Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Aaron1997]

Mii Brawler attribute changes
Fall speed: 1.92 -> 1.7
Fastfall speed: 3.072 -> 2.72
Endlag after get footstooled in midair: 31 -> 35

🤔?

— Meshima (@Meshima_) May 31, 2019

Brawler is floater now. This also means he can SHAC F-air now

 

[Guynamednelson]

I'm very surprised by the lack of Corrin buffs,

It seems like patches are gonna be turn-based. And it was Corrin's turn last time.

 

[KakuCP9]

I'm happy to announce that Lucario's Aura sphere tech has been restored to its former glory and his confirms are better than ever. Also waiting for the detailed notes to see if he finally has a jab again.
Also I'm happy Zard has his jab back, but with his abysmal fair and hurtbox city d-tilt, he's still hella wack.

 

[DelugeFGC]

So Olimar's smash attacks having a slight bit more endlag and his hurtbox bigger is making me play more carefully. All said this nerf is making me a better player, I've noticed I'm not quite prone to spastic C-Stick flicking and actually go for hard / safe reads on stuff I know I can punish instead of getting caught up in knowing I have a hella spammable good option and letting that make me do stupid stuff. I know this technically limits his potential to a degree, but I still feel the nerfs are fair and they seem like the kind of stuff that'll push me to improve.

I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm thankful for nerfs on my own character. Myran is acting like a child over the entire thing, I haven't seen Dabuz's take though. It feels like Olimar makes more sense now, like a previous post mentioned it seems this nerf brought him a bit more 'in line' with his core design philosophy. He's still hella good, I don't see the big issue.

I played a bit of Pichu, and that character still feels pretty good as well, you just can't spam everything you have to your heart's content without paying for it later on. Moves like FTilt are still spammable, but if you do so you're going to put yourself at kill percent that much quicker. This makes you have to actually, y'know, think about what you're doing. God forbid, right? Let's ignore the character's amazing aerial options are untouched, Side B and Down B are still absolutely a thing and how FSmash and USmash still do what they did before minus being hella safe on block. The only major nerf he received was Up-B it seems, but I still don't think that ruins him.

If I could ask for buffs / changes to Olimar beyond this, I'd like FTilt and UTilt to have an actual purpose in his kit and not basically just be dead moves.

 

[Terotrous]

I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm thankful for nerfs on my own character. Myran is acting like a child over the entire thing, I haven't seen Dabuz's take though. It feels like Olimar makes more sense now, like a previous post mentioned it seems this nerf brought him a bit more 'in line' with his core design philosophy. He's still hella good, I don't see the big issue.

I agree, honestly I've never really liked playing characters who are blatantly top tier. When you beat people using lower tier characters and it's obvious you just don't have to work nearly as hard for the win it's not quite as satisfying because it feels like the character is doing a lot of the work, not you. This is why my main desire is just to see the game become as well balanced as possible, whether it benefits me or not (a couple pages ago I was suggesting Joker nerfs even though I play that character).

With Olimar feeling more reasonable now according to most I might put some time into that character again, I do think he is pretty fun and I love me some Pikmin.

 

[NairWizard]

When you beat people using lower tier characters and it's obvious you just don't have to work nearly as hard for the win it's not quite as satisfying because it feels like the character is doing a lot of the work, not you.

past a certain level of play you almost certainly never feel this way at all

 

[DelugeFGC]

I agree, honestly I've never really liked playing characters who are blatantly top tier. When you beat people using lower tier characters and it's obvious you just don't have to work nearly as hard for the win it's not quite as satisfying because it feels like the character is doing a lot of the work, not you. This is why my main desire is just to see the game become as well balanced as possible, whether it benefits me or not (a couple pages ago I was suggesting Joker nerfs even though I play that character).

With Olimar feeling more reasonable now according to most I might put some time into that character again, I do think he is pretty fun and I love me some Pikmin.

