Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Spinosaurus]

What the hell is a pixie fighting style?

Bit of an old term. Think glass cannons that are rushdown for the most part. Pichu is a pixie.

EDIT: Oh I should've refreshed the page.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Bit of an old term. Think glass cannons that are rushdown for the most part. Pichu is a pixie.

EDIT: Oh I should've refreshed the page.

I still like the term because it can describe a lot of different archtypes. Low vitality and high mobility are pixie staples, but they can and do exist across a variety of archetypes or bust them open and include multiple (Akuma).

 

[Lacrimosa]

Inkling is really that good. No one wants to play Inkling because they're boring. It's just a milquetoast allrounder character without a lot of flavor IMO.

So he's basically Yoshi in the (early) Sm4sh Meta. Because I remember people talking pretty high about Yoshi but no one ever played him.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

So he's basically Yoshi in the (early) Sm4sh Meta. Because I remember people talking pretty high about Yoshi but no one ever played him.

Or even Yoshi in Ultimate...

 

[KirbySquad101]

I can see Inkling being top tier material, or at least at the lower end of it. Cosmos has been consistently placing highly with them at big regionals like Genesis 6 and Frostbite, while Xzax has been performing well at a local level.

She - much like Chrom - just didn't end up being the defacto #1 character like everyone claimed they were in the beginning of Ultimate.

 

[Sean²]

Its a general occurrence for day 1 and week 1 meta to be hilariously off what ends up being the status quo. Everyone thought Duck Hunt was broken week 1 of Smash 4 and look what happened. When I saw Inkling as so many people's #1 in week 1, I was sure they were gonna fall fast once their weakness became exploitable. Much like Chrom, K Rool, Yoshi, and the Belmonts were also considered to be easy top tiers in week 1. Inkling got lucky and didn't fall into that stereotype, they just turned out to be a generally good character.

 

[Kiligar]

I can see Inkling being top tier material, or at least at the lower end of it. Cosmos has been consistently placing highly with them at big regionals like Genesis 6 and Frostbite, while Xzax has been performing well at a local level.

She - much like Chrom - just didn't end up being the defacto #1 character like everyone claimed they were in the beginning of Ultimate.

It seems very clear to me that Inkling is a top tier. The Bair does everything, roller is very safe on shield for the reward it gives when successful, the bomb makes it harder to ledgetrap Inkling, and makes it easier for Inkling to ledgetrap you, the ‘jab’ does huge damage and has huge range, covering you in ink as well, and the recovery goes extremely high. All of these strengths, and Inkling is a middleweight, which surprised me considering how with her hurtbox size she looks to be a lightweight enough. Speaking of hurtbox, it becomes even smaller with Inkling’s dash, and the Ink refill can also be used to duck under projectiles. Not to mention an amazing Uair for getting kills, and good grab combos. People were right when they said Inkling was good, it’s just that there are a few who are better.

 

[NotLiquid]

Inkling is most likely a mid-of-top tier contender you're not going to see a lot because her kit isn't exactly a centralized one. You're not going to kill at 70% by throwing out a random smash like with Wolf, you're not going to catch opponents in stupidly high damage loops like Pichu, you're not going to have the same level of spacing as a character like Lucina, your x-factor is not going to be as violent as Wario's, and you're not going to overwhelm your opponents with a boxing game that's as potent as Fox's.

Which isn't to say any of those things she has is bad, far from it. Inkling is the "top tier" choice for the person that wants a little bit of everything - good mobility, good damage, good combos, good frame data, good disadvantage, good neutral, a strong pseudo-comeback gimmick, etc. Their entire kit is generally solid and manages to coalesce smoothly to the point that there's only really two or three MUs they have an actual problem with. In the top tier meta, Inkling is the all-rounder, which means that they're equipped to handle just about every situation, but will lack that certain "oomph" which several prospective mains might want to seek out. Probably the two things they are indubitably amazing at, and notably stand head and shoulders above others, is edge guarding and frame trapping. I wouldn't go so far to claim that Inkling is a character that's boring given that she's a smooth as heck character that's a joy to watch when optimized, and feels fluid as well. It's more or less that a lot of players out there would rather have benefits that lead to more explosive rewards which she has to work just a bit harder for. I don't think it's too surprising that Cosmos gravitated towards her, given that some of her traits feel pretty Corrin-esque; a character that is just well rounded and can break some of their own "archetype" in most given situations.

I feel like her players have done quite a deal results-wise to solidify her distinctions, and I could potentially see some players gravitating towards her in the future as a potential secondary or pocket - we've already seen shades of it with Mr.R. While Cosmos hasn't been in the US for a while (can't blame him living up the dream in Japan), he is going to attend the next Umebura which will be an S-tier, so that'll be worth checking out.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Inkling is really that good. No one wants to play Inkling because they're boring. It's just a milquetoast allrounder character without a lot of flavor IMO.

If that argument was true no one would be playing Wolf, Lucina or Palutena. Who are similarly well rounded characters who are generally pretty basic in how they play. But it works due to being very effective and solid. Also helping of course are moves in their arsenal that can be considered "overtuned"

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

If that argument was true no one would be playing Wolf, Lucina or Palutena. Who are similarly well rounded characters who are generally pretty basic in how they play. But it works due to being very solid. Also helping of course are moves in their arsenal that can be considered "overtuned"

It's none of everything. A character not having results at two tourneys mean absolutely nothing considering how, at the moment, diverse the results are for alot of characters. Inkling wasn't at two tournaments, that doesn't invalidate her results or her data.

With that said, if she vanished for 3 months from results, that would be a different story

 

[blackghost]

If that argument was true no one would be playing Wolf, Lucina or Palutena. Who are similarly well rounded characters who are generally pretty basic in how they play. But it works due to being very solid. Also helping of course are moves in their arsenal that can be considered "overtuned"

i think you answered your own question. Palutena has nair, wolf has (honestly pick a move), and lucina is well rounded but has range and frame data, and kill power allowing for flexiability.
IMO inkling falls short to these characters due to not having an immediate trait to associate with them. i mean what is the competitive reasoning to use inkling over anyone else?

