Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NairWizard]

Palutena is a zoner in the same way that Marth is a zoner.

projectiles are barely involved in her zoning game

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm gonna be honest with you, low to mid level Mewtwo players generally annoyed me with how scrubby they played in 4.

You have all those amazing neutral tools and your best idea is SH Nair at your opponent?

I wouldn't be surprised if they abandoned a perfectly good character because he got more complicated.

But hey, maybe I'm not being fair to them.

 

[Lord Dio]

Both of these statements seem to imply that Palutena's projectiles are neutral tools, which is also just a sentiment I see a lot regarding Palutena. They are not. Both are extremely committal, with FAFs hovering around 70 on both, and neither controls space well.

Autoreticle is far too linear and far too fast. It can force jumps and/or shield (unless your opponent just runs under it, which can absolutely happen), but unlike with, say, Wolf's laser or Luigi's fireball, Palu is stuck in endlag for so long that she can't take advantage of it at all.

As for Explosive Flame, it doesn't control much space at all, only covering a circular area a set distance away from Palu. The fact that it has two potential ranges would make it slightly better at threatening space, were it not for the fact that the move has a very obvious visual cue that appears on frame 1 and tells you exactly where the explosion is going to be, while the move itself doesn't come out until frame 28. Offline, this move is extremely reactable, and no one with enough matchup experience should really be getting caught by it in neutral.

Palu's projectiles do have use in advantage, where they're much harder to avoid and much better at limiting options, but using them in neutral is giving your opponent either a free punish or free stage control. They are not neutral tools.

You're right, they're not. Sorry for implying that they were.
Point *generally* stands though, rushdown characters seem like the best counter (inkling and pichu included)

 

[san.]

People telling other people to calm down or to stop complaining are usually the problem, not the other way around. This series of threads (and more generally speaking smashboards in general, at least at a high theoretical level) has been known for its aversion to balance callouts since forever. It took over a full year of discussion before half the people frequenting this thread were willing to admit that Bayonetta or Cloud might be problems in smash 4, and even then some of them were not willing to accept it. People here don't like claims that game balance isn't perfect (the one exception to this was during the customs meta, which likely involved immense pressure from the rest of the community). In some ways, this aversion to complaint is a good thing; it makes this thread a safe haven for those who don't want to be exposed to twitter toxicity and the like. But it can also create a very rose-colored echo chamber, and reinforcing the echo by saying, "stop complaining; it's too early to ask for nerfs/let counterplay develop" for the 10000th time doesn't create meaningful discussion.

I feel responsible for the waves of Ike-related posts since I made the first one; however, I don't think it's entirely inappropriate to devote a few pages to it, either. It was the dominant showing at Smash United and it was the most complained-about move even before then that I saw. ZeRo and m2k friendlies are often where the meta is born and when you have ZeRo and m2k AND MKleo AND other top players all saying that Ike looks busted and dumb, there might be some merit in discussing why it appears that way to players who have access to a host of top-player options for dealing. I suggested that the reason was Ike's overreliance on n-air rather than Ike just being too good.

A good response to this claim is something like what san posted (though I don't agree with most of what was posted, it's still a reasonable, substantially articulated view; thanks san), but even more so, if people would suggest actual counterplay instead of just complaining about others complaining, there wouldn't be any long/cyclical 3-page debate.

If you just hold shield Ike can throw in tomahawks to trip you up or just perfectly space the n-air so that you can't punish OOS. One thing I did notice in the set between Samsora and MKLeo though is that sometimes Samsora would try to roll under Ike while he was in the air, or even worse, spotdodge. There's absolutely no reason to choose that option against Ike; n-air is too big. Holding shield isn't the answer and I don't think parrying is the answer either. The answer lies in punishing Ike for jumping. Something that Shaya and I were talking about is that ZeRo was losing to Peach in particular because he was allowing her to float at full-hop height above him without up-tilting. People aren't used to punishing jumps in this game yet and that could be one reason that Ike looks so strong.

I wasn't able to articulate a lot of my thoughts since it was so late. I do think that right now, Ike's nair is too overcentralizing to his kit, but I don't think it's some ultimate move that no other character can do without. Nair fails the most basic requirement of breaking strings that many other characters have the pleasure of having, so it makes sense to do well in other areas.

Concerning the timing of punishing spot dodges, rolls, etc. Those are great, but the timing is more nuanced than you think. At least it's easier than smash 4's crazy rolls, and now it's more similar to brawl in punishing these options.

I think the weakness of Ike's fair is the real stinker. It's barely longer than nair, never really kills, and has above average landing lag at frame 14. That combined with the hitbox reduction of bair incentivizes Ike to use nair since it has similar reach to fair in the front, bair in the back, is easier to land than both, and leads into both anyways. Uair can be used easily enough, but at the same time you don't want to stale it unncessarily. Nearly every time you see Leo try to use fair as a mixup, he's usually punished much more easily compared to using nair.

