Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Flon]

But it's interesting that the superior jab is locked behind a small skill test: you have to precisely tap attack three times instead of just holding down the button, because the non-hold version actually had less end lag. If you just mash, you instead get the rapid jab

I would like to know the technical reason why this is the case, if it's some weirdness with a/synchronous timers or something (but then again, I swear there's an animation speed difference too). It threw me off so bad when I first started to test out jab confirms until I realized that Mac essentially has two versions of his standard jab. So weird.

Either way, it really does flow nicely into his moveset. It gives Jolt Haymaker far more presence and combined with the longer super armor on up smash also means Mac can easily anti-air any attempt to land aggressively. For a frame 1 option, that ain't too bad.

 

[Kiligar]

Snake passing through the patch unscathed is silly. The more I face him, the more that dash attack is out of place. Snake is a solid candidate for the best in the game right now. He’s strong, but when Snake dash attacks past me then comes back the other way and even if he whiffs he can immediately go into jab, it doesn’t feel balanced that a character in his archetype has an attack that quick and lacking in end lag. Compare to Richter’s frame 10 dash Attack with 55 FAF. Snake’s is frame 5, intangible on the front, and has an FAF of 42. Link, a trapper type character like Snake, has no burst option remotely as quick as Snake. Just balance Snake’s dash attack. He’s still just as polarizing in every other aspect, but he shouldn’t have it all.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I wondering about this patch. Anyone know how much later fair and f-smash kill now?. I think the nerfs may hurt Lucina not becuase it makes her signifiganty worse, but thet may force her to play possibly more linear and basic. Will her playstyle rely morw on fishing for bairs as her main way to get kills?
Many pro players who use Lucina i.e MKLeo and Mr.E are either using her less for characters they enjoy using and fit their playstlyte more, demoting her mostly to pocket character for certian MU's.
As strong as Lucina was and likely still is even post-patch, it seems her overal basicness is turning people away from her

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think the Lucina nerfs where needed. Look at what the Chrom nerfs did, people going around between Roy and Chrom and not simply the superior version. I hope the same happens with Lucina and Marth. Because currently I like how they did Roy / Chrom as Echoes and it’s a great template for potential future diversity between Echoes, or potential Echo newcomers.

 

[Thinkaman]

While my money is on Snake as #1 right now if I had to guess, I'm also going to point out that Snake spent his entire Brawl career on a downward trajectory. And sure, different game, but surprisingly similar character.

"Best character(s)" is a far easier question than "worst character(s)" because it's a less ambiguous question. When people talk about "best character", we all intuitively assume what we are talking about best character as per tourney performance in the exact real-world meta of the very best players. When we talk about "worst character", it's very unclear what exactly we are talking about.

What characters the top 10 players or top 50 players are best with says a lot. What characters they are worst with is pointless trivia. Equally useless is what characters the worst 10 players in the world play.

So it gets treated as this weird nebulous question alluding to some vague/unstated performance metric at some lower level of play presumed by the reader.


Even quantitative, robust data like Das Koopa's is of limited use in this regard. Consider even basic confounders, like how Dr. Mario and Marth are always going to dramatically underperform on these metrics as long as a substitute exists. Or how the Miis are always going to underperform because so many people will just never have interest in them.


The context of our community and competitive events provide an orientation to the question "best character." No such orientation exists for what "worst character" is referring to.

Even "Which character is hardest to place well at in a tournament?" depends on tons of details that demand clarification--what level competition, what meta, what level placing, does 2v2 count, any bracket or a lucky one against no poor matchups, consistently or are one-trick-ponies okay? Ect.

While "Which character is easiest to win a tourney with?" is a mostly consistent question regardless of these details.

 

[Rizen]

On the other hand, there is someone like Isabelle who has one, if not the worst downB and the fishing rod is incredibly easy to avoid, even at lower level play. Her pocket is also rarely of any use: Against a character without any projectile, this move is completely useless. Same could be said about Villager's pocket but his rocket and tree are much better specials.
She can recover but nothing besides of fSmash really kills and that's kinda sad. An occasional gimp with slingshot is possible but also this isn't a good kill move.
Anyway, I think Mac has finally left the spot of being the worst character but he isn't that great, either.

Pocket is one of the best reflector type moves because it lets Isabelle/Villager choose when to release the projectile. They can store a charged shot to kill with and completely remove 's bomb, 's bike and iirc 's gyro from the game.

 

[DelugeFGC]

You can pocket poison cloud at the end of it and whip it back out for mad damage with pocket as it renews in duration.

Pocket is one of the best things about those characters.

