Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

On that note, could someone explain to me why most seem to believe Corrin is in a whole other tier above Pit when it seems to me Pit has slightly better results and perhaps even representation?
Cause I have a hard time seeing Pit/Corrin being that far away from each other in the tier list, especially with Pit being lower.

Pit and Corrin both have rather minimal reps and results. The former is due to how basic/boring of a character he is (as well as Lucina existing and Earth currently not existing). The latter is mostly due to her entire playerbase abandoning the character after the nerfs she got from SSB4 to Ultimate (also the fact that Ike is pretty much better in every way).

The reason why some may see as Corrin as higher is due to her still possessing some decently large hitboxes, as well as how less "gimmicky/fair" Pit is in comparison. However, I oftentimes found that to the reason alone why some people think Corrin is better than Pit, which I found sort of silly, especially considering Pit's much better disadvantage and his decent combo game.

 

[AndrewtheAmericanDude]

I think Pit's a mid tier who could maybe get decent results if a very skilled player pushed him but that's unlikely because not a lot of people are entertained by his kit. I think his floatiness combined with the rest is part of it.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

Since he’s been mentioned a couple of times, what is the consensus on Greninja at the moment?

My worry for Greninja right now is his lack of results at the very top level. He’s 11th on OrionStats but displays symptoms of Ness Syndrome given his strong results at regional level with very little to show for it on a national level outside of Japan. Even there, Lea is the only Greninja regularly making top 8 and he still isn’t winning stuff. Greninja has some great individual wins (Lea over VoiD, Stroder over Tweek, Venia over Light) but struggles to get those wins at the necessary consistency to achieve meaningful national results.

Dabuz and Leo both dabble in the character but won’t commit to maining him and Leo jumping on Joker, a fundamentally similar character, is disheartening. Dabuz has gone as far as to call Joker a better version of Greninja which I think is completely false, but still shows how he and other top players view the frog - ultimately not worth the effort. But is it really the effort turning players away from Greninja, or are his fundamental flaws as a character genuinely too great to overcome at top level?

From a matchup perspective Greninja’s spread is amazing. The only MUs he’s commonly agreed to lose are Pikachu, Snake and sometimes Inkling, and results against Snake have been improving drastically with Stroder beating Salem at the charity tournament and Loaf forcing Broadway off of Snake just last weekend at SNS5. Pika and Inkling are very winnable as well with most games/sets with those characters still being close.

I would love to see the extent of Greninja’s potential by seeing him piloted by a tip top player at the level of Tweek, Nairo, Dabuz, or even a level lower like Shoyo James. Stroder and JW have been doing well but haven’t quite reached these heights. Venia has serious potential but rarely, if ever, travels.

I’m struggling to get a genuine feel for Greninja’s tier placement. In practice he’s a high high tier, with an argument for low top, but I feel like he’s capable of even better.

I think that, even more so than in previous games, top level representation will be an issue when discussing tier placement. Simply put, there are far more characters in this game than players who can consistently reach top 8 in super majors. Sure, the cream rises to the top, but amazing characters such as Greninja still being underrepresented at top level is, for me, not an indication that Greninja can't consistently reach top 8 at majors, but that there's still more "cream" than top players.

Top level results are a useful indication that a character can perform well, but we run the risk of overmphasizing such results simply because the numbers don't match. We have gotten to the point where it is perfectly plausible that the whole top tier in the game may not be represented by top 20 players and therefore not perform well at top level, until someone like MKLeo pulls the character out in bracket and everyone runs to readjust their personal tier lists.

 

[Rizen]

But it's kinda surprising he put Ganon that low but I can absolutely agree with that. Yes, he's frightening and fSmash is huge but what else does this character have besides the lingering nAir? Nothing, really. Even the recovery is bad. I think the hype about Ganon is finally gone now.

Ganon's better as a player CP character than a solo character. If you notice the opponent has a habit you can kill them at 60% with little attention to spacing. He's like a sword character even without his sword due to his large limbs. I agree with you, Ganon's not great but he has a niche and is easy to play so he'll keep some relevance.

 

[LightKnight]

I think Pit's a mid tier who could maybe get decent results if a very skilled player pushed him but that's unlikely because not a lot of people are entertained by his kit. I think his floatiness combined with the rest is part of it.

