Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[J0eyboi]

Wolf is basically the Smash equivalent of a shoto but with a bair that kills at 70. No **** he's popular.

 

[Kellojolly]

He's popular, as rival characters tend to be. However I think the reason he's popular in Smash has more to do with how he controls and plays. His amazing air mobility, great aerials and strong, straightfoward zoning tool make him both a satisfying character to play and a very easy character to pick up. Even I've got a little bit of pocket Wolf just from how much I gravitate towards him when goofing around.

I see. So it's most likely be from two good he is as a Smash character over anything else.

 

[Big O]

Looks like the scaling is such that the bury moves are the same/better at ~>100%. (Varies by weight) So the competitive impact on K. Rool is nil, and Inkling hasn't budged much, particularly as it relates to killing.

Moves that have the bury element ignore weight and affect everyone equally. It's also been this way since Brawl if you are curious.

Does anyone find the new short hop macro useful? I can't help but feel like they should've just made a dedicated short hop button instead. Hopefully a toggle for the short hop aerial macro follows suit. Maybe a toggle for button hold buffering too since a lot of people don't like it.

 

[MG_3989]

Moves that have the bury element ignore weight and affect everyone equally. It's also been this way since Brawl if you are curious.

Does anyone find the new short hop macro useful? I can't help but feel like they should've just made a "short hop" jump button instead. Hopefully a toggle for the short hop aerial macro follows suit. Maybe a toggle for button hold buffering too since a lot of people don't like it.

I don’t think I’ll be using it. I don’t understand why they don’t just make short hop a button. I’d be really happy if I could set X to short hop and Y to full hop and just take away all shortcuts into shorthopping and shorthop aerials. It makes more sense to me

 

[Tesh]

Moves that have the bury element ignore weight and affect everyone equally. It's also been this way since Brawl if you are curious.

Does anyone find the new short hop macro useful? I can't help but feel like they should've just made a dedicated short hop button instead. Hopefully a toggle for the short hop aerial macro follows suit. Maybe a toggle for button hold buffering too since a lot of people don't like it.

This was exactly my thinking. If they are acknowledging we would set 2 buttons to jump, why not just have one for each type. Then we could buffer full hop aerials.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Wolf is basically the Smash equivalent of a shoto but with a bair that kills at 70. No **** he's popular.

Wolf is basically the Smash equivalent of a shoto but with a bair that kills at 70. No **** he's popular.

Actulally Comparing Wolf to a shoto kinda makes sense.

Wolf is a character that can succeed on fundamentals alone and not on any real gimmicks that he sort of lacks himself. He has a very strong and depenable borderline abusable projetilecombined with strong neutral buttons to make a character thats success is about adaptaibility and conditoning the opponent to lure them into his gameplan and how he wants himself and the opponent to play. It all leads to a character that is easy to pick up and use, but will take skill and dedication to masters

So yea you can say he is more like Ryu/Ken than how Ryu/Ken are in this game. SureYouCan indeed

 

[Gleam]

Something else I've noticed about is that many of his attacks such as his Jab, Tilts and Dash Attack all negate projectiles. This is especially true for his Jab which can block out many projectiles including but not limited to Mario's Fireballs, Game and Watches Skillet, Cloud's Blade Beam and Megaman's Saws. What's more, there's essentially no lag afterwards when he blocks. I could be wrong but there may be less lag in block directly with a jab than it would be to actually shield much less dodge.

As a character who arguably doesn't do too well against projectile, being able to instantly negate it and react accordingly without having to waste valuable time with shielding or input lag could be potentially beneficial. It's a little harder to do, though not impossible with projectiles like Thundershock or arrows because of different altitudes and priority.

However if you were getting spammed by Blade Beam, from across Final Desitnation. What might take you 3 shields to reach Cloud, can theoretically be done in 2 jabs. There's no worry about getting shield broken or grabbed out of your shield and you provide a quick level of offense with jab that can easily be moved in and out of through different moves.

I may be speaking a head of myself but it was simply an interesting thing I found out.

 

[NotLiquid]

Pure speculation on my end, but while I don't see it being more than an upper mid-tier character, I think Piranha Plant might end up being a really solid counterpick against sword based characters - and that's definitely not something to scoff at considering how good swords are in this game. While the applicability for ledge/edge has been well noted, Poison Mist and Ptooie are just overall solid tools that force you to respect mid-range. If Plant can force enemies to approach from above, that's where they're at the biggest disadvantage against it considering how it seems like a beast at frametrapping against landings. I think more players ought to consider pocketing the character.