 

[Foie]

Ultimate most likely won't have a commonly agreed worst character in the game. Right now if I'd have to guess the worst characters in the game, are most likely the contenders for the very bottom, with characters like encompassing a slightly higher subset of characters outperformed by power creep and marketing trends. Ultimate has an extremely wide pool of mid-tier characters which is kind of incredible, so it gets hard to say at what point characters aren't up to snuff for a lack of trying.

I'd say is definitely in contention for worst character, especially after the buffs to Mac and Bowser Jr. She's definitely a nowhere near the level of &. Outside of a few decent matchups, she has little answer to so many characters. The one thing she has, rest, is the most punishable move in the game and has basically been demoted to a glorified smash attack rather than the game-changing move it was originally designed to be.

Watch dark whizzy just shred apart Hbox with Mario. Double 3-stock. Jiggs can barely play this matchup:

 

[Kiligar]

I’d like to speak more on Olimar after the patch, after facing a few skilled Olimars online. The character is still explosive at close range, his damage output is still amazing, his grab is something I’ve seen used more often as well. His up smash still combos. His recovery is more gimpable, but usually when hitting a character as light as him offstage he dies, so it didn’t seem too different to me. I’d say he’s simply better balanced. In the higher end of high tier I’d say. High tiers that are slightly better than him post patch include ZSS, Ike, and R.O.B. Perhaps Ness as well, but that’s debatable. Olimar is in a good spot, just not a polarizing beast that sometimes fails to punish your own mistakes due to too little end-lag. If other top tiers are slightly toned down like Snake and Inkling, then Olimar will be right at home. There will be no true top tier, and rather two tiers, an upper and a lower tier, if they buff the few remaining low tiers. This would be a great step towards a more balanced Ultimate.

 

[FruitLoop]

I'd say is definitely in contention for worst character, especially after the buffs to Mac and Bowser Jr. She's definitely a nowhere near the level of &. Outside of a few decent matchups, she has little answer to so many characters. The one thing she has, rest, is the most punishable move in the game and has basically been demoted to a glorified smash attack rather than the game-changing move it was originally designed to be.

Watch dark whizzy just shred apart Hbox with Mario. Double 3-stock. Jiggs can barely play this matchup:

First of all, Dark Wizzy is a SIGNIFICANTLY better player than HBox in Smash Ultimate and he basically mastered ladder strings on every character while basically being infamous for having an advantage state so good he can basically 0 to death a lot of people even in high level play making 2-3 stocks from Dark Wizzy not nearly as uncommon as you'd think. This is less of Jiggs being bad and more of Dark Wizzy being that good.

The thing for Jigglypuff is that she actually HAS a gameplan that actually rewards her unlike her previous games. As a bait and punish character she actually has pretty safe aerials that can constantly apply not only shield pressure but it can also be used with her amazing aerial drift to force out hitboxes whilst being able to retreat safely. The changes of pivots also means that the opponent can't always play footsies with Jigglypuff's hitboxes and more often than not it forces the opponent to respect her hitboxes a lot of the time and her decent frame data on her normals means that you can't always just contest her hitboxes with disjoints all the time.

Jigglypuff on hit is actually scary thanks to the fact that edge guarding ACTUALLY matters in Ultimate and she can just throw out whatever hitboxes she needs to basically force the opponent to airdodge which can either lead to rest which can kill the opponent at 50 or a back-air to the face or EVEN a ledge trump if the Jigglypuff player reads the DI. Jigglypuff also has actual kill confirms off of rest now thanks to fast fall up-air and down-air alongside Pound. Pound as a move is also a pretty decent move that can break shields (and is pretty safe on shield), is super disjointed for no reason, can setup into rest, and you can even followup with an aerial to force the opponent to go offstage where Jigglypuff excels with the move having Jigglypuff move forward giving Jigglypuff a great burst option with her evasive playstyle.

Also Jigglypuff's Disadvantage state is suprisingly good thanks to her multiple jumps, pretty good ledge game at disadvantage thanks to her aerial drift + aerial and pound combination, relatively hard to exploit recovery thanks to the nerfing of footstools and jigglypuff's high air speed which can also allow jigglypuff to reverse edge guard suprisingly, and the fact that Jiggs is light and floaty enough to escape a lot of confirms that a lot of characters can't AND since Jigglypuff is small as well.