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Top players use "boring" characters because they are less mental and physical taxing, they can talk about how much fun high tiers or mid tiers are but at the end of the day in a tournament bracket with 70+ possible matchups if you want to win(this isn't bad) you will choose the option that makes you work the less, and waste less time, inkling isn't popular for this very reason because she doesn't contribute to your endgame as a top player to get to the final day of the tournament or atleast top 8-16, the top players that main inkling are cosmos and armada players know for being patient and compostured most of the time.

 

[NotLiquid]

i think you answered your own question. Palutena has nair, wolf has (honestly pick a move), and lucina is well rounded but has range and frame data, and kill power allowing for flexiability.
IMO inkling falls short to these characters due to not having an immediate trait to associate with them. i mean what is the competitive reasoning to use inkling over anyone else?

Palutena and Lucina generally have a much weaker close range boxing game than Inkling, Wolf is slightly worse at spacing, while both Lucina and Wolf also have a worse disadvantage. MKLeo in particular believes people overrate Lucina pretty hard and has provided some decently compelling arguments to support the notion.

Generally you'd want to go Inkling over any of the other top tiers if you're looking for consistency and survivability. It's part of the reason Inkling doesn't struggle too hard against sword characters as some people might think, she has the frame data and overall mobility to capitalize on opponents misspacing and being in disadvantage.

 

[Sean²]

Inkling is really that good. No one wants to play Inkling because they're boring. It's just a milquetoast allrounder character without a lot of flavor IMO.

If that argument was true no one would be playing Wolf, Lucina or Palutena. Who are similarly well rounded characters who are generally pretty basic in how they play. But it works due to being very effective and solid. Also helping of course are moves in their arsenal that can be considered "overtuned"

i think you answered your own question. Palutena has nair, wolf has (honestly pick a move), and lucina is well rounded but has range and frame data, and kill power allowing for flexiability.
IMO inkling falls short to these characters due to not having an immediate trait to associate with them. i mean what is the competitive reasoning to use inkling over anyone else?

"hard to hit" "best recovery in the game" "i like to camp but not make it super obvious that i'm camping you"

Those traits come to mind when Inkling's name pops up.

IDK, Ike has his Nair that's immediately associated with him when you hear "Ike" and opinions on him are falling faster than his results. A lot of even worse characters have an associable trait to their name that encompasses a majority of their neutral. Inkling just doesn't have any flashy moves and doesn't hit that hard. That's it really. At least Lucina has a shield breaker that can come in as her only flashy option here and there. Inkling makes up for the lack of being visually interesting with good edgeguarding, a recovery blessed by the gods themselves, and the ability to be super slippery and frustrate opponents.

 

[JustCallMeJon]

I know this sounds silly but would Sheik's fair buff and needles buff can boost her from garbage to a least mid tier?

The buffs are enough to make me play Sheik again and some top former Sheik players nod to the Sheik a bit after 3.0.0.

 

[Rizen]

"hard to hit" "best recovery in the game" "i like to camp but not make it super obvious that i'm camping you"

Those traits come to mind when Inkling's name pops up.

"Roller"

I know this sounds silly but would Sheik's fair buff and needles buff can boost her from garbage to a least mid tier?

The buffs are enough to make me play Sheik again and some top former Sheik players nod to the Sheik a bit after 3.0.0.

It's really hard to say. It's not outside the realm of possibility; the buffs were significant. Needles are good.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

I know this sounds silly but would Sheik's fair buff and needles buff can boost her from garbage to a least mid tier?

The buffs are enough to make me play Sheik again and some top former Sheik players nod to the Sheik a bit after 3.0.0.

If you want to play sheik and advance her metagame then play her she is good enough, but i doubt top players will pick her unless she becomes top tier maybe top of the high tiers.

 

[blackghost]

"hard to hit" "best recovery in the game" "i like to camp but not make it super obvious that i'm camping you"

best recovery??? what isnt that like pikachu?
if you are soley considering recovery why not just play pikachu or wario over inkling they have better recoveries
the camping thing isnt really a competitive trait. doesnt matter if you realize im camping or not just matters how effective it is.

 

[NotLiquid]

best recovery??? what isnt that like pikachu?
if you are soley considering recovery why not just play pikachu or wario over inkling they have better recoveries
the camping thing isnt really a competitive trait. doesnt matter if you realize im camping or not just matters how effective it is.

No one plays a character just for one reason so there's no reason to be flippant about it.

That being said, I'll humor you here; Inkling's recovery is notorious for having an extremely generous ledge snap distance. This means Inkling's up B is one of the few recoveries that's almost impossible to two-frame. Only a few characters have the privilege to hit low enough to contest it, perhaps most notably Palutena. People also get janked by up B's startup hitbox far more often than they like to admit, so going down to edgeguard them is a risky proposition in and of itself.

 

[Sean²]

"Roller"

I was gonna say that but changed my mind last minute because no one else has a roller.

best recovery??? what isnt that like pikachu?
if you are soley considering recovery why not just play pikachu or wario over inkling they have better recoveries
the camping thing isnt really a competitive trait. doesnt matter if you realize im camping or not just matters how effective it is.

Fine, top 3 recoveries in the game. You haven't played against Inkling if you haven't gotten gimped by the bottom hitbox while trying to edgeguard them, either.

Still, being a slippery character is a competitive trait. Being hard to hit can win you games.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Best recoveries are probably all the teleports if players install the tech into the play that doesn't let you get 2-framed. It's difficult to do but I think especially top players will get this sooner or later. Zelda's is probably still a bit better because hers has a hitbox unlike Palutena's or Mewtu's so she can mix it up a bit better.
However that doesn't change my opinion that these three characters (Mewtu, Palu, Zelda) have one of the best if not the best recoveries in the game. Close-up are Pikachu and Pichu.

