Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Here Rests A Cemetery]

Peach was a borderline top tier whose only flaws were being too hard to play for her own good, not a mid tier.

So her only flaw is having a high learning curve?... Does that even make sense to you? This is top level play we're talking about.

 

[NairWizard]

I emphatically disagree. Player skill is more important than ever, (partly due to 3 stock format leading to more consistent games) and partly due to the game having a higher skill ceiling than Smash 4. There's simply more than can be done here, with movement in particular being extremely important to master in comparison to Smash 4. To put it another way, the difference between a good player and a weaker player is more noticeable, and even weaker character's have a (narrow) path to victory due to how volatile damage is in this game.

Also while far from ideal, character balance is certainly more preferable to Smash 4.

The skill ceiling definitely isn't higher; the skill floor for being a competitive player is higher.

The difference between a player who's adjusted to the new mechanics and implemented the movement techniques and someone who hasn't is obviously big, but that won't last for more than a few months. When everyone's adjusted, that gap will disappear in practice.


The game overall isn't much deeper than smash 4, if deeper at all. Simply moving faster or having more options that enable moving faster doesn't add depth to a game. Many 2D fighters are much slower than smash Ultimate or Melee but have the same or even greater depth. I think over time you'll find that smash 4's slower pace actually gave it depth in areas where Ultimate lacks depth (though the opposite is also true, of course; I'm not claiming that smash 4 is deeper).

Consider just one example: you have fewer options in disadvantage in this game; there are more situations in which you are just dead, or just forced to take hits of a combo. Snake's Nikita or Pikachu's Thunder have much less counterplay at top level than correspondingly oppressive options had in smash 4. As advantage states get optimized, you're going to find this to be more and more the case. You'll see people losing stocks without much room to do anything. smash 4 had a flawed but playable disadvantage state which was option-rich for many characters (though, it's true that others suffered pretty heavily, and certain matchups were blowouts in this aspect).


As far as yomi goes, the triangles haven't disappeared.

in smash 4, grab > shield > attack > grab.

In this game, dash dance > shield/whatever > dash attack > dash dance.

The RPS isn't deeper or more expansive; it's just shifted to a different place.


As far as character balance, it's way too early to make definitive statements, but the top players are definitely feeling the power of hitboxes. Simply swinging a hitbox is so strong when shield isn't good and you can't airdodge freely. The sword characters have almost as much range as Simon and Richter and can get away with mashing buttons in your face, and a plethora of other offenders are rampant too.


early smash 4 was of course much worse, because there was Diddy Kong and Sheik, but those were character-specific problems; this is a game-wide, mechanics-wide problem, and I guarantee that you'll see the gap widen between good and bad characters at a pace that smash 4 could simply not compare to within the first year of the game.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I don't believe it's that horribly unbalanced. Considering smash 4 was legit pre patch diddy diddy and sheik and then cloud and bayo this game seems way more healthy. Also rosalina invalidated like 75% of the cast.

The defensive characters seem very strong at the moment (snake olimar and belmonts). As the game progresses they'll continue to get stronger. Not only that but I believe some other projectile heavy characters will follow them (T.link Y.link and Mega Man). I believe that the flashy offensive stuff will eventually be outpaced by strong defensive characters.

Also characters that I'm unsure of are wii fit and pac man. I don't believe them to be terrible characters but haven't seen enough from them yet.

One of the things that I found disappointing in ultimate is that some of the weird characters mains from sm4sh have dropped them for top tiers.

This statement is highly dubious. All characters will get stronger as people learn to play them better. The question is whether they will grow weaker or stronger in relation to the rest of the cast or not. Regarding Belmonts it's super obvious they will get weaker in that regard. The game is too fast for them. As players learn to parry more and sharpen up their punish and edgeguard games the Belmonts will drop. It will get easier to get in on them, and the reward for getting in will increase. Then there's the fact that they don't have good frame data when it comes to startup, they lack a good "get the **** off me" move, I see many Belmonts using up-b in this manner, but that's just not enough considering how punishable it is when baited.

Regarding Snake and Olimar the same applies, more parries and better punish and edgeguard games will hurt them, but they do have some saving graces unlike the Belmonts.

You can't really argue with this, people will get better at parrying and they will get better at doing hefty punishes and they will get better at edgeguarding. And that will benefit aggressive play. Characters like Snake and Pacman and Olimar can kinda mix things up to such a degree that they will still be difficult to approach, but the Belmonts are far too simple and linear. They are doomed.

 

[trickroom]

I've been playing more Mii Swordfighter today and I'm feeling like Shaya 's remark about how Gale Strike is better than the Inklings' roller is correct. This character has a LOT of tools that go far beyond the QoL buffs that they seem like. This character could be a high tier threat for sure depending on how things shake out, and he may end up being a solution to my character crisis. The nair, bair, ftilt, fsmash are fantastic neutral tools, upair is a solid kill, and Gale Strike is really a swiss army knife for long/mid range. The possibilities run deep for his specials too, in a way that neither Gunner's nor Brawler's do. The link up-b and the "slash dash" upb both seem good, chakram and the ike side-b are both good side bs, and the falcon kick and cape are both solid down-bs. I'm curious about which movesets Swordfighter players will choose, and of their applications for different matchups. I'm glad Gunner and Swordfighter have been done justice by this game. The meme children are alive and well!

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

This statement is highly dubious. All characters will get stronger as people learn to play them better. The question is whether they will grow weaker or stronger in relation to the rest of the cast or not. Regarding Belmonts it's super obvious they will get weaker in that regard. The game is too fast for them. As players learn to parry more and sharpen up their punish and edgeguard games the Belmonts will drop. It will get easier to get in on them, and the reward for getting in will increase. Then there's the fact that they don't have good frame data when it comes to startup, they lack a good "get the **** off me" move, I see many Belmonts using up-b in this manner, but that's just not enough considering how punishable it is when baited.

Regarding Snake and Olimar the same applies, more parries and better punish and edgeguard games will hurt them, but they do have some saving graces unlike the Belmonts.

You can't really argue with this, people will get better at parrying and they will get better at doing hefty punishes and they will get better at edgeguarding. And that will benefit aggressive play. Characters like Snake and Pacman and Olimar can kinda mix things up to such a degree that they will still be difficult to approach, but the Belmonts are far too simple and linear. They are doomed.

It's tougher for defensive characters in the early stages of a game. While the belmonts maybe simple I don't believe that's a detriment. Their recovery is and better edge guarding will hurt them. However, you have to realize that we don't see optimal play from belmonts. We see stuff that's effective for now but not optimal. Also I'm not sure how effective parry will be vs the belmonts.


Also I don't think edge guarding snake is going to be as easy as peoole make it out to be. He has a lot of options to recover. Olimar may get edgeguarded to hell but that's kinda Olimar. Despite this he's always been an above average character.