The Up-B nerf seems to be the biggest thing, he still gets the same combo / follow up rewards for winning neutral and still has tons of good options. He's high high tier to low top tier at worst now and I in no way see how that's worth screaming and crying over but alas I've never won thousands upon thousands of dollars playing him so maybe my perspective isn't the most valuable concerning the matter either. All I know is that I'm still an Olimar main, and if anything these nerfs are making me a more careful and thus a better player, and they're fair.. so it's whatever honestly. The only one I'd say take back potentially is the Up-B nerf but I still think that one is overblown.

I'm too attached and too ingrained in Olimar now to seriously shift mains, I may get excited for a day (or an hour) and say I'll main someone else as a dual main but it never sticks. The Space Cowboy is who I'll always play, even if he truly was completely gutted. It's not even just about character loyalty, it's about how much time I've invested in him. All of my best memories competing in Ultimate have been formed using him as my main. I couldn't just drop him, no matter what they do to him.

 

[Thinkaman]

Shoutouts to Labo VR for making this patch possible.

Realistically this doesn't change the "total" amount of patching/support for the game, it just gives us a partial update between Joker and the next DLC. But the faster cadence of developers-getting-iterative-feedback-on-these-changes-sooner should be meaningful and contribute to overall better results.

 

[Terotrous]

past a certain level of play you almost certainly never feel this way at all

I'm sure being paid helps quash those pesky feelings of good sportsmanship, though you can see this is clearly still true in top level play as well. I was just watching a Salem Peach vs Blank Chrom set and it's obvious that Peach just wins that matchup super free, the moment Chrom has to UpB he's straight dead (she just does neutral B and it stops his UpB every time and is super easy to time correctly). Even when Blank was clearly outplaying Salem it didn't matter.

Plus, there are always low tier heroes and character loyalists who will stick to their characters no matter what, even in the pro scene, so clearly there are at least some people who feel like winning isn't everything.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Nobody was invalidated this patch though, like nobody was pushed straight from top to low tier. At worst at few top tiers became high tiers and some mid tiers became low high tiers.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm sure being paid helps quash those pesky feelings of good sportsmanship, though you can see this is clearly still true in top level play as well. I was just watching a Salem Peach vs Blank Chrom set and it's obvious that Peach just wins that matchup super free, the moment Chrom has to UpB he's straight dead (she just does neutral B and it stops his UpB every time and is super easy to time correctly). Even when Blank was clearly outplaying Salem it didn't matter.

Plus, there are always low tier heroes and character loyalists who will stick to their characters no matter what, even in the pro scene.

I think he is specifically alluding to the feeling of guilt or lack of competitive spirit when playing a top tier. Top levels of competition are intense enough to eschew such weaknesses, if you will. Few top competitors feel bad for beating people choosing to use worse characters in top 8.

Of course, the tier differences themselves show up even more pronounced at this level.

 

[Terotrous]

I think he is specifically alluding to the feeling of guilt or lack of competitive spirit when playing a top tier.

I think for me personally it's not just about guilt, but also I don't tend to find the top tier characters as interesting to play. I think it's because in many cases, the top tier characters are top tier because they lack meaningful weaknesses and often don't have to engage with some of the game mechanics. For example, some top tier characters in Ult or past Smash games basically just don't have a disadvantage state, they can functionally escape disadvantage for free using some of their moves (monkey flip in 4 was a famous example of this). They also often don't have to care about matchup knowledge as much because they may have such powerful tools that they can apply a kind of "one size fits all" approach to the cast. This is a big part of why I've always been in favour of moving the cast towards the level of strength that the mid tier characters have rather than the top tiers, because the mid tier characters generally feel the most nuanced

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

No Mewtwo stuff, but the buffs he got before didn't really change his issues, so I'm alright with not continuing down that road. Even if he gets heavier, he'll never actually be heavy, and even if they adjust the tail hurtbox, he's still easy to hit. His disadvantage state can't really be addressed with small changes like that, given his size, frame data, and weird double jump. He might stay right around where he is for the rest of the Ultimate's life, but Smash 4 Mewtwo received perhaps the most comprehensive overhaul via buff in the whole game, rivaled only by Marth and Lucina. (DK and Bowser probably count, but their changes were more ... focused, let's say.) So hopefully the devs can take Ultimate Mewtwo in a new direction in the future. Currently, I feel like he's a less effective Ridley, but I could be way off on that.