 

[Terotrous]

So he's basically Yoshi in the (early) Sm4sh Meta. Because I remember people talking pretty high about Yoshi but no one ever played him.

I wouldn't put it that way. Yoshi in Smash4 (and to some degree in Ult) is a good but honest character who is above average in most respects but lacks dirty setups. I would consider him to be pretty fun to play because you have to rely on your fundamentals a lot (and Yoshi generally has the tools to reward good fundamental play), but that doesn't result in the kind of consistency that is prized in a tournament character, especially because Smash4 heavily gravitated towards dirt later in its life.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I mentioned this before, but in terms of recoveries, I still feel that is second to none, thanks to his 5 jumps combined with his actually kinda decent air speed (RiP , , and in this regard), as well as the the fact that all of his moves can be used as a recovery option.


As a whole overall, I think that and have the best recoveries in the game currently.

I know this sounds silly but would Sheik's fair buff and needles buff can boost her from garbage to a least mid tier?

The buffs are enough to make me play Sheik again and some top former Sheik players nod to the Sheik a bit after 3.0.0.

I do know K9SBruce wants to go back to using her again, which is definitely a good sign for her; charliedaking was also a pretty big fan of the buffs as well. That is more than what can be said for other characters that got notably buffed in 3.0.0, so it's a start.

 

[Rizen]

I mentioned this before, but in terms of recoveries, I still feel that is second to none, thanks to his 5 jumps combined with his actually kinda decent air speed (RiP , , and in this regard), as well as the the fact that all of his moves can be used as a recovery option.


As a whole overall, I think that and have the best recoveries in the game currently.



I do know K9SBruce wants to go back to using her again, which is definitely a good sign for her; charliedaking was also a pretty big fan of the buffs as well. That is more than what can be said for other characters that got notably buffed in 3.0.0, so it's a start.

Don't forget

 

[KirbySquad101]

Don't forget

Oh yeah, my bad lol

 

[Roguewolf]

Don't forget

What a world we live in where we are capable to forget bayonetta

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Yeah I agree with this. This game's balance is better, not just on a character basis, but on a mechanics basis. There's a really good balance between the different archetypes right now. I still think the heavy grappler archetype is a little bit underrepresented (I mean there's Snake but still), but we have rushdown, zoning, pixie, footsies, and all-rounder styles represented in the top 10. That's because the game is mechanically solid and tight and supports more characters and playstyles than past games have.

It's also for that reason that even low mid tier feels viable to me. Advantage state is powerful in Ultimate, and most characters can do a lot with it.

A Pixie character is a character with overwhelming options (normally mobility) but very low vitality. They are typically loaded up with very powerful options within their archetype or across several, depending on the game. These are often rushdown characters but often are zoners, hybrids, grapplers or anything really. An example of a pixie in Smash Ultimate would be Pichu. An example in Street Fighter would be Akuma, or maybe Cammy.

I think we had pixie fighters since the beginning. Not sure about 64, but melee was fox and falco, brawl was metaknight (lightweight), S4 had sheik, diddy, etc.

Initially, I didn't think of Footsies being categorized as a playstyle, since everyone plays footsies. But then, I realized you were just specifying characters that dominated the mid-range and dominated the neutral (which existed since marth was introduced).

My main thing is, I see a lot of comments on youtube, here, reddit, etc that talks about how different ultimate is, how balanced it is, how diverse it is, etc, and I can't help but be very leery of these comments. There's also a lot of comments that downplay and trash S4, and I don't understand the slander.

S4's balance was good. /(/). This was the list of characters that were considered viable. possibly 36/approx 60 ish characters. I forget the exact number.

The ones in parenthesis are ones I'm not sure on, based on the verdict. I forgot what was the conclusion for them, though I remember getting results towards the end of his career, and looking toxic due to their grab combo, and falling lower, but out? Not sure. T was making moves with , got buffs, but I don't think many was doing anything with him (besides San) since existed, was hype due to Kameme, but fell a bit I think since Kameme switched to , was getting plays with Locus and Trela, but Locus changed characters, and Trela played everyone, didn't have someone to really show his potential iirc, but his frame data and moves keeps him from being entirely unviable, the / didn't get plays since they didn't kill good enough? People used to say they were too average and boring, but then opinions changed to them having amazing landing coverage and speed, but lacking in kill options and possibly a vulnerable recovery (I think Chainz said this). Maister played and beat Tyroy who played in combo breaker 2018 grand finals. A really cool achievement, but safe to say, been getting plays thanks to Maister in some form or fashion, was played by Fatality, but didn't get enough plays to keep him from falling. I think if ZeRo played more , he would've risen. was always hyped up, but then disregarded due to no results. Then Darkwolf and someone else starting making plays with him to solidify he has some sort of muscle. Raito, You3, and Brood all played , with Raito to lead the pack and make the most plays with him. He still got success towards the end of the game. Same with Gluttony, though was more reliant on waft, and didn't have the normals to beat his weaker MUs (I think and were particularly nasty to him).

I say all this, to point out S4, particularly because it gets the most hate based on recency bias, was pretty well-balanced and had pretty much every playstyle we see in ultimate.

Like, S4 was a good competitive game. Rage was dumb. Grabs were preeetty strong, and did everything. Bayo was dumb. There were a lot of dumb things in the game, like there's dumb things everywhere. At least imo, it was a very solid game.

oh, and I think people forget that balance is very subjective in perspective. Smash ultimate looks super balance because people are still developing their very rough gameplans, MUs, etc, but once skill levels start to rise and separate, balance is gonna look more skewed. And there's little the developers can do about it.

lmk if I should delete this or not. Not sure about its relevancy to the thread. Or if it's not quality. maybe due to lack of statistics, but that'll easily take a long time to go through, and the way this thread be moving, the relevancy of the issue I have will be gone. Unless there's nothing to worry about.

