Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Siledh]

I have a somewhat hot take when it comes to the topic of solo viability and it being easier to just use a secondary to tackle MUs that would take time learn with your main; I don't think learning all (soon to be) 80 match ups as one character is as hard as most people make it out to be. Unless your entry point into the smash scene and series was ultimate, I feel that you should already have a good idea of many of the MUs ins and outs, with the only differences being accounting for character and engine changes, which imo really isn't that difficult to do. Assuming your coming from smash 4, that's already 58 MUs covered, which leaves only 22 new MUs to learn (actually even less than that if we're discounting echoes and unreleased DLC), a little less than the size of melees roster. It looks to me like it just comes down to lower level players seeking out an easy way out of learning and wanting to jump right into the victory screen if I'm honest

Actually even more since a good number of characters have had their kit changed.

 

[Glerma]

It looks to me like it just comes down to lower level players seeking out an easy way out of learning and wanting to jump right into the victory screen if I'm honest

Note: I am one of the new players starting with ultimate so that part applies to me. But in general I disagree because a secondary is not just used for a better MU because they are also used to throw off whoever you are against. The one I remember most was Debuz playing Rosalina against (I think Samsora at Summit) They had gone 2 and 2 I think and Debuz swapped from olimar to Rosalina and he won because Samsora got good at dealing with his Olimar, but was not able to adapt fast enough to his Rosa. But even outside of that you see pro players with secondaries for specific math ups that their main cannot deal with well. And anyone that can be considered a pro player definitely is investing time to learn all the match ups and still play with a secondary in certain match ups because they think that is better.

 

[Avokha]

Note: I am one of the new players starting with ultimate so that part applies to me. But in general I disagree because a secondary is not just used for a better MU because they are also used to throw off whoever you are against. The one I remember most was Debuz playing Rosalina against (I think Samsora at Summit) They had gone 2 and 2 I think and Debuz swapped from olimar to Rosalina and he won because Samsora got good at dealing with his Olimar, but was not able to adapt fast enough to his Rosa. But even outside of that you see pro players with secondaries for specific math ups that their main cannot deal with well. And anyone that can be considered a pro player definitely is investing time to learn all the match ups and still play with a secondary in certain match ups because they think that is better.

And that's all well and good. I'm only really referring to the cases of those who use secondaries as an excuse to not learn all the MUs available in the game with their main. It strikes me as laziness to main a character, and then prematurely decide to play someone else because they cant be bothered to learn every MU with their main before making the call to decide if they really need a secondary or if they're fine with just one character.

Actually even more since a good number of characters have had their kit changed.

Most returning characters haven't had their kits changed so drastically that they are effectively different characters entirely. Yes, you will need to account for said changes of course, but it isn't as difficult as learning a brand new match up, which imo isn't that hard to begin with.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Actually even more since a good number of characters have had their kit changed.

Not only that but most people didn't even learn all the Smash 4 MU. Low and mid tier characters weren't meta relevant and if you didn't have a local specialist it's likely you didn't have MU experience with them either aside any wifi. I'd be lying if I said I had any Wii Fit experience in 4 outside of the occasional For Glory and I had little reason to learn her MU since she wasn't that good nor played much at all in 4. But with her actually being a solid character now I have more reason to learn the MU.

Time dictates all. If I only have 10 hours to play smash in a week (a reality for a working adult sadly) I'm going to devote a large portion of that time practicing against characters I'm going to see often (top/high tiers) and characters that are popular in my region (We have a top Puff in the region but few Lucina's). Wifi helps a lot in getting general MU experience that you can't find in your region but time will always decide what practice in the end.

You could get away with little to no MU experience in other smash games particularly Melee and Brawl because the lower tiers characters were just straight up bad. In Ultimate however and to a lesser extent in 4 the lower tiered characters aren't as bad as prior lower tiers which makes getting away with little to no MU experience against them a lot harder.

 

[Glerma]

And that's all well and good. I'm only really referring to the cases of those who use secondaries as an excuse to not learn all the MUs available in the game with their main. It strikes me as laziness to main a character, and then prematurely decide to play someone else because they cant be bothered to learn every MU with their main before making the call to decide if they really need a secondary or if they're fine with just one character.

Ah, I thought you were insinuating that any secondary was out of laziness.

Although, what is your opinion of someone finding match up that is bad, reading up on it and seeing a lot of good players agree that it is a bad MU as well as reasons why, and then deciding to learn a secondary for said match up because even if you get experience with your main you would still be at a disadvantage? So rather than waste time learning every inside and out of the match up you can find a middle ground with a character you are not as familiar with but is not at a disadvantage the second you hear Go!

 

[Terotrous]

Of course, there's also the fact that even if you know the matchup, some of them are just really bad. I feel like if you have a matchup that's quite bad vs a common high tier character, having a secondary seems almost mandatory.

 

[Avokha]

Ah, I thought you were insinuating that any secondary was out of laziness.

Although, what is your opinion of someone finding match up that is bad, reading up on it and seeing a lot of good players agree that it is a bad MU as well as reasons why, and then deciding to learn a secondary for said match up because even if you get experience with your main you would still be at a disadvantage? So rather than waste time learning every inside and out of the match up you can find a middle ground with a character you are not as familiar with but is not at a disadvantage the second you hear Go!