I think the true good way to balance nair would be to:

1: Make its knockback more horizontal by around 7-10 degrees. You can already DI away on a spaced nair to avoid confirms. This will help alleviate the overly vertical nature and make it so that there are more variations where you may be able to DI the move. Ike will also be forced to end combos early and may only combo with more attacks on bad DI.

2: Buff fair in some combination of damage, length, and landing lag. I think the move should ideally do 11.5->12.5 damage, 14->12 landing lag (maybe even 11), and a bit more reach diagonally below him. This attack naturally has more counterplay and would return it to a similar roll it had in 4, but not as powerful. Instead, it has a better angle to edgeguard in case he gets that one good hit near the edge.

That's it. While sad, I think his ground game was nerfed for a reason due to his stronger aerial game, but they are still overall manageable and fulfill their roles except for the non-existent grab and jab ranges.

 

[MG_3989]

I'm gonna be honest with you, low to mid level Mewtwo players generally annoyed me with how scrubby they played in 4.

You have all those amazing neutral tools and your best idea is SH Nair at your opponent?

I wouldn't be surprised if they abandoned a perfectly good character because he got more complicated.

But hey, maybe I'm not being fair to them.

That pun tho

 

[TDK]

Alright, onto ssbwiki then

Towa I'm p sure switched to palu

Rayquaza07
Utopian Ray
Xaltis
Yuzu
crazycolorz5
any info on those?
seriously there has to be SOMEONE willing to play the character

Spoiler: big list, contains a few extra

Dabuz, as you all probably know, plays
Kirihara doesn't have a set main but apparently strongly dislikes Rosa in this game (who can blame him? She's awful)
Falln gave up on Rosa because "Rosa's best case scenario with Luma positioning does as much as everyone's BnBs" and currently plays
Atelier/Towa plays , you're thinking of the Canadian Towa, who does play Palu.
Yuzu plays
Rayquaza07 plays either or , I'm not actually sure but I know it's not Rosa.
Xaltis (and for a bonus, Vinnie) plays
Crazycolorz5 seems have moved on to BBTag, but I could just be missing something. It's unlikely he's still playing Rosa if he does play ultimate.
Midnight plays
Eldin plays

Unless I've missed someone, the best Rosa players left appear to be Nabster (NA), Tatuman (EU), and Jan (JP). The character's dead on arrival and barring significant buffs she's not leaving low tier.

EDIT: Added a few more

 

[Minordeth]

People telling other people to calm down or to stop complaining are usually the problem, not the other way around. This series of threads (and more generally speaking smashboards in general, at least at a high theoretical level) has been known for its aversion to balance callouts since forever. It took over a full year of discussion before half the people frequenting this thread were willing to admit that Bayonetta or Cloud might be problems in smash 4, and even then some of them were not willing to accept it. People here don't like claims that game balance isn't perfect (the one exception to this was during the customs meta, which likely involved immense pressure from the rest of the community). In some ways, this aversion to complaint is a good thing; it makes this thread a safe haven for those who don't want to be exposed to twitter toxicity and the like. But it can also create a very rose-colored echo chamber, and reinforcing the echo by saying, "stop complaining; it's too early to ask for nerfs/let counterplay develop" for the 10000th time doesn't create meaningful discussion.

I do agree with your overall point, and I should have offered some counterplay examples in my original posts on this topic. I do think the way you are framing the overall approach to balance in this thread glosses over a wide variety of nuance, though. I remember relatively few posters in the Smash 4 version seriously promoting the idea that the game balance was "perfect."

Fwiw, at the end of the game's life, my take on Smash 4's balance could be summed like this: "it was okay."

I feel responsible for the waves of Ike-related posts since I made the first one; however, I don't think it's entirely inappropriate to devote a few pages to it, either. It was the dominant showing at Smash United and it was the most complained-about move even before then that I saw. ZeRo and m2k friendlies are often where the meta is born and when you have ZeRo and m2k AND MKleo AND other top players all saying that Ike looks busted and dumb, there might be some merit in discussing why it appears that way to players who have access to a host of top-player options for dealing. I suggested that the reason was Ike's overreliance on n-air rather than Ike just being too good.

To be fair, Samsora speed running through Loser's Bracket could have a strong argument for "most dominant showing." Or at least be runner up.

If you just hold shield Ike can throw in tomahawks to trip you up or just perfectly space the n-air so that you can't punish OOS. One thing I did notice in the set between Samsora and MKLeo though is that sometimes Samsora would try to roll under Ike while he was in the air, or even worse, spotdodge. There's absolutely no reason to choose that option against Ike; n-air is too big. Holding shield isn't the answer and I don't think parrying is the answer either. The answer lies in punishing Ike for jumping. Something that Shaya and I were talking about is that ZeRo was losing to Peach in particular because he was allowing her to float at full-hop height above him without up-tilting. People aren't used to punishing jumps in this game yet and that could be one reason that Ike looks so strong.