 

[Hippieslayer]

If that argument was true no one would be playing Wolf, Lucina or Palutena. Who are similarly well rounded characters who are generally pretty basic in how they play. But it works due to being very effective and solid. Also helping of course are moves in their arsenal that can be considered "overtuned"

Youre in a mode where youre convinced youre right to the point that youre just going with the first counterargument that pops up in your mind. It shows in tone and content. None of those characters are like Inkling in that sense lol.

I think we had pixie fighters since the beginning. Not sure about 64, but melee was fox and falco, brawl was metaknight (lightweight), S4 had sheik, diddy, etc.

Initially, I didn't think of Footsies being categorized as a playstyle, since everyone plays footsies. But then, I realized you were just specifying characters that dominated the mid-range and dominated the neutral (which existed since marth was introduced).

My main thing is, I see a lot of comments on youtube, here, reddit, etc that talks about how different ultimate is, how balanced it is, how diverse it is, etc, and I can't help but be very leery of these comments. There's also a lot of comments that downplay and trash S4, and I don't understand the slander.

S4's balance was good. /(/). This was the list of characters that were considered viable. possibly 36/approx 60 ish characters. I forget the exact number.

The ones in parenthesis are ones I'm not sure on, based on the verdict. I forgot what was the conclusion for them, though I remember getting results towards the end of his career, and looking toxic due to their grab combo, and falling lower, but out? Not sure. T was making moves with , got buffs, but I don't think many was doing anything with him (besides San) since existed, was hype due to Kameme, but fell a bit I think since Kameme switched to , was getting plays with Locus and Trela, but Locus changed characters, and Trela played everyone, didn't have someone to really show his potential iirc, but his frame data and moves keeps him from being entirely unviable, the / didn't get plays since they didn't kill good enough? People used to say they were too average and boring, but then opinions changed to them having amazing landing coverage and speed, but lacking in kill options and possibly a vulnerable recovery (I think Chainz said this). Maister played and beat Tyroy who played in combo breaker 2018 grand finals. A really cool achievement, but safe to say, been getting plays thanks to Maister in some form or fashion, was played by Fatality, but didn't get enough plays to keep him from falling. I think if ZeRo played more , he would've risen. was always hyped up, but then disregarded due to no results. Then Darkwolf and someone else starting making plays with him to solidify he has some sort of muscle. Raito, You3, and Brood all played , with Raito to lead the pack and make the most plays with him. He still got success towards the end of the game. Same with Gluttony, though was more reliant on waft, and didn't have the normals to beat his weaker MUs (I think and were particularly nasty to him).

I say all this, to point out S4, particularly because it gets the most hate based on recency bias, was pretty well-balanced and had pretty much every playstyle we see in ultimate.

Like, S4 was a good competitive game. Rage was dumb. Grabs were preeetty strong, and did everything. Bayo was dumb. There were a lot of dumb things in the game, like there's dumb things everywhere. At least imo, it was a very solid game.

oh, and I think people forget that balance is very subjective in perspective. Smash ultimate looks super balance because people are still developing their very rough gameplans, MUs, etc, but once skill levels start to rise and separate, balance is gonna look more skewed. And there's little the developers can do about it.

lmk if I should delete this or not. Not sure about its relevancy to the thread. Or if it's not quality. maybe due to lack of statistics, but that'll easily take a long time to go through, and the way this thread be moving, the relevancy of the issue I have will be gone. Unless there's nothing to worry about.

Ike has No business being on that list. He was bad. Rob, the pits and villager all kinda fell victim to DLC plus powercreep in the end. But Ike was def never relevant. But yes game was quite balanced. Nice list. Funny how much better Ike is now despite being so similar.

How do you think S4 Ike would do in Ultimate? I Wonder if he wouldnt be pretty much as Good as the new nair-centric Ike. Maybe In totally of mark herr.. but isnt it the changes in general game mechanics rather than the changes to Ike which has bumped him Up the tiers?

 

[Idon]

Youre in a mode where youre convinced youre right to the point that youre just going with the first counterargument that pops up in your mind. It shows in tone and content. None of those characters are like Inkling in that sense lol.

Yeah, Ike was at no point in his life even close to viable. However, he was extremely fun as a bizarre heavy swordsman that relied heavily on grapples, an aspect that is sadly lost to "nair confirm into bair/uair" that Ike is nowadays.

 

[Thinkaman]

Someone said "balance" six times in a mirror, so here I am.

A series of simple, straightforward facts about game balance:

• Balance is very hard to define (and even harder to measure), even for a specific subset like "character balance in a specific mode on a specific stage."
• Win-rates are one of the least useful statistics for balance.
• Win-rates are heavily confounded by a large number of factors, many of which can be summed up as "What sort of player personality is drawn to this chaaracter?"
• Raw number of players (of a given character) is often the most indicative simple statistic. The first derivative of this is also good data.
• Game-wide balance is never to be expressed "relative to roster size" (or such); doing so gives really weird measures with bad implications, like suggesting that Melee would be more balanced if Kirby was removed.
• High-level results usually gravitate towards a less diverse environment as players figure the game out.
• Patches push the other direction. The net effect could go either way over the game's patched lifespan.

