all the time for me and then I realize the Ganon player can actually play and Ganon is way faster than I thought. Everytime. I’ve lost more matches then I should have sleeping on heavies online. It’s usually the Ganons and Bowsers that are decent and I underestimate

K Rool is still usually a cake walk and 3D always cheeses. Oh and I forgot Inceniroar who kills at like at like 60%

 

[Lore]

I think that shows that, again, this meta isn't even close to developed yet. It's an exciting time.

 

[MG_3989]

I think that shows that, again, this meta isn't even close to developed yet. It's an exciting time.

Me too, I was actually watching a video where Salem and M2K were talking about stage choices and how the amount of bigger stages versuses smaller stages legal in most tournaments is shaping the meta in a way that doesn’t favor heavies unfortunately. M2K was a big proponent of getting rid of one of the bigger stages and adding in one small stage but I think that’s just cause he wants to play Inceniroar lol

He made a good argument though and it could lead to a more balanced meta. There are always way more big stages than small stages legal in tournaments

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Zachmac, I lean towards the fact that heavies are still facing quite a bit of bias. In the past games, they usually weren't viable, and it's going to take time to shift those opinions. They may not be top tier, but I strongly believe that they are viable.

Heck, I fall into it myself online. I constantly go into Ganon matches and assume it's just going to be an easy win.

There's a lot of bias that people hold on from previous games which don't really hold true for this game. For instance the notion that Ness will fall off like he did in sm4sh when's he a way stronger character in this version. But big bodies are definitely putting in work this game. If you sleep on the you're asking for a lot of pain.

Also some things to take note of the Diddy kong infinite is being used in tournament play. I know it was said to be difficult but this is definitely a shift in the right direction for Diddy Kong. So of the previous top tiers that have fallen from grace it seems the only one not to show anything is Sheik. Wadi has been playing Rosalina and doing pretty well with her not sure what made him decide to pick her up but its good to see some Rosa. Marss is doing good stuff on ZSS and Bayo still has a couple of good reps playing her. I think going forward we'll start to see more of these characters.


Also if Wolf and Lucina are going to shape the meta I think that'll present some problems for some characters such as peach and pichu. Having a good swordsman will put a lot of stuff in check. Also it appears as though Leffen is picking up YL so that's a plus for that character. He's argubaly the best character without any real top tier representation. If YL starts to get some representation I think people will start to realize just how BS this character is.

 

[Lore]

Me too, I was actually watching a video where Salem and M2K were talking about stage choices and how the amount of bigger stages versuses smaller stages legal in most tournaments is shaping the meta in a way that doesn’t favor heavies unfortunately. M2K was a big proponent of getting rid of one of the bigger stages and adding in one small stage but I think that’s just cause he wants to play Inceniroar lol

He made a good argument though and it could lead to a more balanced meta. There are always way more big stages than small stages legal in tournaments

Oh absolutely. I think this silly attitude of going for the most bland, "neutral" stages is lopsiding the entire game towards certain characters.

No stage is truly neutral. Simple as that.

 

[Omnos]

Wouldn't a map like warioware just get banned 100% of the time if you're playing against someone who plays a super heavy?

As long as there is stage striking it still wouldn't see play, even if it was legal. I'm not against having a slightly more diverse pool of stages but we'll still probably see the same few more often than not.

 

[Lore]

That's why Warioware and Castle Siege are being suggested at the same time, among other reasons.

Plus with the current list, the opponent can still ban a stage favorable to a heavy and lean you further towards a disadvantageous stage.

 

[MG_3989]

Wouldn't a map like warioware just get banned 100% of the time if you're playing against someone who plays a super heavy?

As long as there is stage striking it still wouldn't see play, even if it was legal. I'm not against having a slightly more diverse pool of stages but we'll still probably see the same few more often than not.

Castle Siege, Unova, and Warioware were all being suggested at once so you can’t strike all three. Just like we have PS2, Town and City, and Kalos and you can’t strike all three

 

[Foie]

I feel like heavies are getting a fair bit of extra credit from many here based on online experience. They are certainly better in this game, but the added input delay makes them even more viable online. Similar to how Ally won online brawl tournaments with Ike, heavies are just so much better when it's harder to punish their worse frame data and utterly massive hurtboxes.

Tourney results thus far put them around low through mid-tier, which I think is actually quite accurate... Just look at Genesis, very few superheavies in the top 100.

Adding smaller stages would help them, but I don't think it'll be a game changer...

 

[Omnos]

Castle Siege, Unova, and Warioware were all being suggested at once so you can’t strike all three. Just like we have PS2, Town and City, and Kalos and you can’t strike all three

I'm personally not a fan of castle siege but I don't actually think it offers an advantage to super heavies. It still has much larger blast zones than warioware (no killing people at 50-60% with a strong hit) and the platforms are kind of awkward for heavies due to their height. Ya it minimizes campy play because the stage is small, which would be nice for heavies.

I just don't think it offers enough advantages to even out bad MUs.