While I do feel that Jigglypuff struggles against a few top tiers such as Lucina or Cloud who can just bully her around with relatively safe hitboxes and Jigglypuff still might be a little inconsistent here and there with a few of her tools like Rest not killing nearly as well as it should. Jigglypuff actually works as a character unlike the characters below her (Little Mac even after the buffs, Icies, Bayo even after the buffs, Mii Brawler, King K Rool, Kirby, King Dedede, Isabelle, Corrin, Rosalina, Piranha Plant, etc.), Jigglypuff has a gameplan that's not only reliable, but it's a gameplan that can be downright oppressive. Almost every character below her with the exception of maybe Sheik has physically no reliable gameplan that works in a high level setting and has to pray that the opponent plays to their gameplan and rules in order to function. Jigglypuff has the tools to force the opponent to actually play her game and that alone is more than enough to make her at least not Bottom 10 when compared to the chars below her. I just feel that she needs a bit more results for her to kind of start being more relevant.

Also Little Mac is still the worst character in the game unless he's on FD since he's probably high tier on that stage only. Like the F-Tilt buffs were nice and a few of his buffs alongside the jab change does make his advantage state a bit more apparent. However his laughably bad disadvantage state, easy to camp nature (especially on plats), still below average advantage state due to his nickel and diming nature, and really a lack of recovery and neutral making it easy for Mac to end up in disadvantage if you just play lame enough is still more than enough to make him the worst character. Being buffed doesn't guarantee a higher spot and Mac's changes were QoL at best.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Also Little Mac is still the worst character in the game unless he's on FD since he's probably high tier on that stage only. Like the F-Tilt buffs were nice and a few of his buffs alongside the jab change does make his advantage state a bit more apparent. However his laughably bad disadvantage state, easy to camp nature (especially on plats), still below average advantage state due to his nickel and diming nature, and really a lack of recovery and neutral making it easy for Mac to end up in disadvantage if you just play lame enough is still more than enough to make him the worst character. Being buffed doesn't guarantee a higher spot and Mac's changes were QoL at best.

Gaining multiple kill confirms is a bit more than a "QoL buff". Jab 2 combos into grounded Up B, Jab 3 combos into some other things. Dtilt is a noticeably improved poke which puts it above "QoL buff" as well.

QoL Buff are things like making multihit moves less likely to drop the opponent: minor fixes to issues on moves. Little Macs are flat out buffs, no way around it outside of making Ftilt link better (that one was a QoL buff).

 

[NotLiquid]

やばいなこれ　なんでもいいやん pic.twitter.com/SB29Y2ih30

— RC Shuton(しゅーとん) (@syu_tolimar) June 1, 2019

This would be obvious to most, but Olimar's hurtbox now makes him highly susceptible to shield pokes.

In an equally shocking development, Myran is very much not happy about this in the replies.

EDIT: It can actually get shieldstabbed by Ridley's USmash, even at full shield. This is kinda crazy, I'm wondering whether they just neglected his shield or wanted to legitimately make him unsafe at point-blank range. People are gonna have to lab their kill moves on him.

"I'm sorry, little one."

Up smash will whiff an idle Olimar unless he's at the height of his idle. Only hits his back while shielding if you use it before the game spaces you away from him. (So only landing.) pic.twitter.com/y6WLHbJ2Ik

— Paragon | Akashic (@AkashicGaming) June 1, 2019

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I think im my guess. Top and high tier in 3.1.0 will be like this, uordered.

Top-Tier
Upper-High Tier /

High-Tier , also likely .

Its still a bit early to say how much the big winners of the patch will fair. But I also think that all might have potential to reach high tier too at least

Yeah I think the big nerfs to Olimar's overal survivability now may be an issue for him now. He was already light, but now he is both easier to hit and gimp offstage.

 

[FruitLoop]

Gaining multiple kill confirms is a bit more than a "QoL buff". Jab 2 combos into grounded Up B, Jab 3 combos into some other things. Dtilt is a noticeably improved poke which puts it above "QoL buff" as well.

QoL Buff are things like making multihit moves less likely to drop the opponent: minor fixes to issues on moves. Little Macs are flat out buffs, no way around it outside of making Ftilt link better (that one was a QoL buff).

I didn't really realize how big the jab buffs were. I just meant that the buffs to Little Mac don't really fix his main fundamental issues. Having jab combos do sort of make Little Mac a bit less Nickel and Dime-y but as a character Little Mac's struggle is still quite apparent when compared to the rest of the cast.

 

[KakuCP9]

Lucina's fair nerf may seem strange to many competitive players since bair is seen as the problem aerial, but I think this change is similar to the Chrom's aether nerf where the change is meant for more than one level of play. On a casual/lower levels, it's far easier throw out fairs and smack people around compared to bair which requires a certain level of finesse to properly use so they nerfed its kill power so those levels of play, the move would be a little less abusive since most of those players would be at a loss on how deal with her fair.

