Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[bc1910]

So overall, I think Greninja's performs better in more relevant matchups than Fox. if there's something I'm not quite grasping about this comparison, lemme know.

I think you’re hurting your own cause by constantly comparing these two characters directly, and you’re comparing them in a way that doesn’t properly account for Greninja’s unique strengths. He is not as good at rushdown as Fox, full stop. I know New York calls Greninja “water Fox” but this always struck me as a joke and not something to run with as a serious comparison (definitely sounds like something Deven would say for fun).

Fox’s frame data is unequivocally better and his OoS is godlike. These differences alone make him play totally different since his ability to rush down is far better whilst he is way harder to pressure. Greninja has his own advantages in better kill confirms, WAY better throws, better air mobility, better recovery and better range. Fox works differently for his kills since running Usmash is such a strong option; he is better at nabbing raw KOs but arguably worse at confirming them. Nair Usmash alone is potentially more versatile than anything in Gren’s kit but it’s still one option; Greninja has a wider array of options including that ridiculous Dtilt and eventually gets kill throws.

Hopefully you can see by this point I’ve used the words “better” and “worse” so many times that the direct comparison kinda falls apart. These are fundamentally different characters, bait and punish vs rushdown, with both having the ability to play like the other but being worse at it.

Outside of both characters being speedsters who can juggle I don’t think they’re that similar, certainly not to the point where they warrant repeated direct comparisons.

Fox's blaster has good DPS and can force approaches. Fox players just never choose to do this for some reason.

I agree Gren has some things over Fox but in many ways he feels like a watered down Fox. Fox's comparative frame data is better. Gren has a nice f5 Dtilt that leads into Fair, Fox's f3 Utilt combos into its self several times then aerials. Gren's Fair is f16, Fox's Bair is 9. Nair F 4, G 12. Grab F6 G 10 (you sunk my battleship). Fox's Nair is a big advantage over Greninja's air to ground game. Fox vortexes* better. Fox's kill game is better imo with Usmash and Nair confirms. A fast grab means it's less safe to shield vs Fox and Gren's grab is very slow for a non-tether. Like you mentioned Fox has an OoS game.

There are several aspects where Greninja is great but Fox is amazing. Gren's really good but I still think Fox is better.

*it's a verb now: deal with it.
_______________________________________

OT, Tweek's YL is looking tight, although with room to grow. The last 3 games support my evaluation of YL vs Palutena being even.

This is a perfectly appropriate response; comparing them directly just leads to frame data comparisons where Fox clearly has the upper hand and the watered down Fox label seems appropriate.

This fails to account for is Greninja having better range on virtually every move, a far better recovery and more agility overall. I could throw your final sentence back and say there are things Fox is good at that Greninja is great at, but their differences are so fundamental that I see little point.

Vortexes (juggling) are one of the only times I think the comparison really makes sense. In this case it’s hard to say who is better. Both have devastating tech chases. Greninja has nothing like Fox’s Utilt at low percents and his Uair is less devastating, Fox is also better at chasing down on the ground with his faster run speed and Nair. On the other hand Gren’s dash attack is better, his combos are more guaranteed (Fox has a lot of 50/50s and setups) and the active frames on Uair plus high jumps and air mobility make it easier to hit with. His raw damage values on everything except Uair also tend to be better and he has a clutch factor in Shadow Sneak (and sometimes early Uair/Fair near the blastzone) which Fox lacks.

As an aside it’s safer to shield against a character with crappy throws than a character with relatively good kill and combo throws unless the latter’s grab is THAT bad (think S4 ZSS), which at f10 Greninja’s isn’t. Shielding against Fox is the best way to stop him from killing you.

———

FWIW I have no idea where Greninja is going to end up, Fox could well be the better character, I just don’t see the value in directly comparing them too much.

I do think Greninja is a bit overrated by many in both this thread and the wider community, he has a LOT of weaknesses which are not typical of a supposed top tier.

Greninja’s pokes leave a lot to be desired and I worry about the way he can’t always assert himself in match due to his lack of fast, safe, good hitboxes that the opponent is forced to respect (shield dash attack people! It’s a free grab at all but point blank crossup range). He is usually playing the opponent’s game and trying to punish it, which not only takes a lot of effort but is far easier to mess up than throwing out safe combo starters and kill moves. Whilst shielding against Gren isn’t as good of a defence as against other top/highs like Fox and ZSS it still works well due to his slow grab, and his high short hop in combination makes tomahawks unviable. Greninja’s aerial frame data is frankly laughable and his landings are pretty suspect (you need to be able to catch him though).

Other times you’ll make all the right calls and react properly to your opponent’s options and they’ll be dead within seconds, with the whole thing looking insultingly easy to the average viewer.

Like I said, no idea. Top of high at a stab, within touching distance of top 10 but not inside it.

I’ll sign off by saying that as I continue to grow and improve as a player, I do find myself able to play to Greninja’s strengths more and more. The simple factors of his mobility and good projectile afford him the luxury of choosing when to engage against almost every character, which is a game changing advantage. He feels very rewarding to invest time into.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Okay, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But there is a reason why All previous pro Diddy mains, as well as Sheik mains have all but abandoned thse characters in ultimate.

In Smash 4 Diddy and Sheik were neutral gods, with no other character really able to play and monopolize neutral like they could. (yes, not even Bayo) They could not get crazy early jank kills like Bayo or ZSS, but they won just by how overall oppressive they were
.

Now in Ultimate, they still have very strong neutral games, but then there are these problems

• The reward they get off it has been decreased, meaning they have to win it more
• Their Kill power or setups have been nerfed, so now they struggle to kill. Its no longer meme material like in Smash 4, they really have a hard time taking stocks
• Here is the big one, Due to how Ultimate works, the neutral games for almost every relevant character now has been improved from their last iteration So now Diddy and Sheik are really not that special anymore. They do not really have one or two "win neutral insantly" move now and 90% of the roster just has to accept that

I am not saying Diddy is terrible at all. But from a competitive standpoint. There is little reason to use him for how much effort he needs now. When you can pick a character that is much easier to use and succeed with . Or a character that while does take effort to master fully, do give out the reward equal or greater than the effort put in .

Feel free to continue to use Diddy if you like the character and have fun using him. It does not look like he will be greater than mid-tier barring patches and balance changes

I feel like diddy and sheik were BS in sm4sh and the people that played that were able to get away with murder. These characters had some of the best frame data in the game while also having ways to cheat disadvantage state. Yeah they could be punished for monkey flip and bouncing fish but it was still better options than were afforded the rest of the cast. I do believe we see a lot of these players struggle because they have to play a much fairer game in ultimate.

 

[blackghost]

I have decided that this game is extremely well balanced... but the idea of buffing characters to bring them up might actually be significantly harder than nerfing a few down. It feels to me like there is no more than 4 defined tiers with the vast majority of characters only really good as a counterpick to hit the enemy with matchup unfamiliarity. No order whatsoever here

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im starting to think its time to separate this perception of mid-tier people have. i think people are scared of being controversial or something like that. The other issue is people have removed bottom tier from many of these lists resulting in less overall distinctions between these characters.
But its hard to look at mid tier and say bayonetta is equal to characters like ganon, any of the links, DK, YOSHI, link ridley, diddy, megaman, cloud, and even sonic.
everyone isnt mid tier we need to let that perception go. some characters are bad (and its more than the common bottom 3). I'd argue the common bottom three are actually bottom tier and much of the mid tier should actually be low tier.

 

[bc1910]

Sheik is definitely not bottom tier much less a “common bottom 3”. Her remaining strengths, primarily her beautiful frame data, give her a fighting chance against some high tiers and certainly the other mid tiers. A good Sheik is still oppressive AF.

Little Mac having his own tier is not an altogether ludicrous suggestion, he’s the only character I would describe as dysfunctional at this point. Given that his design causes him to careen between being utterly obnoxious and laughably pathetic within the course of a few seconds, let alone an entire match, there’s no easy fix for him.

I don’t take issue with people omitting a bottom tier from their tier lists, or just including a Mac tier. We don’t have to have a bottom tier for the sake of tradition if the characters are almost all functional enough to be argued up to mid tier.

There is a much greater split across mid tier than people like to admit and a fair number of characters like Kirby, Plant and probably Bayo are clearly lacking enough to belong in low tier. However, at this point we’re reaching that huge pool of characters that aren’t overly relevant to competitive play, where the split honestly doesn’t matter and will probably never be understood barring breakout performances from certain characters (possible) or significant patch changes (likely).