It depends on what you mean by "good players." Personally, I would sooner trust the word of players who have invested hundreds and hundreds of hours into the given character over the word of a top player (unless of course said top player also has invested that sort of time into them, but you'd only see that if said character was their main). Even so, it's still worth exploring the match up yourself and forming your own opinion on it. If said players word has any validity, you should see it through your own experiences in the MU.

I'm of the opinion that being good at the game doesn't make you an authority figure on character viability of any kind, being good only ensures that your opinions, whether good or bad, are heard. I'm a firm believer that those opinions should be challenged and proved if we are to take them as facts. There's so much to discover in ultimate, and I feel it's our utmost duty as players to seek out the truth in every aspect of it if we are to both improve ourselves and the state of this game.

 

[Glerma]

Yeah, like from what I have played as well as talking to some Olimar mains (SO to DelugeTN) Pichu just gets destroyed by Olimar, and even if I know the match up it is not the most optimal match I could be playing when I could get comfortable on another top tier like Lucina who can do a much better job dealing with Pikmin, does not die to Olimar's fast smash attacks as early, and can approach safer using sword to keep pikmin off.

I definitely agree with you on looking at players that have hundreds of hours on characters is better than someone who is just very good at the game and plays whatever is top tier at the time. And I also agree that I should form my own opinion on match ups first before looking to others. Hmm, you have done went and convinced me. I will still probably play with a secondary, but that was going to happen anyways just because I enjoy multiple characters more so than picking one up for specific match-ups.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I feel this way right now about Joker, and everything in my mind is screaming for me to go back to Olimar as the ONLY local I've taken Joker to resulted in me washing out in Loser's very early on in a tournament without pools.. so that's really doing poorly.

Something to keep in mind is that tiers primarily apply to the highest level of play, and they assume that you've mastered the character. Some characters are fairly hard to learn and will thus require more from you to really do well at mid-levels of play, Joker seems like he might be one of them. While Olimar is a character that is fairly hard to master, he's also a character that you can learn to do well with at mid-levels of play fairly easily, especially in Ultimate where he has some broken tools. If you want to play Joker, you probably have to put in a lot more effort and time to really do well, and even then you might do worse than if you've just stuck with Olimar.

Patches happen, of course, and Olimar seems like a fairly likely candidate for nerfs eventually, so it's hard to say how safe of a bet he'll be along the line. Generally they don't seem to overnerf top tiers in the same game though, all the top tiers in Smash 4 were still top or high tiers after nerfs, major nerfs only seem to happen between games (such as Bayonetta or Sheik).

I think that several years down the line, without too many sweeping changes via DLC, Olimar will probably be the only solo-mainable character remaining at high levels.

How do you figure? Why won't characters like Lucina, Peach, Fox, Wolf, Pichu, Pikachu, Inkling, Palutena, Snake etc. be solo mainable at high levels?

They were pretty common in S4, too, especially among top players.

Two notes: Solo maining was more common and most of the top players primarily stuck with one character (with some notable exceptions, such as MkLeo, Tweek, Nairo, and ANTi). Also, top level players have more time to learn secondaries, so the time and effort spent is less of an issue compared to most non-top level players who generally have less time to learn Smash. Does that mean solo maining is the only option at lower levels? Well, no, especially if you play a mid or a low tier character you could benefit from having a secondary to deal with bad matchups, especially if said secondary is easy to learn (such as Lucina or Wolf). If you're maining, say, Kirby, you'd probably benefit from a Lucina secondary (though you might be tempted to just drop Kirby and play Lucina instead, since, y'know, Kirby's pretty bad).

But even outside of that you see pro players with secondaries for specific math ups that their main cannot deal with well.

Generally it's less about not being able to deal with the matchup and more about gaining an advantage, top level players tend to practice a lot and have more time to pick up a secondary if they feel like it. Still, a lot of top level players seem to essentially solo main, such as Light and Cosmos.

Although, what is your opinion of someone finding match up that is bad, reading up on it and seeing a lot of good players agree that it is a bad MU as well as reasons why, and then deciding to learn a secondary for said match up because even if you get experience with your main you would still be at a disadvantage?

If you're maining a top tier, then you probably won't have any really bad matchups. If you're maining, say, King Dedede, and your local has some good Mega Man players, then picking up a secondary might be a good idea.

Yeah, like from what I have played as well as talking to some Olimar mains (SO to DelugeTN) Pichu just gets destroyed by Olimar, and even if I know the match up it is not the most optimal match I could be playing when I could get comfortable on another top tier like Lucina who can do a much better job dealing with Pikmin, does not die to Olimar's fast smash attacks as early, and can approach safer using sword to keep pikmin off.

Right now, I'm leaning towards Olimar being -1 for Pichu and maybe Even for Lucina, so switching might help but it might not help that much. Still, Lucina is easy to learn and Olimar doesn't really have many (none, if you trust Myran on this) bad matchups, so Lucina might be a decent counter-pick. Lucina might be a pretty good secondary for Pichu anyway, she's easy to learn and play and should cover most of his bad MUs (especially if you believe that she beats Snake).

 

[Sean²]

And that's all well and good. I'm only really referring to the cases of those who use secondaries as an excuse to not learn all the MUs available in the game with their main. It strikes me as laziness to main a character, and then prematurely decide to play someone else because they cant be bothered to learn every MU with their main before making the call to decide if they really need a secondary or if they're fine with just one character.