I agree with the end statement quite a bit. Anti-airs seem to be pretty strong to compensate for the faster jump squat and safer aerials.

To be constructive, here's a few ways to discourage or counter Ike's Nair from the characters I know:

- Ridley is fast. He may be a big body, and it works against him if he gets hit, but that big body also means huge hitboxes.
Utilt - It's frame 8 and has intangibility on the wings for 4 frames. Dash > Utilt, or reverse Utilt if you want to maximize the intangibility, straight up beats Nair. Ike's Nair comes out frame 10, but even if he full hops to use the downward swinging hitboxes, it doesn't matter. Ridley crouches down when he does Utilt to extend his wings, and his head and arms are intangible. Reverse Utilt beats the side and downward facing hitboxes of Nair as well, so Ridley can even start reverse Utilt late, and punish Ike.

Utilt also true combos into Nair and Uair at various percents.

Usmash - This is Mario's Usmash, but bigger. It's frame 12, so it still beats out the 13 total frames of start up that Ike's Nair requires, and certainly does so considering that the first hitbox for Nair is around 10 O'clock. It has intangibility on the feet as Ridley swings them around, and dash > reverse Usmash wrecks basically everything. Ridley also crouches down for the initiation and shrinks his hurtbox to make way for his intangible feet.

- Pick an aerial other than Bair. Congrats, it will stuff Ike before he can generate a hitbox. Dash > Utilt also works well, as it is frame 7. His blaster is also an excellent way to discourage or interrupt any short hops, empty or otherwise.

- A recap: Palutena has invincibility on her Bair. But I feel that's fairly obvious as an option. Let's do a less common one: Utilt. Palu's Utilt is frame 8. The nice thing about her's is that the first 7 frames are her crouching down to her knees, which gives some degree of lenience in executing it against Ike. Dash > Utilt allows her to slide under him and hit his hurtbox before he can do anything. Even if you are a bit slow, Utilt trades with Nair.

I would expect a reasonable mix up from Ike would be to wavedash back > dtilt, so be aware.

 

[Y2Kay]

Parry is definitely not the best answer to Ike nair btw. He can mixup his timing or tomahawk; it's not worth the risk. It can be hard to punish it on landing to because of how low the landing lag is.

Stuffing seems to be the best bet.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

If you want other options for stuffing Ike's Nair:



No seriously. Just... just look at how many moves they have that easily outrange it. Been there, got smacked in the face repeatedly for trying to land Nair. You know Ike's coming at you from the air, particularly if you force him to with your wall of projectiles, you have moves you can angle, take advantage of that combination of things. You can also protect yourself by standing near Holy Fire, ain't like Ike is following you up if he lands in that.

 

[Lord Dio]

Spoiler: big list, contains a few extra

Dabuz, as you all probably know, plays
Kirihara doesn't have a set main but apparently strongly dislikes Rosa in this game (who can blame him? She's awful)
Falln gave up on Rosa because "Rosa's best case scenario with Luma positioning does as much as everyone's BnBs" and currently plays
Atelier/Towa plays , you're thinking of the Canadian Towa, who does play Palu.
Yuzu plays
Rayquaza07 plays either or , I'm not actually sure but I know it's not Rosa.
Xaltis (and for a bonus, Vinnie) plays
Crazycolorz5 seems have moved on to BBTag, but I could just be missing something. It's unlikely he's still playing Rosa if he does play ultimate.

Unless I've missed someone, the best Rosa players left appear to be Nabster (NA), Tatuman (EU), and Jan (JP). The character's dead on arrival and barring significant buffs she's not leaving low tier.

Jesus......that's........insane, really
(also yeah was thinking of canadian towa, oops lol)

 

[DrKatz]

I’m getting kind of tired of everyone complaining about Ike’s nair, though I’ve tried to be objective.

Instead of making an argument for counterplay, i’m going to make an argument as to why having such a powerful attack is okay.

A majority of the cast in this game get some great rewards off of their Nairs. Bowser’s nair can combo into a majority of his aerials and can kill confirm as well. Wario gets strings of aerials off his nair and can even confirm into Waft for a kill. If anyone watched Valhalla Grand Finals they can confirm that Wario confirmed his Nair into aerials into Waft to kill a Ridley at 22%. Let that sink in a second. 22%

I would rather characters in this game have extremely powerful and oppressive options which can kill confirm than to tone it back and make it similar to Smash 4. That’s a personal preference, I know. But maybe that’s where my frustration comes from.