I agree he's somewhere within the sphere of mid-tier.
I think eventually we'll get a couple Pit players who rise to the occasion. Waiting for Earth (from Japan) to make his return, supposedly he's staying away from the competitive scene while involved in the development of the game's balance.
Yeah, I suppose most people don't like that floatiness on most characters. I personally don't get it as I find it fun but I suppose I most enjoy a lot of the uncommonly used characters like haha

I think that, even more so than in previous games, top level representation will be an issue when discussing tier placement. Simply put, there are far more characters in this game than players who can consistently reach top 8 in super majors. Sure, the cream rises to the top, but amazing characters such as Greninja still being underrepresented at top level is, for me, not an indication that Greninja can't consistently reach top 8 at majors, but that there's still more "cream" than top players.
Top level results are a useful indication that a character can perform well, but we run the risk of overmphasizing such results simply because the numbers don't match. We have gotten to the point where it is perfectly plausible that the whole top tier in the game may not be represented by top 20 players and therefore not perform well at top level, until someone like MKLeo pulls the character out in bracket and everyone runs to readjust their personal tier lists.

Wholeheartedly agree with you. More than ever, people are likely just gonna have to focus on who they enjoy playing and if they need to supplement that with any other characters. Come to think of it, I think MU charts for individual characters will be far more helpful and sought after by people in making their character choices when it comes to looking at tiers.
Overall, makes me very excited for the future of this game's meta. Hopefully people aren't too stuck in the past and can adapt in how they look at the game.

 

[Lacrimosa]

On that note, could someone explain to me why most seem to believe Corrin is in a whole other tier above Pit when it seems to me Pit has slightly better results and representation?
Cause I have a hard time seeing Pit/Corrin being that far away from each other in the tier list, especially with Pit being lower.

I have no real idea.
Corrin feels super sluggish in this game. Not just slow in terms of movement (I know what slow movement looks like with Zelda). But given she's a sword character, her move feel really slow. I don't know if that's true framedata-wise but Sm4sh Corrin felt like a complete different beast. It's not even fun using her in this game, but maybe I just relied to much on her Pin in Sm4sh. Then her projectile gets "deleted" by nearly every other projectile or hitbox. That projectile of hers is so awful in this game. Pit's arrows do look better and can be aimed or are pretty strong. And am I wrong or does Corrin really struggle to kill?
Never played Pit, though. But Corrin doesn't feel good to play anymore :/. That's probably also why Samsora put her at the end of B-tier, although I can imagine Luigi and Falcon being actually better.

 

[LightKnight]

I have no real idea.
Corrin feels super sluggish in this game. Not just slow in terms of movement (I know what slow movement looks like with Zelda). But given she's a sword character, her move feel really slow. I don't know if that's true framedata-wise but Sm4sh Corrin felt like a complete different beast. It's not even fun using her in this game, but maybe I just relied to much on her Pin in Sm4sh. Then her projectile gets "deleted" by nearly every other projectile or hitbox. That projectile of hers is so awful in this game. Pit's arrows do look better and can be aimed or are pretty strong. And am I wrong or does Corrin really struggle to kill?
Never played Pit, though. But Corrin doesn't feel good to play anymore :/. That's probably also why Samsora put her at the end of B-tier, although I can imagine Luigi and Falcon being actually better.

Well thanks for the reply and input.
I'd definitely have to agree with you. I also found Corrin to be much more mobile, responsive, and explosive in 4. I haven't had enough time with the character nor really know what the pros are thinking about Corrin's kill power but its possible its lacking in some areas like forward smash-(tipper) and down-smash. As someone who plays Pit a lot and more than Corrin I'll say the Pits feel soooo much better to play in this game than 4. In comparison to Corrin in this game I'd say the Pits feel better to play as well.
Obviously Corrin could use a lot of quality of life changes but I'd kinda also like to see Corrin do significantly more shield damage with their several pin attacks to be that real threat in mid-range where Corrin seems to like playing. It'd sure help that side-B for example which could make it that threat on the ground it should probably be.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Well thanks for the reply and input.
I'd definitely have to agree with you. I also found Corrin to be much more mobile, responsive, and explosive in 4. I haven't had enough time with the character nor really know what the pros are thinking about Corrin's kill power but its possible its lacking in some areas like forward smash-(tipper) and down-smash. As someone who plays Pit a lot and more than Corrin I'll say the Pits feel soooo much better to play in this game than 4. In comparison to Corrin I'd say the Pits feel better to play as well.
Obviously Corrin could use a lot of quality of life changes but I'd kinda also like to see Corrin do significantly more shield damage with their several pin attacks to be that real threat in mid-range where Corrin seems to like playing. It'd sure help that side-B for example which could make it that threat on the ground it should probably be.

I just want pin to be a faster (doesn't have to be SSB4 fast) and not have a jank hitbox (I've seen instances where the hitbox would whiff on pinned opponents because the opponent is put in a grounded state before it happens).