Most returning characters haven't had their kits changed so drastically that they are effectively different characters entirely. Yes, you will need to account for said changes of course, but it isn't as difficult as learning a brand new match up, which imo isn't that hard to begin with.

It's not laziness, just mostly matchup preference. I prefer the Marth vs Pichu matchup much more than the Wolf vs Pichu matchup. Marth's broad disjoints help me outrange Pichu more than Wolf, and it's also easier to escape his combos due to Marth being less of a fast faller, and having an invincible startup on his up B. I don't necessarily pick Marth because I don't want to learn Wolf vs Pichu, he just helps me overcome some added frustration if I'm really trying to win. Players like Azen and Mew2King have all done this in the past. Azen wasn't a Falcon main but always picked him against ICs. Mew2King does his Mew2Things. If I had all the time in the world to play Smash, and had access to those much better than I who play these characters to grind with at my beck and call, maybe I'd be able to work harder on the troublesome matchups. Otherwise I'll likely continue to prefer a swordsman vs Pichu over my main.

How do you figure? Why won't characters like Lucina, Peach, Fox, Wolf, Pichu, Pikachu, Inkling, Palutena, Snake etc. be solo mainable at high levels?

Just an opinion. A lot of those characters already have noticeably poor matchups among the top tiers. Olimar really doesn't have any rough matchups versus any of them. And sure, at low or mid levels nearly any character is solo mainable. I mainly mean at the level that most of us are not yet on.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It's not laziness, just mostly matchup preference. I prefer the Marth vs Pichu matchup much more than the Wolf vs Pichu matchup. Marth's broad disjoints help me outrange Pichu more than Wolf, and it's also easier to escape his combos due to Marth being less of a fast faller, and having an invincible startup on his up B. I don't necessarily pick Marth because I don't want to learn Wolf vs Pichu, he just helps me overcome some added frustration if I'm really trying to win. Players like Azen and Mew2King have all done this in the past. Azen wasn't a Falcon main but always picked him against ICs. Mew2King does his Mew2Things. If I had all the time in the world to play Smash, and had access to those much better than I who play these characters to grind with at my beck and call, maybe I'd be able to work harder on the troublesome matchups. Otherwise I'll likely continue to prefer a swordsman vs Pichu over my main.

Just an opinion. A lot of those characters already have noticeably poor matchups among the top tiers. Olimar really doesn't have any rough matchups versus any of them. And sure, at low or mid levels nearly any character is solo mainable. I mainly mean at the level that most of us are not yet on.

What are Peach's really bad MU's too? Lucina may be slightly losing but is still doable I think. Snake can look like a stuggle for her from matches I have seen
Lucina I dont think has any really terrible MU's either. But on the flip-side I dont think she really beats any other top-tier character either

 

[Frihetsanka]

A lot of those characters already have noticeably poor matchups among the top tiers.

Do they really? I've been following top player MU charts and the top tier chars seem to have really solid MU spreads, with only a few -1 MUs at worst. Seems solo viable to me. You don't have to be Smash 4 Bayonetta to be solo viable.

 

[Avokha]

It's not laziness, just mostly matchup preference. I prefer the Marth vs Pichu matchup much more than the Wolf vs Pichu matchup. Marth's broad disjoints help me outrange Pichu more than Wolf, and it's also easier to escape his combos due to Marth being less of a fast faller, and having an invincible startup on his up B. I don't necessarily pick Marth because I don't want to learn Wolf vs Pichu, he just helps me overcome some added frustration if I'm really trying to win. Players like Azen and Mew2King have all done this in the past. Azen wasn't a Falcon main but always picked him against ICs. Mew2King does his Mew2Things. If I had all the time in the world to play Smash, and had access to those much better than I who play these characters to grind with at my beck and call, maybe I'd be able to work harder on the troublesome matchups. Otherwise I'll likely continue to prefer a swordsman vs Pichu over my main.

Just an opinion. A lot of those characters already have noticeably poor matchups among the top tiers. Olimar really doesn't have any rough matchups versus any of them. And sure, at low or mid levels nearly any character is solo mainable. I mainly mean at the level that most of us are not yet on.

I assume you have tried and learned the wolf/pichu matchup though, yes? How else would you have decided wolf wasn't a good fit, which led you to picking marth against pichu? That's a perfectly valid reason to select a secondary lol, and there are many more good reasons to do so. I just think that the idea that characters cant be 'solo viable' because learning all the individual MUs for the character might not be feasible is not a valid one. If anything, learning a whole new character for specific MUs would be more work, as not only does the character need to pick up the MU slack you left off with your main, you also need to learn how to effectively operate the whole new character.

 

[Rizen]

What are Peach's really bad MU's too? Lucina may be slightly losing but is still doable I think. Snake can look like a stuggle for her from matches I have seen
Lucina I dont think has any really terrible MU's either. But on the flip-side I dont think she really beats any other top-tier character either

According to Samsora and MuteAce is bad for Peach. She doesn't have any terrible MUs.

 

[NotLiquid]

Having a bad MU doesn't mean a character isn't solo viable.