• Public perceptions of balance are primarily driven by social phenomenon.
• There is surprisely low corrolation between measures of performance diversity in what games people call balanced versus not.
• Most assymetric content (like characters ins a fighting game) become quadratically harder to balance with new characters. (Because unique matchups)
• In spite of this, competitive games across all genres I know (including board games) have broadly gotten more balanced over time by almost any reasonable metric you could apply.
• This is true of Smash as well:
  • Melee was less balanced than some major major fighting games of its era (SF2, 3rd Strike), and more than others. (MvC2) Outside of Guilty Gear, it was pretty in-line with games of that era.
    • Fox routinely sees roughly 30% usage in Melee. It's actually impressive for a game from 2001 that this has not increased further.
    • Melee was infamously balanced exclusively by Sakurai, in an extremely short amount of time.
  • Brawl consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Melee, though Meta Knight came close to Fox numbers at exceptionally high levels. Brawl enjoyed an especially wide mid-tier, and we again saw data in-line with fighting games of that era, including the initial release version of SF4.
    • Meta Knight's use climbed to roughly 10% at broad tournament levels and as high as 25% at certain bands of top level play.
    • Brawl was balanced by a team of 4 staff members, though all changes required Sakurai's approval.
  • Smash 4 consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Brawl, and specifically enjoyed greater diversity around the top tier and #1 spot, which was debated for many of the patches. Smash 4 seemed to be one of the highest diversity fighting games of its era.
    • I recall Diddy, at his peak, was seeing VOD usage rates just above 7%.
    • By Ultimate's release of Bayonetta VOD rates climbed to the lower 6%s, closely followed by Cloud. (Diddy dropped below them)
    • Smash 4 was balanced similarly as Brawl, but by a team of 12--Sakurai expressed being unhappy with the results of just 4 for Brawl.
  • Smash Ultimate has so far outperformed Smash 4.
    • As of this post, the top VOD use rates are PT (5.7%), Wolf (4.6%), and Inkling (4.3%). 38 non-echo characters are above 1%.
    • If we define 'underused' as characters being used less than a third their share of roster size, the non-DLC, non-echo characters 'underused' across VODs are currently Doc, Rosalina, Puff, Mac, ICs, Kirby, Sheik, Gunner, and Brawler.
    • The 4 characters who received small-but-unambiguous nerfs to frame data or knockback in 3.0.0 are exactly the top 5 most used characters in VODs minus PT.
      • Noteworthy that the nerfs match tournament VODs rather than the top online useage (Cloud and Ganondorf) that Sakurai shared in Janurary.
    • The 7 characters who received slates of buffs (not just bugfixes) in 3.0.0 (Corrin, Diddy, Kirby, K.Rool, Mewtwo, Sheik WFT) all show low usage across VODs.
    • Sakurai has stated that it is largely the same balance team/protocols as Smash 4, but that he trusts the team fully now and gives minimal oversight to balance matters.

• It is very important to separate balance data/discussion by player level.
• Discussion settings like this tend to dramatically overemphasize top-level player, and define it too narrowly.
• The top 1% is still over 100,000 players. Virtually everyone at a significant Smash tournament is well above top 1%.
• The PGR 100 is < 0.001%.
• It is possibly to simultaneously adhere to the David Sirlin "Bullseye Model" (that top play gives the most valid data) and still acknowledge that it is a very small data sample from a single community subset, subject to all confounders you'd expect from such.
• In line with this, the top 1% of Smash 4 and Ultimate players have recieved way, way more (>80%) of the balance changes than their population share. (I believe this is natural and healthy.)
• Smash's patches have tended to be on the conservative side. Smash 4's patches grew a bit bolder over its lifespan.
  • Early tiny nerfs to Diddy and Sheik were followed by small-but-not-tiny ones that knocked them from #1 to top 5.
  • Mewtwo went from bottom to near top. DK, Bowser, and to an extent Robin also saw radical shifts.
• It seems clear that the Smash team prioritizes bugs and global mechanics first, before focusing on pure character balance.

• ICs are super underused in Ultimate, just like they were in Melee and Brawl even when it was clear that they were a top character.
• Rosalina is probably destined to be similar.
• I expect Diddy, Mewtwo, and Sheik to rise out of the bottom tiers of usage a noteable amount--the buffs are non-trivial and should help bring attention to 3 characters who were definitely underused as it was.
• Corrin and WFT rising a bit is plausible but less clear.
• Kirby isn't going anywhere. Buffs were welcome though, and he is absurdly popular outside of high level play. (So is PP and Mac)
• Surely Joker will be popular, but I don't expect PP to move much. His honeymoon period is now over, and with little to show for it.
• I expect Ken to fall into underused over time, and Ryu continue to see ~0.1% use.
• Ryu is surely the aggregate least used characters across all levels of play.
• Persona costumes might help Swordfighter maintain his slight relevance, but I think Brawler and Gunner are currently hopeless on this front.
• However, the Miis are still being used almost twice as much in Ultimate as 4, despite the roster being much bigger.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Okay so Joker's neutral is actually a pretty nuanced thing. At first it seems like most of his good options come out of grabs, and the easiest way to get grabs is low % autocancelled NAir's most of the time outside of reads / shield punishes.. but not so much actually. Between the **** you can do with his gun mobility, his tilt game, FAir 1, BAir low % regrab ****, UAir drag downs.. he has tons of options of building %. Good ones, most of my burst popoffs with Joker pull 35-70% in one go. He also has pretty decent kill confirms with Arsene or at high %, but I get 80% of my kills with the dude offstage tbh because that's where he ABSOLUTELY excels.

But it's not all just fishing for grabs at low % with NAirs and stuff, he actually has quite a bit he can do to get through neutral. A lot of Joker players seem to be either way too aggressive (this was my initial issue) or play way too non-committal with him. He's a mix of both playstyles, popping off Captain Falcon / Sheik style with long, high % combos when he finally does land his stuff, but up until that point he's play a more complex game centered around mobility and making use of zoning / chip damage to fill the gaps between stuff connecting. You also need to be MORE than reactionary with the Rebellion Guard. You can use it to punish some moves because of how fast (like frame 3-4) it comes out, getting Arsene out is EXTREMELY easy.