I also wish they would give her recovery move the Diddy 3.1.0 treatment, and essentially revert it to how it is like in SSB4. They are simply quite a bit of nerfs on Corrin in this game that is simply uncalled for.

 

[LightKnight]

I just want pin to be a faster (doesn't have to be SSB4 fast) and not have a jank hitbox (I've seen instances where the hitbox would whiff on pinned opponents because the opponent is put in a grounded state before it happens).

I also wish they would give her recovery move the Diddy 3.1.0 treatment, and essentially revert it to how it is like in SSB4. They are simply quite a bit of nerfs on Corrin in this game that is simply uncalled for.

Definitely agree with pin consistency and aerial drift. Makes no sense to me (visually) why the move shouldn't have the drift afterwords.

I understand how most would want side-B to be faster but I kinda like the idea of it being a slower move with more power. Thats the direction they were taking the overall character after they were released but for some reason I guess they thought Corrin had too much power transitioning into Ultimate.
Doing a lot more shield damage, while a bit niche compared to speed increase, I believe would help solidify Corrin as a grounded powerful mid-range fighter that requires careful planning and execution. Kinda like a more campy take on Marth's aggressive spacing. Though Corrin still needs to properly be able to deal with pressure with aerials, jab, and tilts which might require some small touch-ups.
Oh, and I forgot how Corrin lost their shield-break potential with the nerf to projectiles. A shield damage increase to the dragon fang would be appreciated as well.

 

[Nobie]

I think Mac is the most fashionable character to hate on. He's hard to compare to others though, because how sensitive he is to stage and rules. I know I'm beating two dead horse at once here--that it's hard to define "worst", and that stages matter a lot to Mac--but unless you have both drilled into your head you'll fall for the memetic evaluation.

Mac on his worst legal stages is definitely the worst character in the game. Mac on FD is definitely not the worst character in the game.

How you combine those two simultaneous realities into a holistic opinion on the character involves a great deal of subjectivity.

(This was always true in Smash 4, but the difference is bigger now because far more stages bad for Mac are legal.)


I would sooner say that "the worst character" at 99th percentile play is Kirby, Bowser Jr, Mii Gunner, or K. Rool. I think there's a floor to how bad Isabelle can be due to just having slingshot, and Pocket doesn't hurt either. Plant and Mii Brawler also have a few tools that hedge them a bit.

I watched Mr. L's K. Rool grand finals, and it left me impressed with Mr. L and unimpressed with the character. His opponent was falling for a number of K. Rool gimmicks that we would not expect to see play out at higher tiers of play. Like, these are both good players, but no one is going to be taking MKLeo stocks with K. Rool platform d-smashes.

Still, the speed, armor, and kill threat K. Rool has is a functional package. He's like DK with a focus on gimmicks, which isn't terrible. I suspect that he really dislikes Joker though. (Slow projectiles are Rebel Guard fodder, dair can't 2-frame the tether, slippery to execute hard reads on, vulnerable to his projectiles + reflect not really an option, hard to grab.)


Edit: I am willing to bet that the biggest bois (+ Incin) prefer Pichu to Pikachu. It probably takes around 2 fewer hard reads to kill Pichu: 1 because he's lighter, 1 because of self-damage. Pikachu can harass slowpokes all day, Pichu can't necessarily. And the more damage Pichu has to build on an opponent, the more of a drawback that self-damage is.

What if Little Mac (and only Little Mac) was allowed to counterpick Wii Fit Studio

 

[Nah]

I have no real idea.
Corrin feels super sluggish in this game. Not just slow in terms of movement (I know what slow movement looks like with Zelda). But given she's a sword character, her move feel really slow. I don't know if that's true framedata-wise but Sm4sh Corrin felt like a complete different beast. It's not even fun using her in this game, but maybe I just relied to much on her Pin in Sm4sh. Then her projectile gets "deleted" by nearly every other projectile or hitbox. That projectile of hers is so awful in this game. Pit's arrows do look better and can be aimed or are pretty strong. And am I wrong or does Corrin really struggle to kill?
Never played Pit, though. But Corrin doesn't feel good to play anymore :/. That's probably also why Samsora put her at the end of B-tier, although I can imagine Luigi and Falcon being actually better.

Corrin wasn’t particularly mobile in 4 either, but it happened to matter a bit less in that one. Frame data for the most part isn’t all that slow, it’s pretty much in line with other swordie moves: (can’t look at it rn though). They did make fair slower though.

Waterball also would vanish against most attacks in 4 as well, the main problem with it now in ultimate is how it doesn’t link into anything anymore (from a practical standpoint).