Would we rather have a meta full of mediocre characters or one full of powerhouses where everyone has their own powerful qualities along with exploitable weaknesses (Ike’s recovery). I’d prefer the latter as I find it to be more exciting.

And I don’t think Ike’s kit is any more powerful than the rest of the cast comparatively. We’re seeing new tech come out weekly and the host of characters taking tournaments has been fairly diverse.

Edit:I guess my fear is that if we call for nerfs to Ike’s nair, what’s to stop us from nerfing Peach’s float, Wario’s Waft, or Olimar’s pikmin damage?

Wouldn’t we prefer a game where everyone has rewarding powerful options instead of neutering half the cast to mediocrity? That’s something we need to think about as a community moving forward.

 

[Rizen]

I've watched many videos and for the most part people are still playing Ultimate like SSB4. There's very little parrying, even at top levels, and directional air dodges aren't being taken advantage of as mobility options (when safe). Players aren't exploiting recoveries by jumping offstage. As such, the punish game is terribly underdeveloped. I feel like at some point a top player will blow everyone's mind by playing Ultimate like it's Ultimate.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I think Palutena's projectiles and kit in general are more suited for anti-zoning and punishing overly defensive and passive playstyles rather than actual zoning.

Autoreticule cam beat out most projectiles than have notable startup or can cancel out and still hit the opponent for small damage. The same thing can be said for EF, and it can be used to catch opponets trying to get positioning to start throwing out their own projectiles and foiling setups or confirms using said projectiles. Plus she has a reflect so there is always that. Characters like the Links the Belmonts and maybe Snake cannot recklessly spam their projectile options vs Plautena

 

[Rizen]

I think Palutena's projectiles and kit in general are more suited for anti-zoning and punishing overly defensive and passive playstyles rather than actual zoning.

Autoreticule cam beat out most projectiles than have notable startup or can cancel out and still hit the opponent for small damage. The same thing can be said for EF, and it can be used to catch opponets trying to get positioning to start throwing out their own projectiles and foiling setups or confirms using said projectiles. Plus she has a reflect so there is always that. Characters like the Links the Belmonts and maybe Snake cannot recklessly spam their projectile options vs Plautena

There's a certain spacing in front of Palutena where her explosive flame hits that you do not want to be. If you can zone her from somewhere else it works a lot better. At close range she can't risk using laggy projectiles and if you're above or below the 'cone' autoreticle targets it's easy to get around. She has a reflector so long range spamming is easy to reacted to.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

I didnt say Cloud is at the same level cuz i think he is my best character... https://t.co/erRp0LzaKW

— LG | MkLeo (@Mkleosb) January 9, 2019

Can't tell if trolling. If not, that's pretty interesting and might be relevant to the Ike discussion here.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

It's funny people cry about a character all throughout a game's lifespan and in the next iteration they're wondering where are the players that mained her. Rosa is a wasted roster spot all the hate she received in 4 killed the character in ultimate.

M2 is a bad character as well probably mid tier or worse. The character isn't enjoyable to play and the changes from sm4sh to ultimate hurt him really hard.

On the d3 stuff I think he's a really good character. Being a big body hurts him but I don't think that should kill him off. He has some pretty decent things going for him that makes me thing that he's good this time around.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

While people say the single air dodge hurts disadvantage states scross the board (not really disagreeing), i wonder how this burst escape option helps yoshi, wario, and G&W.

Ganon and D3 are gonna scream bloody murder now, but what about yoshi wario G&W and others with good aerial stats?

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Also on this vod here at around 9 minutes in, Leo says he thinks that Lucina is the best swordsman, followed by Ike and Chrom. So who knows.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/360953812

 

[Deleted member]

It's funny people cry about a character all throughout a game's lifespan and in the next iteration they're wondering where are the players that mained her. Rosa is a wasted roster spot all the hate she received in 4 killed the character in ultimate.

M2 is a bad character as well probably mid tier or worse. The character isn't enjoyable to play and the changes from sm4sh to ultimate hurt him really hard.

On the d3 stuff I think he's a really good character. Being a big body hurts him but I don't think that should kill him off. He has some pretty decent things going for him that makes me thing that he's good this time around.

Wow thats harsh if you want to talk about wasted roster talk about sheik and Piranha plant one is a minor character and the other was thar for like 5 minutes in Ocarina of Time
M2 is high tier it feels like it did in smash4 and it can still rip you to shreds if you're not careful but you do have good point about Ddd

 

[Yonder]

I didnt say Cloud is at the same level cuz i think he is my best character... https://t.co/erRp0LzaKW

— LG | MkLeo (@Mkleosb) January 9, 2019

Can't tell if trolling. If not, that's pretty interesting and might be relevant to the Ike discussion here.

Oh Arceus I wanna see his Mewtwo so bad. Nobody plays him anymore (i'm only barely getting my barings with him again...his telport is amazing now, abuse its landing).