Arsene is where Joker kind of becomes disgusting. You can eat a fat combo that puts you to kill % in a last stock situation, then get Arsene off of it, literally land one aerial or a tilt, knock them offstage and FAir chain or DAir meteor them to their death. It's NOT hard to do, pretty much everything in the dude's kit screams 'GET THEM OFF THE STAGE' and his knockback bleeds this. So with Joker, you're NEVER really more than one / two Down B's or a fat disadvantage combo from Arsene, the lord of the gimp, coming out and making Joker a hell of a lot more scary.

Yes, you can play the time out game, but it's not hella viable in most MU's. Joker is far too fast and has a dangerous projectile of his own (Side B) when Arsene is out. Side B with Arsene puts you STRAIGHT into disadvantage, and the guns with Arsene can build chip % extremely quickly if you let them. This makes camping him not super viable, as his counter reflects projectiles in the first place.. and he's too fast with too good of a mobility game to consistently outrun. It's going to be VERY MU limited, that's all I'm saying, most of the roster can not reliably play keep-away with Joker when Arsene is out. The best bet is literally beating Arsene out of him OR killing him, but again, this puts you at risk.

I have lost count of how many times someone has knocked me offstage when I had Arsene, went to EG me, then themselves died. Or, I eat some fat combo that almost CERTAINLY spells my doom, then I land a 0% DTilt > DAir combo at the ledge and buh-buh stock, GAME!. His comeback mechanic is EXTREMELY functional, and beyond that it's more than that because of how easy it is to force out. Doing well with Joker basically relies on a mixture of knowing how to keep Arsene out most of the time, knowing his crazy combo / follow up game and being able to edge guard + make use of his mobility tech.

Joker doesn't have the frame data or the massive hitboxes to be super aggressive, nor does he have the projectiles and that to be super campy. Not and do well, anyway. He has to play a mix of both, all while being very punish heavy. He's almost similar to C. Falcon in this regard, but I like Joker's neutral options WAY better than Falcon's. Jab and grab are his only immediate options outside of the counter, everything else is very deliberate. Due to this, reads and punishes are CRUCIAL for him, and being able to get in to pop off during those windows is again, VERY reliable on being good with his movement and knowing how to follow up from there.

The more I play him, the better I think he is.. Arsene can lead to some outright BS that would make people ragequit, I've never seen disadvantage turn around so quickly before Joker + Arsene showed up in Ult. You literally go from losing HARDCORE, about to die, to killing them at 0% or something. It's crazy.

He has pretty good % building / burst popoffs, he has literally no problems killing (it's just a matter of knowing how, killing with Joker is a different game to most characters), amazing mobility and an extremely scary mechanic locked into Arsene. He is at least high tier, I can't even concede to him being anything less now.

 

[Idon]

How do you think S4 Ike would do in Ultimate? I Wonder if he wouldnt be pretty much as Good as the new nair-centric Ike. Maybe In totally of mark herr.. but isnt it the changes in general game mechanics rather than the changes to Ike which has bumped him Up the tiers?

S4 Ike in U wouldn't do great, I think.

His old uair which was meant to catch air-dodges is completely nullified by the directional airdodge, not to mention the much shorter range on nair, which again, didn't combo into anything that kills. That's also not to mention how all grabs in ultimate got hit pretty hard in both range, speed, and options so things like uthrow fair aren't quite as easy. His ground normals would probably be good with utilt's back hitbox being useful.

As for the universal buffs benefitting him, that does help, but he most certainly wouldn't have done so well without the new nair and uair.

 

[Luigifan18]

Someone said "balance" six times in a mirror, so here I am.

A series of simple, straightforward facts about game balance:

• Balance is very hard to define (and even harder to measure), even for a specific subset like "character balance in a specific mode on a specific stage."
• Win-rates are one of the least useful statistics for balance.
• Win-rates are heavily confounded by a large number of factors, many of which can be summed up as "What sort of player personality is drawn to this chaaracter?"
• Raw number of players (of a given character) is often the most indicative simple statistic. The first derivative of this is also good data.
• Game-wide balance is never to be expressed "relative to roster size" (or such); doing so gives really weird measures with bad implications, like suggesting that Melee would be more balanced if Kirby was removed.
• High-level results usually gravitate towards a less diverse environment as players figure the game out.
• Patches push the other direction. The net effect could go either way over the game's patched lifespan.

• Public perceptions of balance are primarily driven by social phenomenon.
• There is surprisely low corrolation between measures of performance diversity in what games people call balanced versus not.
• Most assymetric content (like characters ins a fighting game) become quadratically harder to balance with new characters. (Because unique matchups)
• In spite of this, competitive games across all genres I know (including board games) have broadly gotten more balanced over time by almost any reasonable metric you could apply.
• This is true of Smash as well:
  • Melee was less balanced than some major major fighting games of its era (SF2, 3rd Strike), and more than others. (MvC2) Outside of Guilty Gear, it was pretty in-line with games of that era.
    • Fox routinely sees roughly 30% usage in Melee. It's actually impressive for a game from 2001 that this has not increased further.
    • Melee was infamously balanced exclusively by Sakurai, in an extremely short amount of time.
  • Brawl consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Melee, though Meta Knight came close to Fox numbers at exceptionally high levels. Brawl enjoyed an especially wide mid-tier, and we again saw data in-line with fighting games of that era, including the initial release version of SF4.
    • Meta Knight's use climbed to roughly 10% at broad tournament levels and as high as 25% at certain bands of top level play.
    • Brawl was balanced by a team of 4 staff members, though all changes required Sakurai's approval.
  • Smash 4 consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Brawl, and specifically enjoyed greater diversity around the top tier and #1 spot, which was debated for many of the patches. Smash 4 seemed to be one of the highest diversity fighting games of its era.
    • I recall Diddy, at his peak, was seeing VOD usage rates just above 7%.
    • By Ultimate's release of Bayonetta VOD rates climbed to the lower 6%s, closely followed by Cloud. (Diddy dropped below them)
    • Smash 4 was balanced similarly as Brawl, but by a team of 12--Sakurai expressed being unhappy with the results of just 4 for Brawl.
  • Smash Ultimate has so far outperformed Smash 4.
    • As of this post, the top VOD use rates are PT (5.7%), Wolf (4.6%), and Inkling (4.3%). 38 non-echo characters are above 1%.
    • If we define 'underused' as characters being used less than a third their share of roster size, the non-DLC, non-echo characters 'underused' across VODs are currently Doc, Rosalina, Puff, Mac, ICs, Kirby, Sheik, Gunner, and Brawler.
    • The 4 characters who received small-but-unambiguous nerfs to frame data or knockback in 3.0.0 are exactly the top 5 most used characters in VODs minus PT.
      • Noteworthy that the nerfs match tournament VODs rather than the top online useage (Cloud and Ganondorf) that Sakurai shared in Janurary.
    • The 7 characters who received slates of buffs (not just bugfixes) in 3.0.0 (Corrin, Diddy, Kirby, K.Rool, Mewtwo, Sheik WFT) all show low usage across VODs.
    • Sakurai has stated that it is largely the same balance team/protocols as Smash 4, but that he trusts the team fully now and gives minimal oversight to balance matters.