 

[Krysco]

Haven't had the chance to play with the new patch outside of just going into training but I'm overall happy with it based on the patch notes. I've had it where I go to up smash someone on a platform with Chrom and they end up falling out before the final hit, leaving them just in a tripped state on the platform so hopefully that's been fixed. Not sure if Roy had the same issue since I don't use him as much and I'm pretty sure his usmash has 5 hitboxes compared to Chrom's 3. The usmash buff for the Samus' is nice too since that move has been notorious for having connecting issues although 4 and Ultimate have handled it better than the 3 games prior. Hopefully fair gets made to connect better too eventually. Not sure how I feel about Brawler being floatier, even if only by a bit. It's probably a good thing overall as it should make recovering and edgeguarding easier but it could make combos from landing nair, uair and fair 1 more difficult.

I'm fine with Link being left untouched, kinda wish Falco and Ridley got buffs and I REALLY wish Isabelle would get buffs rather than them just constantly messing around with her fishing rod. Both versions of the move had their ups and downs though I personally preferred the free, easy 2 framing but there's jab and Lloid Trap that need way more attention than her fishing rod.

Speaking of Isabelle, there was a post earlier mentioning some things about her. Like having one of, if not the worst down b? Lloid Trap has issues but I don't think I'd call it the worst down b when you have . Falcon Kick just doesn't seem to mesh well with his kit since on the ground, he'd usually rather just dash and in the air, it's laggy and doesn't bring back his double jump like in Melee. Hand Slap is laggy on the ground and one of four meteors he has access to in the air. Jet Hammer is powerful when charged but takes a while to get there, the charge can't be stored, it slowly damages him and anytime he has the free time to be charging it, he could probably be doing better things like Gordo landing or ledge traps. Stone has long start up and endlag and isn't even that powerful. Bucket, Guardian Orbitars and Gravitational Pull are probably 'better' than Lloid Trap but they're also MU specific while Lloid Trap at least allows for some form of stage control in any MU. Ivy's is a less ridiculous version of Melee and Brawl Sheik's down b since Ultimate Charizard is way better than Melee or Brawl Zelda but still usually less ideal than Ivysaur and then Ridley's is laggy and precise. Lloid Trap does have issues and should honestly be buffed (it has barely any advantages compared to Snake's C4) but it does at least serve a purpose for Isabelle, it's just not the best at fulfilling that purpose. Fishing Rod is the longest ranged grab box in the game which would be noteworthy if it didn't lose to shield and if I'm not mistaken, hitboxes too. It's way better offstage which is why I preferred the older version since all you had to do was space it so the bobber stayed by the edge and you got free, easy 2 frames or the opponent was forced to recover high if they even could. Pocket for both Isabelle and Villager offers invincibility and can be breversed allowing it to be used in disadvantage without sacrificing your air dodge. That's more it offers for non-projectile MUs than the likes of . As for her kill power, not gonna argue that, it is pretty bad.

 

[Foie]

First of all, Dark Wizzy is a SIGNIFICANTLY better player than HBox in Smash Ultimate and he basically mastered ladder strings on every character while basically being infamous for having an advantage state so good he can basically 0 to death a lot of people even in high level play making 2-3 stocks from Dark Wizzy not nearly as uncommon as you'd think. This is less of Jiggs being bad and more of Dark Wizzy being that good.

The thing for Jigglypuff is that she actually HAS a gameplan that actually rewards her unlike her previous games. As a bait and punish character she actually has pretty safe aerials that can constantly apply not only shield pressure but it can also be used with her amazing aerial drift to force out hitboxes whilst being able to retreat safely. The changes of pivots also means that the opponent can't always play footsies with Jigglypuff's hitboxes and more often than not it forces the opponent to respect her hitboxes a lot of the time and her decent frame data on her normals means that you can't always just contest her hitboxes with disjoints all the time.

Jigglypuff on hit is actually scary thanks to the fact that edge guarding ACTUALLY matters in Ultimate and she can just throw out whatever hitboxes she needs to basically force the opponent to airdodge which can either lead to rest which can kill the opponent at 50 or a back-air to the face or EVEN a ledge trump if the Jigglypuff player reads the DI. Jigglypuff also has actual kill confirms off of rest now thanks to fast fall up-air and down-air alongside Pound. Pound as a move is also a pretty decent move that can break shields (and is pretty safe on shield), is super disjointed for no reason, can setup into rest, and you can even followup with an aerial to force the opponent to go offstage where Jigglypuff excels with the move having Jigglypuff move forward giving Jigglypuff a great burst option with her evasive playstyle.