Oh, interesting quote. When I played some friendlies with Locus, former best Ryu, I asked why he swapped to Ridley in this game. It was because he "loves how pressing Ridley's advantage is, like Ryu in smash 4".

No kidding. He was able to almost kill me off the sides as Ridley many, many times. I haven't seen a character quite like it able to have that much dominance like that. Really enlightened me as to how good Ridley actually is. Locus claims "High mid" sounds about right. No way in heck the worst heavyweight. I wanna say Charizard, but I know ZERO about him. What's Zard's deal in ultimate?

He still has a crisp Ryu too.

Very nice guy in general!

 

[Rizen]

Oh Arceus I wanna see his Mewtwo so bad. Nobody plays him anymore (i'm only barely getting my barings with him again...his telport is amazing now, abuse its landing).

Oh, interesting quote. When I played some friendlies with Locus, former best Ryu, I asked why he swapped to Ridley in this game. It was because he "loves how pressing Ridley's advantage is, like Ryu in smash 4".

No kidding. He was able to almost kill me off the sides as Ridley many, many times. I haven't seen a character quite like it able to have that much dominance like that. Really enlightened me as to how good Ridley actually is. Locus claims "High mid" sounds about right. No way in heck the worst heavyweight. I wanna say Charizard, but I know ZERO about him. What's Zard's deal in ultimate?

He still has a crisp Ryu too.

Very nice guy in general!

Charizard's no longer a single character. To get the most out of PT you have to swap pokemon at ideal times, to dodge attacks and lessen disadvantages. Swap's a f1 invincible move. Charizard can negate his poor disadvantage state by swapping to little Squirtle. That aside, Charizard has good things going for it. F4 jab, a fast Usmash OoS, good recovery and Bair's a strong kill move. Even if Charizard was solo I wouldn't say it was one of the worst heavies.

 

[Rocketjay8]

While people say the single air dodge hurts disadvantage states scross the board (not really disagreeing), i wonder how this burst escape option helps yoshi, wario, and G&W.

Ganon and D3 are gonna scream bloody murder now, but what about yoshi wario G&W and others with good aerial stats?

D3 loves the new air dodge for when he's at an advantage. It makes it even harder for the opponent to get past his large hitboxes and Gordo when they are off stage. At disadvantage, he still has his amazing recovery, the directional air dodge can help him get out of sticky situations, and he's the only character that has a 1 frame of vulnerability if he air dodges to the ledge.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Since it's relevant right now I'd say Charizard has received some nice benefits from the transition into Ultimate. He's got his same old oppressive advantage state from Smash 4, but now it's even better since he can use his newly buffed Utilt out of a dash. Heck, with his ground speed being able to use any tilt or jab out of a dash is a godsend, so he really benefits from Ultimate's new mechanics. He's received a notable air speed buff as well, similar to Bowser, helping him deal with disadvantage state slightly better and also improving his already powerful advantage state even further.

I feel like he struggles a bit with neutral though, which is a big problem for a character of his weight class. Since Fair never auto cancels from a short hop, his only truly safe aerial is Nair. He's got a good enough defensive game with his bair, jab, f-tilt, d-tilt and out of shield options but safely approaching is just something he doesn't have all the tools for. Dash dancing helps makes up for this somewhat since it makes his approach less predictable but I don't have a lot of faith in him as a solo character, especially when folks like Bowser and Ridley are able to pull off the "oppressive mobile heavyweight" role just as well if not better.

Luckily though he's not a solo character anymore and he does his roles in Pokemon Trainer's team phenomenally well, those roles being killing and surviving. Between Fair, Up Smash, U-Throw, Bair, Uair, and even sweet spotted Ftilt he's got a strong variety of kill moves at his disposal. Up Smash is especially incredible for being a frame 6 out of shield kill move and an effective anti air to boot. Something I see less people taking advantage of is Charizard's amazing survivability though. Those good defensive tools I mentioned before do wonders against an opponent who's desperate for a kill, especially when you have a stock lead and don't have to deal with the burden of approaching anymore. Combine that with his weight and recovery and you have a character who will sometimes survive to ridiculous percents. The only thing he has serious issues with is landing sometimes but if you make smart use of Nair and his triple jump it doesn't always even seem that bad.

What really pains me is when I see people who switch back to Squirtle immediately after landing a kill move so they can start comboing again even when they're at high percent. Not only are these people sacrificing their survivability but they're failing to realize that Charizard is also great at racking up damage himself by utilizing juggling, tech chasing, ledge trapping while not having the potential to be KOed by a light sneeze at higher percents. Charizard has potential to build some serious leads and it pains me to see people who don't take advantage of that. That said you'll often times just want to double switch back to Ivysaur to try to camp instead, depending on the match up or what percent you're at. Either way, don't get too greedy with Squirtle.