• It is very important to separate balance data/discussion by player level.
• Discussion settings like this tend to dramatically overemphasize top-level player, and define it too narrowly.
• The top 1% is still over 100,000 players. Virtually everyone at a significant Smash tournament is well above top 1%.
• The PGR 100 is < 0.001%.
• It is possibly to simultaneously adhere to the David Sirlin "Bullseye Model" (that top play gives the most valid data) and still acknowledge that it is a very small data sample from a single community subset, subject to all confounders you'd expect from such.
• In line with this, the top 1% of Smash 4 and Ultimate players have recieved way, way more (>80%) of the balance changes than their population share. (I believe this is natural and healthy.)
• Smash's patches have tended to be on the conservative side. Smash 4's patches grew a bit bolder over its lifespan.
  • Early tiny nerfs to Diddy and Sheik were followed by small-but-not-tiny ones that knocked them from #1 to top 5.
  • Mewtwo went from bottom to near top. DK, Bowser, and to an extent Robin also saw radical shifts.
• It seems clear that the Smash team prioritizes bugs and global mechanics first, before focusing on pure character balance.

• ICs are super underused in Ultimate, just like they were in Melee and Brawl even when it was clear that they were a top character.
• Rosalina is probably destined to be similar.
• I expect Diddy, Mewtwo, and Sheik to rise out of the bottom tiers of usage a noteable amount--the buffs are non-trivial and should help bring attention to 3 characters who were definitely underused as it was.
• Corrin and WFT rising a bit is plausible but less clear.
• Kirby isn't going anywhere. Buffs were welcome though, and he is absurdly popular outside of high level play. (So is PP and Mac)
• Surely Joker will be popular, but I don't expect PP to move much. His honeymoon period is now over, and with little to show for it.
• I expect Ken to fall into underused over time, and Ryu continue to see ~0.1% use.
• Ryu is surely the aggregate least used characters across all levels of play.
• Persona costumes might help Swordfighter maintain his slight relevance, but I think Brawler and Gunner are currently hopeless on this front.
• However, the Miis are still being used almost twice as much in Ultimate as 4, despite the roster being much bigger.

Hey, could you cite all this? I don't doubt you or anything — I've seen enough well-spoken posts from you (including the box theory) to be comfortable with taking you at your word. I just think that your sources would be interesting reading.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I haven't really studied Joker, how does his non-Arsene recovery compare to Belmont's? I assume it's better, but could someone give some specific examples?

 

[NotLiquid]

I haven't really studied Joker, how does his non-Arsene recovery compare to Belmont's? I assume it's better, but could someone give some specific examples?

Joker's grappling hook has a deceptively long range, he can sometimes recover from near the bottom blast zone. The only problem with it is Joker has to recover low to use it. Belmont has a better horizontal range while Joker has somewhat of a 45 degree angle

 

[Impax]

Apparently Wadi won the latest MSM witha solo Wii Fit. Including wins over people like mr. Con con and elegant

Granted wadi is also a top player...

Edit: Wii fit also got a safer get up option in the latest patch. From what I understand the way header spawned has changed which means Wii fit can get up while having a strong hit box. Its punishable but definitely useful.

 

[Sean²]

I haven't really studied Joker, how does his non-Arsene recovery compare to Belmont's? I assume it's better, but could someone give some specific examples?

Any range in which a Belmont would have to use up B instead of the tether, Joker's tether covers, and then some. It still tethers at angles the Belmonts can use with their tether, angled up, down, or not angled, albeit with a much shorter range than when he is going low. Where a Belmont would be dead, Joker's can still attach - e.g. facing inward underneath Smashville. At its greatest length, you can still tether just before you go into bubble off camera from below the ledge.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Joker's grappling hook has a deceptively long range, he can sometimes recover from near the bottom blast zone. The only problem with it is Joker has to recover low to use it. Belmont has a better horizontal range while Joker has somewhat of a 45 degree angle

He can actually use it horizontal to the stage as well, though it can be a little finnicky at times.

 

[Untouch]

Apparently Wadi won the latest MSM witha solo Wii Fit. Including wins over people like mr. Con con and elegant

Granted wadi is also a top player...

Edit: Wii fit also got a safer get up option in the latest patch. From what I understand the way header spawned has changed which means Wii fit can get up while having a strong hit box. Its punishable but definitely useful.

Okay this is getting ridiculous#ssbu_wft pic.twitter.com/hMISvXVu5Q

— invy (@ideallyinvy) April 22, 2019

Here it is, it's safe on shield too, gives WFT a really powerful getup too. WFT wasn't really totally unsafe on the ledge before but this is a nice tool.

 

[Arthur97]

Someone said "balance" six times in a mirror, so here I am.