 

[bc1910]

I can think of 3 ways off the top of my head that ICs could be low tier or worse with wobbling.

1. Halve every one of their movement stats except short hop height
2. Make their grab frame 30
3. Give them S4 DDD landing lag, S4 Shulk ac windows, and S4 Palu endlag on everything

Sure, none of those things would ever happen, but those are extreme examples. Some combination of a worse grab, worse moves, and worse mobility could absolutely make ICs low tier with wobbling. You can't create a game plan out of fishing for grab if you have no way to scare your opponent into being grabbed.

Doesn’t this go without saying? I was talking strictly in the context of ICs being otherwise functional (even if low/bottom tier in most other attributes).

Any character with a broken-strong technique could be the worst in the game with an even more broken-weak attribute like a 30 frame grab.

So who is the 57% character???? Anyone that got adjusted in the recent patch, like K Rool did?

Pure speculation, but my money’s on Wolf. Really popular and we know he’s successful. Perhaps they’ve held back on balancing him to see if his win rate starts to return to the pack as his popularity levels out and people get better at fighting him. Plus there’s no “quick fix” for Wolf, he’s just solid all around but not necessarily overpowered (even Blaster is pretty manageable).

It’s hard to tell from the patch notes since no character was nerfed hard enough to give it away.

I remember a similar situation happening in Smash 4 where Sakurai talked about one character having a surprisingly high online win rate. Unconfirmed as far as I know but it was heavily speculated to be Luigi, who was nerfed shortly after the article.

 

[Jgod]

The highest win rate character among the general playerbase most likely is not a popular character if trends in other pvp games hold up.
Popularity usually decreases your win-rate as people flock to metapicks for easier victory but don't have the skill of higher level players (that make them meta) and decrease the winrate. The exception is when something is broke generally.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Funny you guys say that. Some professional players actually have pretty high opinions on Ganondorf. Specifically, Dabuz, ZeRo, and Mew2King has high opinions on the character, with ZeRo calling Ganon potentially the best super heavyweight.

While I personally disagree, and I bet a lot of you think so too, but it is interesting to see optimism with this character among some of the top players.

I think that Ganondorf is a somewhere in mid tier. He's too strong to ignore his strengths in this game and he is able to abuse the weaknesses of most of the characters that I think are worse than him. In terms of him being the best super heavy weight, I think that he's definitely better than K. Rool, DDD, and Incineroar. His frame data is just too good and he kills earlier than anyone else except maybe Bowser and if you really want to push it, Incineroar and Dr. Mario.

 

[ARISTOS]

is surprisingly solid I feel. While I think some MUs it'll be lamed out to hell (think Belmonts/ROB), everyone else who has to try and engage will have to deal with it's plethora of fast whiff punish tools, which his specials look to force. While Ptooie and Poison Breath aren't super great in neutral they're immense once the opponent is in a disadvantageous position/needing to land. Poison Breath+grab alone can completely change the tide of a game, it's a huge threat.

Plant's main issue is he doesn't have great tools to force people into disadvantage, so the player has to be good at playing neutral. Once it's won it though resetting back can be very tricky for the opposing player/it can win the game right there

Also is pretty dumb lol, wtf is nair

 

[DJ3DS]

On the 57% character, I think it will be one of the unpopular meta characters.

Whilst people online will gravitate towards stronger characters, they also gravitate towards easy ones. People want the reward of a strong character, but not one where that reward is extremely difficult to attain. That's why we see so many Cloud, Wolf and Palutena players. The characters are fundamentally not difficult to pick up and play with - they just don't achieve as well as the others because they simply aren't as good as the top players using them. If we didn't already know Peach had a 54% win rate, I'd have guessed her. In lieu of that I would expect the likes of Mega-Man - a clearly strong character prepatch who is nonetheless atrociously difficult to even play at a basic level, and for whom anyone who takes the time to learn him is probably not too bad.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I found something in the recent patch that I don't think anyone in this thread mentioned yet:

In 2.0.0, we all know that the bury moves for got nerfed. Or so it seems...


Apparently, while it is easier to break out in low percents, it is actually harder to break out of those said bury moves at higher percents. This is a pretty nice buff, especially for K. Rool, as it makes KO confirms easier for them.

 

[Rizen]

I think that Ganondorf is a somewhere in mid tier. His frame data is just too good

Ganon's frame data is bad. His fastest ground and air attacks are frame 7. His specials are all at least 14f. Smashes are 15-29f. He has a lot of lag too.