 

[Goodstyle_4]

I've been saying ZSS is high tier minimum for a while now. People were just discouraged by all her old mains dropping her, but the truth is she has extremely solid matchups across the whole cast and doesn't lose badly to anyone. She just doesn't steam roll people as badly as she did in Smash 4.

Pacman is too bad at killing to ever be top tier IMO. Just such a glaring and painful weakness, I feel the same about Young Link as well, even if he's also really good.

I think Ridley is better than what Tweek showed recently, it's just that the Palu match up in particular is so rough and he hasn't been practicing the game at all since Frostbite.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I feel like diddy and sheik were BS in sm4sh and the people that played that were able to get away with murder. These characters had some of the best frame data in the game while also having ways to cheat disadvantage state. Yeah they could be punished for monkey flip and bouncing fish but it was still better options than were afforded the rest of the cast. I do believe we see a lot of these players struggle because they have to play a much fairer game in ultimate.

And that's why I'm passionately defending Diddy here. Because he retains a lot of his strenghts of Brawl and Smash 4, he only plays a lot different in the ways he gotta win neutral. And most people think different = bad. People don't adjust well, and expect Diddy to remain a somewhat braindead character like he sort of was in Smash 4 (not after the last patches I tell you though), but such expectations lead to dissapointment.

The reason why ZeRo doesn't think high of Diddy is because he emulates his old Diddy / Sheik Smash 4 playstyle into Wolf in Ultimate. In a way, he's much like them with his neutral oppresion that's unmatched. But that's maybe because he focussed his playstyle with Smash 4 Diddy and Sheik around their opressive neutrals too much. Right now, Diddy is played with patience. The only real weaknesses he has is his disadvantage and recovery nerfs causing him to die far earlier than needed. With a boost in his recovery and a slight air speed increase, he can already be far more effective because then he'll have what it takes to edgeguard, causing him to kill way earlier than now.

The lack of throw combo confirms is helped with his Neutral Air and Dash Attack buffs, which always allow for a easy follow up with F Air, B Air or even D Air depending on the %.

Also Diddy was indeed way too powerful in his early Smash 4 days, and then nerfed and changed, and now again, nerfed and changed. That sort of thing takes people away from a character, I can see why. But outside of a few struggling matchups as Inkling, Wario, Snake and Olimar, I'm having a easy time adapting to Diddy in this game. You just need the willpower to adjust to the changes he's gotten, and that's what's lacking now because all the current Top Tiers are quite a lot easier to play than Diddy for easier rewards (except Greninja, Greninja is a beast and technical as ****).

tl;dr: I basically think Diddy is much in the same position as Greninja in the last game. Adjusted and changed way too much for people to care, and left in between a spot of viable and just-not-viable-enough and people won't care for the character much because there's Top Tier characters that do the same thing, but better.

In Smash 4, Diddy and Sheik did everything Greninja could do better. In Ultimate, Greninja does what Diddy and Sheik do, but better.

But honestly, even with the current meta game, I can see Diddy only improving. Why? Because parry is a thing now. Imagine Parry > Banana? That's basically a recipe for huge bull****tery. Even if Diddy wouldn't be buffed in future patches, parry into Banana will be a scary thing once truly realized. It will make people think twice approaching Diddy from the ground.

 

[Y2Kay]

I think you’re hurting your own cause by constantly comparing these two characters directly, and you’re comparing them in a way that doesn’t properly account for Greninja’s unique strengths. He is not as good at rushdown as Fox, full stop. I know New York calls Greninja “water Fox” but this always struck me as a joke and not something to run with as a serious comparison (definitely sounds like something Deven would say for fun).

Fox’s frame data is unequivocally better and his OoS is godlike. These differences alone make him play totally different since his ability to rush down is far better whilst he is way harder to pressure. Greninja has his own advantages in better kill confirms, WAY better throws, better air mobility, better recovery and better range. Fox works differently for his kills since running Usmash is such a strong option; he is better at nabbing raw KOs but arguably worse at confirming them. Nair Usmash alone is potentially more versatile than anything in Gren’s kit but it’s still one option; Greninja has a wider array of options including that ridiculous Dtilt and eventually gets kill throws.

Hopefully you can see by this point I’ve used the words “better” and “worse” so many times that the direct comparison kinda falls apart. These are fundamentally different characters, bait and punish vs rushdown, with both having the ability to play like the other but being worse at it.

Outside of both characters being speedsters who can juggle I don’t think they’re that similar, certainly not to the point where they warrant repeated direct comparisons.



This is a perfectly appropriate response; comparing them directly just leads to frame data comparisons where Fox clearly has the upper hand and the watered down Fox label seems appropriate.

This fails to account for is Greninja having better range on virtually every move, a far better recovery and more agility overall. I could throw your final sentence back and say there are things Fox is good at that Greninja is great at, but their differences are so fundamental that I see little point.

Vortexes (juggling) are one of the only times I think the comparison really makes sense. In this case it’s hard to say who is better. Both have devastating tech chases. Greninja has nothing like Fox’s Utilt at low percents and his Uair is less devastating, Fox is also better at chasing down on the ground with his faster run speed and Nair. On the other hand Gren’s dash attack is better, his combos are more guaranteed (Fox has a lot of 50/50s and setups) and the active frames on Uair plus high jumps and air mobility make it easier to hit with. His raw damage values on everything except Uair also tend to be better and he has a clutch factor in Shadow Sneak (and sometimes early Uair/Fair near the blastzone) which Fox lacks.

As an aside it’s safer to shield against a character with crappy throws than a character with relatively good kill and combo throws unless the latter’s grab is THAT bad (think S4 ZSS), which at f10 Greninja’s isn’t. Shielding against Fox is the best way to stop him from killing you.

———

FWIW I have no idea where Greninja is going to end up, Fox could well be the better character, I just don’t see the value in directly comparing them too much.

I do think Greninja is a bit overrated by many in both this thread and the wider community, he has a LOT of weaknesses which are not typical of a supposed top tier.

Greninja’s pokes leave a lot to be desired and I worry about the way he can’t always assert himself in match due to his lack of fast, safe, good hitboxes that the opponent is forced to respect (shield dash attack people! It’s a free grab at all but point blank crossup range). He is usually playing the opponent’s game and trying to punish it, which not only takes a lot of effort but is far easier to mess up than throwing out safe combo starters and kill moves. Whilst shielding against Gren isn’t as good of a defence as against other top/highs like Fox and ZSS it still works well due to his slow grab, and his high short hop in combination makes tomahawks unviable. Greninja’s aerial frame data is frankly laughable and his landings are pretty suspect (you need to be able to catch him though).

Other times you’ll make all the right calls and react properly to your opponent’s options and they’ll be dead within seconds, with the whole thing looking insultingly easy to the average viewer.

Like I said, no idea. Top of high at a stab, within touching distance of top 10 but not inside it.

I’ll sign off by saying that as I continue to grow and improve as a player, I do find myself able to play to Greninja’s strengths more and more. The simple factors of his mobility and good projectile afford him the luxury of choosing when to engage against almost every character, which is a game changing advantage. He feels very rewarding to invest time into.

Yeah I thought it was a meme at first too, but several Fox players in tristate actually believe this. The idea was something I heard from Dekillsage originally, and was also hinted at by Odyssey and Light. I’ve picked their heads about it, trying to understand why they felt this way, trying understand why they felt this way. I’m not entirely sure about this either, but I wanted to hear your input on this. Maybe I should’ve mentioned this in the OP? Lol.
I don’t this is bad comparison however. I find the dynamics between Fox and Greninja super interesting, because they both want the same thing, but go about it very differently. Even then, they still borrow from each other’s respective play styles a lot.

 

[ARISTOS]

I'll try to keep it simple.
Zero Suit reliably applies a threat Oli generally doesn't have to deal with by being prone to having f-smash and side-b whiff punished thanks to grab. Other long range tools like zair and side-b also allow ZSS to stay out of olimar's main threat zone while still applying pressure. Nair and fair can be used to approach in a way that's safe-ish and clanks with a lot of pikmin stuff while still giving a hit. His disadvantage state is particularly poor in exactly the way Zero Suit wants it to be (poor aerial drift/landing options). Olimar's helmet being a plus-sized hurtbox helps a bit too.
Nairo consistently beat dabuz olimar in s4 and Marss is up 2 sets to 1 vs it in this game (I believe; but the set dabuz won was at like 1am with a visibly exhausted Marss giving up after g1).