 

[MG_3989]

I'm personally not a fan of castle siege but I don't actually think it offers an advantage to super heavies. It still has much larger blast zones than warioware (no killing people at 50-60% with a strong hit) and the platforms are kind of awkward for heavies due to their height. Ya it minimizes campy play because the stage is small, which would be nice for heavies.

I just don't think it offers enough advantages to even out bad MUs.

I’m not a fan of Castle Siege either. The blind spot sucks for Ness recovering. Now is their time to explore new stages though. They won’t be able to experiment in a year from now when it’s all set in stone. Might as well experiment with what’s best for the meta

 

[Rizen]

Samsora just released his own tier list and Peach MU chart.
View attachment 192062
View attachment 192061

This isn't that controversial, I feel this is pretty good and balanced. I'm surprised he has a relatively higher opinion of Bowser Jr. than most.

I'm not going to bother with tier lists. MU charts are a different matter. I haven't played the Peach/YL MU but can see how it would be in YL's favor. Considering Peach's phenomenal results it wouldn't surprise me if these MU were on average +.5 better for Peach than shown.

Also it appears as though Leffen is picking up YL so that's a plus for that character. He's argubaly the best character without any real top tier representation. If YL starts to get some representation I think people will start to realize just how BS this character is.

^this. Unfortunately it's easier to pick up Wolf or Lucina and do better so YL gets overshadowed.

 

[Minordeth]

I think you're thinking too linearly. As in, "what can Pichu do if Wolf uses laser?" First, tjolt and laser don't interact. If Wolf is shooting a laser, he can't reflect a tjolt in time. Second, platforms aid Pichu/Pikachu in using their jolts and avoiding Wolf lasers.

Beyond that alone, Pichu's ground movement is significantly superior to Wolf's. Dash attack isn't her only burst option - her own mobility allows her to zone break. At that point, it's a matter of extending the punish and using her small size to avoid hits.

But... this isn’t really accurate, though. The only thing Pichu has over Wolf is top run speed. Wolf’s initial dash starts at 2.09, whereas Pichu’s starts at 1.98. Pichu’s speed only begins to overtakes Wolf on frame 9, where Wolf has decreasing speed into his run.

They are actually fairly close in terms of overall ground mobility, but Wolf jukes more quickly and has vastly better air speed. If he uses his foxtrot constantly, their ground mobility is extremely close.

Pichu can’t zone break with her mobility. She isn’t Fox or Greninja. She isn’t even Pikachu. Agility has no hitbox and has the same vulnurabilities as Quick Attack.

Wolf can absolutely make it hard for her to get in, as his ground buttons have disjoints, and she actually can’t coast on ground mobility.

Interesting that Samsora thinks Ridley/Bowser/DK/Charizard lose to Peach when I've always felt they went even or even won. Especially Ridley considering he has a sword for a tail.

It's probably because Peach combos them so hard, but on the flip side, heavies tend to outrange Peach and juggle her hard in advantage since they aren't scared to trade with her. She has a projectile but its not spammy enough to keep really them out.

But hey, maybe none of the Peaches I've fought were good enough.

Idk about the others, but Peach is probably even with Ridley. He is a sword character, ultimately, and is made of disjoints. Peach can bypass dtilt spacing due to float, which is not great, and she can wrack up damage like no tomorrow.

However... she really doesn’t want to float too much. Ridley’s Fair outranges everything she has and is basically the walling tool in the MU, substituted in for Nair.

She can challenge his up-B, but it’s not easy. Neither wants to be offstage versus the other. Ultimately, Peach still has to get in, as Turnip isn’t good enough to control neutral against Ridley.

Like a lot of Ridley MUs, it probably comes down to stage selection.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Zachmac, I lean towards the fact that heavies are still facing quite a bit of bias. In the past games, they usually weren't viable, and it's going to take time to shift those opinions. They may not be top tier, but I strongly believe that they are viable.

Heck, I fall into it myself online. I constantly go into Ganon matches and assume it's just going to be an easy win.

I think that heavies are being slept on especially . He's so fast, he edgeguards well, and he's just a good character overall.

 

[earthboundspacefree]

I think that heavies are being slept on especially . He's so fast, he edgeguards well, and he's just a good character overall.

Heavies are good, but big stages are rough for them since they struggle to get past projectiles anyway

Edit: let me add some semi-unpopular opinions, so that I’m not just posting one liners.

-I think bowser jr is low mid tier, not bottom tier
-falco is way better than the general consensus right now (probably not that unpopular)
-if anybody will actually pick up Corrin, i think they’d be considered a really good character (perhaps high mid). They have a lot of tools, but there’s a big opportunity cost involved with playing them over the way better, simpler FE characters
-Pac-Man and sonic are super good (around high tier). Sonic just has different tools than last game, but he’s still the fastest character in a game where speed matters so much. Pac-Man has basically been improved in every way, and we’ve seen his representation do pretty well (26th on TTS)
-greninja is probably top 10 - great mobility, combo game, edgeguarding and multiple kill confirms
-ness is top 15 right now, but may fall off as edgeguarding becomes more optimized and as swordies continue to have their heyday

Also, how are the Belmonts against swordies?