Also keep in mind that parry is a two way street. Some of these offensive options won't be as safe as they are now. But yeah the belmonts can fall off I think the reason for it won't be the simplistic playstyle but that they don't have the representation needed to push and develop their metagame.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Want to write about Lucario , since he is mentioned very little:

He looks really strong. Not as strong as ZeRo put him in, but still strong.

He is MUCH faster in this game, as he got a higher-than-average speed buff in this game. He dashes much faster (1.55 -> 1.705, from 33 out of 58 in SSB4 to 39 out of 77 in Ultimate) and his air speed is much higher (1.09 -> 1.281, from 20 out of 58 in SSB4 to 6/7th out of 77 in Ultimate). To a character who loves to apply pressure with high octane attacks, fall back to zone with Aura Sphere and Force Palm, and to make it for up rather below-average frame data, this is huge.

He ended getting his aura mechanics reverted back to his Brawl status: stronger at low aura and weaker at aura than in SSB4. This is a big buff, as Lucario in SSB4 relied too heavily on taking damage to net KO's or rack up damage, making him inconsistent. Now he is pretty much strong at all levels of aura, while still retaining his combo game. Speaking of which, his combo game has improved, with drag-down nair being much more reliable and practical. Some of his attacks have improved range, which includes his forward tilt, forward smash, (most notably) back air, and down air. Considering that those move buffs are attached to Lucario and his aura mechanic, this is scary.

His zoning potential has been improved further: Aura Sphere is much better due to the stronger aura at low percents, and it can be both jump-canceled and canceled on the ground with any option (aside from grab, which now fires the Aura Sphere instead, so that is a small nerf). It also improves it's edgeguarding potential, as you can cancel the charge mid-air and follow it up with an aerial (highlighted by the his air speed buff as well). Force Palm's grab range has improved, improving it's reliability as a combo finisher. The final big change other than the big buffs applied to Double Team (which is simply a counter move), is that he no longer lags for a billion years after you use Double-Team.

While these buffs are big and all (and it does somewhat reflect why ZeRo put him that high in his tier list), Lucario is a little bit lighter, and it is in a game where stocks are flying more quickly. That will put Lucario in check, but nevertheless, he looks like a big sleeper pick.

 

[Hippieslayer]

It's tougher for defensive characters in the early stages of a game. While the belmonts maybe simple I don't believe that's a detriment. Their recovery is and better edge guarding will hurt them. However, you have to realize that we don't see optimal play from belmonts. We see stuff that's effective for now but not optimal. Also I'm not sure how effective parry will be vs the belmonts.


Also I don't think edge guarding snake is going to be as easy as peoole make it out to be. He has a lot of options to recover. Olimar may get edgeguarded to hell but that's kinda Olimar. Despite this he's always been an above average character.

Also keep in mind that parry is a two way street. Some of these offensive options won't be as safe as they are now. But yeah the belmonts can fall off I think the reason for it won't be the simplistic playstyle but that they don't have the representation needed to push and develop their metagame.

You can't just come up with statements out of nowhere to support your argument, you have justify what you claim. I mean now you just went ahead and said It's tougher for defensive characters in the early stages of a game ...but you didn't say why. What am I or anyone else supposed to get out of reading that? It doesn't provide anything of substance. Then you say While the belmonts maybe simple I don't believe that's a detriment ...which is another statement without any form of justification. Such statements do not belong in discussions because they provide no useful information whatsoever. You also write "I believe" a lot, when you make statements about stuff, it doesn't add anything either. Instead of telling me that you believe the things you write how about telling me why you believe them? If you take a closer look at what you have written you should be able to see that you're not really providing a argument for your point of view but rather simply stating what your point of view is. All posts I've seen you write in this thread have this problem.

You also ignore arguments I made against you by not adressing them (this is called cherry picking, and it's a form of fallacious arguing). You adress parrying. But you completely ignore what I said about punishes and edgeguards. Or well you do say something about edgeguards, but not in a way that adresses the point I was making.

Regarding parries it's not really a two way street, parries will hurt projectile based characters more because projectiles can be parried on reaction or by correct timing (snake nades) unlike close up attacks which have to be predicted.

Please don't reply to me unless you have some kind of argument against me.

 

[Trifroze]

Regarding Snake and Olimar the same applies, more parries and better punish and edgeguard games will hurt them, but they do have some saving graces unlike the Belmonts.

You can't really argue with this, people will get better at parrying and they will get better at doing hefty punishes and they will get better at edgeguarding. And that will benefit aggressive play. Characters like Snake and Pacman and Olimar can kinda mix things up to such a degree that they will still be difficult to approach, but the Belmonts are far too simple and linear. They are doomed.

If parrying and edgeguarding are going to be (some of) the most important metagame development parameters, then the question will be whether those developments benefit a character more than they hurt them.

In the case of Snake specifically, the way his recovery works is that if he's forced to recover low or without his second jump, he'll either die or take a ton of damage. But, the idea for him is to save his second jump until the opponent has expended all of their resources to chase him any further or Snake is simply out of their reach, and then recover as high as possible and nade b-reverse / fastfall (+airdodge) / bair etc his way down, which tends to be difficult for the opponent to guess or cover. His recovery is decent, and he himself has nikita which is probably the single best move in the game for edgeguarding.

As for parrying, Snake's aerial approach game is one of the worst in the cast, and he mostly uses his aerials for nade/c4 follow ups, OoS punishes and covering jumps, so the part of his gameplan where the opponent's shield and parry are relevant relies on projectiles, grabs and quick ground options. I think parrying will be much more usable against aerial approaches, multihits and in general any option that's reactable. Some characters also don't have punishes out of a parry that are both fast and strong enough to be scary, Snake has utilt.

What's going to make Snake drop to some extent is when people who didn't play Brawl learn the matchup better, i.e. not continuously running into his explosives.

 

[|RK|]

The skill ceiling definitely isn't higher; the skill floor for being a competitive player is higher.

The difference between a player who's adjusted to the new mechanics and implemented the movement techniques and someone who hasn't is obviously big, but that won't last for more than a few months. When everyone's adjusted, that gap will disappear in practice.


The game overall isn't much deeper than smash 4, if deeper at all. Simply moving faster or having more options that enable moving faster doesn't add depth to a game. Many 2D fighters are much slower than smash Ultimate or Melee but have the same or even greater depth. I think over time you'll find that smash 4's slower pace actually gave it depth in areas where Ultimate lacks depth (though the opposite is also true, of course; I'm not claiming that smash 4 is deeper).

Consider just one example: you have fewer options in disadvantage in this game; there are more situations in which you are just dead, or just forced to take hits of a combo. Snake's Nikita or Pikachu's Thunder have much less counterplay at top level than correspondingly oppressive options had in smash 4. As advantage states get optimized, you're going to find this to be more and more the case. You'll see people losing stocks without much room to do anything. smash 4 had a flawed but playable disadvantage state which was option-rich for many characters (though, it's true that others suffered pretty heavily, and certain matchups were blowouts in this aspect).