Now, why are small characters seen as hard? Coz of Smash4. But do you know why they were hard in smash4?
Because Zero Suits only practical option in neutral was to do a landing nair, a move which has close to 0 frames leeway of mixing up timing against the smaller characters. This combined with holding onto shield and grabs being so safe to throw out let smaller characters have all the ease of reactability in the MU.
Zero Suit's ftilt is now safe on block, has forward air to land and to rise with, and playing passive and reactive towards this is NOT EASY anymore (I would dare to say - NOT VIABLE). Zero Suit can apply pressure to the shields of small characters not once every 40 frames with 0 leeway of mix ups, but basically whenever the hell she wants.

In S4, these match ups were difficult to play, but not actually 'poor match ups' in my opinion. Zero Suit has/d significant range and mobility advantages over Pikachu; Pikachu couldn't actually approach her and relied entirely on punishing failures to punish/bad over committing at all bar top levels of play.
I don't have enough of a strong opinion about the Pikachu match up in this game - Pichu on the other hand is hilarious. Pichu's list of safe moves on block against Zero Suit's boost kick oos pragmatically comes down to ftilt and landing bair. Pichu hurts himself in neutral trying to apply pressure. Pichu dies to boostkick starting from 70%. Zero Suit uniquely is able to flip jump/down-b through basically every trap/set up Pichu has.
The match ups probably even at best for Pichu.

I'm in the camp that believes she beats Lucina/Marth.
Wolf has to deal with being outdone at midrange (i.e. blaster and dash attack aren't as inhibiting like they are in most other mus), she also has the tools to ACTUALLY deal with Wolf's recovery without the risk traditional edge guard characters have. Marss is the "reason" MKLeo stopped using Wolf (he said he would keep using him until he lost after Genesis).

I would go to so far to say nothing's worse than 45:55 out of the rest of the common chars.

While I'm not certain she's top tier, she seems to be in a very favourable position in terms of viability - definitely shouldn't be in line for any nerfs, and already showing to deal with basically anything/everything we're seeing right now.

Maybe a cold take now but I don't see ZSS as anything but a bonafide top tier in due time.

There is functionally nothing limiting the character in this game outside of the preciseness of her hitboxes, which is less about her and more about players learning how to place her hitboxes well. Outside of that I see no real weakness-at all points in time ZSS can dictate the pace of a match and when done correctly, can essentially take the opponent out of the game.

In Smash 4 every character was within beating distance of ZSS (outside of heavies lul) because she only had her movement and nair as a reliable way to open up foes. Buffs to ftilt/side b/fair open up her option tree tremendously at all stages of the game it's kinda crazy how option rich she is compared to Smash 4.

Her grab got worse but grabs are poo poo in this game so the net loss isn't bad all things considered. In fact, I'd even make the argument that she has a net boon since now OOS options like Boost Kick are that much more important (force your opponent impatiently into you into a nuclear OOS that kills pretty early). ZSS grab still does it's job in 2nd order conditioning (overwhelm with ZSS's general safety/non-commitment, forcing blocks->use the opponents habit of shielding to grab, fthrow/bthrow can cause great tech chase scenarios.

Her continuing limitation and why players won't gravitate to her is that bc controlling her generally requires you to have your execution on-point or you whiff and die hella early. That's exhausting for most players which is why ZSS remains a character for 1%ers.

Maybe a hot take but very few characters in Smash are "hard" compared to even an average character from a different fighting game. Most follow the same attack blueprint. This is not to say Smash is not difficult-the minutia in movement etc. is where the difficulty comes from, and how to separate the 1% from the .1% and so on. But most characters are not terribly difficult to pick up, they're just underwhelming.

 

[Rizen]

This fails to account for is Greninja having better range on virtually every move, a far better recovery and more agility overall. I could throw your final sentence back and say there are things Fox is good at that Greninja is great at, but their differences are so fundamental that I see little point.

I agree Gren has some things over Fox

I didn't "fail" to take anything into account. I simply didn't repeat everything that was already mentioned.

About their kill games, Greninja has good confirms but Fox's F8 Usmash can be thrown out by its self for tech chases, OoS and to cover landings. Greninja's Usmash is F12 and harder to throw out. Confirms are damage and positioning dependent. This is something I learned as a YL player, sometimes you can't follow up even if confirms are usually true. Terrain is sloped, there's a ledge or you barely hit with the edge of the hitbox. You also have to manage %s and ground attack, SH or jump appropriately. It's good to have a fast raw kill move to throw out.

I forgot to mention Fox can go offstage and has a pretty good gimp game with shine.

 

[N8than]

I didn't "fail" to take anything into account. I simply didn't repeat everything that was already mentioned.
I forgot to mention Fox can go offstage and has a pretty good gimp game with shine.

Actually Fox's has a mediocre offstage/gimp game (at least according to top players like Larry Lurr), but the fact that Greninja has to rely on kill confirms to take stocks is a significant flaw of his (yeah being able to kill at a specific percent range is nice and all, but nothing beats raw KO power).

 

[J0eyboi]

the fact that Greninja has to rely on kill confirms to take stocks is a significant flaw of his

He...doesn't, though.

Like, not at all.

Here's a short list of Greninja's non-confirm ways to kill:

- Fsmash callouts
- Usmash callouts
- Fair
- Ftilt
- Fthrow
- Uthrow
- Substitute

And that's not including his numerous kill setups. Fair in particular is a very common way to pick up kills in neutral without confirming them. Relying on confirms to kill is only a problem if you can't kill outside of confirm ranges, but not only are Gren's confirm ranges very large, he has plenty of ways to kill outside of them. You're making this out to be a much bigger issue than it really is.

 

[Foie]

GimR has discovered a potential breakthrough in tech chasing. This could definitely end up helping characters who occasionally struggle to kill like Inkling, while also making characters like Greninja and Fox even more powerful.

I'm surprised this went unresponded to... Of the new discoveries as of late, this seems probably the most significant since attack canceling. Essentially guaranteed 50/50s on tech situations.

He mentioned it works for most characters, even slow ones depending on their roll distance. I wonder to what extent a character like Jigglypuff can capitalize. Probably too slow to get guaranteed sing on roll away for most characters unfortunately.

I can seeing this being huge for someone like fox and wolf where tech traps are already scary...

 

[bc1910]

I didn't "fail" to take anything into account. I simply didn't repeat everything that was already mentioned.

About their kill games, Greninja has good confirms but Fox's F8 Usmash can be thrown out by its self for tech chases, OoS and to cover landings. Greninja's Usmash is F12 and harder to throw out. Confirms are damage and positioning dependent. This is something I learned as a YL player, sometimes you can't follow up even if confirms are usually true. Terrain is sloped, there's a ledge or you barely hit with the edge of the hitbox. You also have to manage %s and ground attack, SH or jump appropriately. It's good to have a fast raw kill move to throw out.

I forgot to mention Fox can go offstage and has a pretty good gimp game with shine.

Your post was entirely geared toward their frame data and brushing off Greninja’s advantages as “some things over Fox” is not comprehensive or balanced.

I wasn’t intending to call you out specifically though so apologies if it came across like that, I was talking more generally about the “frame data > all” argument and the limited view it portrays, highlighted when people try to compare Greninja to Fox or other rushdown characters. It’s just a pet peeve of mine; of course he’s going to come off worse, he does not have the frame data for true rushdown. But it’s one piece of the puzzle.

I think Greninja is more option-rich when it comes to killing than Fox, while Fox’s best raw option is better than anything Greninja (or indeed most of the cast) has and Nair Usmash is a great boon too. In a high percent scenario the argument revolves around whether Fox can land that Usmash. If he can’t I’d rather have Greninja’s options. This will be MU and player dependent.

I’ll reiterate that I don’t have a strong view on, or care, which character is better, but I do think Fox is rightfully higher tiered right now.

Actually Fox's has a mediocre offstage/gimp game (at least according to top players like Larry Lurr), but the fact that Greninja has to rely on kill confirms to take stocks is a significant flaw of his (yeah being able to kill at a specific percent range is nice and all, but nothing beats raw KO power).