Speaking of Ridley, no changes there, but I'm not entirely sure if I'd change anything on him, aside from a recovery buff. Really fun character, but a dragon having such a weak recovery feels awfully strange.

Zelda, though. Not sure what to say about her. No multihit fixes on her Nair is a bit vexing. I was hoping that since they buffed Falcon's Knee, they might have given similar treatment to her kicks, but no dice. (Tangent: I recently thought about a fun little experiment in which Zelda and Sheik trade Fairs. That would give Zelda a good, fast out of shield option. I'm pretty sure it would also break Sheik clean in half, though there are a lot of ways you could break that character. Many characters have been better than Sheik so far in Ultimate, but I feel like she's closer than most of those characters to jumping up in the rankings with just a few of the right buffs.)

I'm most glad about making Pichu and Olimar being easier to hit, if only slightly. Too many Oddjobs in this game for my taste.

Lastly, does anyone know enough about Ken to tell how much impact his buffs will have? I know better than to trust Twitter combos, but the Twitter combos look pretty mean. Like, "connect heavy jab at 60% and kill you with Shoryu" mean.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think Ryu and Ken, due to their really unique and sensitive tools, are the most difficult characters to predict impacts on. It doesn't help that so very few people play them. (And even fewer are qualified to talk about them.)

We had 9 characters receive comprehensive buff packages this patch, after 7 last patch. Both cases had some "global" character-specific changes, as well as a few loose buffs to random quirky stuff, but mostly it fit a pattern into a few bottom-performing characters being focused on. This matches the development pattern of many live balance teams of other games, and we can expect it to continue in future Ultimate patches.

 

[Zinith]

I just hope that the zero changes to Yoshi have not resulted in him losing ground in the meta. Did any character that historically gives my boi trouble get nerfs/buffs?

 

[Monitoimirousku]

Maybe Solidsense was referring to you saying (probably by accident) that low tiers don't require as much skill to play

 

[Thinkaman]

I just hope that the zero changes to Yoshi have not resulted in him losing ground in the meta. Did any character that historically gives my boi trouble get nerfs/buffs?

I mean, Yoshi is 72th percentile or so on Das Koopa 's latest numbers. I'm sure he's quite delighted to have a full quarter of the threats above him knocked down a peg, and the most threatening of those at that.

I don't know of anyone who was specifically being gatekeep'd by these 5, so I guess the happiest is Snake? But tbqh it's really just that everyone else is happy.

 

[Zinith]

I mean, Yoshi is 72th percentile or so on Das Koopa 's latest numbers. I'm sure he's quite delighted to have a full quarter of the threats above him knocked down a peg, and the most threatening of those at that.

I don't know of anyone who was specifically being gatekeep'd by these 5, so I guess the happiest is Snake? But tbqh it's really just that everyone else is happy.

Where's are those numbers at? 72nd is quite a stretch from how I saw things...

 

[Aaron1997]

Mac's Jab3 is now a combo starter. This clip is just the tip of the iceberg. Also Mac now has a kill confirm off of Jab 2 with Jab 2 -> Up-b. D-tilt has more range then F-tilt 1. Sol is going nuts right now. Mac now has Combo starter/Kill confirm out of FRAME 1 MOVE!!!!!! Thinks he might be Mid tier

Edit:

Lol

 

[Terotrous]

I just hope that the zero changes to Yoshi have not resulted in him losing ground in the meta. Did any character that historically gives my boi trouble get nerfs/buffs?

I'm no expert on this since I dropped Ult Yoshi early but in my experience I felt like Lucina and Pichu were two of his worst matchups so he's probably happy to have them nerfed.