As far as yomi goes, the triangles haven't disappeared.

in smash 4, grab > shield > attack > grab.

In this game, dash dance > shield/whatever > dash attack > dash dance.

The RPS isn't deeper or more expansive; it's just shifted to a different place.


As far as character balance, it's way too early to make definitive statements, but the top players are definitely feeling the power of hitboxes. Simply swinging a hitbox is so strong when shield isn't good and you can't airdodge freely. The sword characters have almost as much range as Simon and Richter and can get away with mashing buttons in your face, and a plethora of other offenders are rampant too.


early smash 4 was of course much worse, because there was Diddy Kong and Sheik, but those were character-specific problems; this is a game-wide, mechanics-wide problem, and I guarantee that you'll see the gap widen between good and bad characters at a pace that smash 4 could simply not compare to within the first year of the game.

I think it's far too early to say most of this, honestly. Depth is unknown, disadvantage options are... well, in S4 often "airdodge or don't" unless you had an ABK or Bouncing Fish or something.

I think it's too early to decide if disadvantage options are enough, as well.

Plus, the "attack/block/grab" triangle is present in every fighting game ever. Save for Divekick, really.

In the end, people are still changing their opinions on literally everything based on the results of one tournament or another.

...Okay, they did that in S4 too. But the point is that opinions are in flux. The best players have still barely chosen their characters. The mechanics are barely mastered in any capacity. Conversations of depth or balance are... premature.

I can sympathize with Armada's desire to allow counterplay to develop, because somehow, despite knowing that we're not used to this game, we're making snap judgments on characters based on the options that seem immediately strong & are effectively destroying a bunch of newbies (yes, even the top players are newbies here) with ease.

 

[SiO2]

After watching Light (playing ) just beat the crap out of Nairo in tournament, I think is a contender for best in the game right now, even over . His USmash and kill confirms into it are even more rediculous than they ever were in Smash 4, and his speed is just nuts on top of that. It gives a run for his money in terms of potential.

 

[Kellojolly]

I think Fox is good but I'm still not convinced he's a legitimate top tier, let alone best character in the game. I was actaully more impressed with Light's mechanics and amazing twitch reflexes than anything. What makes you think Fox is a contentder for the bext character in the game? I'm not tryng ot come off with hostility but curiosity.

 

[J0eyboi]

So this is what, the third "best character" in 2 weeks? Fourth? It's almost like claiming anyone to be the best character in the game this early in the game's meta is a really dumb idea, because we haven't even come close to optimizing any aspect of this game yet.

While I'm on the subject, saying "character X is Y tier" at this point is just as dumb as saying "X is the best character in the game". There's still no real agreement on where the cutoff points for each tier should be, how can you definitively say any character will be a part of any tier?

I guess my point is that we are on week 3. There's still loads of optimizing to be done, and attempted predictions of tier placements for characters at this point are bound to be wrong and are unnecessary to discussion. Can we not talk about characters without attaching arbitrary or meaningless labels to them?

Also, I'm really surprised people are only now registering Fox as a strong character and relevant threat. He's been getting lots of results ever since the game dropped.

 

[Browny]

You can't just come up with statements out of nowhere to support your argument, you have justify what you claim. I mean now you just went ahead and said It's tougher for defensive characters in the early stages of a game ...but you didn't say why. What am I or anyone else supposed to get out of reading that? It doesn't provide anything of substance. Then you say While the belmonts maybe simple I don't believe that's a detriment ...which is another statement without any form of justification. Such statements do not belong in discussions because they provide no useful information whatsoever. You also write "I believe" a lot, when you make statements about stuff, it doesn't add anything either. Instead of telling me that you believe the things you write how about telling me why you believe them? If you take a closer look at what you have written you should be able to see that you're not really providing a argument for your point of view but rather simply stating what your point of view is. All posts I've seen you write in this thread have this problem.

You also ignore arguments I made against you by not adressing them (this is called cherry picking, and it's a form of fallacious arguing). You adress parrying. But you completely ignore what I said about punishes and edgeguards. Or well you do say something about edgeguards, but not in a way that adresses the point I was making.

Regarding parries it's not really a two way street, parries will hurt projectile based characters more because projectiles can be parried on reaction or by correct timing (snake nades) unlike close up attacks which have to be predicted.

Please don't reply to me unless you have some kind of argument against me.

He's been like this for almost a decade, the ignore feature works good.

Now for a not-so-bold prediction, if tournaments started running squad strike as a side event, it would very quickly become the most popular format to the point that it will overtake doubles immediately and when you are left with two 1vs1 formats as the main events, people will prioritise what brings the viewers/hype etc. And squad strike will win. The only thing that holds it back, is whether people are willing to give it a fair chance.

The counterpicking depth it offers is so much more significant than normal 1vs1. Realistically most top players never deviate from their main, and the differences between the legal stages is pretty negligible for the top tiers anyway who don't get blown out on one specific type. The inability to swap characters mid-game like Marvel/DBFZ etc is not an issue, because the counterpicking happens between games. You know, like it has always existed in smash games so anyone who brings up that as a counter is immediately wrong.

In much the same way that melee streamers can not possibly argue the viewers/sub counts that streaming ultimate is giving them, I would love to see some raw, unarguable numbers in viewership etc for squad strike main events. I regularly make bets, and I'd put money on it winning, but I would also put money on the community never giving it a fair chance because it deviates from the status quo. Remembering this is the same community who rushes to ban as many stages as possible.

 

[PK Gaming]

The skill ceiling definitely isn't higher; the skill floor for being a competitive player is higher.

The difference between a player who's adjusted to the new mechanics and implemented the movement techniques and someone who hasn't is obviously big, but that won't last for more than a few months. When everyone's adjusted, that gap will disappear in practice.

I think you're being incredibly off base here. Movement isn't something that will be figured out and adjusted to in a few months time; it's something that will constantly be improved through experience and practice. Differences between player movement will always exist, and players will always strive to refine their approach to movement...that literally, by definition, ties into the skill ceiling. I'd also argue that the skill floor isn't that much higher in Smash Ultimate; it's not that difficult to do any of the movement things in this game (fox trotting, short hopping, cancels, etc), but doing it effectively in a match against a good player requires practice and experience.

The game overall isn't much deeper than smash 4, if deeper at all. Simply moving faster or having more options that enable moving faster doesn't add depth to a game. Many 2D fighters are much slower than smash Ultimate or Melee but have the same or even greater depth. I think over time you'll find that smash 4's slower pace actually gave it depth in areas where Ultimate lacks depth (though the opposite is also true, of course; I'm not claiming that smash 4 is deeper).