Also Jigglypuff's Disadvantage state is suprisingly good thanks to her multiple jumps, pretty good ledge game at disadvantage thanks to her aerial drift + aerial and pound combination, relatively hard to exploit recovery thanks to the nerfing of footstools and jigglypuff's high air speed which can also allow jigglypuff to reverse edge guard suprisingly, and the fact that Jiggs is light and floaty enough to escape a lot of confirms that a lot of characters can't AND since Jigglypuff is small as well.

While I do feel that Jigglypuff struggles against a few top tiers such as Lucina or Cloud who can just bully her around with relatively safe hitboxes and Jigglypuff still might be a little inconsistent here and there with a few of her tools like Rest not killing nearly as well as it should. Jigglypuff actually works as a character unlike the characters below her (Little Mac even after the buffs, Icies, Bayo even after the buffs, Mii Brawler, King K Rool, Kirby, King Dedede, Isabelle, Corrin, Rosalina, Piranha Plant, etc.), Jigglypuff has a gameplan that's not only reliable, but it's a gameplan that can be downright oppressive. Almost every character below her with the exception of maybe Sheik has physically no reliable gameplan that works in a high level setting and has to pray that the opponent plays to their gameplan and rules in order to function. Jigglypuff has the tools to force the opponent to actually play her game and that alone is more than enough to make her at least not Bottom 10 when compared to the chars below her. I just feel that she needs a bit more results for her to kind of start being more relevant.

Also Little Mac is still the worst character in the game unless he's on FD since he's probably high tier on that stage only. Like the F-Tilt buffs were nice and a few of his buffs alongside the jab change does make his advantage state a bit more apparent. However his laughably bad disadvantage state, easy to camp nature (especially on plats), still below average advantage state due to his nickel and diming nature, and really a lack of recovery and neutral making it easy for Mac to end up in disadvantage if you just play lame enough is still more than enough to make him the worst character. Being buffed doesn't guarantee a higher spot and Mac's changes were QoL at best.

That's all well and good, but can you show me one example of where this theorycrafting has played out outside of online quickplay? Real question, because I've yet to see anything close to an oppressive Puff in high level play.

Many of the characters you placed below her have some actually notable tourney results.

 

[DelugeFGC]

In no world can I call Falcon Kick one of the worst Down-B's, especially since it was just made more active. It kills at high %'s and can be used as a tech chase / mixup in some situations where simply dashing in might not be optimal. You can also chase people off stage with it at the ledge ala Ganon chicanery, which is something people don't tend to expect you to do, especially into something like a deep DAir.

It's straight useless in the air, though. It's not a fantastic Down-B, but it's not 'worst' material either.

 

[Rizen]

I'm fine with Link being left untouched,

Considering how many characters got linking attack fixes, I'm a little disappointed that didn't get more hitstun on their Fsmash1. The problem with their 2 hit Fsmashes is if you don't imediately buffer Fsmash2 opponents can escape the 2nd hit. If you don't want to risk that you have to commit to the laggiest Fsmashes in the game including both parts.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Ranking moves is kinda silly. Like yeah in a vacuum Grav Pull on Rosa seems bad; it's obviously basically strictly inferior to any reflector for instance. However, Rosalina has inherent issues dealing with camping and grav pull is an essential tool to help her mitigate that. It's an important and functional part of her moveset.

Talking about which characters are the worst is also really nebulous because, as Thinkaman said, it's kinda vague, but it's vague on even more levels than he said. So first of all, I know it's tempting to just rush to tournament results. However, just think of the obvious here. How many players can fairly be called truly top level? I don't know the answer, but I do know which number the answer is smaller than and that number is 71. Obviously there will be characters who won't see tournament success even if the game were magically 100% balanced and all characters were truly equal because of this fact. Then consider that players have a strong incentive to explore top characters but there's really no incentive to see who loses harder Jigglypuff or Bowser Jr. if you're a top level player. Honestly in this game, if you move outside of top 10-15, tournament results aren't really giving you meaningful information on their overall placement at this point in the meta (you may see some interesting details as you look at worse players, but you can't really know how much of their worse results relative to top players is driven by their worse talent and not by their worse character), and even after like a decade, you still probably wouldn't have meaningful data about a lot of the bottom half. The reality is that we'll probably never have a data driven approach to calculate stuff like that; you have to just use your intuition to really understand characters after you get to the point.