Really though if you want to main Solo-Zard just go play Ridley instead. He's got a crazy advantageous stage like Charizard but he's also got a sword for a tail so he's better at neutral. Zard is a team player now and you aren't going to get the most out of him without Ivysaur and Squirtle backing him up.

 

[KakuCP9]

Parry is definitely not the best answer to Ike nair btw. He can mixup his timing or tomahawk; it's not worth the risk. It can be hard to punish it on landing to because of how low the landing lag is.

Stuffing seems to be the best bet.

Slight nitpick, but tomahawking is a terrible way beat parries since the act of parrying (shield drop) can be cancelled into a jump so the defender can just jump out of a failed parry attempt and whack you with a aerial OOS. Mixing up spacing/timing is a much better option.

 

[bc1910]

Slight nitpick, but tomahawking is a terrible way beat parries since the act of parrying (shield drop) can be cancelled into a jump so the defender can just jump out of a failed parry attempt and whack you with a aerial OOS. Mixing up spacing/timing is a much better option.

It’s not terrible, it’s just another form of mixing up timing. Say you’re fastfalling with aerials, you can just choose not to throw that aerial out, land with no lag and instead throw out a high reaching Utilt or Ftilt which will catch the jump. The defender would have to jump a lot earlier to hit you with an OOS aerial; if they were trying to parry a fast fall aerial done near the ground they would need to release shield and jump pretty late.

You can also do stuff like start the aerial then fastfall before the active frames begin which is a really tricky form of tomahawking, especially if they try to react to the startup. Works well with slow Fairs like Greninja’s or DK’s, particularly if they have autocancel frames before the active frames.

 

[BunbUn129]

Counter-play to Ike's nair can be extracted from the numbers. 3f jumpsquat plus frame 10 start-up means that both from a SH and full jump, the action has a minimum start-up of 12 frames, bordering right on reactable. It's a far cry from other characters who can get a nair hitbox out in 6 and you having to entirely predict it, and unlike those, Ike's has an arcing hitbox, not a static hitbox that's out for 15+ frames.

Someone mentioned how it could get nerfed into something resembling a ZSS nair. But it already is in a way. If Ike wants the best mileage out of his nair, he needs to swing at the end of his SH (or FH). Forget about 8 frame landing lag and parrying, that whole action of SHFF landing nair is ~30 frames. Ike can mix-up by changing the timing and doing empty-hops, but because the move arcs the ideal timing window is not very large. Considering how frequently Ike is going to be using the move, it shouldn't be too difficult to get a grasp of his usage of it. Adding to this is his bad aerial acceleration, once he leaves the ground, his exact point of landing will be pretty obvious.

 

[Game7a1]

While people say the single air dodge hurts disadvantage states scross the board (not really disagreeing), i wonder how this burst escape option helps yoshi, wario, and G&W.

Ganon and D3 are gonna scream bloody murder now, but what about yoshi wario G&W and others with good aerial stats?

I can speak for G&W. He never really had a good air-to-ground disadvantage in Smash with multiple airdodges as he lacked a good escape option out of getting hit (and while Fire was an option, it sometimes backfired). Airdodging could have set him up to being frame trapped, for instance.

Directional airdodging does help him out more because he can airdodge down or to the side, meaning he can reach the ground faster without having to rely on D-air or use B-reverse Chef to change move in another direction faster. That said, the huge endlag on it is a minus. If that doesn't work, he can always just F-air or Fire, so he has more reliable options to escape disadvantage here than in Smash 4.

I should mention that because Fire now expends his double jump (even if doesn't use it), you have to airdodge up as a recovery option if Fire doesn't reach the ledge. So his disadvantage when recovering got worse. If he airdodges to dodge an attack off-stage and doesn't make it to the ledge with Fire or the airdodge, he can't do much. So while his air-to-ground disadvantage, I feel, got better, his disadvantage off-stage got much worse.

 

[bc1910]

Counter-play to Ike's nair can be extracted from the numbers. 3f jumpsquat plus frame 10 start-up means that both from a SH and full jump, the action has a minimum start-up of 12 frames, bordering right on reactable. It's a far cry from other characters who can get a nair hitbox out in 6 and you having to entirely predict it, and unlike those, Ike's has an arcing hitbox, not a static hitbox that's out for 15+ frames.

12 frames isn’t reactable with 6 frames of input lag. You’re looking at maybe 16-20 frames for stuff beginning to be reactable.

Reaction time has been discussed a lot in the past, I’ll just touch on it by saying that you will typically be countering your opponent through a combination of reactions and reads. Sometimes you will get those fast reactions and others you will read your opponent or potentially fail to react completely - my point being you might not consistently react to stuff in that “barely reactable” bracket if your opponent is mixing you up effectively. Mathematically though, yeah, we are probably looking at 16-20 frames.