You can't make this claim this certain about a game that isn't even a month old yet. Though I can't say I agree with your Smash 4 take either; There's just a lot less you can do in Smash 4, with approaches (and recoveries) being linear, cancels not being a thing, shield punishes mitigating a lot of risk on your part and ridiculously strong grabs. I can't think of anything that game does better than Ultimate.

Consider just one example: you have fewer options in disadvantage in this game; there are more situations in which you are just dead, or just forced to take hits of a combo. Snake's Nikita or Pikachu's Thunder have much less counterplay at top level than correspondingly oppressive options had in smash 4. As advantage states get optimized, you're going to find this to be more and more the case. You'll see people losing stocks without much room to do anything. smash 4 had a flawed but playable disadvantage state which was option-rich for many characters (though, it's true that others suffered pretty heavily, and certain matchups were blowouts in this aspect).

I won't speak to Nikita (it's a bit overtuned), but Ultimate having a more punishing disadvantage is a good thing. Air dodges and rolling mitigating pressure as well as they did in Smash 4 wasn't a good thing. It's also one of the most blatant areas where you can see the difference between a good and a bad player in Ultimate. Weaker players don't know what to do once they're in "advantage" whereas strong players obviously tend to make the most out of it through. As the game progresses, punishes will become more refined and the skill gap will increase.

I also think you're being incredibly disingenuous by comparing week 2 options while underselling just how strong some of the oppressive options in Smash 4 were (Bayonetta's entire kit, Cloud Uair/Limit, Diddy Banana, Pin, etc). Nikita is obnoxious but even that has counterplay to it (striking it removes the hitbox)

As far as yomi goes, the triangles haven't disappeared.

in smash 4, grab > shield > attack > grab.

In this game, dash dance > shield/whatever > dash attack > dash dance.

The RPS isn't deeper or more expansive; it's just shifted to a different place.

No disrespect, but this is an incredibly superficial read of Ultimate's metagame, to the point where it almost reads like parody. It speaks more to your dissatisfaction you have with Smash Ultimate than a substantive read of the metagame.

As far as character balance, it's way too early to make definitive statements, but the top players are definitely feeling the power of hitboxes. Simply swinging a hitbox is so strong when shield isn't good and you can't airdodge freely. The sword characters have almost as much range as Simon and Richter and can get away with mashing buttons in your face, and a plethora of other offenders are rampant too.

This is too fatalist for my liking. Of course doing Smash 4 things will get you blown up (which is why good hitboxes are so dominant) but you have significantly improved movement options to compensate. Sitting in shield and punishing on when they attack you doesn't fly anymore, nor does air dodging through enemy pressure, which is why improving your movement, your ability to bait and maximize your punishes in this game is the key to succeeding in this game.

I also think you're making sword characters out to be some kind of metagame Boogiemen. While they're undoubtedly great characters, this singular focus you have on the strength of their hitboxes seems myopic.

I guarantee that you'll see the gap widen between good and bad characters at a pace that smash 4 could simply not compare to within the first year of the game.

Many top players feel that there are very few characters who are outright "unusable" in this game and that even conventionally weaker characters have a shot at winning, and that's only going to get better with time. I think this prediction is dead on arrival, but even disregarding Ultimate, Smash 4's character balance was poor at the beginning & end of its lifespan. Character disparity will always exist, but with stronger character balance out of the gate and consistent patches, I don't see it ending up worse than Smash 4 on that front (which by the end of its lifespan, was pretty mediocre)

 

[Ajani]

Want to write about Lucario , since he is mentioned very little:

He looks really strong. Not as strong as ZeRo put him in, but still strong.

He is MUCH faster in this game, as he got a higher-than-average speed buff in this game. He dashes much faster (1.55 -> 1.705, from 33 out of 58 in SSB4 to 39 out of 77 in Ultimate) and his air speed is much higher (1.09 -> 1.281, from 20 out of 58 in SSB4 to 6/7th out of 77 in Ultimate). To a character who loves to apply pressure with high octane attacks, fall back to zone with Aura Sphere and Force Palm, and to make it for up rather below-average frame data, this is huge.

He ended getting his aura mechanics reverted back to his Brawl status: stronger at low aura and weaker at aura than in SSB4. This is a big buff, as Lucario in SSB4 relied too heavily on taking damage to net KO's or rack up damage, making him inconsistent. Now he is pretty much strong at all levels of aura, while still retaining his combo game. Speaking of which, his combo game has improved, with drag-down nair being much more reliable and practical. Some of his attacks have improved range, which includes his forward tilt, forward smash, (most notably) back air, and down air. Considering that those move buffs are attached to Lucario and his aura mechanic, this is scary.

His zoning potential has been improved further: Aura Sphere is much better due to the stronger aura at low percents, and it can be both jump-canceled and canceled on the ground with any option (aside from grab, which now fires the Aura Sphere instead, so that is a small nerf). It also improves it's edgeguarding potential, as you can cancel the charge mid-air and follow it up with an aerial (highlighted by the his air speed buff as well). Force Palm's grab range has improved, improving it's reliability as a combo finisher. The final big change other than the big buffs applied to Double Team (which is simply a counter move), is that he no longer lags for a billion years after you use Double-Team.

While these buffs are big and all (and it does somewhat reflect why ZeRo put him that high in his tier list), Lucario is a little bit lighter, and it is in a game where stocks are flying more quickly. That will put Lucario in check, but nevertheless, he looks like a big sleeper pick.

Thank you for your write up. Ive been working on him all week, what combos are you having success with?

For me its:

1) UTilt -> Grab -> DThrow -> Fair -> Fair/Nair

I also noticed that his UAir is hard to connect from an Uthrow. I usually end up pivoting in to a Bair.

I also dont think he can Dash Attack Cancel from my tests, has this worked differently for you?

 

[link2702]

Ganon needs his old uair from 4 and his ganoncide back, his up special needs to go higher.

Do that and he’d be fine in ultimate. Right now he just feels a bit lacking again.

 

[Browny]

Consider just one example: you have fewer options in disadvantage in this game; there are more situations in which you are just dead, or just forced to take hits of a combo.

This is objectively false. Ballooning knockback and lower hitstun means that the players knocked away are out of 'disadvantage' sooner than before, and directional airdodges have given them +2 options.

Snakes recovery is a classic example. In brawl his cypher was a total liability, you chase him offstage and nair with with a character like MK, whats he going to do? Take the hit and die. Airdodge and get daired and die. Fair and die. Now he can just freakin teleport behind people. The worst is when he is cyphering close to the ledge, too far to be hit/grabbed and he just directional airdodges out of it and snaps to the ledge. It is truly unpunishable unless you go offstage.