J0eyboi already addressed this but, yeah, this isn’t true. He doesn’t rely on confirms at all, he has various ways to murder you. Just none quite as threatening on a basic level as Fox’s running Usmash.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I agree with everything except that Diddy would be Mid Tier. He does have options to kill you know. I haven’t had many moments that % leads up to 200% or something. More like 150% max. Banana > F Smash works well and D Tilt > U Smash also has utility. This is what makes Diddy better than the other Mid Tiers. He’s lower High Tier probably. Just needs a buff or two to be really viable again.

Then again, calling a character Mid Tier in Ultimate has become a meme of sorts.

I also think there's definitely 6 Tiers in Smash. There's no way a character like Zelda is on the same page as DK, Diddy, Yoshi, Link, Ganondorf or Falco. I estimate Diddy is about as good as those characters, and a cut above the other characters often categorised as Mid Tier as Dr.Mario, Robin, Duck Hunt and Bowser Jr.

The basis of your stance on Diddy seems in large part to be anecdotal evidence. You continously refer to your own experiences playing against others. Are these from tournaments featuring skilled players capable of reflecting the current meta or random Elite smash games?

 

[Diddy Kong]

The basis of your stance on Diddy seems in large part to be anecdotal evidence. You continously refer to your own experiences playing against others. Are these from tournaments featuring skilled players capable of reflecting the current meta or random Elite smash games?

There's literally no top player now who solo-mains Diddy. Zinoto is often seen using Peach instead, but still uses Diddy as a secondary. It's reported that he still has faith in the character though.

 

[NairWizard]

I did some testing:
Greninja, battle field center stage, fsmash % get a red spark kill against an idle cpu:

Pichu:85%
Fox:92%
Pikachu:96%
Olimar:97%
Greninja:99%
Peach:103%
Wolf:103%
Lucina:103%
Inkling:105%

Not the most scientific test, but I wanted to see for myself how this plays out in practice

Also did the same test but at the very edge of bf:

Pichu:60%
Inkling:75%

Anyways my observations are that while Pichu gets vaporized pretty early, a lot of the perceived top tiers aren’t very heavy either (I know Ike and Wario are arguably up there and I didn’t test them). And the difference seems less pronounced at the edge although I’m not sure why.

It's almost the same difference at the edge in your test results. 85 -> 105 is roughly 23% more survivability and 60 -> 75 is exactly 25% more. Minor variation is expected depending on where you placed the hitbox.

A 25% increase in survivability is immense, by the way. It means ~25% more neutral interactions available in a game for you to take the lead or come back. Of course, this assumes a static number of interactions per percent, which isn't quite accurate because of combos and kill confirms at certain percents, but for characters like Wolf it's still going to be a big deal on average.

And again, this is exactly how I'm beating Lucina players with Diddy. Run, space out their approaches, throw Banana, wreck havock. Her moves come out fast, but do have some noticable lag afterwards. And many of the Top Tiers aren't exactly well suited for her style of approaching, which makes her effective against them, but is still a major weakness against anyone who's not playing the rushdown game. She's definitely a strong character, but one with some weaknesses. If you can be effective up close towards her and are fast enough to punish her sword swings, Lucina has a hard time answering that. Much like Ike honestly. Not many of the Top Tiers can counter this style very effectively though. Olimar and Wolf probably have the best chance, and maybe Fox due to his overall speed.

It seems like you're basing many conclusions about Diddy on your online experiences, and that too not against tournament-level players, but just players around your GSP. I watched the gameplay videos that you posted and I think that you're playing at a level where you don't quite understand reactive play or what options are good in what situations yet. This isn't meant to be a diss to your skill, but I think that you should be drawing conclusions from tournament footage especially if you are going to post about Diddy's competitive value (represented in e.g. a tier list). I know that there isn't much tournament footage of Diddy right now, but waiting for some would be much better than repeatedly trying to characterize Diddy based on low-level experience.

I mean, a few weeks back, you came into the thread saying that Diddy was terrible because you were having trouble winning online and found Lucina and Ike easier, but having trouble winning online is a poor metric for competitive viability; often the skill floor of a character is higher than the skill ceiling you're likely to encounter online (though sometimes you will run into tournament-caliber players or streamers, this is true; it's just not the norm).

And this isn't to call you out specifically, I apologize if it feels directed too much at you; this applies to everyone. One of the reasons that I don't post impressions of my mains in Ultimate is that I haven't been to any tournaments or played anyone good offline in so long. I try to rely on tournament footage instead.

I think you’re hurting your own cause by constantly comparing these two characters directly, and you’re comparing them in a way that doesn’t properly account for Greninja’s unique strengths. He is not as good at rushdown as Fox, full stop. I know New York calls Greninja “water Fox” but this always struck me as a joke and not something to run with as a serious comparison (definitely sounds like something Deven would say for fun).

...

I’ll sign off by saying that as I continue to grow and improve as a player, I do find myself able to play to Greninja’s strengths more and more. The simple factors of his mobility and good projectile afford him the luxury of choosing when to engage against almost every character, which is a game changing advantage. He feels very rewarding to invest time into.

This is an utterly fantastic post.

Thank you. You verbalized some of what I was already thinking.

I disagree with "Shielding against Fox is the best way to stop him from killing you" though.

One of Fox's weaknesses is that his approaches are kind of predictable. He lacks the air speed to fake n-air crossups, but if you stand and shield it gives him mixups between different n-air fall speeds and tomahawk. If you use better aerial mobility whenever he's in the air to stay out of n-air range it becomes difficult for Fox to confirm kills, and you can get much more rewarding hits on him without allowing him to condition you.

I didn't "fail" to take anything into account. I simply didn't repeat everything that was already mentioned.

My suggestion: don't always take arguments against you personally. It's rarely personal. bc's post was great. He even agreed with the spirit of your post. (only calling this out because I've seen you react this way before).

About their kill games, Greninja has good confirms but Fox's F8 Usmash can be thrown out by its self for tech chases, OoS and to cover landings. Greninja's Usmash is F12 and harder to throw out.

On the other hand, Greninja's f-smash is much easier to throw out, and Greninja has better mobility to set up a situation where it's easy to land.

K.Rool does best with fewer platforms as he isn't great at platform poking yet gets trapped on them himself. What K.rool wants to do is make the opponent guess if he's going to grab or attack, get the opponent in disadvantage and bully them with quick armored hitboxes. He's very scary when intercepting offstage.

Did you find that linear stages made it difficult to approach zoning characters, though? You mentioned the Young Link matchup as being YL-favored before; Id be curious to hear more about that.

I forgot to mention Fox can go offstage and has a pretty good gimp game with shine.

Greninja's gimp game is much better than Fox's; Water Shuriken alone is enough to ensure that. You can pivot it, use it to stall, or use it to directly intercept a recovery. Hydro Pump is much weaker in this game than it was in S4, but it still gets the job done against characters like Ganondorf with low air speed, something that we saw Light struggling with against Nairo because there was no safe way for his Fox to edgeguard Ganon. If Light had been using (a polished) Greninja in that set, he would have won neutral just as often, if not more often due to shuriken, and ended stocks faster offstage, thus likely winning the set. Something to think about.

I'll try to keep it simple.
Zero Suit reliably applies a threat Oli generally doesn't have to deal with by being prone to having f-smash and side-b whiff punished thanks to grab

--

In S4, these match ups were difficult to play, but not actually 'poor match ups' in my opinion. Zero Suit has/d significant range and mobility advantages over Pikachu; Pikachu couldn't actually approach her and relied entirely on punishing failures to punish/bad over committing at all bar top levels of play.

.

It's interesting that you mention S4 Pikachu relying on bad overcommitments/whiffs to beat ZSS, because this is exactly how S4 ZSS had to play to reliably beat some of the top characters at the highest levels; her mobility-based conditioning game was not enough to open up top Diddys/Sheiks.

Now, though, the character is completely different; her neutral spacing game has evolved and expanded into something truly joyous to play with, where you can drift around a shield and hit any aerial you want at the last frame. In addition to n/f/b-air, I believe that up-air also has a better falling hitbox. In the air, she plays similarly to Lucina, and her better grounded mobility and paralyzer/side-b lets her get away with some things that Lucina can't on the ground. Down-b also has so much untapped potential.

It may be too early for an assessment as top tier, but subjectively, at least, the fun factor is much higher.

I'm in the camp that believes she beats Lucina/Marth.