I would also say you have the polarization question. Little Mac is obviously the "worst" in that he's the worst character to solo main in singles with our current rulesets; he'll run into a lot of bad match-ups where he'll fall behind early and get camped to death on stages he can't handle. However, he's actually legitimately dangerous as a counterpick which someone like Jigglypuff isn't to nearly the same extent. If you have a pocket Mac, you can bully people into never cping FD against you even if your main is terrible on FD, and you can just look for specific playstyles Mac naturally counters and just force those specific players super far outside of their comfort zone. If their strategy was beating you in grounded footsies, you can just 100% force them to stop doing that by picking Mac; that's WAY better as a "sometimes useful" pick than any other low tier could possibly be. But when you try to make a 1d tier list that only ranks best to worst, the nuance of "Jigglypuff is a stronger main than Mac but Mac is a stronger secondary than Jigglypuff" is just impossible to capture.

 

[Game7a1]

Bucket, Guardian Orbitars and Gravitational Pull are probably 'better' than Lloid Trap but they're also MU specific while Lloid Trap at least allows for some form of stage control in any MU.

Just speaking up to say that as long as Bucket Jumping exists, Bucket is not limited to its intended use (meaning its not limited to select MUs). Bucket Jumping allows G&W to mix-up his recovery and landing, and while the former may not be that great of a point, the latter is considering the little amount of landing options he has (D-air, Airdodge, and somewhat Chef and F-air).

 

[meleebrawler]

Haven't had the chance to play with the new patch outside of just going into training but I'm overall happy with it based on the patch notes. I've had it where I go to up smash someone on a platform with Chrom and they end up falling out before the final hit, leaving them just in a tripped state on the platform so hopefully that's been fixed. Not sure if Roy had the same issue since I don't use him as much and I'm pretty sure his usmash has 5 hitboxes compared to Chrom's 3. The usmash buff for the Samus' is nice too since that move has been notorious for having connecting issues although 4 and Ultimate have handled it better than the 3 games prior. Hopefully fair gets made to connect better too eventually. Not sure how I feel about Brawler being floatier, even if only by a bit. It's probably a good thing overall as it should make recovering and edgeguarding easier but it could make combos from landing nair, uair and fair 1 more difficult.

I'm fine with Link being left untouched, kinda wish Falco and Ridley got buffs and I REALLY wish Isabelle would get buffs rather than them just constantly messing around with her fishing rod. Both versions of the move had their ups and downs though I personally preferred the free, easy 2 framing but there's jab and Lloid Trap that need way more attention than her fishing rod.

Speaking of Isabelle, there was a post earlier mentioning some things about her. Like having one of, if not the worst down b? Lloid Trap has issues but I don't think I'd call it the worst down b when you have . Falcon Kick just doesn't seem to mesh well with his kit since on the ground, he'd usually rather just dash and in the air, it's laggy and doesn't bring back his double jump like in Melee. Hand Slap is laggy on the ground and one of four meteors he has access to in the air. Jet Hammer is powerful when charged but takes a while to get there, the charge can't be stored, it slowly damages him and anytime he has the free time to be charging it, he could probably be doing better things like Gordo landing or ledge traps. Stone has long start up and endlag and isn't even that powerful. Bucket, Guardian Orbitars and Gravitational Pull are probably 'better' than Lloid Trap but they're also MU specific while Lloid Trap at least allows for some form of stage control in any MU. Ivy's is a less ridiculous version of Melee and Brawl Sheik's down b since Ultimate Charizard is way better than Melee or Brawl Zelda but still usually less ideal than Ivysaur and then Ridley's is laggy and precise. Lloid Trap does have issues and should honestly be buffed (it has barely any advantages compared to Snake's C4) but it does at least serve a purpose for Isabelle, it's just not the best at fulfilling that purpose. Fishing Rod is the longest ranged grab box in the game which would be noteworthy if it didn't lose to shield and if I'm not mistaken, hitboxes too. It's way better offstage which is why I preferred the older version since all you had to do was space it so the bobber stayed by the edge and you got free, easy 2 frames or the opponent was forced to recover high if they even could. Pocket for both Isabelle and Villager offers invincibility and can be breversed allowing it to be used in disadvantage without sacrificing your air dodge. That's more it offers for non-projectile MUs than the likes of . As for her kill power, not gonna argue that, it is pretty bad.

Stone may not seem that strong at a glance, but it's knockback angle makes it deadly when used to punish overextensions from those juggling Kirby (ie. high in the air), which is the main use of Stone outside of crashing into free-for-all groups.

Guardian Orbitars aren't just good for reflecting, they block normal attacks too, and since you can control yourself while using them in the air it can be used to cover their landings in ambiguous situations, particularly if the opponent likes attacking in tandem with a projectile.

Hand Slap pressures shields and is DK's longest-ranged ground move, like Falcon Kick it's a great option in tech-chases, and it's also good against dash-dance happy opponents since it's not too easy to punish if you just tap it once unless you jump at him preemptively. Air version also actually has the lowest landing lag of all his air moves and can set up nasty combos.