Also regarding Ike’s Nair specifically, isn’t all the fuss over the safety of FF landing Nair, which requires a delay from both SH or FH? So the raw startup data isn’t that relevant (you can definitely react to Ike jumping and waiting though).

 

[BunbUn129]

Yeah I was just using the jumpsquat and move's start-up as a baseline. The effective start-up of the action is going to be much higher typically.

The counterplay to ZSS's SH nair in S4 and this game as well is to punish the SH before she can get the hitbox out. I think similar counter-play will evolve to deal with Ike's nair play.

 

[Augi]

I want to hear the rationale from the Dev. Team on why many characters received the "Doesn't make you prone in the air" buff to their Side+B and others didn't.

For instance... why does , historically a character with no problem recovering to the stage, now have a better Side+B that doesn't leave him prone, enhancing said recovery.

While , their Side+B, a skill that they absolutely DEPEND on for recovery, especially when solo, still leaves them stranded. Is it BECAUSE they need it? I think not.

a character in DIRE need of every recovery tool at his disposal, no longer goes prone using his Side+B, enhancing his recovery.

In fact, I think the only other character who goes prone after using their Side+B now is . Which is fine, he doesn't need that extra recovery. And that just makes it weirder.

The only connecting thread I can think of is that this change was for "Dash Attack Side+B's" where you have no control of your character during the action.

Both have Side+B that allow minimal control to the player during them. So I guess they're disqualified from this huge recovery buff? Or does the Dev. team not even see it that way? Is there a larger reason for it that I'm missing?

Mh... on a completely different note, how is Samus supposed to counter Pikachu? Seems like an impossible fight given the difference in speed. Samus is continually too slow to punish, unless its a hard read; so long as the Pikachu stays ontop of you the entire time and keeps attacking, which isn't hard to do. Maybe block their Aerial approach with a retreating short-hop grapple beam? I'd love some ideas.

 

[Rizen]

In fact, I think the only other character who goes prone after using their Side+B now is .

too . In Wolf's case, it's better that he doesn't have a great recovery but if you accidentally side B off of the stage it's an SD. A better design would be to give the move significant endlag to avoid this but not aid recoveries.

 

[Crissaegrim]

With the surge of Fire Emblem characters, are / seen as good characters that are outshined by //, or are they seen as "ok"? Marcina seem to be very solid in everything (great Aerials, recovery, range, kill power), just not amazing.

 

[Augi]

too . In Wolf's case, it's better that he doesn't have a great recovery but if you accidentally side B off of the stage it's an SD. A better design would be to give the move significant endlag to avoid this but not aid recoveries.

That's right he does go prone... I guess they can argue "He gets a small amount of vertical lift" so... also disqualified from not going prone? So then the change was made to "Side+B attacks that provide no Vertical Lift" Because Icies and MK can both get very, very tiny amounts of Vertical movement out of these attacks.

If that's the reasoning behind it (1) damn thats specific. (2) I will trade the 2cm of vertical lift on Icies for some Horizontal travel that doesn't leave me prone...

Despite the problems that plague Ice Climbers and currently have them viewed as low-tier, I'm having a lot of fun with them and I wish they were better.

 

[Emblem Lord]

By design Ice Climbers are degenerate characters.

Ice Cimbers being bad is better for the metagame as a whole.

Sorry, but it is true.

Puppet characters are just silly by design.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

Since it's relevant right now I'd say Charizard has received some nice benefits from the transition into Ultimate. He's got his same old oppressive advantage state from Smash 4, but now it's even better since he can use his newly buffed Utilt out of a dash. Heck, with his ground speed being able to use any tilt or jab out of a dash is a godsend, so he really benefits from Ultimate's new mechanics. He's received a notable air speed buff as well, similar to Bowser, helping him deal with disadvantage state slightly better and also improving his already powerful advantage state even further.

I feel like he struggles a bit with neutral though, which is a big problem for a character of his weight class. Since Fair never auto cancels from a short hop, his only truly safe aerial is Nair. He's got a good enough defensive game with his bair, jab, f-tilt, d-tilt and out of shield options but safely approaching is just something he doesn't have all the tools for. Dash dancing helps makes up for this somewhat since it makes his approach less predictable but I don't have a lot of faith in him as a solo character, especially when folks like Bowser and Ridley are able to pull off the "oppressive mobile heavyweight" role just as well if not better.

Luckily though he's not a solo character anymore and he does his roles in Pokemon Trainer's team phenomenally well, those roles being killing and surviving. Between Fair, Up Smash, U-Throw, Bair, Uair, and even sweet spotted Ftilt he's got a strong variety of kill moves at his disposal. Up Smash is especially incredible for being a frame 6 out of shield kill move and an effective anti air to boot. Something I see less people taking advantage of is Charizard's amazing survivability though. Those good defensive tools I mentioned before do wonders against an opponent who's desperate for a kill, especially when you have a stock lead and don't have to deal with the burden of approaching anymore. Combine that with his weight and recovery and you have a character who will sometimes survive to ridiculous percents. The only thing he has serious issues with is landing sometimes but if you make smart use of Nair and his triple jump it doesn't always even seem that bad.