 

[Heracr055]

Okay, regarding the Inkling and K Rool roller & dthrow respectively...there are a lot of people saying that the nerf was actually a buff. However, what I think is important to acknowledge is that these bury moves working at higher % means that people shouldn't be dying as early to them (think starting around 80%). I haven't personally done the mash myself post patch but Esam seems to be able to mash out of roller bury around the 110% mark, and he got of K Rool dthrow bury really quick at 165%.
Also, didn't Inkling's grounded roller hitbox get nerfed to where you shouldn't be getting hit by roller nearly as often?

 

[missingnomaster]

For K Rool, what % did Dthrow -> Fsmash work before, and what % does it work at now? If there's concrete data for that it should be pretty easy to determine if this was a nerf or not.

 

[NotLiquid]

Okay, regarding the Inkling and K Rool roller & dthrow respectively...there are a lot of people saying that the nerf was actually a buff. However, what I think is important to acknowledge is that these bury moves working at higher % means that people shouldn't be dying as early to them (think starting around 80%). I haven't personally done the mash myself post patch but Esam seems to be able to mash out of roller bury around the 110% mark, and he got of K Rool dthrow bury really quick at 165%.
Also, didn't Inkling's grounded roller hitbox get nerfed to where you shouldn't be getting hit by roller nearly as often?

The hitbox nerf is relatively minor though it does make the move slightly more inconvenient to use as a punish tool at times since opponents pretty much get roughly one or two more frames worth of time to shield comparative to how it was pre-patch.

 

[Frihetsanka]

For K Rool, what % did Dthrow -> Fsmash work before, and what % does it work at now? If there's concrete data for that it should be pretty easy to determine if this was a nerf or not.

It didn't really work that well if you mashed. I've read info that it's better after around 126% or so, Inkling Roller around 100% (though it got smaller, so it's probably still nerfed overall).

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

The highest win rate character among the general playerbase most likely is not a popular character if trends in other pvp games hold up.
Popularity usually decreases your win-rate as people flock to metapicks for easier victory but don't have the skill of higher level players (that make them meta) and decrease the winrate. The exception is when something is broke generally.

Yeah, this makes sense to me and makes me wonder if it was Mega Man (or maaaaaybe Lucario) based on the nerfs. We know it wasn’t Peach since they mentioned their win rate in the article.

 

[Luigifan18]

The highest win rate character among the general playerbase most likely is not a popular character if trends in other pvp games hold up.
Popularity usually decreases your win-rate as people flock to metapicks for easier victory but don't have the skill of higher level players (that make them meta) and decrease the winrate. The exception is when something is broke generally.

Wait, huh? I don’t quite get what your point is. More popular characters get played more often, so they have more chances to win (whether or not they can realize victory is a separate question).

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Wait, huh? I don’t quite get what your point is. More popular characters get played more often, so they have more chances to win (whether or not they can realize victory is a separate question).

The quoted win rate from the article was ~57%. Not a sum like I think you might be assuming.

For tournament results, your argument makes sense.

 

[IsmaR]

Typically the more people there are playing a character = the more the chances the character is losing rather than winning.

The obvious exception being the noted anomaly that is Peach compared to Daisy, though something something "character specialists" can probably be said.

 

[Foie]

I wonder why has a ~4% lower win rate than ... Potentially sample size if fewer people are playing Peach/Daisy? Maybe more noobs are attracted to Daisy since she's new, and more legit peach players stick with peach for character loyalty? More decent players picked up peach simply for the fact that Samsora and other top peach players use her instead of Daisy? There has to be some reason, they're exactly the same.

Kind of casts (even more) doubt on the significance of online win rate...

By the way, I'm missing dash attack -> jab
on shield for , that was way more effective than it should have been online. Can see why it was nerfed, but it's still difficult to have Mewtwo nerfed without any compensation.

 

[ON-2]

Yeah, this makes sense to me and makes me wonder if it was Mega Man (or maaaaaybe Lucario) based on the nerfs. We know it wasn’t Peach since they mentioned their win rate in the article.

I would be really surprised if it was Megaman. Then again he isn't a common character so not a lot of people would know how to fight him.

On that topic what's the general consensus on Megaman anyway? I noticed talk about him is kinda skimmed or goes unnoticed. I know he's much better in Ultimate than Smash 4,and even with the nerfs (rip lemonsalad) he still looks like a solid strong character.

 

[Rocketjay8]

I wonder why has a ~4% lower win rate than ... Potentially sample size if fewer people are playing Peach/Daisy? Maybe more noobs are attracted to Daisy since she's new, and more legit peach players stick with peach for character loyalty? More decent players picked up peach simply for the fact that Samsora and other top peach players use her instead of Daisy? There has to be some reason, they're exactly the same.