This I have to question, though, even if I agree with the spirit of your post. I can see how Olimar might be even, but you claimed that ZSS may have a tougher time against characters who can beat her air to air such as Palutena and Pacman. If there's any character who cleanly slices through ZSS' air game, that character is Lucina. Lucina's reward in the air is lower than Palutena's, but higher than Pacman's, with more obnoxious angles for ZSS to deal with. f-air's buffs compensate for n-air's hitbox reduction, and of course there's z-air/side-b + edeguarding, but I would think this MU would be even at best. Lucina can also edegeguard ZSS, whose recovery *is* vulnerable contrary to popular belief.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I know that people hate nerf culture, but sometimes you have to look at what some characters in top tier have and if you had to somehow bring 50 characters up to their level of nonsense, we'd be entering brawl- where everyone has some absurd jank and 3 stocks doesnt seem like enough to determine who is the better player. It is literally impossible to buff a character like little mac, up to the level of fox, without him being able to KO you at 40% with fsmash since you can't just buff him by making his aerial game or recovery miles better, thats completely against the design philosophy of the character. you dont want everyone to be the same level of busted. you want them all as strong, but very differently..

I believe that the top tiers in this game are generally weaker and less oppressive than the Smash 4 top tiers. In order to illustrate this, I made an interesting thought experiment: What if the characters in S and A tier from the latest 4BR tier list weren't nerfed? They would, presumably, still get the mobility buffs characters got, and would still play in the Smash Ultimate engine, but aside from that they'd be their Smash 4 selfs.

Here's what I came up with:

So Bayonetta, Cloud, and Diddy Kong (who I think would be really stupid with the ability to down-tilt out of run) would be pretty dominant still, Rosalina, Sheik, and Fox would be better than any of the current Ultimate top tiers, then Peach, then Mewtwo would be better than most of the current top tiers as well, and then we'd have Pichu/Pikachu/Wolf.

So... I don't think any Ultimate character is as good as Smash 4 Bayo, Cloud, Diddy, Rosa, Sheik, or Fox. As such, there's much less need to nerf the current Smash Ultimate top tiers. Now, I could be wrong about some of these placements (they're highly speculative), but overall the top tiers in Ultimate are more fair and less oppressive. Fox is still very good in Ultimate in my opinion, though not quite as good as Smash 4 Fox.

Looking at this, I suppose small nerfs to Peach/Daisy, Olimar, Pichu, Pikachu, and Wolf could be in order? It might still be better to wait for a bit and see what happens, but those characters do seem to be a bit better than the rest.

 

[Hippieslayer]

There's literally no top player now who solo-mains Diddy. Zinoto is often seen using Peach instead, but still uses Diddy as a secondary. It's reported that he still has faith in the character though.

A lack of good sources doesn't mean anything goes. It means you take extra care to be sceptical, what you're doing is quite the opposite.

 

[N8than]

This I have to question, though, even if I agree with the spirit of your post. I can see how Olimar might be even, but you claimed that ZSS may have a tougher time against characters who can beat her air to air such as Palutena and Pacman. If there's any character who cleanly slices through ZSS' air game, that character is Lucina. Lucina's reward in the air is lower than Palutena's, but higher than Pacman's, with more obnoxious angles for ZSS to deal with. f-air's buffs compensate for n-air's hitbox reduction, but I would think this MU would be even at best. Lucina can also edegeguard ZSS, whose recovery *is* vulnerable contrary to popular belief.

Wait how does Pacman beat ZSS in the air?

 

[Rizen]

To be clear I think Greninja's really good, better than YL. I just don't think he's as good as Fox.

There's literally no top player now who solo-mains Diddy. Zinoto is often seen using Peach instead, but still uses Diddy as a secondary. It's reported that he still has faith in the character though.

This is an issue with characters like Diddy. They're good but get overshadowed by top tiers. I haven't seen hardly any Diddys. To be fair ZSS was in a similar situation until Mars started placing. ATM it is hard for me to say how good Diddy is due to lack of exposure.


I was labbing K.Rool and his Uthrow alone deals 22%! Holy c***. Edit actually it's 19.2%. I tested it on a koopaling and got the multiplier. It seems Koopalings take extra damage from throws.

 

[Minordeth]

Yeah I thought it was a meme at first too, but several Fox players in tristate actually believe this. The idea was something I heard from Dekillsage originally, and was also hinted at by Odyssey and Light. I’ve picked their heads about it, trying to understand why they felt this way, trying understand why they felt this way. I’m not entirely sure about this either, but I wanted to hear your input on this. Maybe I should’ve mentioned this in the OP? Lol.
I don’t this is bad comparison however. I find the dynamics between Fox and Greninja super interesting, because they both want the same thing, but go about it very differently. Even then, they still borrow from each other’s respective play styles a lot.

IIRC, Light(?) mentioned early on that Greninja's dash attack functionally works much like how Smash 4 Fox's worked, especially with the change to Ult Fox's DA.

I'd imagine that was probably an initial starting point of comparison from the NY Fox scene and everything ballooned from there. That Venia murders his way through everyone minus Gen doesn't help.

He...doesn't, though.

Like, not at all.

Here's a short list of Greninja's non-confirm ways to kill:

- Fsmash callouts
- Usmash callouts
- Fair
- Ftilt
- Fthrow
- Uthrow
- Substitute

And that's not including his numerous kill setups. Fair in particular is a very common way to pick up kills in neutral without confirming them. Relying on confirms to kill is only a problem if you can't kill outside of confirm ranges, but not only are Gren's confirm ranges very large, he has plenty of ways to kill outside of them. You're making this out to be a much bigger issue than it really is.

Did people not watch Lea play at all? He got numerous stocks out of aerial baits > fast fall > Fsmash/Usmash. Greninja's total mobility affords him kill opportunities that Fox doesn't have.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Back to Sheik if I may, the character has potential in the loosest sense. Her frame data is her only real plus in this game. Everything else is awful. A bread and butter combo with Sheik nets you 15%, while on nearly any other character it can give you 30-45%. Granted, she can set up the same combo decently easier due to her frame data, but this fails to take into account:

Her severely nerfed grabs that net her literally nothing in this game.

Her lack of effective range, in the game where plenty of amazing characters have a disjoint or 17 to go around.

She kills much later than the rest of the cast.

She dies much earlier than the rest of the cast.

Her recovery was one of few that was actually made worse on its own (bouncing fish being slower + one use in air), along with universal recovery nerfs that made a once untouchable character more vulnerable (teleport nerf, magnet hand nerf, wall jump nerf).

She cannot rack up percent, she struggles to kill, she dies at the drop of the hat. Her neutral is "good", by which I mean fast with zero shield pressure and range. You can eat combo after combo on her and all you need to do is get her up to 80% and whip her around. Rage absolutely murders her, and since heavys are even better in this game a once easy matchup for Sheik is now a nightmare, even if she wins the matchup.

I'd put her in the bottom 10 easily, maybe bottom 5.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Back to Sheik if I may, the character has potential in the loosest sense. Her frame data is her only real plus in this game. Everything else is awful. A bread and butter combo with Sheik nets you 15%, while on nearly any other character it can give you 30-45%. Granted, she can set up the same combo decently easier due to her frame data, but this fails to take into account:

Her severely nerfed grabs that net her literally nothing in this game.

Her lack of effective range, in the game where plenty of amazing characters have a disjoint or 17 to go around.

She kills much later than the rest of the cast.

She dies much earlier than the rest of the cast.

Her recovery was one of few that was actually made worse on its own (bouncing fish being slower + one use in air), along with universal recovery nerfs that made a once untouchable character more vulnerable (teleport nerf, magnet hand nerf, wall jump nerf).

She cannot rack up percent, she struggles to kill, she dies at the drop of the hat. Her neutral is "good", by which I mean fast with zero shield pressure and range. You can eat combo after combo on her and all you need to do is get her up to 80% and whip her around. Rage absolutely murders her, and since heavys are even better in this game a once easy matchup for Sheik is now a nightmare, even if she wins the matchup.

I'd put her in the bottom 10 easily, maybe bottom 5.