Ivysaur will often have to switch to Charizard to recover, and against some characters he becomes the best way to press the advantage Ivy attains due to his movement speed.

 

[Krysco]

I'm aware the other down specials I mentioned have uses to them, I just find them less useful either in specific MUs or in general compared to Lloid Trap, keeping in mind the other tools each specific character has. Falcon Kick can be used for tech chasing but so can Raptor Boost and just dashing/running. Hand Slap has high range on the ground but is a commitment and again with tech chasing, there are also other options thanks to dashing. The aerial version has 3 other meteors to contend with. Stone can be good in disadvantage but is also laggy enough to be easily punished, either with a grab on the ground or an aerial if the opponent waits for Kirby to come back out. The angle is rather poor if you try to use it offstage and the lag makes it less ideal onstage. I don't use G&W in Ultimate but my recollection of Bucket jumping from Smash 4 was that the first time it halts his momentum and the second use of bucket extends it. That does give it some sort of extra use in non-projectile MUs but it's still niche compared to Lloid Trap. Similar situation with Guardian Orbitars. The Pits are still vulnerable from directly above and below and once they break, you have to wait a bit before you can use them again and like Stone, an opponent can just wait them out or grab if you land with them. Zard has his uses but of the 3 Pokemon Switches, Ivy's is still generally agreed to be the worst one.

Like Amazing Ampharos said, comparing moves in a vacuum is rather pointless anyways. I only brought up other examples since I saw someone claim that Lloid Trap could be the worst down special in the game, which I disagree with. I didn't even bring up any of the counters which are almost entirely dependent on reads unless you use them for edgeguarding recoveries with hitboxes.

Despite my defending of Lloid Trap, I can say that Isabelle is easily a contender for worst character in the game though. Mac may still have crucial flaws but at least when he does get his gameplay going, it's threatening especially with what's been found from the patch. I was already of the opinion that Mii Brawler was better than Isabelle before the patch, ICies have their 'potential' to fall back on, Kirby got some meaningful buffs in the last few patches aside from this newest one and Jr. just got some buffs that could be meaningful too. To me, that leaves Isabelle, King K. Rool and the Plant as rather clearly flawed characters.

 

[Thinkaman]

Gonna keep beating the drum that Mac is heavily underrated on Battlefield. His problem is not platforms, it's platforms he cannot full hop onto. Camping the top platform of Battlefield against Mac is far harder than just the platform on Smashville or PS2 or virtually any other legal stage.

Edit: This should by no means be taken as an endorsement that Mac likes Battlefield or is great on it. I'm just pointing out that it's not FD or bust.

You want a bad Mac stage? Let me introduce you to hazardless Kalos.

 

[Nah]

I wondering about this patch. Anyone know how much later fair and f-smash kill now?.

iirc Lavani said that they kill ~5% later, so not significantly later

 

[$.A.F.]

I’m crying and shaking right now. Us in the #PLANTGANG are all rejoicing. A plant main now has a guaranteed top 64 placement at an S tier. (SCY| Lucky) This is the happiest moment I’ve had in Smash Ultimate.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I've been using Pokemon Switch more often in disadvantage and honestly the "downside" of switching to a losing matchup isn't so bad. With specials and taunts reseting the switch timer, it's not too rough finding yourself back with the character you want.

It's not too uncommon for me to switch to Zard in disadvantage, camp or Flamethrower for a second then switch to Squirtle, then use Water Gun or Withdraw to reset the switch timer again and switch back to Ivy. It might waste a couple seconds but at least the constant switching keeps your opponent on their toes.

 

[Y2Kay]

I don’t know if y’all heard, but Olimar’s shield did not increase in size like his hurtbox. As of right now, Olimar is insanely easy to shield poke.

Olimar’s disadvantage is legitimately bad. Doubt it’ll be in the game for long tho.

 

[NotLiquid]

I don’t know if y’all heard, but Olimar’s shield did not increase in size like his hurtbox. As of right now, Olimar is insanely easy to shield poke.

Olimar’s disadvantage is legitimately bad. Doubt it’ll be in the game for long tho.

I posted some tweets/examples of it up above. Right now certain characters (like Ridley) have Smash attacks large enough that they're actually able to shield poke him at full shield if they attack him before the game shuffles a dashing opponent away from contact range. It is definitely an oversight, but depending on if they feel compelled rush out some of the oversights (I honestly think a patch will depend on if they think ROB's jab is the more pressing issue), some players might want to milk this one for all its worth. He used to be deadly in close quarters but now he's basically looking like he has to play more of a zoning game.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I posted some tweets/examples of it up above. Right now certain characters (like Ridley) have Smash attacks large enough that they're actually able to shield poke him at full shield if they attack him before the game shuffles a dashing opponent away from contact range. It is definitely an oversight, but depending on if they feel compelled rush out some of the oversights (I honestly think a patch will depend on if they think ROB's jab is the more pressing issue), some players might want to milk this one for all its worth. He used to be deadly in close quarters but now he's basically looking like he has to play more of a zoning game.