What really pains me is when I see people who switch back to Squirtle immediately after landing a kill move so they can start comboing again even when they're at high percent. Not only are these people sacrificing their survivability but they're failing to realize that Charizard is also great at racking up damage himself by utilizing juggling, tech chasing, ledge trapping while not having the potential to be KOed by a light sneeze at higher percents. Charizard has potential to build some serious leads and it pains me to see people who don't take advantage of that. That said you'll often times just want to double switch back to Ivysaur to try to camp instead, depending on the match up or what percent you're at. Either way, don't get too greedy with Squirtle.

Really though if you want to main Solo-Zard just go play Ridley instead. He's got a crazy advantageous stage like Charizard but he's also got a sword for a tail so he's better at neutral. Zard is a team player now and you aren't going to get the most out of him without Ivysaur and Squirtle backing him up.

My friend, who mains Pokemon Trainer, does a pretty good job with Charizard in advantage. I agree that Squirtle at high percents is asking for a KO. We joke that Charizard only has 2 purposes: KOs (Up-Throw) and surviving (recovery included). However, he has a lot more going for him than people give credit. His dash dance makes Ftilt a decent kill option and he survives way longer than you'd expect due to his good recovery mix-ups and heavy weight. I'm definitely considering maining Pokemon Trainer due to their versatility.

 

[Krysco]

with Onslaught (X1XX) or Suplex (X3XX) with Gale Stab (X2XX) also all go into helpless after their side specials although there's conditions. Falcon doesn't go into helpless if he hits someone with it. Ganondorf requires the grab being broken (I'm stuck going off of Sm4sh knowledge for this because even a level 9 CPU with CPU Shuffling on won't mash out of his side b on Hyrule Castle 64). Ike goes into helpless unless he hits someone and acts right after. Villager only goes into helpless if he rides the Gyroid and doesn't hit anyone. The Miis always go helpless with Onslaught, Suplex and Gale Stab even if the move connects (might be able to get out of Suplex without helpless if the grab gets broken).

 

[ZephyrZ]

With the surge of Fire Emblem characters, are / seen as good characters that are outshined by //, or are they seen as "ok"? Marcina seem to be very solid in everything (great Aerials, recovery, range, kill power), just not amazing.

Versatility and a lack of weaknesses is a strength in its own right. Combine that with the fact that disjoints are proven to be powerful tools in this metagame and most people seem to be in agreement that Marth and Lucina are still very good characters with very strong defensive games.

 

[Kellojolly]

With the surge of Fire Emblem characters, are / seen as good characters that are outshined by //, or are they seen as "ok"? Marcina seem to be very solid in everything (great Aerials, recovery, range, kill power), just not amazing.

Lucina is very strong. I don't like how floaty she is but her consistency and frames on and off stage (amongst the FE characters) is great. I do believe Lucina is the best of the FE roster but that is just me. Marth, it's hard for me to really have too much thoughts about due to his tipper. I also don't like Roy as much as some people do. He has great frame data and ok recovery. But I absolutely hate the fact that he's still a swordsmen who has to fight like a brawler due to his hilt sweet spot. Chrom is very good but, as you most likely heard from everyone else a million times over, his off-stage capabilities is a major drawback. As for Ike, as good as he is, I think he is being overhyped at the moment when people say how he's broken and what not. Regardless of what I think about his over centralized moveset centered around his powerful NAIR, I don't think he's THAT good. He has shown some nice tournament showing even before MKLeo and that can show that Ike is a potent character. However, in the case of MKLeo's win with Ike very recently (turning point for Ike's major increase in popularity and discussion), I still think it was more of MKLeo's tremendous knowledge in the fundamentals that won him the tournament...than Ike's competitive viability.

 

[Y2Kay]

Puppet chars are either irrelevant or polarizing, really no in between.

Icies are kinda whack rn. Nana dies way too easily. Once Nana is gone you might as well SD to get her back. Popo is useless alone. Unless u can get their insane reward combos quickly and consistently they seem pretty bad.

 

[Rizen]

has a good Nair and Leo won that tournament but where do we place him on a tier list? Has Ike really been dominate enough to be a top or high tier? I'm no Ike expert but feel like he's more in the realm of upper mid tier. Maybe I'm underrating him.

If we take a step back, a lot of characters can combo from aerials. YL for example has a f4 Nair (but the combo part comes later) he can combo Dtilt then Fair into. Ike's Nair isn't even that fast at f10.

IDK, what do you guys think?