Kind of casts (even more) doubt on the significance of online win rate...

By the way, I'm missing dash attack -> jab
on shield for , that was way more effective than it should have been online. Can see why it was nerfed, but it's still difficult to have Mewtwo nerfed without any compensation.

I personally pick Peach more than Daisy because her victory animations are amazing.
That and I have a soft spot for Peach in Smash.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I wonder why has a ~4% lower win rate than ... Potentially sample size if fewer people are playing Peach/Daisy? Maybe more noobs are attracted to Daisy since she's new, and more legit peach players stick with peach for character loyalty? More decent players picked up peach simply for the fact that Samsora and other top peach players use her instead of Daisy? There has to be some reason, they're exactly the same.

Kind of casts (even more) doubt on the significance of online win rate...

By the way, I'm missing dash attack -> jab
on shield for , that was way more effective than it should have been online. Can see why it was nerfed, but it's still difficult to have Mewtwo nerfed without any compensation.

It is basically personal preference on which princess to choose, since the two has virtually no gameplay differences. The simple fact is that there are simply more people that prefers Peach over Daisy.

 

[Deleted member]

I wonder why has a ~4% lower win rate than ... Potentially sample size if fewer people are playing Peach/Daisy? Maybe more noobs are attracted to Daisy since she's new, and more legit peach players stick with peach for character loyalty? More decent players picked up peach simply for the fact that Samsora and other top peach players use her instead of Daisy? There has to be some reason, they're exactly the same.

Kind of casts (even more) doubt on the significance of online win rate...

By the way, I'm missing dash attack -> jab
on shield for , that was way more effective than it should have been online. Can see why it was nerfed, but it's still difficult to have Mewtwo nerfed without any compensation.

I would bet that Peach mains are kinda dedicated to using her, and have probably been using her for a while since she was in Melee.

Meanwhile Daisy's first game is Ultimate so a lot of Daisy players are just newbies to the Peach moeset who picked up Daisy because they think Daisy is cool and are trying her out for the first time, meaning they aren't as experienced at using the Peach moveset as the Peach mains.

 

[Tesh]

The highest win rate character among the general playerbase most likely is not a popular character if trends in other pvp games hold up.
Popularity usually decreases your win-rate as people flock to metapicks for easier victory but don't have the skill of higher level players (that make them meta) and decrease the winrate. The exception is when something is broke generally.

Not only that, but popularity=more dittos. In a ditto the character always gets 1 win and 1 loss, gravitating popular picks closer to 50%.

Highest win rate is likely something relatively powerful despite being unpopular. Like Mii Swordsman or a less popular echo/clone.

I found something in the recent patch that I don't think anyone in this thread mentioned yet:

In 2.0.0, we all know that the bury moves for got nerfed. Or so it seems...


Apparently, while it is easier to break out in low percents, it is actually harder to break out of those said bury moves at higher percents. This is a pretty nice buff, especially for K. Rool, as it makes KO confirms easier for them.

Looking pretty useless for K Rool. if he grabbed you at such a high percent, you should be dead from up throw or the same quick confirms that work at like 70. Maybe vs heavies who won't die as early he could get some value out of dthrow at like 130-140

 

[Frihetsanka]

Not only that, but popularity=more dittos.

One could argue that it would be reasonable to discount results for dittos in order to avoid this. If a character is played 5 million times in dittos and 1 million in non-dittos, and the non-ditto win-rate is 30% (as an example), then the dittos shouldn't act to artificially raise the average win rate.

The simple fact is that there are simply more people that prefers Peach over Daisy.

Apparently Peach and Daisy had roughly the same play rate in Elite, so that's not the reason. I suppose this means that there's a significant margin of error to account for when looking at win/loss rates, would be interesting to see if this applies to Dark Samus/Samus, Richter/Simon, and Pit/Dark Pit as well.

 

[Thinkaman]

Not only that, but popularity=more dittos. In a ditto the character always gets 1 win and 1 loss, gravitating popular picks closer to 50%.

This is a real but pretty negligible factor. Even if a 55% win-rate character is played 5% of the time (that's a ton), those 5% of dittos would only water down their win rate to 54.75%. It's pretty trivial to subtract this out or not include it in the first place.

The bigger factor, as we see with Peach/Daisy, is player-side discrimination. Characters who tend to more exclusively attract dedicated, "loyal" players are logically being played more often by a user who knows what they are doing. Smaller sample size merely lets this discriminating factor appear in more extremes. Case in point: The very high win rate of WFT in 4.