I’d actually rather that they not really buff pin, nerfing it was a good thing so the character is no longer overcentralized around it, but every other direct nerf to the character was uncalled for. Probably not gonna see any buffs anytime soon, given that they just gave the character changes in 3.0

 

[williamsga555]

The only real drawback of Corrin's frame data compared to other swordies is the lack of a grounded poke. Her dtilt is just barely a bit too committal to function that way, and her ftilt doesn't have the same reward as the others to justify the startup. In 4 this mattered less because pin was so busted that half the cast couldn't punish it if spaced correctly, but that's no longer the case in Ultimate.

As a result, I'm not sure what Corrin is meant to do against shielding in Ultimate. Her reward off of grab is still pitiful, and the lack of a true poke means she can't really pressure shield with anything safely either, right? Would like for Corrin players to chip in with their ideas, as I'm genuinely curious as to what she should do to overcome this.

 

[Nitroz]

I NEED HELP. Been playing ultimate a fair amount recently and have been getting better but not good enough. I’ve played all the smashes a little but always was a Xbox person. I’ve been trying to get better and was playing zerosuit b/c I used him the most in the last smash. I’ve been putting in a lot of time with mega man against cpus and play pretty well but then i get worked in the online play.
I’ve also used Palutena a little and played a few games with Ike against my brother.
Need some tips and opinions if I should ditch mega man. My brothers friend (stupid good at smash) said mega man is really technical and said not for me to main him.


HELP!

 

[Djmarcus44]

I think Mac is the most fashionable character to hate on. He's hard to compare to others though, because how sensitive he is to stage and rules. I know I'm beating two dead horse at once here--that it's hard to define "worst", and that stages matter a lot to Mac--but unless you have both drilled into your head you'll fall for the memetic evaluation.

Mac on his worst legal stages is definitely the worst character in the game. Mac on FD is definitely not the worst character in the game.

How you combine those two simultaneous realities into a holistic opinion on the character involves a great deal of subjectivity.

(This was always true in Smash 4, but the difference is bigger now because far more stages bad for Mac are legal.)


I would sooner say that "the worst character" at 99th percentile play is Kirby, Bowser Jr, Mii Gunner, or K. Rool. I think there's a floor to how bad Isabelle can be due to just having slingshot, and Pocket doesn't hurt either. Plant and Mii Brawler also have a few tools that hedge them a bit.

I watched Mr. L's K. Rool grand finals, and it left me impressed with Mr. L and unimpressed with the character. His opponent was falling for a number of K. Rool gimmicks that we would not expect to see play out at higher tiers of play. Like, these are both good players, but no one is going to be taking MKLeo stocks with K. Rool platform d-smashes.

Still, the speed, armor, and kill threat K. Rool has is a functional package. He's like DK with a focus on gimmicks, which isn't terrible. I suspect that he really dislikes Joker though. (Slow projectiles are Rebel Guard fodder, dair can't 2-frame the tether, slippery to execute hard reads on, vulnerable to his projectiles + reflect not really an option, hard to grab.)


Edit: I am willing to bet that the biggest bois (+ Incin) prefer Pichu to Pikachu. It probably takes around 2 fewer hard reads to kill Pichu: 1 because he's lighter, 1 because of self-damage. Pikachu can harass slowpokes all day, Pichu can't necessarily. And the more damage Pichu has to build on an opponent, the more of a drawback that self-damage is.

Can you explain your reasons for claiming that Gunner is in contention for worst in the game?

Spoiler: Gunner's metagame state

The character has a strong neutral and great damage output. With multiple kill confirms and good kill power, killing has become a player issue rather than a character issue. Gunner's biggest weakness is in disadvantage, but our recovery has a decent amount of mixups with arm rocket. Gundashing along with Gunner's projectiles help with landing and recovering, and arm rocket has only 14 frames of landing lag which makes it usable for a high recovery mixup.

Gunner has also gotten some high level results. Ai! used Gunner as a secondary for 33rd at Momocon. In addition, SaSSy got 17th at Dreamhack using Gunner and ROB. Protom consistently places well at Xeno tournaments, and has beaten Frozen in a set. While I haven't heard too much recently about ikep participating in tournaments since he got 65th at Umebura Japan Major, he is currently ranked 80th in Japan. Pokecheese (25th at GOML) picked up Gunner as a secondary.