Inkling is generally thought to have roughly four or five negative MUs in the entire cast, some approximation of "half" can be constituted as swinging to a potential even. Despite this, she's been proven to be very much solo viable because most of the time a lean-negative MU is shorthand for "this isn't free", and despite rough matchups she so far doesn't seem to have any real hard counters (maybe ROB but I dunno). The same goes for Wolf. Despite allegedly having a poor matchup against another abundant top tier, Pichu, there's no shortage of Wolf kicking Pichu's cheeks in bracket all the time.

The only time having a bad MU is really going to impact solo viability is if it fills two specific quotas - it's a -2 at minimum, and it's a character that reaches ubiquity in representation.

ROB in Brawl and Villager in Smash 4 are the biggest examples of this. ROB wasn't a bad character at all in his first game - actually was thought of as top tier extremely early on - but he was notorious for having an atrocious matchup against Meta Knight, one of the most common character picks, that single-handedly wrecked his representation. Villager was similarly also subject to power creep in Smash 4 once DLC hit, Cloud and Bayonetta were too much.

If your character gets hard countered by a common pick in top tier, then yeah, by all means you can go shopping for your secondary. Thing is, I don't think a single top 10 character so far actually qualifies for that distinction yet. I used to think Palutena wasn't solo viable, but I had to eat crow on that one after Nairo went full-time. And while there are characters in "lower" tiers that I can see being a counter or potential hard counter to a top tier (Belmonts actually seem to do really well against Olimar), realistically you're not going to see as many of those in bracket for it to be a concern.

 

[blackghost]

Having a bad MU doesn't mean a character isn't solo viable.

Inkling is generally thought to have roughly four or five negative MUs in the entire cast, some approximation of "half" can be constituted as swinging to a potential even. Despite this, she's been proven to be very much solo viable because most of the time a lean-negative MU is shorthand for "this isn't free", and despite rough matchups she so far doesn't seem to have any real hard counters (maybe ROB but I dunno).
ROB in Brawl and Villager in Smash 4 are the biggest examples of this. ROB wasn't a bad character at all in his first game - actually was thought of as top tier extremely early on - but he was notorious for having an atrocious matchup against Meta Knight, one of the most common character picks, that single-handedly wrecked his representation. Villager was similarly also subject to power creep in Smash 4 once DLC hit, Cloud and Bayonetta were too much.

If your character gets hard countered by a common pick in top tier, then yeah, by all means you can go shopping for your secondary. Thing is, I don't think a single top 10 character so far actually qualifies for that distinction yet. I used to think Palutena wasn't solo viable, but I had to eat crow on that one after Nairo went full-time. And while there are characters in "lower" tiers that I can see being a counter or potential hard counter to a top tier (Belmonts actually seem to do really well against Olimar), realistically you're not going to see as many of those in bracket for it to be a concern.

Good post.
ROB has had the opposite thing happen in ultimate. ROB still has a horrible MU with Bayonetta but Bayonetta is basically dead so it doesn't matter.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Nintendo just released 3.0.1 recently. It appears to be a yet another patch to fix bugs. The main bug it highlights is an issue that occurs when you use Joker's Final Smash to win a round in Classic mode, which would prevent you from progressing. Never encountered or heard of that bug, but I am sure glad I didn't lol.

 

[Aaron1997]

I've been thinking about this for a bit but I think Sword characters are slowly falling out of favor. Ike has really gone down form where he was a few months ago and Lucina is only going to get worse from now on because how basic she is. Leo doesn't want to play them anymore. So if Ike and Lucina ain't doing it then what else we have. Well, we have

Roy is a different playstyle then other swords because the way his hitbox's work, Chome's recovery is to bad to ever be anything higher then High tier. Shulk probably going to be a top tier in 1-2 years but even then, you won't see a bunch of people play him because of his skill floor. Cloud has similar problems to Chrome, Corrin has some room to grow, Link is like that he's a different playstyle and Marth is just a worse Lucina.

Outside of Lucina who is getting worse and doesn't have a lot of high level reps outside of Leo and E who are you going to play if your looking for a top tier sword character? Shulk in 1-2 years? Barring Patches/DLC its not looking good for sword users. No wonder Olimar is doing so well. The characters that has always done well vs him are getting worse and worse. Also to a lesser extant, snake because he like's it when there's no disjoints to safely hit him when he's holding a grenade.



These guys will be the one's to benefit the most from no top tier Sword character.



These guys love it to but they may not be strong enough to get max benefits from it.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Something to keep in mind is that tiers primarily apply to the highest level of play, and they assume that you've mastered the character. Some characters are fairly hard to learn and will thus require more from you to really do well at mid-levels of play, Joker seems like he might be one of them. While Olimar is a character that is fairly hard to master, he's also a character that you can learn to do well with at mid-levels of play fairly easily, especially in Ultimate where he has some broken tools. If you want to play Joker, you probably have to put in a lot more effort and time to really do well, and even then you might do worse than if you've just stuck with Olimar.

Patches happen, of course, and Olimar seems like a fairly likely candidate for nerfs eventually, so it's hard to say how safe of a bet he'll be along the line. Generally they don't seem to overnerf top tiers in the same game though, all the top tiers in Smash 4 were still top or high tiers after nerfs, major nerfs only seem to happen between games (such as Bayonetta or Sheik).