A series of simple, straightforward facts about game balance:

• Balance is very hard to define (and even harder to measure), even for a specific subset like "character balance in a specific mode on a specific stage."
• Win-rates are one of the least useful statistics for balance.
• Win-rates are heavily confounded by a large number of factors, many of which can be summed up as "What sort of player personality is drawn to this chaaracter?"
• Raw number of players (of a given character) is often the most indicative simple statistic. The first derivative of this is also good data.
• Game-wide balance is never to be expressed "relative to roster size" (or such); doing so gives really weird measures with bad implications, like suggesting that Melee would be more balanced if Kirby was removed.
• High-level results usually gravitate towards a less diverse environment as players figure the game out.
• Patches push the other direction. The net effect could go either way over the game's patched lifespan.

• Public perceptions of balance are primarily driven by social phenomenon.
• There is surprisely low corrolation between measures of performance diversity in what games people call balanced versus not.
• Most assymetric content (like characters ins a fighting game) become quadratically harder to balance with new characters. (Because unique matchups)
• In spite of this, competitive games across all genres I know (including board games) have broadly gotten more balanced over time by almost any reasonable metric you could apply.
• This is true of Smash as well:
  • Melee was less balanced than some major major fighting games of its era (SF2, 3rd Strike), and more than others. (MvC2) Outside of Guilty Gear, it was pretty in-line with games of that era.
    • Fox routinely sees roughly 30% usage in Melee. It's actually impressive for a game from 2001 that this has not increased further.
    • Melee was infamously balanced exclusively by Sakurai, in an extremely short amount of time.
  • Brawl consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Melee, though Meta Knight came close to Fox numbers at exceptionally high levels. Brawl enjoyed an especially wide mid-tier, and we again saw data in-line with fighting games of that era, including the initial release version of SF4.
    • Meta Knight's use climbed to roughly 10% at broad tournament levels and as high as 25% at certain bands of top level play.
    • Brawl was balanced by a team of 4 staff members, though all changes required Sakurai's approval.
  • Smash 4 consistently had higher diversity at all levels of play than Brawl, and specifically enjoyed greater diversity around the top tier and #1 spot, which was debated for many of the patches. Smash 4 seemed to be one of the highest diversity fighting games of its era.
    • I recall Diddy, at his peak, was seeing VOD usage rates just above 7%.
    • By Ultimate's release of Bayonetta VOD rates climbed to the lower 6%s, closely followed by Cloud. (Diddy dropped below them)
    • Smash 4 was balanced similarly as Brawl, but by a team of 12--Sakurai expressed being unhappy with the results of just 4 for Brawl.
  • Smash Ultimate has so far outperformed Smash 4.
    • As of this post, the top VOD use rates are PT (5.7%), Wolf (4.6%), and Inkling (4.3%). 38 non-echo characters are above 1%.
    • If we define 'underused' as characters being used less than a third their share of roster size, the non-DLC, non-echo characters 'underused' across VODs are currently Doc, Rosalina, Puff, Mac, ICs, Kirby, Sheik, Gunner, and Brawler.
    • The 4 characters who received small-but-unambiguous nerfs to frame data or knockback in 3.0.0 are exactly the top 5 most used characters in VODs minus PT.
      • Noteworthy that the nerfs match tournament VODs rather than the top online useage (Cloud and Ganondorf) that Sakurai shared in Janurary.
    • The 7 characters who received slates of buffs (not just bugfixes) in 3.0.0 (Corrin, Diddy, Kirby, K.Rool, Mewtwo, Sheik WFT) all show low usage across VODs.
    • Sakurai has stated that it is largely the same balance team/protocols as Smash 4, but that he trusts the team fully now and gives minimal oversight to balance matters.

• It is very important to separate balance data/discussion by player level.
• Discussion settings like this tend to dramatically overemphasize top-level player, and define it too narrowly.
• The top 1% is still over 100,000 players. Virtually everyone at a significant Smash tournament is well above top 1%.
• The PGR 100 is < 0.001%.
• It is possibly to simultaneously adhere to the David Sirlin "Bullseye Model" (that top play gives the most valid data) and still acknowledge that it is a very small data sample from a single community subset, subject to all confounders you'd expect from such.
• In line with this, the top 1% of Smash 4 and Ultimate players have recieved way, way more (>80%) of the balance changes than their population share. (I believe this is natural and healthy.)
• Smash's patches have tended to be on the conservative side. Smash 4's patches grew a bit bolder over its lifespan.
  • Early tiny nerfs to Diddy and Sheik were followed by small-but-not-tiny ones that knocked them from #1 to top 5.
  • Mewtwo went from bottom to near top. DK, Bowser, and to an extent Robin also saw radical shifts.
• It seems clear that the Smash team prioritizes bugs and global mechanics first, before focusing on pure character balance.

• ICs are super underused in Ultimate, just like they were in Melee and Brawl even when it was clear that they were a top character.
• Rosalina is probably destined to be similar.
• I expect Diddy, Mewtwo, and Sheik to rise out of the bottom tiers of usage a noteable amount--the buffs are non-trivial and should help bring attention to 3 characters who were definitely underused as it was.
• Corrin and WFT rising a bit is plausible but less clear.
• Kirby isn't going anywhere. Buffs were welcome though, and he is absurdly popular outside of high level play. (So is PP and Mac)
• Surely Joker will be popular, but I don't expect PP to move much. His honeymoon period is now over, and with little to show for it.
• I expect Ken to fall into underused over time, and Ryu continue to see ~0.1% use.
• Ryu is surely the aggregate least used characters across all levels of play.
• Persona costumes might help Swordfighter maintain his slight relevance, but I think Brawler and Gunner are currently hopeless on this front.
• However, the Miis are still being used almost twice as much in Ultimate as 4, despite the roster being much bigger.

You say non-echoes, but shouldn't Ken, Chrom, and Lucina still be considered due to their difference (and the fact Lucina seems to have a ton more usage than Marth)?