I can go on all day. How about Mewtwo vs DK, in smash 4 once I took a DK's double jump on a stage like FD, it was impossible for them to dodge full charge shadow ball. Absolutely impossible unless they fade away really far offstage and try to upb from below, in which case shadow ball still hits them anyway. It was a death sentence if the Mewtwo was paying attention. He can't fair it, bair it, airdodge, he's done. Now he can just teleport behind the shadowball, or directional airdodge upwards to dodge it. DK's options in disadvantage went from incredibly poor, to far too high. And this change is universal.

Directional airdodges combined with low hitstun have made escaping disadvantage easier that any smash game in history.

The only reason you think people 'are just dead' isn't because of few options in disadvantage, its because recoveries have been nerfed. Characters like ZSS don't have a worse recovery because they have fewer options (they have more than ever thanks to the airdodges), but because the options they do have have been made weaker across the board.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

the thing is that in this game when you have a bad recovery you actually have a bad recovery that affects you, not something below averange compared to the rest of the cast like smash 4 cloud that appears to be bad, another thing that i like is that weight better balanced across the cast and actually matters.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

You can't just come up with statements out of nowhere to support your argument, you have justify what you claim. I mean now you just went ahead and said It's tougher for defensive characters in the early stages of a game ...but you didn't say why. What am I or anyone else supposed to get out of reading that? It doesn't provide anything of substance. Then you say While the belmonts maybe simple I don't believe that's a detriment ...which is another statement without any form of justification. Such statements do not belong in discussions because they provide no useful information whatsoever. You also write "I believe" a lot, when you make statements about stuff, it doesn't add anything either. Instead of telling me that you believe the things you write how about telling me why you believe them? If you take a closer look at what you have written you should be able to see that you're not really providing a argument for your point of view but rather simply stating what your point of view is. All posts I've seen you write in this thread have this problem.

You also ignore arguments I made against you by not adressing them (this is called cherry picking, and it's a form of fallacious arguing). You adress parrying. But you completely ignore what I said about punishes and edgeguards. Or well you do say something about edgeguards, but not in a way that adresses the point I was making.

Regarding parries it's not really a two way street, parries will hurt projectile based characters more because projectiles can be parried on reaction or by correct timing (snake nades) unlike close up attacks which have to be predicted.

Please don't reply to me unless you have some kind of argument against me.

I don't believe I came up with anything out of no where. In your post alone list a bunch of reasons why defensive characters will fall off. You bring up their speed mobility and frame data. Defensive characters had to deal with having less priority less soend and yet still being able to get their strategy across. That's why they take longer to develop. They cannot just run around and ***** their ridiculous frame advantage moves because they don't have them. Also the biggest reason why I feel strongly about defensive characters is because I don't believe in these characters people are clamoring to be the best. Also i felt like I addressed your entire post if I didn't it was probably because I deemed it irrelevant and unnecessary.


Browny MK had 5 jumps and glide and go literally go to the blast zones to chase snake's recovery. If that's your example then nobody can replicate that type of edge guards in this game. Also snakes definitely didn't just die to nair while it did happen they did also use c4 to recover and tech the stage the same way they do now. Snake's recovery hasn't changed the capabilites of the characters thwt can potentially edge guard him has. Also if you recover low as snake you deserve whatever you get.

 

[NairWizard]

No disrespect, but this is an incredibly superficial read of Ultimate's metagame, to the point where it almost reads like parody. It speaks more to your dissatisfaction you have with Smash Ultimate than a substantive read of the metagame.

I think you're reading things into my post which simply aren't there.

I like smash ultimate much better than smash 4; I didn't particularly like smash 4 and the direction that it took over the years. I take issue, however, with this rose-colored-glasses view of the new game that suggests that it has more depth or is more difficult than the previous entry in the series; I also want to suggest that the balance in this new game is going to be inevitably worse due to the mechanics (ignoring balance patches for the moment). This is an observation based on years of experience with melee, brawl, and smash 4, not a value judgment aimed at taking down smash ultimate or targeting your enjoyment of the game. If I've framed things in a particularly negative or harsh light, it's because you've repeatedly framed them in a disproportionately positive way that in my opinion they don't deserve, so some counterbalance is necessary.

As far as my read on the metagame, this is no parody, nor is it meant as a slight to smash ultimate. if my own experience isn't enough to convince you, this is the same take that Dabuz has. But rather than argue on the correctness of the read, I'll rephrase it: RPS in fighting games always exists and always will; Ultimate didn't expand the RPS concept, just shifted it.


Instead of taking issue with my tone, and using wording like parody, myopic and disingenuous, you could offer something substantive. A substantive response to my claim would look something like this:

"But dash dancing doesn't always beat shielding because parrying is a mechanic, so this theoretical triangle that you suggested actually has room for layers of yomi"

(forgive me fighting game theorists for my inaccurate usage of the word yomi; it just conveys the point better)

I'd take no issue with this kind of argument; it's a valid criticism and I could see parrying making the game much deeper in the end.


This, however:

"It's a new game"
"It's too early to tell"
"You have a lot of movement options"

I can't get behind. These are self-defeating blanket statements. You yourself claimed that this game is much deeper than smash 4--how do you know? Isn't it "too early to tell"? The game has only been out for a month, and you already want to assess its depth as being greater than a game that people managed to find deeply satisfying for over 5 years?

That's a tall claim, and you can't defend against its refutation by offering, "But it's too early."

I like you and I like Smash Ultimate, and I'm glad that you enjoy it.

I hope that this clarifies my position a bit.

Though I can't say I agree with your Smash 4 take either; There's just a lot less you can do in Smash 4, with approaches (and recoveries) being linear,

What does this mean? What is a linear recovery and why does it exist in smash 4 but not in Ultimate?
What's a linear approach? Does dash dancing a few times before you dash attack constitute a non-linear approach? (think foxtrotting Cloud from smash 4)

shield punishes mitigating a lot of risk on your part and ridiculously strong grabs.

mitigating risk also means that you can take more risks because there are more neutral interactions per stock; 3 stocks in Ultimate (a point you bring up in Ultimate's favor, even though it's a tournament ruleset call and not part of the game engine at all) may end up being fewer neutral interactions per game than 2 stocks in smash 4.

but Ultimate having a more punishing disadvantage is a good thing. Air dodges and rolling mitigating pressure as well as they did in Smash 4 wasn't a good thing. It's also one of the most blatant areas where you can see the difference between a good and a bad player in Ultimate.

Punish quality always scales with game time. A more punishing disadvantage shifts the focus from neutral to advantage. What's the problem with that, you ask? Nothing, actually; it makes it a different type of game, but that may be fine. For me, personally, it's one of the reasons that I never got into competitive Melee and it's not something that I like about this game.

Advantage is fundamentally a state where one player has a lopsided role. The more important advantage is, the more something like practicing combos in training mode is critical to success rather than figuring out your opponent's habits. It's still skill, you're right, but it's of a different sort.