That's my thing man, I actually have the pipe dream of one day hopefully being somebody in this scene, even if it's extreme unlikely.. it's just my dream. Due to this, the idea of maining a top tier is a hell of a lot more attractive to me, especially because I don't tend to spread myself out and am the hyper-focused sort. For what it's worth I try to keep the Space Cowboy hype, I'll only play more degenerate with him if I really start taking a beating (2 stock lead on me or something) and I try to keep him technical and aggressive by going for galaxy brain grab setup combos and **** a lot, as well as trying to be the lord of the juggle.

But I do know what you mean, 100%. You're not wrong.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

've been thinking about this for a bit but I think Sword characters are slowly falling out of favor. Ike has really gone down form where he was a few months ago and Lucina is only going to get worse from now on because how basic she is. Leo doesn't want to play them anymore. So if Ike and Lucina ain't doing it then what else we have.

Er..sorry but no. Sword characters are not Going out of favor in the least. May be basic, but that is hardly a terrible thing at all when she is as overall strong and well-rounded as she is. are basic and people thought they would drop of. But they still have very strong overall results.
Sure Ike may be falling out of favor a . But still get pretty good results too.
Honestly MKLeo just seems to be having a bit of a character crisis currently. I wonder if he is actullay going to start using He used him a bit at Smash Summit but hw has not used him in competive play since

 

[SwagGuy99]

I've been thinking about this for a bit but I think Sword characters are slowly falling out of favor. Ike has really gone down form where he was a few months ago and Lucina is only going to get worse from now on because how basic she is. Leo doesn't want to play them anymore. So if Ike and Lucina ain't doing it then what else we have. Well, we have

Roy is a different playstyle then other swords because the way his hitbox's work, Chome's recovery is to bad to ever be anything higher then High tier. Shulk probably going to be a top tier in 1-2 years but even then, you won't see a bunch of people play him because of his skill floor. Cloud has similar problems to Chrome, Corrin has some room to grow, Link is like that he's a different playstyle and Marth is just a worse Lucina.

Outside of Lucina who is getting worse and doesn't have a lot of high level reps outside of Leo and E who are you going to play if your looking for a top tier sword character? Shulk in 1-2 years? Barring Patches/DLC its not looking good for sword users. No wonder Olimar is doing so well. The characters that has always done well vs him are getting worse and worse. Also to a lesser extant, snake because he like's it when there's no disjoints to safely hit him when he's holding a grenade.



These guys will be the one's to benefit the most from no top tier Sword character.



These guys love it to but they may not be strong enough to get max benefits from it.

I'd say and are the one's that I have the most faith in still being good as the meta continues. Roy can hit sweetspots a lot more consistently than which means that he can probably be optimized (similarly to Marth in other games) and while his recovery is pretty average, it's just as good as all of the other sword characters.

Cloud is a different story. A lot of people decided Cloud is mediocre after his nerfs and I don't really understand why. He still can juggle well, he still has good matchups, he's still pretty adaptable, and he still has stupidly good range. His recovery is a problem but I think that he could possibly be a top tier in the future once people start to realize that he still has most of his strengths from Smash 4.

I also agree that those characters will benefit from a lack of swordfighter top tiers and I would also like to point out that and would also probably have the potential to rise without many swordfighter top tiers.

Edit: To clarify, I don't think that these sword characters are necessarily going to fall down the tier list, but I think it's more of a possibility for them than it is for Roy and Cloud.

 

[MH-Jin]

I'm really unsure on why people point out Lucina's simple gameplan, when her kit itself is so strong and can deal with so many situations. The difference between Lucina and Ike's game plan, while both being simple, is Lucina always will maintain her overall safety, strong mobility and off stage play. This doesn't change, even if Lucina's gameplay does not have crazy development in the future.

In reference to Cloud, I have some doubts that he'll be top tier (not that it's impossible). With the range nerf on Bair and Nair, he lost some of his safety in neutral along with losing the dair autocancel windows. Also with the limit timer to 15 seconds, he also doesn't have as much pressure in neutral. In smash 4, Cloud with full limit demanded respect until that limit is used. In ultimate when he gets limit, while it leads to a shift in playing neutral, that timer changes the dynamic back to less pressure on Cloud's opponent if they can run out the timer in combination with getting Cloud to waste his limit.

Not to make it all doom and gloom. He's still minimum high tier imo. He still has an overall great neutral, greater range than most characters, the less endlag on his fair helps a lot and leads to new setups that he didn't have before, such as side b or dtilt at low percents. I'm optimistic that Cloud has a lot of room to grow and am looking forward to that. I do wish ZeRo kept using him and hope that Tweek/MKLeo will go back to using him as well

 

[NotLiquid]

Sword characters were kinda overrated early on in the game honestly.

The early popular assumption was that having range would become the easy answer under Ultimate's much faster game engine, obviously some fancy Twitter combos helped further the notion. People neglected the elephant in the room that swordies still get out-framed, nor did most people foresee the fact that multiple top tier contenders would end up having deceptive range/projectiles (if not disjoints) which allows them to be contended with. And of course, most of them still have pretty mediocre disadvantage states.