Oh man, can you imagine if one of the patch notes for Yoshi was "Dash Attack is reverted to Smash 4 Dash Attack". That might be enough to get me to play the character again (though I still don't like new jab or new eggs either).

 

[DelugeFGC]

This is by no means an amazing video, but here is what spamming the C-Stick with Olimar looks like post-patch.

USmash is still mad spammable, FSmash is the one with the most commitment added, but do keep in mind the sour spot being larger makes following up on the move with things such as grabs more consistent at higher % ranges than previously.

Also how much flight distance is left on Up-B if you get smacked out of the move seems dependent on either how long you'd been using it previously and / or how many Pikmin you current have / what type of Pikmin (different Pikmin have different weights, purples being the heaviest and whites the lightest) and all-in-all I really think the panic over that moves 'nerf' is being overblown just like the added endlag on his Smash attacks is being over-exaggerated in terms of how much it actually hurts him.

The biggest and most impact nerf imo is the hurtbox increase, I'm getting clipped by stuff I KNOW I wouldn't have prior far more often now.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Diddy buffs yet again! I haven’t played yet, but this is looking promising! Anyone tested Diddy yet?

 

[DelugeFGC]

Diddy buffs yet again! I haven’t played yet, but this is looking promising! Anyone tested Diddy yet?

I played a Diddy on ES when I was testing Olimar earlier.

I lost.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Looks like this is the first patch with particularly substantial nerfs. Those self-damage nerfs are really going to pile up.

However, I don't think it's over for Pichu. He can still lightning loop, and he still has kill confirms, does he not? I have a hard time seeing this dropping him below high tier. He might see some players drop him over this though, and I don't blame them. He's already kind of stressful character to play.

Only time will tell how significant this all really is though. Still, I'm a bit shocked (pun unintended) that Pichu was hit this hard. Nerfs have been fairly light so far and between this and the Olimar nerfs I feel like this is the first patch to really try and make substantial nerfs over simple slaps on the risks.

Then they should leave him alone. Not buff him. In what world does he need buffed? Especially perhaps his most annoying special.

It was a small QoL fix, chill. Most characters had fixes to their multihits in this patch.

This'll hardly make a difference to Joker's viability.

As I understand it, killing is already one of her weakest areas, and of the top tiers she was probably least in need of nerfing, but aside from that, I may be most upset they didn't touch Marth after the Daisy incident.

Also, this is still not an answer. If it was like Wolf last patch then no big deal, but a severe nerf to one of her best kill options...

So you're upset that Lucina's inferior version wasn't nerfed alongside her? I get how attached loyalists can but let's be reasonable here. No need to get angry with Marth purely out of spite - his F-smash is still probably less reliable of a kill move then hers.

I mained Charizard since early Smash 4, before he had grab combos or a killing U-throw. I'm sure you can deal with a slightly-less-top-tier Lucina.

I'm sure being paid helps quash those pesky feelings of good sportsmanship

Picking a good character isn't bad sportsmanship. If anything, getting angry over your opponent's character choice is poor sportsmanship. The game starts at the character select screen. You have access to all the same characters they do.

Believe me, I know how frustrating it can be. I've mained bad characters in the past. I still play some of them for fun, and as a loyalist, I'd still probably be playing PT even if he was low tier in this game. I've been bodied by Smash 4 Bayos, Shieks and ZZSes countless times. But at a certain point, you have to admit to yourself that that's just a part of being a low tier main, and that you're the one who's set yourself up for that by picking a worse character.

 

[Lacrimosa]

No Zelda nerfs/buffs.
Oh well :>.

 

[DunnoBro]

Mii Brawler attribute changes
Fall speed: 1.92 -> 1.7
Fastfall speed: 3.072 -> 2.72
Endlag after get footstooled in midair: 31 -> 35

🤔?

— Meshima (@Meshima_) May 31, 2019

Brawler is floater now. This also means he can SHAC F-air now

I think this change was largely made to help Brawlers recovery. And an indirect but very palpable buff to Helicopter kick.