Seems accurate aside from the recovery nerf. Her recovery is still amazing, and probably even better relative to the cast. Sheik "losing" her Bouncing Fish after getting hit like Little Mac side B, is actually false. It is a little worse as a recovery due to losing it's intangibility (didn't know Sheik Bouncing Fish even had intangibility in SSB4), but considering the slight nerf to her recovery when other characters had their recoveries done even dirtier. Also, the magnet hand nerf isn't really that big of a deal, or at least it isn't to Sheik.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Seems accurate aside from the recovery nerf. Her recovery is still amazing, and probably even better relative to the cast. Sheik "losing" her Bouncing Fish after getting hit like Little Mac side B, is actually false. It is a little worse as a recovery due to losing it's intangibility (didn't know Sheik Bouncing Fish even had intangibility in SSB4), but considering the slight nerf to her recovery when other characters had their recoveries done even dirtier. Also, the magnet hand nerf isn't really that big of a deal, or at least it isn't to Sheik.

Oof my bad oh that one. Her recovery is still super good though even with the minor Nerf they gave the fish.

 

[Minordeth]

Coincidentally, I was going to make a post on Sheik.

Back to Sheik if I may, the character has potential in the loosest sense. Her frame data is her only real plus in this game. Everything else is awful. A bread and butter combo with Sheik nets you 15%, while on nearly any other character it can give you 30-45%. Granted, she can set up the same combo decently easier due to her frame data, but this fails to take into account:

Come on now.

Her severely nerfed grabs that net her literally nothing in this game.

Except for combos at low percent off of Fthrow. And tech chase and frame trap opportunities at later percents - at which Sheik still excels.

Her lack of effective range, in the game where plenty of amazing characters have a disjoint or 17 to go around.

Fair still has good range. Bair has excellent range and kills now. Her aerials are stupid safe on shield, and ftilt is relatively safe as well.

She kills much later than the rest of the cast.

She dies much earlier than the rest of the cast.

Both of these are memes. She has no more problems killing than Young Link or Wolf and has plenty of set-ups, not to mentioned enhanced edge-guarding thanks to Bair.

Her recovery was one of few that was actually made worse on its own (bouncing fish being slower + one use in air), along with universal recovery nerfs that made a once untouchable character more vulnerable (teleport nerf, magnet hand nerf, wall jump nerf).

And yet in a game of vulnurable recoveries, it's still one of the best.

She cannot rack up percent, she struggles to kill, she dies at the drop of the hat. Her neutral is "good", by which I mean fast with zero shield pressure and range. You can eat combo after combo on her and all you need to do is get her up to 80% and whip her around. Rage absolutely murders her, and since heavys are even better in this game a once easy matchup for Sheik is now a nightmare, even if she wins the matchup.

I'd put her in the bottom 10 easily, maybe bottom 5.

Honestly, this really reads like a "Best of Reddit" or Twitter post. I don't mean that as a slight against you, but it sounds like you haven't played a really good Sheik (not surprising, since they are rather rare).

Here is Ultimate Sheik in a nutshell: She has no problem racking up damage. She is still a monster at frame trapping, ledge guarding, and edge guarding. Needles are still an excellent projectile, and she can do all the cancel shenanigans that are afforded other charge projectile users, but she is far more mobile than any of them. Her overall mobility is in the running for best in the game, and she can be just as oppressive as she was in Smash 4. Her disadvantage is great for a light fast faller, she has great OOS options with Nair/Bair, and her smashes got buffed, so she can do call-outs more effectively.

If you want to use "problems killing" as metric, then you have to throw in just about every top tier character because her ability to kill is not tiers worse than Inkling or Wolf.

Sheik is a rare character, and thank god, because she is still annoying and oppressive as hell and I hope she keeps flying under the radar so Nintendo stops buffing her before she becomes an easy top tier again.

Low Tier Sheik is a meme that needs to die.

 

[bc1910]

NairWizard I agree there are better ways to engage and counter Fox at high percent, sitting in shield against any character is generally a bad idea since at the very least you’ll take safe pressure and if you get thrown they still won the interaction regardless of how bad their throws are.

It’s more from the angle of, if you don’t know what to do and don’t want to die, Fox isn’t gonna kill you for shielding unless he manages to shield poke you, in which case you held shield for too long, or gets Fthrow by the ledge at (painfully) high percents. You can’t just sit there, but shield is a strong tool in your defence against him. After successfully defending against Fox’s mixup you can reposition yourself and engage him in the ways you mentioned. Fox’s issues with killing a shielding opponent have been quite prominent since Smash 4.

I guess I should have said “smart shielding” is the best way to stop Fox from killing you but it’s true it won’t win you the match by itself. Glad you enjoyed the post nonetheless.

Coincidentally, I was going to make a post on Sheik.



Come on now.



Except for combos at low percent off of Fthrow. And tech chase and frame trap opportunities at later percents - at which Sheik still excels.



Fair still has good range. Bair has excellent range and kills now. Her aerials are stupid safe on shield, and ftilt is relatively safe as well.



Both of these are memes. She has no more problems killing than Young Link or Wolf and has plenty of set-ups, not to mentioned enhanced edge-guarding thanks to Bair.


And yet in a game of vulnurable recoveries, it's still one of the best.



Honestly, this really reads like a "Best of Reddit" or Twitter post. I don't mean that as a slight against you, but it sounds like you haven't played a really good Sheik (not surprising, since they are rather rare).

Here is Ultimate Sheik in a nutshell: She has no problem racking up damage. She is still a monster at frame trapping, ledge guarding, and edge guarding. Needles are still an excellent projectile, and she can do all the cancel shenanigans that are afforded other charge projectile users, but she is far more mobile than any of them. Her overall mobility is in the running for best in the game, and she can be just as oppressive as she was in Smash 4. Her disadvantage is great for a light fast faller, she has great OOS options with Nair/Bair, and her smashes got buffed, so she can do call-outs more effectively.

If you want to use "problems killing" as metric, then you have to throw in just about every top tier character because her ability to kill is not tiers worse than Inkling or Wolf.

Sheik is a rare character, and thank god, because she is still annoying and oppressive as hell and I hope she keeps flying under the radar so Nintendo stops buffing her before she becomes an easy top tier again.

Low Tier Sheik is a meme that needs to die.

Sheik does struggle to kill compared to the top tiers. You used Wolf as an example, this is more about the “Wolf can’t kill” meme but Wolf is above average at it. He has some of the best raw smashes in the game, Nair confirms, a ridiculously powerful throw-it-out-whenever Bair and a Bthrow stock cap. Most of the other top tiers are as good or better than Wolf at killing, Inkling is the only top tier that Sheik compares to when it comes to finishing her food.

Other than that I agree with everything you said. Sheik’s killing weakness is there but it gets overblown, she can keep up with high tiers like Young Link and her edgeguarding has tons of room to grow. Something else that often gets overlooked is Sheik’s strong zone breaking capabilities which she retains from Smash 4; needles, bouncing fish, her mobility and even grenades are strong tools in this regard.

 

[NotLiquid]

On that note of Sheik killing power problem being overblown (which incidentally was also a problem for her in Smash 4 despite her being considered the number 1 best character at one point) I feel it's just as applicable to Inkling considering how infrequently it's brought up around these parts. She has more than a laundry list of moves you can use to fish for a good read. DSmash in particular is an underrated one, same goes for UAir. FAir or BAir off-stage are well documented enough at this rate. The main times her killing power ends up becoming an annoying issue is when she goes up against a character that can contend with her damage racking output while also having safer kill attacks, but at least two of those - such as Fox and Pichu - are offset from the fact that they can be spaced fairly decently, die early, or in the case of the former gets edgeguarded really easily, leaving only a relatively small pool of problem matchups where "can't kill" becomes a really exacerbating issue (*cough* Olimar - really don't know how Dabuz thinks this matchup is even). This character wasn't just sprung to being considered Top 10 by most players on the back of winning games through roller reads.

That being said I wouldn't be surprised if one of her smash attacks gets a buff to the FAF in an future patch. It feels like at least one of these attacks should be faster than they are, given how so many stronger top tier contenders and even mid-tiers can generously spam certain attacks that match their kill power. Inkling's smashes feel like they were designed to highlight animation over function since they go out of the way to showcase her tucking away her weapons.

 

[Lore]

Frihetsanka Agreed on the top tiers for this game compared to the last one. No character is nearly as dominant as Bayo, Diddy, or Cloud were.

@ all the sheik discussion: Yeah there's no way Sheik is low tier. She's absolutely mid tier imo. Maybe lower mid tier, but still far from low tier.

NotLiquid Inkling definitely has issues killing, and it's a large part of why I don't main her. Her kit is incredibly varied, but I tend to struggle to use characters that have difficulty with kills.