Perfect pivoting being removed in Ultimate may have indirectly hurt the most powerful swordies. It at the very least did a number on Marth, not being able to microspace tippers as effectively anymore suddenly means he has way less flexible neutral options. That kinda extends to Lucina, though maybe not in as notable of a way since she doesn't need tippers. Nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if the removal of the mechanic is a big part of the reason as to why MKLeo is so down on both those characters. While their neutral tools and basic game plan have already been dissected, I suspect that without the potency of perfect pivots - which were already mainly utilized by more talented players like Leo - it's harder for these characters to be as aggressive given that their tools aren't really meant to be such by design, and given a lot of players are kind of getting smarter about defensive play, the meta doesn't exactly behoove swordies as much as it used to. I do think there's some credence to the notion that the meta may be harder on their archetype moving onward.

I still think these characters are great in their own right. Most of what makes them good still make for perhaps the most ideal pocket characters because they will always have a bit of a safety net that can frustrate an opponent; they are generally some of the strongest characters in the game when it comes to punishing erroneous commitment. As we've been learning though, Ultimate has a lot of non-committal options, so there's a strong chance that what's going to make them good will be things that are in spite of Ultimate's mechanics rather than because of them.

Ike, well, we had a discussion on him the other day, most top players have already said their piece.

Roy and Chrom are probably in a bit of a better place as their air mobility alone allows them to set up walls and aggressive options a bit more reliably, though it seems like this is one character pick you're really going to have to commit to the notion of swapping per the MU, based on whether the opponent has a potent edgeguarding game - in which case Chrom is most likely going to end up significantly weaker in the top tier meta.

I already wrote about Shulk once, at the end of the day he's going to remain an extremely unpopular pick for top level play, so his influence on the perception of swords might not mean much at all.

 

[Rizen]

Shulk probably going to be a top tier in 1-2 years

That's been a meme since SSB4. It hasn't happened. Shulk has good tools but also terrible frame data. His fastest aerial is F13; Lucina's N/Fair (F6) is literally more than twice as fast. I don't see either of them moving much on the tier list.

 

[MH-Jin]

Sword characters were kinda overrated early on in the game honestly.

The early popular assumption was that having range would become the easy answer under Ultimate's much faster game engine, obviously some fancy Twitter combos helped further the notion. People neglected the elephant in the room that swordies still get out-framed, nor did most people foresee the fact that multiple top tier contenders would end up having deceptive range/projectiles (if not disjoints) which allows them to be contended with. And of course, most of them still have pretty mediocre disadvantage states.

Perfect pivoting being removed in Ultimate may have indirectly hurt the most powerful swordies. It at the very least did a number on Marth, not being able to microspace tippers as effectively anymore suddenly means he has way less flexible neutral options. That kinda extends to Lucina, though maybe not in as notable of a way since she doesn't need tippers. Nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if the removal of the mechanic is a big part of the reason as to why MKLeo is so down on both those characters. While their neutral tools and basic game plan have already been dissected, I suspect that without the potency of perfect pivots - which were already mainly utilized by more talented players like Leo - it's harder for these characters to be as aggressive given that their tools aren't really meant to be such by design, and given a lot of players are kind of getting smarter about defensive play, the meta doesn't exactly behoove swordies as much as it used to. I do think there's some credence to the notion that the meta may be harder on their archetype moving onward.

I still think these characters are great in their own right. Most of what makes them good still make for perhaps the most ideal pocket characters because they will always have a bit of a safety net that can frustrate an opponent; they are generally some of the strongest characters in the game when it comes to punishing erroneous commitment. As we've been learning though, Ultimate has a lot of non-committal options, so there's a strong chance that what's going to make them good will be things that are in spite of Ultimate's mechanics rather than because of them.

Ike, well, we had a discussion on him the other day, most top players have already said their piece.

Roy and Chrom are probably in a bit of a better place as their air mobility alone allows them to set up walls and aggressive options a bit more reliably, though it seems like this is one character pick you're really going to have to commit to the notion of swapping per the MU, based on whether the opponent has a potent edgeguarding game - in which case Chrom is most likely going to end up significantly weaker in the top tier meta.

I already wrote about Shulk once, at the end of the day he's going to remain an extremely unpopular pick for top level play, so his influence on the perception of swords might not mean much at all.

I definitely agree on the MKLeo using perfect pivots to create perfect spacing opportunities with Marth. There's so many times he would pp backwards in smash 4 to create a tipper jab to tipper forward tilt setup or jab to fair and get the kill. It's also because since Marcina lost their jab cancel going into ultimate, they don't have as much in terms of strong grounded options that can lead reliably into a kill, so grounded spacing is a lot of less effective/useful as well. Luckily Lucina still retains her overall safety in terms of aerials along with the low landing lag, this helps especially with the nerf to shields. In the opposite way, Marth still has to space tipper length to maintain shield safety, since his sour spot is easily punishable. I think Roy actually got the better reward in this game, since he has better ground mobility than Marth, actual jab setups along with gaining great reward in close quarters. As a result, this might be the first time Roy will be better than Marth in a Smash game unless there's a discovery/boost to Marth's ground game.

Also I think especially with characters like Lucina and Chrom, with their balanced blade and low landing lag, have an easier time just creating a wall of aerials rather than creating minute spacing situations. I'm not sure on the Roy walling out, since if he attempts to wall out with his wet noodle area, it may not have enough hitstun/shield stun to really protect him at low percents. The reward for microspacing, just isn't there yet. Instead, we see MkLeo having to commit to a more "wider" spacing game with the dash cancel mechanic and also creating traps with wavelanding on platforms for now.