In my opinion, Gunner is slept on because most of the information about the character is in the discord. A decent amount of good Gunner results don't get counted by either this site or other sites that track results. The character has consistent play in local tournaments with some appearances at high level tournaments. This is a link to the Gunner discord. https://discordapp.com/invite/7CdEzy9

 

[DelugeFGC]

Mii Gunner's neutral, kill options and overall counterpick potential leaves them in a spot far above what I would consider even low tier, let alone the bottom tier. Isabelle, Kirby or Bowser Jr. are the top 3 contenders atm I'd say, hell they may all share an equal tier placement, just call the three of them collectively the bottom tier slot.

 

[Kiligar]

Mii Gunner is not the worst in the game. That's simply not plausible. The neutral of Mii Gunner is great, and that Up-Aerial is maximum jank. As for Corrin being better than Pit, that's gotta be a joke. I can reasonably guess that the majority of the players on this forum haven't used either character significantly, and as someone who secondaried Corrin after patch 3.0.0 before my original secondary in Rosalina got buffed in 3.1.0, Pit is better than Corrin, and significantly so. Pit has an easier time in the neutral, much better recovery, better disadvantage, and while Pit can struggle o kill, Corrin has the same issue outside of Up-Air, which is usually a month stale by the time kill percent comes around. The people who consider Corrin above Pit are uninformed, basing their opinions off of biases returning from sm4sh. Pit is not the same character as sm4sh, his traction has been drastically changed, his arrows are easier to control, his aerials combo much more consistently and have received buffs to killpower, and his tilts are more reliable. Neither is Corrin, who has gotten worse. You may think Pit's mid tier, and you have reasons you may believe so, but Corrin being above Pit is simply comical.

 

[Y2Kay]

Stroder is maining joker now, according to his Twitter. He didnt say it was due to the frog being bad, but just that he only enjoys playing as joker.

I wouldn’t read into this too much. This is the same guy who swore he wouldn’t main Greninja when smash Ultimate came out. He has a pattern of dropping Greninja every once in a while in smash 4.

I’m not gonna elaborate rn, but yeah, I still think Greninja is busted. The fear Dash attack instills in opponents during neutral is something very few others can replicate. He’s most definitely solo viable. I still get a little annoyed he consistently gets placed under neath characters like toon link and shulk so consistently.

But for whatever reason, most of the smash community convinced themselves that Greninja is too hard for them to play. So Greninja continues to be piloted by a small group of players.

Almost all the Greninja players who perform with this character are wet behind the ears, so to speak. None of them I know have experience past smash 4. Stroder, Venia, and JW are definitely promising young talents, but are not nearly as experienced as someone like Ally, Tweek, or even Leo or Void. But they collectively already have wins like Tweek, MKLeo, Light, ESAM, and James under their belts I doubt they’ll need too much more time.

I’ll elaborate more on Greninja tomorrow, if y’all want.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I wouldn’t read into this too much. This is the same guy who swore he wouldn’t main Greninja when smash Ultimate came out. He has a pattern of dropping Greninja every once in a while in smash 4.

I’m not gonna elaborate rn, but yeah, I still think Greninja is busted. The fear Dash attack instills in opponents during neutral is something very few others can replicate. He’s most definitely solo viable. I still get a little annoyed he consistently gets placed under neath characters like toon link and shulk so consistently.

But for whatever reason, most of the smash community convinced themselves that Greninja is too hard for them to play. So Greninja continues to be piloted by a small group of players.

Almost all the Greninja players who perform with this character are wet behind the ears, so to speak. None of them I know have experience past smash 4. Stroder, Venia, and JW are definitely promising young talents, but are not nearly as experienced as someone like Ally, Tweek, or even Leo or Void. But they collectively already have wins like Tweek, MKLeo, Light, ESAM, and James under their belts I doubt they’ll need too much more time.

I’ll elaborate more on Greninja tomorrow, if y’all want.

People put Greninja lower than Toon Link? I mean I know some people still subscribe to the urban legend of Shulk being top tier in the right hands, but TL..? Greninja is easily High Tier + if not outright Top Tier (which is the one I'd hedge on) and has a ton of potential.

He has an extremely safe and oppressive neutral, doesn't care if the match gets slowed down by campier strategies (can actually benefit from this), has bread and butter combos and kill confirms for days on top of potential for freeform stuff, LolUSmash, as you said that dash attack is crazy (mainly due to the rewards you get from landing it, and it's a pretty damned safe dash attack that's easy to bait people into getting hit by) and he has a counter that can literally lead offstage into edgeguards or chase down projectile throwers from across the stage. FAir is also a thing, as are dragdown UAir into jab lock situations that can lead to all sorts of chicanery.. not to mention how good things like shadow sneak are for edge guarding and his dash / pivot grab. He also has two tilts that set up combos / confirms and another that works as a decent grounded poke tool, last resort tech chase option and a high % stock finisher. Also jab is pretty nice as a get off me tool and beats out lots of other options in many MU's up close because of how fast it comes out.. his rapid jab can also rack up a ton of damage if you catch someone with it at the ledge. I can't really think of anything bad about this character except maybe his DAir.. but honestly that move has good things about it too.