 

[Heracr055]

I disagree with these latest posts saying Sheik is not low tier. I actually raise you all a few chips and say she's bottom five.
Sure she has one of the best neutrals in the game. Sure she has quick mobility, crouch and Bouncing Fish which make her slippery. Sure she has a good recovery to help keep her from getting edgeguarded. And sure she has, in theory, one of the better potential edgeguard games due to changes to air dodges.
However, her other qualities are fatal to her being able to thrive in this meta. Her lack of damage, even in 1v1, makes it to where her extended combo strings are still doing less percent than 2-3 hits from a different character; this of course increases the likelihood of retaliation. Her frame data, while great, isn't as impressive anymore; aerials in particular being buffed across the whole cast thanks to jumpsquat reduction significantly increase the chance of a foe to throw out their likely superior (damage & range) aerial to trade or beat Sheik's (and a trading Sheik is a losing Sheik). The generality of other characters being faster in this game is also bad news for Sheik as it boosts chances of foes to overcome her keepaway game and just catch her, endangering her fragile stocks. The lack of killing outside a few niche setups with needles offstage & edgeguards mean that Sheik will have to go fishing for kills and will likely not be getting stocks until absurd percentage (increasing the likelihood of a reversal of fortune where she ends up ultimately dying). These are the reasons that I fail to see Sheik rising out of bottom 5 unless a patch addresses these fatal flaws for her. I have an unresearched feeling that her aggregate tourney results so far (not sure where to find a combined result outside DasKoopas' occasional posts of that nature in this sort of thread) are poor, and I don't blame anyone for not trying to go the distance with her. Many Sheik mains stated it was incredibly stressful and draining to place well with her in Smash 4, where her speed, frame data & true BS made her a top 5 threat; why would any sane person think to attempt it this time in such an unfavorable engine/meta for her?

Edit: Let's be real here, Inkling has a much better time getting kills than Sheik

 

[Diddy Kong]

Coincidentally, I was going to make a post on Sheik.



Come on now.



Except for combos at low percent off of Fthrow. And tech chase and frame trap opportunities at later percents - at which Sheik still excels.



Fair still has good range. Bair has excellent range and kills now. Her aerials are stupid safe on shield, and ftilt is relatively safe as well.



Both of these are memes. She has no more problems killing than Young Link or Wolf and has plenty of set-ups, not to mentioned enhanced edge-guarding thanks to Bair.


And yet in a game of vulnurable recoveries, it's still one of the best.



Honestly, this really reads like a "Best of Reddit" or Twitter post. I don't mean that as a slight against you, but it sounds like you haven't played a really good Sheik (not surprising, since they are rather rare).

Here is Ultimate Sheik in a nutshell: She has no problem racking up damage. She is still a monster at frame trapping, ledge guarding, and edge guarding. Needles are still an excellent projectile, and she can do all the cancel shenanigans that are afforded other charge projectile users, but she is far more mobile than any of them. Her overall mobility is in the running for best in the game, and she can be just as oppressive as she was in Smash 4. Her disadvantage is great for a light fast faller, she has great OOS options with Nair/Bair, and her smashes got buffed, so she can do call-outs more effectively.

If you want to use "problems killing" as metric, then you have to throw in just about every top tier character because her ability to kill is not tiers worse than Inkling or Wolf.

Sheik is a rare character, and thank god, because she is still annoying and oppressive as hell and I hope she keeps flying under the radar so Nintendo stops buffing her before she becomes an easy top tier again.

Low Tier Sheik is a meme that needs to die.

Diddy is also still doing all these things he did in Smash 4, but like Sheik, he's not AS oppresive and has a learning curve. Current Top Tiers don't have that learning curve, so Diddy and Sheik go off the radar easily. This also happened with ZSS, and look at her preformance now. It's only a matter of time when a good top player picks up Diddy or Sheik and start shooking all the doubters.

As stated before, there's probably no better set up for bull**** and guranteed hits, combos, follow ups, a total change in the match's overall flow than Parry > Banana. I'm working to mastering the parry now therefore. Hopefully am able to show off something soon.

It seems like you're basing many conclusions about Diddy on your online experiences, and that too not against tournament-level players, but just players around your GSP. I watched the gameplay videos that you posted and I think that you're playing at a level where you don't quite understand reactive play or what options are good in what situations yet. This isn't meant to be a diss to your skill, but I think that you should be drawing conclusions from tournament footage especially if you are going to post about Diddy's competitive value (represented in e.g. a tier list). I know that there isn't much tournament footage of Diddy right now, but waiting for some would be much better than repeatedly trying to characterize Diddy based on low-level experience.

I mean, a few weeks back, you came into the thread saying that Diddy was terrible because you were having trouble winning online and found Lucina and Ike easier, but having trouble winning online is a poor metric for competitive viability; often the skill floor of a character is higher than the skill ceiling you're likely to encounter online (though sometimes you will run into tournament-caliber players or streamers, this is true; it's just not the norm).

And this isn't to call you out specifically, I apologize if it feels directed too much at you; this applies to everyone. One of the reasons that I don't post impressions of my mains in Ultimate is that I haven't been to any tournaments or played anyone good offline in so long. I try to rely on tournament footage instead.

Hey I agree with you. And those matches I posted aren't in fact my best plays yet. I can upload more, but yeah, it's obvious that I don't have the skills of the Top Players of Ultimate. But I've been playing competitive Smash for about 10 years or so, and Diddy has been my main since Brawl. I do have a little knowledge of the character throughout the years of maining him. While it's true that most Top Players completely dropped him, the same has happened with characters as Mewtwo, Zero Suit Samus, and Sheik, who also have conflicted opinions in the community.

Yes a few weeks back I did complain about Diddy, but well, coming from Smash 4 isn't that only natural? He had God-Tier neutral, and right now he has a good neutral if you're willing to work with it, and have a little patience instead of winning neutral all over again with the same simple options as in Smash 4. His recovery is now also bad, and this makes him a far more polarising character in the meta. Of course I'm not denying that Diddy is worse in Ultimate than in all other games he;s been in, but I did encounter some good players online and in my area, and have been using Diddy with higher succes than I have been using Lucina and Ike (I'm a little better with Ike than Lucina anyway).

I don't take offense in your post anyway. I'm a no-name player with big claims of the potential of a character that used to be Top Tier, and has been abandonned by all his former players. I know all that. But still, I can't help but feel Diddy is heavily underrated. And all the posts where people defend Sheik, Mewtwo and Zero Suit Samus are quite similar in nature as mine I feel. We as a community haven't really figured out the potential behind these characters, as they have a bigger learning curve, and most of their opressive bull**** of Smash 4 has been neutered. I think it's only logical that they are undervallued now, but it's just as logical that they are gonna be picked up soon by someone who HAS figured them out.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I disagree with these latest posts saying Sheik is not low tier. I actually raise you all a few chips and say she's bottom five.
Sure she has one of the best neutrals in the game. Sure she has quick mobility, crouch and Bouncing Fish which make her slippery. Sure she has a good recovery to help keep her from getting edgeguarded. And sure she has, in theory, one of the better potential edgeguard games due to changes to air dodges.
However, her other qualities are fatal to her being able to thrive in this meta. Her lack of damage, even in 1v1, makes it to where her extended combo strings are still doing less percent than 2-3 hits from a different character; this of course increases the likelihood of retaliation. Her frame data, while great, isn't as impressive anymore; aerials in particular being buffed across the whole cast thanks to jumpsquat reduction significantly increase the chance of a foe to throw out their likely superior (damage & range) aerial to trade or beat Sheik's (and a trading Sheik is a losing Sheik). The generality of other characters being faster in this game is also bad news for Sheik as it boosts chances of foes to overcome her keepaway game and just catch her, endangering her fragile stocks. The lack of killing outside a few niche setups with needles offstage & edgeguards mean that Sheik will have to go fishing for kills and will likely not be getting stocks until absurd percentage (increasing the likelihood of a reversal of fortunecwhere she ends up ultimately dying). These are the reasons that I fail to see Sheik rising out of bottom 5 unless a patch addresses these fatal flaws for her. I have an unresearched feeling that her aggregate tourney results so far (not sure where to find a combined result outside DasKoopas' occasional posts of that nature in this sort of thread) are poor, and I don't blame anyone for not trying to go the distance with her. Many Sheik mains stated it was incredibly stressful and draining to place well with her in Smash 4, where her speed, frame data & true BS made her a top 5 threat; why would any sane person think to attempt it this time in such an unfavorable engine/meta for her?