 

[PK Gaming]

I know people are (rightfully) focused on Olimar, but I feel like Snake is another overtuned, obnoxiously designed character.

I'm a bit irked people blindly believed Leffen and gave that character a pass without really thinking about it. Also anyone who says Snake has a bad recovery is emphatically wrong and they need to keep up.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I don't feel anything about Olimar is obnoxious, as good as he is his weaknesses are there and obvious (Disadvantage for him is pretty terrible sometimes and without Pikmin he's near-helpless.. his aerial range also isn't super amazing and his kill power / combo game at the end of the day isn't as fabulous as what some other characters have.. his recovery is also pretty vulnerable sometimes.. his whiff-grab endlag is also an absolute tragedy) and I more feel he's just pretty well-rounded and well designed. He could probably use some tweaks, yeah, but I wouldn't call his design obnoxious because Olimar imo takes far more mental involvement and commitment than playing Snake. As I said, I think Olimar is just EXTREMELY well rounded and has a ton of good options, but nothing outright busted or laughable in terms of design.

Olimar also can be played in a pretty non-degenerate fashion and still get results.. Snake on the other hand?

 

[sedrf]

That's been a meme since SSB4. It hasn't happened. Shulk has good tools but also terrible frame data. His fastest aerial is F13; Lucina's N/Fair (F6) is literally more than twice as fast. I don't see either of them moving much on the tier list.

I think just saying something is a meme is really helpful to discourse. A better way is to say that his playstyle is rather niche compared to the avg swordie.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

Dropping by once more to state that I still think keeping secondaries in this game is going to be the difference between having fun and possibly doing well in a tournament versus getting frustrated with 70+ match-ups and playing someone else's game. As for fear of being carried by a character: That same fear is why I almost exclusively play low or mid-tier characters against my friends. I don't want them to think I win because I used Lucina or Wolf, I want to beat them with Doctor Mario or Falco or someone else non-meta right now. If winning at all costs isn't the goal, then play whoever is most fun to you and don't worry about tiers or whatever. If money is on the line, go for whoever is your best. Unless you're literally Hungrybox, character perceptions probably won't make your life any harder or worse.

 

[Rizen]

I figured out something about . It's not that he has a hard time killing so much as his CQC is risky and he needs that to kill at reasonable %s. His attacks besides Nair are slow, he lacks the range of true swordsmen and his tether grab is f12. YL also gets out-angled by wide swings since his aerials all poke out in a line and don't have good option coverage. So if YL wants to kill he has to put himself in a disadvantageous position where faster characters can hit him and characters with longer disjoint can swat him away first.
This is on top of the fact that YL is light and dies early.

YL can safely kill with boomerang/bomb>Fair/Dair but not until at least 160%. Arrow>upB isn't true and it's hard to hit with an arrow that close; Tweek's just really good and makes it look easy. YL's frame data is slow but not horrible so he can get by. He just isn't top tier material.

My problem was I'd rush in and try to get kill setups at early %s in unsafe ways. I need to be more opportunistic and accept getting chip damage and killing at higher %s to not risk my safety.

 

[Frihetsanka]

As for fear of being carried by a character:

"far of being carried" sounds like scrub mentality to me. I suppose you could worry about not learning how to play the game properly, but aside from that, blaming other people (or yourself) for "being carried" is a bad mentality.

If winning at all costs isn't the goal, then play whoever is most fun to you and don't worry about tiers or whatever.

Sounds like you are worrying about tiers if you're avoiding Lucina and Wolf because they are too good.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I figured out something about . It's not that he has a hard time killing so much as his CQC is risky and he needs that to kill at reasonable %s. His attacks besides Nair are slow, he lacks the range of true swordsmen and his tether grab is f12. YL also gets out-angled by wide swings since his aerials all poke out in a line and don't have good option coverage. So if YL wants to kill he has to put himself in a disadvantageous position where faster characters can hit him and characters with longer disjoint can swat him away first.
This is on top of the fact that YL is light and dies early.

YL can safely kill with boomerang/bomb>Fair/Dair but not until at least 160%. Arrow>upB isn't true and it's hard to hit with an arrow that close; Tweek's just really good and makes it look easy. YL's frame data is slow but not horrible so he can get by. He just isn't top tier material.

My problem was I'd rush in and try to get kill setups at early %s in unsafe ways. I need to be more opportunistic and accept getting chip damage and killing at higher %s to not risk my safety.

YL is sadly one of many other high-tier . unfortunately exist in a sort of "high-tier purgatory" right now. Yes they are good. But why would most players from casuals to the best pro players in the world with the idea to win pick them over

There are proven top-tier character are much more easy to use effectively and have gotten resutls

Top-Tier Characters that are more technical and can take more effort beyond fundamentals to master, but yeild razy reward once you do. and likely

A similar projectile and setup-heavy style character that just seems to kill easier and recently had a big breakout preformance ,

not saying no one should play YL, he is still a very, very good . His strengnthd just dont come out and scream "Play me cuz im gud" like other top/high tiers right now. But no one should dismiss any character After all everyone was going to dismiss as mid-tier and never come close to getting the results she had in Smash 4 until Marss showed otherwise

 

[PK Gaming]

I don't feel anything about Olimar is obnoxious, as good as he is his weaknesses are there and obvious (Disadvantage for him is pretty terrible sometimes and without Pikmin he's near-helpless.. his aerial range also isn't super amazing and his kill power / combo game at the end of the day isn't as fabulous as what some other characters have.. his recovery is also pretty vulnerable sometimes.. his whiff-grab endlag is also an absolute tragedy) and I more feel he's just pretty well-rounded and well designed. He could probably use some tweaks, yeah, but I wouldn't call his design obnoxious because Olimar imo takes far more mental involvement and commitment than playing Snake. As I said, I think Olimar is just EXTREMELY well rounded and has a ton of good options, but nothing outright busted or laughable in terms of design.