Toon Link is what I'd call a mid tier, imo, you can argue a little on that but placing Greninja below a character like him is crazy. The Frog is mad threatening. He has an amazing neutral, pressure of all kinds, bread and butter stuff across the board with a fire advantage state, his disadvantage state is not bad at all, his edge guarding is strong and he can even get some ledge trapping going. He's an extremely well rounded character with hella powerful options to seal the deal, how anyone could not view him as a top tier candidate is beyond me. The only downside I can see to Greninja for some is that he seems like he has a high skill floor and isn't a character anybody can just pick up. He feels unwieldy as hell at first, but once you get comfortable with him he's a monster.

 

[Routa]

Speaking of Gunner and Swordspider. I remember AEM mentioning that he thinks that Swordspider is just a better Gunner and now I can see why. Both do play at the same distance, deal with similiar characters and have problems against rushdown.
Main advantage that Swordspider has is better grounded coverage. His dtilt is one of the best one out there (I would argue it to be THE Dtilt in the game) due to safety, speed, range and ability to combo. He has actually usable Jab (rip Sm4sh Gunner Jab and Swordspider jab1 and jab2 mixups) unlike Gunner who should use dtilt or utilt in thous situations. Utilt that covers the whole character with decent range that setups for combos (dash -> turnaround utilt is uh ah). Swordspider just outclasses the guy on paper.
Now I'm not saying that Gunner doesn't have some advantages over Swordspider (better raw killoptions and superior trapping), but if you want to cp with a zoner then Swordspider is better option on paper.
As for Miis in general I would say that they are all average overall. They all have some things going for themselves against different top and high tiers, but they are at their best when they are used as cp characters. I do think that Swordspider's Gale Strike is a bit overhyped and is relatively easy to deal with if you know what to do.

edit: I just realized that my phone still autocorrects Swordfighter into Swordspider heh. Also feel free to correct me AEM. I know you are watching you stalky stalker.

 

[bc1910]

Gunner’s ledge trapping is monstrous with the grenade custom. Sit back, press B, react to shielding or jumps. It’s completely brainless. I still believe grenade is the best neutral B due to its strength and uniqueness; if you’re using charge shot you might as well use Samus since her kit and mobility complement it better. I have seen Gunners use charge shot well though, in fairness.

Unfortunately Gunner’s disadvantage state is non-existent and the same can be said for advantage outside ledge trapping. The shieldstun projectile nerfs significantly weakened Gunner’s neutral, which was an outright oppressive gamestate against most of the cast before.

Gunner has a niche in having good matchups against certain meta characters like Snake with the proper custom load out. He’s not viable as a solo main, but he’s an interesting character to have in your pocket. I’d argue his overall competitive value is higher than characters like Plant or Kirby.

Toon Link is what I'd call a mid tier, imo, you can argue a little on that but placing Greninja below a character like him is crazy. The Frog is mad threatening. He has an amazing neutral, pressure of all kinds, bread and butter stuff across the board with a fire advantage state, his disadvantage state is not bad at all, his edge guarding is strong and he can even get some ledge trapping going. He's an extremely well rounded character with hella powerful options to seal the deal, how anyone could not view him as a top tier candidate is beyond me. The only downside I can see to Greninja for some is that he seems like he has a high skill floor and isn't a character anybody can just pick up. He feels unwieldy as hell at first, but once you get comfortable with him he's a monster.

It’s unfortunate that in Greninja’s case it’s his weaknesses, rather than his strengths, which are subtle.

The major known weakness of Greninja’s bad OOS is a bit of a myth since his shield escape options are excellent and most characters cannot lock him down in the first place. He has the second best rolls, fast dash/run speed and the second highest jumps as well as a fast moving Up B, a counter that sends him flying across the screen and even a gimmicky teleport. If he wants to escape the corner he’s better equipped than any other character bar maybe ZSS. His jumps are especially crazy since most characters can’t jump high enough to hit him without overcommitting. This was true in Smash 4 and the way to deal with it was to punish his landings but this is significantly harder to do considering his lower aerial landing lag, better hitboxes and more varied airdodging options. His OOS punish game is certainly poor, but he’s clearly built as a whiff punisher and you can’t have it all in a character.