Again, win-rate is a pretty underwhelming statistic, with even just number of players being a more meaningful value for most purposes.

Edit: You would find different win rates for different costumes in the same way as Peach/Daisy. Different types of human beings play certain characters/skins, with different win-rates.

 

[Yonder]

Funny now people just now are talking about Bowser's Nair being godly (idk what triggered it). But yeah, go to in neutral being a big meaty hitbox and it is a kill confirm into bair or uair at higher percents on big bodies around like 90.

Nair, fair and side b are his best moves by far.

 

[Tri Knight]

Funny now people just now are talking about Bowser's Nair being godly (idk what triggered it). But yeah, go to in neutral being a big meaty hitbox and it is a kill confirm into bair or uair at higher percents on big bodies around like 90.

Nair, fair and side b are his best moves by far.

I don't talk about him much but I do think people are sleeping on him a bit. His biggest weakness is getting juggled as he's got minimal aerial options in disadvantage but he's got a great moveset overall for neutral, advantage, and edgeguarding imo.

He kinda feels like a Super Heavyweight swordie with lots of Tough Guy.

 

[Yonder]

I don't talk about him much but I do think people are sleeping on him a bit. His biggest weakness is getting juggled as he's got minimal aerial options in disadvantage but he's got a great moveset overall for neutral, advantage, and edgeguarding imo.

He kinda feels like a Super Heavyweight swordie with lots of Tough Guy.

His recovery is pretty bad too and vulnerable. The vast bulk of Bowser stocks come from gimpig him cause he lost up b distance and so many moves can override and spike him.

Bowser Drop Fair offstage is the stuff of nightmares for lotw of the cast, killing at 60+ with optimal positioning. You can chain them into an up b to kill off the side if you're putting all your cards on the line (Samus someone killed me first though when i tried it online...but couldn't make it back to stage after)

He's a low high tier I feel. I don't feel hes viable solo though, some MUs are tough for him and he's great with a secondary like....Pichu. Characters like Inkling abuse the hell out of his disadvantage, out mobilize him, camp him, out damage him, then spike him with ease.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

lack of focus probably comes from a mixture of not having prominent showings yet, from what I've seen the most exposure he's gotten is being pocket secondaries for specific matchups, along with the same stigma that he's not good anymore because he lost his up throw to up air. The fact he got buffed on top of a lot of the characters who gave him the most problems in Wii U/3DS getting nerfed makes him even more terrifying than ever. Just like in Smash 4 he's potentially the best superheavy in the game and only has as competition for that honour.

 

[Tri Knight]

His recovery is pretty bad too and vulnerable. The vast bulk of Bowser stocks come from gimpig him cause he lost up b distance and so many moves can override and spike him.

Bowser Drop Fair offstage is the stuff of nightmares for lotw of the cast, killing at 60+ with optimal positioning. You can chain them into an up b to kill off the side if you're putting all your cards on the line (Samus someone killed me first though when i tried it online...but couldn't make it back to stage after)

He's a low high tier I feel. I don't feel hes viable solo though, some MUs are tough for him and he's great with a secondary like....Pichu. Characters like Inkling abuse the hell out of his disadvantage, out mobilize him, camp him, out damage him, then spike him with ease.

Yeah I forgot about his Up-B for a minute. But I could put him there too. I dont think theres gonna be many characters that actually are truly solo-viable honestly, even amongst the perceived top tiers.

 

[Siledh]

Snake's Nikita is amazing in doubles.

 

[MG_3989]

I could see Marth being the high win rate character. A lot of people switched to Lucina because she’s considered better now and she’s easier to use which gives Marth low usage rates. This plus the people who stuck with Marth over Lucina are probably good with Marth makes it pretty easy to see how he could be the winrate outlier

 

[Heracr055]

Not that it matters much anymore but I'm surprised nobody has proposed Inkling as the character with the highest win rate. Despite not having major tourney results offline she is everywhere online, and had an abusable roller (especially with online messing with reactions) to seal early stocks with thanks to bury

 

[MG_3989]

Not that it matters much anymore but I'm surprised nobody has proposed Inkling as the character with the highest win rate. Despite not having major tourney results offline she is everywhere online

I think that’s why nobody has proposed her as the high winrate character. The more play a character sees the more chances the character’s W/L stats have to even out. Plus since Inkling was so hype a lot of newer players picked them up. When they many people are using a character there’s gonna be some people who are bad using the character. The more data a character has the more likely they’ll be closer to mean. That’s why I think it’s a character like Marth who is somewhat of niche pick and the players that didn’t switch over to Lucina are probably already good with Marth