Olimar also can be played in a pretty non-degenerate fashion and still get results.. Snake on the other hand?

I don't really see how you could say that in good faith when:

-His damage output is undeniably problematic. By now everyone should be familiar with his easy 0-60+ strings, but even (purple) back air doing 17% fresh, with its speed, range and disjoint is ridiculous.
-His up smash is a joke. I don't think players should be able to get away with spamming it point blank on shield just because they have purple pikmin on deck.
-Small stature is a huge benefit in this game.
-His ability to keep people out by itself isn't a problem, but the fact that he can do so and find openings where he can bust out explosive damage makes him mentally exhausting to fight

The "my character takes mental involvement" has never been a particularly compelling argument, especially coming from someone who mains the character, but I don't see Snake being a character players can just "pick up" and dominate with. Keeping track of all his explosives and keeping the pressure on your opponent requires immense effort. That doesn't really change the problem with Snake and Olimar.

Also Olimar isn't well-rounded. Olimar is simply overtuned in several categories while having some exploitable areas (lightweight, recovery, pikmin).

 

[Rizen]

^Also Olimar has one of the better disadvantage states with a recovery that can be guided under SV and doesn't cause free falling and whistle super armor.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Olimar is a contender for the best character in the game, but he does have flaws, he's not as bad as Smash 4 Cloud or Smash 4 Bayonetta. We could, potentially, be seeing 3 Olimar mains in top 10 on the PGR: Myran, Shuton, and Dabuz, and klatuu (Soulimar) and ImHip have also been doing fairly well. With that being said, I don't think Olimar mains deserve the hate they're getting. If people want to play Olimar, let them, but the character seems like he's easily top 3 and potentially #1 right now.

 

[Kiligar]

Olimar’s weaknesses are definitely there, he’s very light and floaty, and not particularly speedy. His strengths are overwhelming. If you call for nerfs on Olimar, then nerf Pichu. This game has many overturned characters that could be adjusted for a more fair playing ground. I feel either the game gets nerfs to a few top tiers, or buffs the rest of the cast depending on how bad they are. Though the latter may turn each match more into an episode of DBZ. Whatever the case, I hope to see improvements to Ultimate’s balance in the future. It’s already ok, but has a little way to go. Little Mac is the perfect example of that.

 

[The_Bookworm]

-Small stature is a huge benefit in this game.

There is something I realized recently. A lot of people have been saying how much small characters are tearing apart the game (probably an exaggeration) and how big/important being small in this is.

But then I realized that there is only about 3, maybe 4, characters in the higher tiers that are small characters. Most of the upper tiers are made up of middle-height characters, which is how top tiers are mostly composed in previous Smash games (heck, Bayo and Rosa are some of the tallest characters, and those two ended up in top 5 in SSB4).

The question is: is being small really as a big deal as some people are making it out to be?

 

[Rizen]

There is something I realized recently. A lot of people have been saying how much small characters are tearing apart the game (probably an exaggeration) and how big/important being small in this is.

But then I realized that there is only about 3, maybe 4, characters in the higher tiers that are small characters. Most of the upper tiers are made up of middle-height characters, which is how top tiers are mostly composed in previous Smash games (heck, Bayo and Rosa are some of the tallest characters, and those two ended up in top 5 in SSB4).

The question is: is being small really as a big deal as some people are making it out to be?

Being small has advantages. You can avoid projectiles and land easier and it's harder for SH aerials to connect.

Being bigger is often seen as bad but it has advantages too. It's easier to pressure platforms and you cover a greater amount of space with attacks. Snake gets the best of both worlds because his army crawl.

 

[Frihetsanka]

If you call for nerfs on Olimar, then nerf Pichu.

Pichu got nerfed in 3.0 and is not as strong as he used to be. At this point in time, it doesn't seem like Pichu really needs more nerfs. Olimar, on the other hand, got buffed in 3.0 and seems like a contender for #1 in the game. It doesn't follow that if we think Olimar should be nerfed we also think Pichu should be nerfed, they're two different characters and Olimar is currently better than Pichu.

This game has many overturned characters that could be adjusted for a more fair playing ground. I feel either the game gets nerfs to a few top tiers, or buffs the rest of the cast depending on how bad they are.

I disagree with this, in a fighting game with 70+ characters you cannot reasonably expect everyone to be viable, it's fine if some characters are mainly good in non-competitive formats.

Little Mac is the perfect example of that.

Not really, since he's unlikely to become relevant unless they buff him really, really hard, and I don't think high/top tier Little Mac would be good for the metagame.

 

[Rizen]

Pichu got nerfed in 3.0 and is not as strong as he used to be.

How impactful was the hurtbox size increase?