The weaknesses I find myself lamenting are more nuanced. Primarily his options to deal with shield, whilst good on paper (good projectile, fast character, decent throws) often don’t work too well in practice without grinding the match to a standstill. This has a lot to do with his awful grab, particularly dash grab, and that alone being faster would solidify his top tier position for me. Overall he can struggle to open up defensive opponents.

Again, on paper, his kill options are good. He has strong smashes, a safe killing Fair and multiple kill confirms whilst having the mobility to put his kill moves to use. Sadly his weaknesses against shield make it difficult to land them and he has an annoying amount of startup on his kill options outside Dtilt and kinda Dsmash. He has moderately strong kill throws but again these are locked behind his awful grabs.

Other stuff includes startup on his aerials combined with a high short hop which limits his short hop options. The high hop and slow grab also make tomahawking less viable. Greninja has either low startup or low ending lag on his moves but very rarely both. His recovery is also deceptively easy to 2 frame if he’s forced to recover from angles where he can’t headbonk.

This isn’t meant to come across as complaining, I think the character is great and leagues better than he was in Smash 4. This is in the context of Greninja as a borderline high/top tier; he is much better at dealing with shield and killing than many characters below him for example. I’m just outlining some weaknesses you pick up after getting to know a character well, which I feel might hold him back from the cream of the crop.

These are all weaknesses which I have observed in high level Greninja play as well as my own gameplay. None of them are crippling though and for my own part I’m sure many of them are exacerbated by my weaknesses as a player. I’m planning to make a conscious effort to incorporate more grabs into my gameplay once I’m able to play regularly again, which I think could alleviate a lot of these issues.

 

[Gérard Majax]

Yeah about bowser Jr being worst in the game, I was already extremely dubious about it before the patch and now I just can't see it at all. Kart dash now has 50 billions speed, which makes his approach WAY better while making it harder to react to. Also kart spin is frame 3, kills consistently at 140 and is pretty much safe on shield if done properly. Utilt buffs gives him an other way to start 50+% strings at low %, and up-b hammer now having a more consistent hitbox makes it hella threatening as an advantage tool (recovering high can be extremely dangerous against jr) and makes stuff like up b explosion -> up b hammer doable (this kills at 60 btw).

He isn't a secret high tier or anything and some matchups remain pretty rough (although again, kart dash is bonkers), but I feel he is a way more complete character than puff (who loses horribly to any kind of disjoints) or isabelle (if you get the lead against isabelle you win, she just has 0 tools to deal with shield). Not going into details here because I've done that too much times and he still isn't really relevant in the metagame, but I really think people have overall 0 ideas what the character does and randomly throw him bottom 5 because he was garbage in s4 and is supposedly a gimmick character.
Except his gimmicks are actually relevant because thanks to kart dash (+ the fact that canonball and mech can cover approaches) you cannot just camp him and avoid everything like you can against plant or isa. Heck even shield can be risky sometimes, as canon ball and kart spin do a lot of shield damage, and uthrow has guaranteed follow ups until 70.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I also think Greninja is a Top Tier, yet a unexplored one. He definitely had the results that Shulk is lacking, and had been consistently doing well against Top Tiers from the get go- whilst keeping his moveset unchanged by patches. So that’s a big plus. He just seems to suffer from the Ness-syndrome, being that he had all the results but people just refuse to take the character seriously because of their status in Smash 4 (where Greninja was also Top Tier before the nerfs). Yet unlike Ness, Greninja has the actual means to be a Top Tier.

We just gotta accept at this point that people will cling to the easier to use Top Tiers, and unless more complex characters get the same results as the current Top Tiers, I don’t really expect any changes in this.

Maybe Ryu and Ken can show a little difference now with their buffs, but other than that, and outside of characters who’ve previously been Top Tier become meta-viable again (Sheik, Diddy, Mewtwo, Marth, Meta Knight, Falco etc) I’m not really seeing it. This is why Pichu is also way more explored than Pikachu for example.

Isn’t iStudying playing Ultimate? I bet he could do some wonders with Ultimate Greninja.

 

[Terotrous]

On that note, could someone explain to me why most seem to believe Corrin is in a whole other tier above Pit when it seems to me Pit has slightly better results and representation?
Cause I have a hard time seeing Pit/Corrin being that far away from each other in the tier list, especially with Pit being lower.

I definitely feel that of the two, Pit is significantly better. I've been saying for a while that I think Corrin is one of the worst characters in the game, maybe not bottom tier but certainly low tier. She has one good move, which is neutral air, everything else about her is very underwhelming, especially her kill power, which is atrocious.