Edit: Let's be real here, Inkling has a much better time getting kills than Sheik

However I kinda wonder how May end up because. Like Smash 4 Sheik, A top-tier character that also can pretty mentally draining to play at. Top competitive level for long streches. So much that Void tweeted he thinks he may need to pick up a secondary character because of that

Pichu is the character that REALLY dies before everyone else. As explosive and strong as she is. You can mess up at the wrong time and you lose a stock like around 60%. The true definition of a glass cannon

 

[blackghost]

However I kinda wonder how May end up because. Like Smash 4 Sheik, A top-tier character that also can pretty mentally draining to play at. Top competitive level for long streches. So much that Void tweeted he thinks he may need to pick up a secondary character because of that

Pichu is the character that REALLY dies before everyone else. As explosive and strong as she is. You can mess up at the wrong time and you lose a stock like around 60%. The true definition of a glass cannon

i dont compare ultimate pichu to shiek at all. every stock with shiek in smash 4 (post nerf) the shiek player knew they'd have to come up with an edge guard or land a BF in order to secure a kill. We saw void and Mr. R and other shiek players lose events because their opponent wouldnt die and they fell victims to rage deaths.

pichu has better edge guarding potential, more kill options, is harder to hit, is in a game were rage is less of a factor, and has a noncommittal recovery with multiple options. pichu is a glass canon but pichu has so much more raw offensive ability that we havent seen yet be optimized because the game is new. i like pichu as a top tier real learning curve and real execution and mental fortitude is required.
also since ultimate is less neutral heavy a player can win more on pressing their advantage and they dont have to win neutral as many times depite having to kill very opponent once more each game.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Very bad quality, but it showcases my overall ability as a Diddy Kong main.

 

[TimG57867]

Not sure I can buy stuggling to kill as much as either. There’s several things to keep in mind here:

1. Sheik now weighs 78 which is lighter than Kirby! Inkling on the other hand has a respectable 94 which makes her a veritable midweight. This means Inkling will take longer to die, allows her to fish more safely, and lets Inkling make use of rage more easily than Sheik. Very key in all too frequent last stock situations.

2. Inkling has far less issues with staling than Sheik does. On top of Inklings various moves generally hitting harder individually, Inkling has a unique mechanic in her Ink that lets her do even more damage to her foes when they’re inked up. This can let Inkling get foes to kill percent with a smaller quantity of attacks and thus make it easier for her safer moves to kill raw or at least send the opponent sailing far than Sheik who will have to hit you much more frequently and likely stale a lot of her safer moves like F-Air to do so.

3. Inkling has a solid edgeguarding game of her own but since her moves hit harder, she generally doesn’t need to hit ya as many times off stage to finish the job. Inkling’s F-Air is particularly great for this as it’s strong but quick and low committal too whereas Bouncing Fish has a bit of windup and can put Sheik in a funny spot on a whiff especially as you can’t use it again to recover after that. On top of that Inkling has a spike that doesn’t kill her when used off stage.

4. Inkling has a ranged option that can kill on its own in the Splat Bomb. Needles are incredible but they won’t kill unless Sheik uses them for a setup or cheeses a gimp with them. Splat Bomb particularly shines on ledge trapping in this regard.

5. Inkling has Roller. While it can be telegraphed and is punishable, if Inkling actually hits it at kill percent she has little to worry about when using a follow up move and has many options.

6. Inkling can directly kill off grab. The Booyah while shaky remains as one of the few true kill setups in the game off a grab and if it’s getting REALLY dicey Inkling has Back Throw to take off the stock in a pinch. Sheik’s throws can only force mixups and off stage situations at best to my knowledge and none kill at practical percent.

Considering all of these, I am not sure if it’s fair to even compare Inkling’s killing issues to Sheik.

 

[Rizen]

Sheik's one of those characters who flies under the radar and I know almost nothing about.

Speaking of getting kills, YA's Dtilt>jump upB is a powerful confirm I picked up after watching Tweek. You can guide upB toward the blast zone and it kills around 110%, which is great for YL. It can be true comboed into from the air too with Fair1>Dtilt>jump upB which deals 33% iirc.

 

[Illusion.]

Lucina has literally no weaknesses, the closest thing she has to a weakness is that other characters strengths may be more than her

•Her disadvantage state is bad
•She can’t really box up-close
•Her horizontal recovery isn’t impressive and can be exploited

 

[Sean²]

Lmao at Inkling struggling to kill anywhere near as badly as Sheik. Inkling has roller and the best recovery in the game. They don't need raw power when they have free edgeguards on 90% of the cast. Add roller basically converting a free kill at kill percents, forget about it. Lets be real, hitting someone with roller is way easier than committing to a laggy smash read.

 

[|RK|]

I disagree with these latest posts saying Sheik is not low tier. I actually raise you all a few chips and say she's bottom five.
Sure she has one of the best neutrals in the game. Sure she has quick mobility, crouch and Bouncing Fish which make her slippery. Sure she has a good recovery to help keep her from getting edgeguarded. And sure she has, in theory, one of the better potential edgeguard games due to changes to air dodges.
However, her other qualities are fatal to her being able to thrive in this meta. Her lack of damage, even in 1v1, makes it to where her extended combo strings are still doing less percent than 2-3 hits from a different character; this of course increases the likelihood of retaliation. Her frame data, while great, isn't as impressive anymore; aerials in particular being buffed across the whole cast thanks to jumpsquat reduction significantly increase the chance of a foe to throw out their likely superior (damage & range) aerial to trade or beat Sheik's (and a trading Sheik is a losing Sheik). The generality of other characters being faster in this game is also bad news for Sheik as it boosts chances of foes to overcome her keepaway game and just catch her, endangering her fragile stocks. The lack of killing outside a few niche setups with needles offstage & edgeguards mean that Sheik will have to go fishing for kills and will likely not be getting stocks until absurd percentage (increasing the likelihood of a reversal of fortune where she ends up ultimately dying). These are the reasons that I fail to see Sheik rising out of bottom 5 unless a patch addresses these fatal flaws for her. I have an unresearched feeling that her aggregate tourney results so far (not sure where to find a combined result outside DasKoopas' occasional posts of that nature in this sort of thread) are poor, and I don't blame anyone for not trying to go the distance with her. Many Sheik mains stated it was incredibly stressful and draining to place well with her in Smash 4, where her speed, frame data & true BS made her a top 5 threat; why would any sane person think to attempt it this time in such an unfavorable engine/meta for her?

Edit: Let's be real here, Inkling has a much better time getting kills than Sheik

Nah, I'd go a little further than you and say that her neutral isn't amazing. We've talked about threat being important in S4 - some characters (Bayo, ZSS) had their abilities in neutral enhanced by the fact that getting hit by them was TERRIFYING. Bayo in particular won more interactions than she technically should have because the reward on her options demanded respect, and so she was able to do what she wanted vs a lot of players.

Sheik was the same in advantage. Here, she still has all the raw neutral tools technically speaking, but the reward being neutered also hurts her neutral by a lot. Because now, no single option demands respect or fear. It's one thing to have certain *options* (a projectile, mobility, range), but another for those options to make your opponents change their behavior. If I'm fighting a Sheik, what exactly do I fear in losing neutral?

Something like that only makes players more likely to take risks and pick from their full suite of options. Which really, really hurts.

Her frame data is very nice though. But an example I really liked about Sheik from Monday - of someone has the same job as you, but they have to work half as many hours and get the same pay, would you say you have a bad job?

I'd personally say yes. That's Sheik for me tbh

EDIT: For those not keeping score, this applied to S4 Sheik too, but to a lesser degree. Shoutouts to all the sets where, for all her amazing neutral options, Sheik was the one more scared when she had her opponents at kill percent. Which was kinda why she had to keep opponents in disadvantage.

EDIT 2: Then again, that part was S4 in general...

 

[Yikarur]

Last weekend Yoshi won 4 regionals and Suarez and Raptor got 9th at Collision.
Character busted? :eyes:

 

[The_Bookworm]

Last weekend Yoshi won 4 regionals and Suarez and Raptor got 9th at Collision.
Character busted? :eyes:

Looks like a promising character like ESAM says. Nice feats Yoshi got last weekend. We may need more time to analyze though.