This is too fatalist for my liking. Of course doing Smash 4 things will get you blown up (which is why good hitboxes are so dominant) but you have significantly improved movement options to compensate. Sitting in shield and punishing on when they attack you doesn't fly anymore, nor does air dodging through enemy pressure, which is why improving your movement, your ability to bait and maximize your punishes in this game is the key to succeeding in this game.

only mediocre players sat in shield waiting to punish something in smash 4; either that, or the matchup was Sheik vs. ZSS (a fast character with good out of shield punishes vs. a tether grab character). Even then, most top-level matches consisted of tons and tons of powershielding and microspacing.

the point is that good hitboxes being dominant is a fundamentally different design; it isn't any deeper, and leads to some problems. one of those problems is swords. Swords already have several advantages over other types of attacks. They have disjoint, they have range, and they swing in arcs, which makes dodging them more difficult. (before you say it, they do also have some disadvantages; arcs can actually be a disadvantage, for one thing, since you're locked into an attack until your arc finishes--ask any Shulk main about why this is an issue). The engine makes swords even stronger than they already naturally are. The problem is not isolated to swords, nor do I think that swords will take up all the top spots going forward.

I didn't reply to a few other things due to length; don't want this to become enormous.

You're free to have the last word if you want, I've had my say.

This is objectively false. Ballooning knockback and lower hitstun means that the players knocked away are out of 'disadvantage' sooner than before, and directional airdodges have given them +2 options.

Snakes recovery is a classic example. In brawl his cypher was a total liability, you chase him offstage and nair with with a character like MK, whats he going to do? Take the hit and die. Airdodge and get daired and die. Fair and die. Now he can just freakin teleport behind people. The worst is when he is cyphering close to the ledge, too far to be hit/grabbed and he just directional airdodges out of it and snaps to the ledge. It is truly unpunishable unless you go offstage.

I can go on all day. How about Mewtwo vs DK, in smash 4 once I took a DK's double jump on a stage like FD, it was impossible for them to dodge full charge shadow ball. Absolutely impossible unless they fade away really far offstage and try to upb from below, in which case shadow ball still hits them anyway. It was a death sentence if the Mewtwo was paying attention. He can't fair it, bair it, airdodge, he's done. Now he can just teleport behind the shadowball, or directional airdodge upwards to dodge it. DK's options in disadvantage went from incredibly poor, to far too high. And this change is universal.

Directional airdodges combined with low hitstun have made escaping disadvantage easier that any smash game in history.

The only reason you think people 'are just dead' isn't because of few options in disadvantage, its because recoveries have been nerfed. Characters like ZSS don't have a worse recovery because they have fewer options (they have more than ever thanks to the airdodges), but because the options they do have have been made weaker across the board.

This is a fair criticism. You're right. Directional airdodging as a universal mechanic is a straight buff to disadvantage.

It's a combination of weaker recoveries and stronger vertical juggling options that makes the "are just dead" characteristic surface.

 

[SiO2]

I think Fox is good but I'm still not convinced he's a legitimate top tier, let alone best character in the game. I was actaully more impressed with Light's mechanics and amazing twitch reflexes than anything. What makes you think Fox is a contentder for the bext character in the game? I'm not tryng ot come off with hostility but curiosity.

As I said, Fox has the speed, the power, and the moveset. And yes, Light has some crazy good reflexes, but its about on par with what I would expect with someone on top of his game. Honestly, I'm watching the way Light is handling Fox and I don't see anything bad about the character at all other than his predictable recovery and his low weight, which has always been the case since . Combine the hit stun from his aerials, low landing lag, high ground and air speed, and how fast Usmash or Bair come out, and Fox can basically take stocks any time he wants.

Granted, what will hold Fox back is the same thing that makes him difficult to play in every Smash game. You NEED twitchy response times before you can even think about playing this character effectively. And I'm not suggesting he is in a tier of his own (like is in Melee, in Brawl, or in Smash 4). But I do think that he is perhaps the very best right now, even if by only a small bit.

 

[|RK|]

Though I agree with PK's post, it's probably dangerous to forget the initial impressions of S4's balance. We really did think it was the most balanced Smash game - and I think that contributed to how sour many people got towards the game in the end. It was not that, at all.

So if we see imbalances, it's probably better to be straight up about them (but also not treat our initial judgments as the word of god).

 

[BunbUn129]

I find that an advantage-focused engine will increase the game's longevity. Remember, the disadvantage state being unforgiving goes both ways. A major reason Melee has outlasted both its successors is because even though Fox theoretically obliterates other characters, and is undoubtedly the best character, his advantages are countered simply by how unforgiving he is to play, the main reason being the game's engine (higher APM's, air dodging being unsafe, ledge-hogging, lack of hitstun cancelling). So while Melee Fox should be the best by a significant margin, the tech skill required and, more relevantly to the topic at hand, punishing disadvantage are important checks on his power.

Brawl Meta Knight and IC's and S4 Bayonetta (along with the other top-tiers in both games) lacked such checks. Those game's environments put much more emphasis on neutral play. While in Melee, Marth could 0-death Fox on FD off of one slip-up from Fox. In Brawl, you generally had to win neutral far more many times to seal a stock, and MK had an arsenal of oppressive buttons that made the task very difficult. Not only was his neutral game far better than most of the cast, but the physics meant he endured very little punishment if the opponent didn't have a guaranteed chain-grab. Winning neutral once or twice vs Melee Fox is much more manageable in comparison.

In S4 Bayonetta's case, her dominance was largely a result of her effectively being "excluded" from the engine, if you get what I'm saying. Throughout the game's history, the devs were adamant about nerfing powerful advantage options. Sheik's 50/50, MK's uair, Hoo Hah, ZSS's ladder, the list goes on. But in comes Bayonetta who flies in the face of that balancing philosophy. Not only did Bat Within, Witch Time, combined with the engine, allow her to escape disadvantage easily, her punishes were far more potent than the rest of the cast.

I am glad that this game's engine clearly favors the character in advantage. Yes, it makes top-tiers' gameplans even more rewarding, but the design brings along with it an increased risk, because they actually feel like mortals now. Strong mortals, but mortals nonetheless. Bad characters might have a better fighting chance when you can't freely air dodge to reset to neutral.

 

[Thinkaman]

Another thing: I see some players criticizing the parrying mechanic because it's worse against projectiles compared to power shielding.

IMO this is A GOOD thing. In a game where shield grabs are bad, approaches are better, and landing lag is low overall, parrying's flaws keep projectile specialists relevant. I don't want the Mega Men, Belmonts, and ROBs of the world feeling like they're second-class citizens because people want to rush down all the time.

Zoners are already hurting due to movement speed inflation.

Second, I don't understand the balance talk. Each post-64 smash release has been significantly more balanced than the previous, and I feel like we're on different planets if you disagree.

Brawl was significantly more balanced than Melee, whether you measured in terms of aggregate tourney representation, average roster-wide matchup ratio, or percentage of Fox vs. MK placing in all but the most cherry-picked of datasets. Melee has a rich and dynamic top half of the roster, but falls apart past that.