Overall they feel the same in neutral and advantage, but I feel like I can either auto-snap with Dropkick better, or actually make it back with heli kick easier. (Though I also feel like trying to read ledge jumps with Heli Kick is riskier due to being floatier and thus actually needing to fastfall now, but I'll probably get used to it)

Overall though, this patch seems really on-point... Except for not Nerfing Nikita. Or snake like, at all.

I'm kinda convinced they want the Brawl Vets to be top tier honestly, along with the Melee Duo. (Fox, Marth(Cina?)

I also highly suspect they're gonna buff the heck out of Pirahna plant down the line. Probably once we finish getting the other fighters. (Who will also all be high tier+)

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The Ness jab change is actually great, as is the ZSS Side-B change.

Still no doc changes.

Pikachu grab buff was justified, the character is overrated.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Kinda interested in how the patches effect the Peach and Pichu play.
The patchnotes do sound brutal and then they are only very minor tweaks...

 

[AxelVDP]

it's been ages since I lurked this topic
anyway

I'm happy to announce that Lucario's Aura sphere tech has been restored to its former glory and his confirms are better than ever. Also waiting for the detailed notes to see if he finally has a jab again.

this is all anedoctal so don't quote me on this but:
- lucario's asc stuff seems more consistent (it has always been possible even after the "nerf" of last patch)
- jab still sucks, but hey I'm not complaining, at least it's slightly less bad if you somehow missclick that move or something lol
- dair "fix" now makes it a slightly less dangerous oos option (can no longer dair1 oos -> sideB/stuff afaik) (I still very much welcome this change tho, since at least for me that has always felt very inconsistent)

 

[DelugeFGC]

Kinda interested in how the patches effect the Peach and Pichu play.
The patchnotes do sound brutal and then they are only very minor tweaks...

I don't know man, Pichu losing kill power and taking more damage across the board from using their best options is a pretty significant nerf. I'd say Pichu was the one character that was truly hit with hard nerfs this patch, though not to the point of making Pichu mid tier or anything like that. There is no way you can argue Pichu as a top tier now, though.

Pichu got made more glass and less cannon.

 

[B_Burg]

They released a patch without nerfing Mega Man.

That alone is enough to make me happy overall.

That said I wonder what it was about Pikachu that made them decide to buff its grab. Snake was plenty strong before, but I could understand them making the changes they made to him if the attacks weren't linking the way they were supposed to, but the one for Pikachu just seems kind of out of the blue. Not that I think it will change the way people really use it much, just something I'm curious about.

 

[Lore]

I don't know man, Pichu losing kill power and taking more damage across the board from using their best options is a pretty significant nerf. I'd say Pichu was the one character that was truly hit with hard nerfs this patch, though not to the point of making Pichu mid tier or anything like that. There is no way you can argue Pichu as a top tier now, though.

Pichu got made more glass and less cannon.

Honestly, it makes me happy that Pikachu and Pichu are being more differentiated. I just hope that they didn't take the nerfs too far.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well this was the most major balance patch to date, and the only one so far that may really shake up the top-tiers now.
May be the most notabale character that will fall of right now at least out of top-tier
and / are still going to be strongand possibly still-top tier, or top of high-tier at worst, just not likely among the top 5 best now. They still have their nutty damage output even though their kill options got weakened
only got some comparatively minor nerfs, but they already kinda were falling out of favor in the competitive scene, so I wonder about how much we are going to see of them now

Absolute best characters right now are likely , still possibly and maybe rising up due to either betting untouched or very slightly buffed. Hech this may finally be time to shine now.

I can see jumping up a tier , maybe 2 in Falcons case, wow

 

[Terotrous]

Maybe Solidsense was referring to you saying (probably by accident) that low tiers don't require as much skill to play

This is actually the opposite of what I was saying. I see how it could be misread that way, though I think everyone got the correct intention from the context.