Hmmmm..allight, this sheildpoke Issue is something Olimar mains can legitametly have beef about.. I mean if they increased the size Pichu's sheild to compensate for his bigger hurtboxes, why did thet not to the same to Olimar? An oversight like mentioned?.

I can see a "3.1.1" patch coming that may fix this along with posibbly R.O.B's pseudo-wobble and other bugs that came with 3.1.0

 

[ShadowTheHedgehogZ]

Hmmmm..allight, this sheildpoke Issue is something Olimar mains can legitametly have beef about.. I mean if they increased the size Pichu's sheild to compensate for his bigger hurtboxes, why did thet not to the same to Olimar? An oversight like mentioned?.

I can see a "3.1.1" patch coming that may fix this along with posibbly R.O.B's pseudo-wobble and other bugs that came with 3.1.0

I doubt they're going to have a 3.1.1 update with E3 so close with the next character(s)

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm not going to jump to praising Bowser Jr, but he's definitely a stronger character

Frustratingly in certain matchups, should you run into a specialist (lol)

 

[ShadowTheHedgehogZ]

I'm not going to jump to praising Bowser Jr, but he's definitely a stronger character

Frustratingly in certain matchups, should you run into a specialist (lol)

What matchups would he be good?

 

[PK Gaming]

What matchups would he be good?

I'm a nobody, so take with a grain of salt but he's surprisingly annoying for Mario.

 

[ShadowTheHedgehogZ]

I'm a nobody, so take with a grain of salt but he's surprisingly annoying for Mario.

You're not a nobody your PK gaming who uses Ness and makes sure people know the meaning of annoying

 

[SwagGuy99]

...with characters like encompassing a slightly higher subset of characters outperformed by power creep and marketing trends...

What is it with people saying Toon Link is a bad character? He's not a horrible character by any means and in my opinion, he hasn't changed enough from Smash 4 (F-smash was his one major change) to be anything lower than a high mid tier character.

And while I could see one arguing that he was changed more than I am implying, it should also be noted that the few nerfs he did receive were trade offs with some buffs he received.

 

[NotLiquid]

.

Toon Link is fine. I'd argue most of the characters mentioned are okay in their own ways. What I am suggesting is that at worst he may be a mediocre character that's relatively upstaged by better versions of the same basic character/concept. In a game that already has such a wide pool of "lower end characters that still manage to be alright", that kind of thing is most likely what's going to determine who gets the short end of the stick - and in fairness Lucas is probably the more emblematic of said thinking. Dr. Mario sorta qualifies but then I'm one of those guys who generally thinks he's slept on.

 

[The_Bookworm]

TLink is lower high/upper mid imo. Has a lot of things going for him. The issue is that pretty much all of his top talent is outside the USA.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Dr. Mario sorta qualifies but then I'm one of those guys who generally thinks he's slept on.

I agree with that. Dr. Mario is a very unique blend of character attributes which means that it's kind of hard to judge where he is on a tier list in comparison to the rest of the cast.

While Dr. Mario does have some things worse than Mario, he does have his fair share of things he does better at.

• While Dr. Mario's offstage options are less safe due to his fragile recovery, his edgeguarding options are better (although more riskier) than Mario.
• Pills are better than fireballs in just about every way possible. More hitstun, more damage, bigger hitbox, can combo into kill moves at high percents, and are good for approaching. Mario's fireballs are kind of like that, but worse and have much less of an effect on Mario's gameplan.
• Dr. Tornado is better than Fludd in most situations.
• Dr. Mario's frame data along with his increased attack power means he is able to get kills much more easily and it means Dr. Mario can kill heavy characters much easier.
• Dr. Mario's reward off of getting a grab at low and high percents is better than Mario as his down-throw combos better at lower percents than Mario's and becuase at high percents, Down-throw can lead into his kill moves and because back throw kills at under 100% at the ledge. Mario has better followups out of up-throw at mid percents though which can lead to ladder combos.

Edit: Grammer

 

[Nidtendofreak]

In light of Leon absolutely crushing Cosmos...

Has Bowser normally been considered a bad MU for Inkling? Like even with some sub-optimal play on Cosmos' part that was just brutal. Leon didn't lose a stock for how long again? Sheesh.