Smash 4 was significantly more balanced than Brawl, whether you measured in (any of the above criteria again). Once again, we had more characters placing (in spite of more competitive events), more diversity in the top 100 players, and fewer diddys/bayos than MKs.

This is not unique to smash. All major competitive games in all genres (that I am aware of) have shown a long term trend towards greater balance, in spite of larger, more complex rosters and a more harshly competitive environment. This seems to be for the same reason smash has improved: superior production methodologies and prior knowledge of the previous game(s).

Edit: If this doesn't seem to align with your recollections, I urge you to take a looong step back. Perceptions of balance are rarely rooted in quantitative data of any criteria and end up being public phenomenon--as evidenced by how very often they are wrong.

StarCraft 1 is often held up as a paragon of balance, and a formative game design moment for me was when Tom Cadwell (Brood War pro and Blizzard designer, head honcho designer of LoL) shattered the glass and explained to me that Brood War--his favorite game!--actually had tons of imbalances. (Competitive SC1 racial balance, he explained, is heavily mitigated through map policy, a sort of grassroots duct-tape and paperclips solution that allowed it to still thrive.) These issues are excused and overlooked in the rose-colored past, but would not be accepted today.

Ultimate was always likely to be more balanced than its predecessor, and the trendline currently feels this way. At the high end, "prepatch" smash ultimate has nothing similar to prepatch diddy, nor even any of the later, lesser specters that took roost at the top of smash 4. And at the low end, whatever your opinion on Kirby is, surely we can at least agree that a majority of the lower third of Smash 4 is better? Don't make me start listing names and debating if Ganon is better, it's just obvious.

For anyone still inclined to disagree, I still have no takers on my standing bet that in 2 years, no character in Smash Ultimate will enjoy over a 5% play rate across the competitive player base. This is an improvement over the comparable statistics of Smash 4, so this is your chance to make some easy money if you think this (really consistent) pattern will break!

 

[Browny]

Competitive SC1 racial balance, he explained, is heavily mitigated through map policy, a sort of grassroots duct-tape and paperclips solution that allowed it to still thrive.) These issues are excused and overlooked in the rose-colored past, but would not be accepted today.

Ironic, since that is the exact same issue with smash yet it has the opposite effect. As the game was designed with final smash meter, squad strike and a ton of stages, this could well and truly be the most balanced fighter ever created. The smash communities obsession over gutting the stage list as much as possible, never giving FS meter a try (or custom moves/miis for that matter) and only using stock mode is a perfect example of 'duct-tape and paperclip solutions' that allow it to thrive competitively. Except in this scenario, it drastically reduces the balance but of course, makes it more 'competitive'.

For anyone still inclined to disagree, I still have no takers on my standing bet that in 2 years, no character in Smash Ultimate will enjoy over a 5% play rate across the competitive player base. This is an improvement over the comparable statistics of Smash 4, so this is your chance to make some easy money if you think this (really consistent) pattern will break!

Define 'competitive player base'. I like making bets, but I need some actual stats here. If for example you mean, look at all top Xs in tournaments in a given period, whether 1 character occupies 5% of those, I'd say you better be ready to lose that money. That is the only way I could measure such a thing. 4 characters finished smash 4 with over 5% of top 16 places (Barnards Loop's/Das Koopa's stats) with Bayo and Diddy hovering around 7.5%.

 

[Terotrous]

Played a lot more matches tonight, with some characters I hadn't used much before.

actually felt really good! She's still Samus, but she's gotten so many QoL buffs that she now plays the way she was probably always intended to. Faster grab, moves that link properly, charging up in the air, and the ability to do dtilt out of run are all pretty big. I also feel like Charge Shot is a super great option in this game, with its crazy speed and power it lets her whiff punish in a lot of situations where characters wouldn't expect to be vulnerable, which makes it a lot harder for some people to control space vs her. She's also got pretty good disadvantage state thanks to downB halting momentum and having good air maneuverability. Overall, I feel like her engine just works really well in this game, she feels very complete as a character.

on the other hand felt absolutely atrocious. I knew there weren't going to be chain grabs, but I didn't think I wouldn't at least be able to have Nana smack them during the grab. In fact, I noticed that in a lot of situations when they were desynced, I would input a move expecting Nana to attack, but she just stood there or tried to run back to me, something has definitely changed about how you're allowed to control Nana when they're separated. Beyond this, neutral B is also worse and they have terrible kill options, basically only forward smash kills and even then it's not very strong. I feel like there's a good chance they could be the absolute worst character overall, which I guess shouldn't be a big surprise considering they were always kind of a trash character whose sole saving grace was chain grabs.

feels decent, though I think they're a bit more flawed than we originally thought. The #1 thing that stands out to me is that they feel kind of heavy and slow, likely due to a combination of long startup on most moves and poor movement speed, and their recovery is really quite terrible. Obviously their projectile game can be quite oppressive on the ground and FTilt is an amazing move, but I feel like if certain characters do get in things can get very bad very fast. I can't possibly see them being bad but I'd be a bit surprised if they wind up at the tippy top.

 

[BunbUn129]

Higher character diversity is a given when you have a larger roster.

 

[NairWizard]

(but also not treat our initial judgments as the word of god).

Zoners are already hurting due to movement speed inflation.

Second, I don't understand the balance talk. Each post-64 smash release has been significantly more balanced than the previous, and I feel like we're on different planets if you disagree.

Brawl was significantly more balanced than Melee, whether you measured in terms of aggregate tourney representation, average roster-wide matchup ratio, or percentage of Fox vs. MK placing in all but the most cherry-picked of datasets. Melee has a rich and dynamic top half of the roster, but falls apart past that.

Smash 4 was significantly more balanced than Brawl, whether you measured in (any of the above criteria again). Once again, we had more characters placing (in spite of more competitive events), more diversity in the top 100 players, and fewer diddys/bayos than MKs.

This is not unique to smash. All major competitive games in all genres (that I am aware of) have shown a long term trend towards greater balance, in spite of larger, more complex rosters and a more harshly competitive environment. This seems to be for the same reason smash has improved: superior production methodologies and prior knowledge of the previous game(s).

Edit: If this doesn't seem to align with your recollections, I urge you to take a looong step back. Perceptions of balance are rarely rooted in quantitative data of any criteria and end up being public phenomenon--as evidenced by how very often they are wrong.

StarCraft 1 is often held up as a paragon of balance, and a formative game design moment for me was when Tom Cadwell (Brood War pro and Blizzard designer, head honcho designer of LoL) shattered the glass and explained to me that Brood War--his favorite game!--actually had tons of imbalances. (Competitive SC1 racial balance, he explained, is heavily mitigated through map policy, a sort of grassroots duct-tape and paperclips solution that allowed it to still thrive.) These issues are excused and overlooked in the rose-colored past, but would not be accepted today.