 

[Lore]

I feel like heavies are getting a fair bit of extra credit from many here based on online experience. They are certainly better in this game, but the added input delay makes them even more viable online. Similar to how Ally won online brawl tournaments with Ike, heavies are just so much better when it's harder to punish their worse frame data and utterly massive hurtboxes.

Tourney results thus far put them around low through mid-tier, which I think is actually quite accurate... Just look at Genesis, very few superheavies in the top 100.

Adding smaller stages would help them, but I don't think it'll be a game changer...

Meanwhile a slow, read-based character named Ike won the event, although MKLeo swapped to Lucina for some rounds at the end.

Heavies have been popping up in various events, and I strongly suspect that they were underrepresented at Genesis due to players wanting to play the clear "top" characters for a first big event.

I also think those "top" characters are the ones who have the most basic play and reward fundamentals, which is why people have gravitated to them. As the meta develops, I do believe those characters will stay near the top. I just don't see them as dominant as previous games' top tiers.

I think that heavies are being slept on especially . He's so fast, he edgeguards well, and he's just a good character overall.

DK is definitely great, but his recovery weakens him a good bit. I'm not sure where he will end up.

Heavies are good, but big stages are rough for them since they struggle to get past projectiles anyway

Definitely. I still firmly believe that the current stage list is flawed.

 

[Krysco]

Wolf's projectile has a nasty combination of speed, power (does over 9% in ideal conditions), and intangibility. Most characters lose the projectile war unless they can quickly straight-up out-damage him on trades, and that's only a handful: Ryu depending on distance, Pichu sort of (self-damage is a factor), and stored-charge characters like Samuses, Wii Fit, Lucario, and Mewtwo (extra points for packing a reflector of their own). Maybe some others I missed. Not sure how Pikmin interact with blaster, either.

Reds, blues and whites die to the Blaster shot (not sure on Pikmin HP so it might depend on distance but if they survive at all, I imagine they act like purples) but since it's not a piercing projectile like R.O.B.'s lasers, it disappears upon hitting them. Yellow take the Blaster shot just fine and continue along their path but the arc they're thrown in makes it harder to hit a Blaster shot with them for side special. Purples take the shot and live but they stop where they got shot and head back to Olimar. Tested this with side special, fsmash and dair. Tried to test with fair and bair but Olimar kept getting hit by the shot instead of the Pikmin. If they can interact during those moves, I imagine the same results apply. And while this is a post from 2 days ago, people are still talking about Pichu vs Wolf so I tested to see if Pichu could crouch under the Blaster shot. He can't crouch under it but he can crawl under it. His ear enters the z axis it seems when he crawls since that's what gets hit when he just crouches. I know ZSS is similar where her crawl is actually lower than her crouch.

Unrelated to this stuff and not specifically directed at you Nobie but what's the current thoughts on Sonic? I've been enjoying using him a lot lately now that his entire gameplan doesn't revolve around his side special shield cancel. The only notable results I'm aware of him having is Sonix getting 25th at Genesis.

 

[earthboundspacefree]

Meanwhile a slow, read-based character named Ike won the event, although MKLeo swapped to Lucina for some rounds at the end.

Heavies have been popping up in various events, and I strongly suspect that they were underrepresented at Genesis due to players wanting to play the clear "top" characters for a first big event.

I also think those "top" characters are the ones who have the most basic play and reward fundamentals, which is why people have gravitated to them. As the meta develops, I do believe those characters will stay near the top. I just don't see them as dominant as previous games' top tiers.



DK is definitely great, but his recovery weakens him a good bit. I'm not sure where he will end up.



Definitely. I still firmly believe that the current stage list is flawed.

whats worse is that people are campaigning to have 3 or the smaller stages removed (castle, yoshi brawl, lylat). I don’t understand, I guess people are okay with the pace of the game slowing down, and having less viable characters, or maybe they don’t realize the implications of removing them

Edit: oh and some don’t want yoshis story (SLOPEZZZ)

Consider a scenario:

Smashville
Kalos
Unova
Town
Fd
Battlefield
Ps2
BF

let’s say you’re someone like inceniroar - your opponent chooses to strike something like unova and smashville - you’re left with big stages which means a) opponents can camp you out b) they live longer and c) as a heavy you’re probably not fast enough to be the one causing pressure like ever (until you finally get in). That’s a problem x what can someone like incen do against someone like wolf or fox on a big stage?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Another character that can get through Wolf's projectile is Inkling -- its dash low-profiles the shot completely in the first few frames.

 

[Lore]

whats worse is that people are campaigning to have 3 or the smaller stages removed (castle, yoshi brawl, lylat). I don’t understand, I guess people are okay with the pace of the game slowing down, and having less viable characters, or maybe they don’t realize the implications of removing them

*stage talk here*

Yup! It's highly unreasonable and ridiculous. I'm starting to suspect that the ones complaining are meta-character mains, and they don't like the stages because they don't perform as well on them.

They will say that these stages favor heavies too much then say that heavies are low tier in the same breath. It's insanity.

Then mix it in with the "every stage MUST be similar!" crowd, and you've got the mess we are in now.