As to whether or not it's true that people who play higher tier characters don't have to work as hard, I feel that, by definition, it is true, as that's what a tier list means - assuming the highest known level of play, which character gets the best results? As such, a simple corollary is that a lower tier character must play closer to the optimal level of play to achieve the same results (no one is perfectly optimal all the time). This is also how matchups are defined. If a matchup is 6-4, it means the player with the 6 has a significant advantage, so the player with the 4 has to work harder to win. Of course, there are some cases in some games where a certain high tier character may be exceptionally difficult to play well (some examples would be Fox and Greninja), but many high tiers are relatively easy to play due to their many advantages over the rest of the cast and tend to show similar dominance at all levels of play.

Picking a good character isn't bad sportsmanship. If anything, getting angry over your opponent's character choice is poor sportsmanship.

I don't get angry over my opponent's character choice really, after all, they might just be a character loyalist who hit the jackpot, though I will tend to deride people who have zero character loyalty and will just pick whomever is currently the best and drop them instantly if a nerf comes along, and I will always root for an underdog player playing an uncommon character. Either way though, I certainly don't blame the players for any balance issues, it's clearly the job of the developers to create a balanced game and fix balance issues. If the devs keep making patches like this, I'll probably be pretty happy with the game.

 

[Kaiser19]

Are the Pichu nerfs enough to make Pichu mains switch to Pikachu? Seems like an easy switch to make since the characters are similar and Pikachu is also very good. Could Pika actually be the better character now?

 

[Lacrimosa]

I don't know man, Pichu losing kill power and taking more damage across the board from using their best options is a pretty significant nerf. I'd say Pichu was the one character that was truly hit with hard nerfs this patch, though not to the point of making Pichu mid tier or anything like that. There is no way you can argue Pichu as a top tier now, though.

Pichu got made more glass and less cannon.

Ok, I just watched Armada's video about the two most nerfed characters and I saw what they did to fTilt.
That thing looks horrible now. Still stronger than Pikachu's but that doesn't look it will kill at the ledge of Final Destination with correct DI at 120%. Before that patch, it was pretty much a stock for Pichu.

 

[Roguewolf]

Wolf again got off on time for bad behavior with this patch and I think he's probably still top tier but if they keep doing these little chips to him with nerfs it'll eventually catch up really hope they stop.

 

[SwagGuy99]

and seem to be the most buffed in the patch.

Edit: Also, wouldn't nerfing the knockback on Lucina's f-air make it better for low% combos? Because that might not actually be that big of a nerf if turns out that way.

 

[Heracr055]

I don't get angry over my opponent's character choice really, after all, they might just be a character loyalist who hit the jackpot, though I will tend to deride people who have zero character loyalty and will just pick whomever is currently the best and drop them instantly if a nerf comes along, and I will always root for an underdog player playing an uncommon character. Either way though, I certainly don't blame the players for any balance issues, it's clearly the job of the developers to create a balanced game and fix balance issues. If the devs keep making patches like this, I'll probably be pretty happy with the game.

I take issue with almost all of this.

1) Character loyalty is overrated nonsense. You do yourself a great disservice if you actively undermine your potential to win by playing a lower tiered character. The only exception I can see is if said player feels that the character has the potential to be top/high that others haven't seen. Otherwise it's self defeating from a competitive standpoint. It's refreshing to see a rare character once in awhile in tourney, but I will always root for the more skilled (and dare I say smarter) player who outplayed their opponent on the character select screen. Edit: Counterpick meta exists so there's some wiggle room to character selection, provided they can do something with the unorthodox switch
2) It's not up to the developers to do anything with the game post release; they have absolutely no obligation to release balance patches and search for game balance. They could just as easily have left the game it was as is on release. We're just lucky that they even do any of this. Besides, Sakurai doesn't particularly care for competitive, so I'd think he'd be inclined to not make any changes to serve a competitive scene he doesn't care for in the first place.

 

[Sean²]

Wolf again got off on time for bad behavior with this patch and I think he's probably still top tier but if they keep doing these little chips to him with nerfs it'll eventually catch up really hope they stop.

They're fairly inconsequential. As long as they don't slow his air game, I don't think he'll fall off too hard.