Ultimate was always likely to be more balanced than its predecessor, and the trendline currently feels this way. At the high end, "prepatch" smash ultimate has nothing similar to prepatch diddy, nor even any of the later, lesser specters that took roost at the top of smash 4. And at the low end, whatever your opinion on Kirby is, surely we can at least agree that a majority of the lower third of Smash 4 is better? Don't make me start listing names and debating if Ganon is better, it's just obvious.

For anyone still inclined to disagree, I still have no takers on my standing bet that in 2 years, no character in Smash Ultimate will enjoy over a 5% play rate across the competitive player base. This is an improvement over the comparable statistics of Smash 4, so this is your chance to make some easy money if you think this (really consistent) pattern will break!

part of the problem with smash 4 balance was that they stopped patching it after Bayonetta's initial tweaks

it needed at least one more round of patching after all DLC had had a chance to develop their metagames

I have no doubt that they'll do better about patching for this game, and that as a result it'll have better balance. That the engine lends itself to more imbalance is the claim being made



I'll definitely take that bet though, even with the huge character roster, provided that we are looking at top 8s or 16s rather than "all players who could be considered competitive." If you don't have winning a national at stake, it's harder to clearly identify what factors go into player main choices (for instance, I'm going to main Link in this game because I'm too old and distracted by life at this point to be competing with zeros and esams, though I'll go to locals or regionals if time permits)

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

A good thing about this smash is that according to an interview with sakurai, the balancing team is bigger, better organized and have more autonomy compared to previous balance teams and they have more experience compared to smash 4, combined with the fact that DLC is in development right away compared to smash 4 and the game is far more popular that the previous games, the support of this game will be better that smash 4.

 

[Nobie]

Fox could be the best character in the game, but I think people this early in the life of competition still don't realize just how danged light he is now.

To give you an idea, Fox is now lighter than Kirby. It's only two less points than in Smash 4, but I've found it makes a ton of difference.

Now, if you hit Fox while he's even slightly off stage, he just kind of explodes. Read a Fox Illusion and hit him with a strong aerial, and he'll die at like 80% or maybe even less.

Players just need to get used to the idea of going deep to challenge Fox, and you'll see them perform better vs him.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

I think this match showcases well what new can do, the second and third matches also shows , especially how much better Doctor Tornado is this time around.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Izaw has recently demonstrated some new stuff that Ultimate Mega Man has that not only gives him an extremely high leaning curve (even higher than Peach/Daisy's), but also the potential big reward it will bring.

 

[Ulevo]

I think this match showcases well what new

Point it out to me. Because I didn’t see much.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Higher character diversity is a given when you have a larger roster.

Not for nothing mvc2 had 56 characters and about 7 or so of them were viable. Large rosters don't always mean strong character diversity.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

Point it out to me. Because I didn’t see much.

Naturally it's not like the entire set is going to be a proper showcase, with the changes given it's going to take some time for MK players to fully maximise the new toolset, but the takeaways I see here are:
Up special still seems like a viable kill option, in terms of speed, power and the possibility of chaining into it, though I can imagine this will be a lot tricker to time and probably percentage based too.
Like I said, MK's offstage game is stronger than ever now with how going offstage is more risky now, it's going to be a lot tougher for people to deal with the air superiority and speed that MK has. They didn't use it much in the match, but the idea of new neutral special being used for gimps seems like it could be really tough to deal with.
Strings could still be a thing too, this is a universal thing I've noticed, just like it seems like they still have a combo game there, but the focus will be a lot less focused on grabs and in MK's case dash attack. Like I said for I think doomsaying over the loss of grab combos and kill confirms is jumping the gun, sure combos are going to be harder to pull off but that doesn't mean that MK is suddenly not viable. I'm not sure exactly how good MK is going to be long term but I have a strong feeling MK is still going to be tourney viable.

 

[Ulevo]

He’ll likely be tournament viable. I just think the video was a poor demonstration of what he can do. Though most videos of characters out right now are like that. If you remove the exciting dash mechanics from the picture characters are not accomplishing much, getting damage and kills from stray hits and random reads or throws. Game sucks.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

He’ll likely be tournament viable. I just think the video was a poor demonstration of what he can do. Though most videos of characters out right now are like that. If you remove the exciting dash mechanics from the picture characters are not accomplishing much, getting damage and kills from stray hits and random reads or throws. Game sucks.

Very true, it'll probably be a while until we see some optimal gameplay for MK, same for since there's so much adjusting that needs to be made for their changes.

 

[BunbUn129]

Naturally it's not like the entire set is going to be a proper showcase, with the changes given it's going to take some time for MK players to fully maximise the new toolset, but the takeaways I see here are:
Up special still seems like a viable kill option, in terms of speed, power and the possibility of chaining into it, though I can imagine this will be a lot tricker to time and probably percentage based too.
Like I said, MK's offstage game is stronger than ever now with how going offstage is more risky now, it's going to be a lot tougher for people to deal with the air superiority and speed that MK has. They didn't use it much in the match, but the idea of new neutral special being used for gimps seems like it could be really tough to deal with.
Strings could still be a thing too, this is a universal thing I've noticed, just like it seems like they still have a combo game there, but the focus will be a lot less focused on grabs and in MK's case dash attack. Like I said for I think doomsaying over the loss of grab combos and kill confirms is jumping the gun, sure combos are going to be harder to pull off but that doesn't mean that MK is suddenly not viable. I'm not sure exactly how good MK is going to be long term but I have a strong feeling MK is still going to be tourney viable.

If anything the video highlighted how difficult it is for MK to escape pressure now. In the last game Greninja was spacing nair and d tilt repeatedly and MK had no response other than attempting to roll away. His OoS options in 4 were pretty limited but shield-grabbing was hugely rewarding and common, the only other fast, safe option was f tilt. Now you hit MK's shield and unless he parries and/or your spacing is poor, he has no response other than risky up b's at 120%+.

Sho also has suspect DI, he died super early at least twice, plus there was an SD in one of the matches. Shameful display.

There is little question over whether he is viable. He is. But as I said previously, his playerbase will likely be very small and dedicated as he lacks impressive buttons. Similar to how Sheik is. Good but kinda boring.

 

[Ulevo]

Meta Knight actually had good options out of shield in Wii U. Neutral air, back air, down tilt were all good back then. Shuttle Loop would have been good if characters didn’t fall out of the first hit, but against bigger bodied characters it was a good option also. Now they are your only options minus down tilt because someone at Bandai thought the game would be more interesting to make up special, up smash and anything coming off of a F3 jump squat your only viable out of shield options. Probably to push the now gimmicky parry.

 

[BunbUn129]

Back air would be very good OoS if all the hits connected properly on grounded opponents. I find it really annoying how hits 1 and 2 send them flying out and they didn't fix that.