Pit, on the other hand, does not struggle to kill at all. His FSmash is actually secretly a super good move (it's frame 10, 6 frames faster than Joker FSmash), and has good kill power, and he also has solid edgeguards and such with arrows and multiple jumps, so he never struggles to kill, and his neutral is at least all right. I agree that nothing about him stands out super much but I certainly think he's far more solid than Corrin, who always feels like a struggle to play.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

I definitely feel that of the two, Pit is significantly better. I've been saying for a while that I think Corrin is one of the worst characters in the game, maybe not bottom tier but certainly low tier. She has one good move, which is neutral air, everything else about her is very underwhelming, especially her kill power, which is atrocious.

Pit, on the other hand, does not struggle to kill at all. His FSmash is actually secretly a super good move (it's frame 10, 6 frames faster than Joker FSmash), and has good kill power, and he also has solid edgeguards and such with arrows and multiple jumps, so he never struggles to kill, and his neutral is at least all right. I agree that nothing about him stands out super much but I certainly think he's far more solid than Corrin, who always feels like a struggle to play.

Full-release Corrin is one of the biggest disappointments for me, coming from Smash 4 and the demo for Ultimate. It almost feels like they forgot the game engine is different when they balanced them. Nothing they do works the way it looks like it should, and having to nickel-and-dime with sword-character frame-data is gross and feels bad. If I let a friend borrow this game and gave them only Corrin to play for the first hour, I'm pretty syre they'd tell me this is the worst Smash game simply because nothing flows.

 

[williamsga555]

I think it's a touch disingenuous to claim nair as Corrin's only good move, personally. Bair is huge and meaty, up air is low-key a nutty disjoint, up smash doesn't get enough respect in Ultimate (the extra horizontal range given since 4 is non-trivial!), and pin is still excellent (though significantly worse than before, granted, but pin was dumb in 4). She's got a lot of mediocrity in her blood, but she's not without some solid moves here-and-there.
----------
One character I'm really uncertain about in Ultimate is Jigglypuff. She doesn't get a lot of exposure and often gets lumped around the mid-tier void, but I'll be honest in admitting I don't really have a good grasp on how effective she is in Ultimate. She's unquestionably a better functioning character, but I'm not sure what the consensus is on how the engine/mechanics changes affect her; as far as I can tell, the new game is a whole lot of "yeah, but..." statements for her.

• The airdodge limitations allow her to harass offstage much more effectively, but they also harm one of her most-used neutral strategies in 4 (airdodge+weaving as a bait-and-punish tool) and also harm her disadvantage state (she falls too slowly to make good use of an airdodge as committal as Ultimate's compared to 4)
• The weakened OOS options across the cast means she can pressure with aerials more safely, but the improved ground speed and options out of dash harm her aerial approach game while providing almost no tangible benefit for herself

I'd really like for some Puff players to chime in and let me know if I've got mechanics impressions wrong for her and how they feel about her place in the meta. At the moment, she still seems to be a likely candidate for worst-in-the-cast for 1v1 rulesets -not because she's a broken, disfunctional character, but rather because everything else improved around her at similar rates (i.e. "My moveset works now, but everyone else got these great quality-of-life mechanics that I can't play with too?"). I could be way off, but I'm really curious about how others are perceiving her right now.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I also think Greninja is a Top Tier, yet a unexplored one. He definitely had the results that Shulk is lacking, and had been consistently doing well against Top Tiers from the get go- whilst keeping his moveset unchanged by patches. So that’s a big plus. He just seems to suffer from the Ness-syndrome, being that he had all the results but people just refuse to take the character seriously because of their status in Smash 4 (where Greninja was also Top Tier before the nerfs). Yet unlike Ness, Greninja has the actual means to be a Top Tier.

We just gotta accept at this point that people will cling to the easier to use Top Tiers, and unless more complex characters get the same results as the current Top Tiers, I don’t really expect any changes in this.

Maybe Ryu and Ken can show a little difference now with their buffs, but other than that, and outside of characters who’ve previously been Top Tier become meta-viable again (Sheik, Diddy, Mewtwo, Marth, Meta Knight, Falco etc) I’m not really seeing it. This is why Pichu is also way more explored than Pikachu for example.

Isn’t iStudying playing Ultimate? I bet he could do some wonders with Ultimate Greninja.

Istudying will be at Albion which is in exactly one month (6th-7th July).

 

[Terotrous]

I think it's a touch disingenuous to claim nair as Corrin's only good move, personally. Bair is huge and meaty, up air is low-key a nutty disjoint, up smash doesn't get enough respect in Ultimate (the extra horizontal range given since 4 is non-trivial!), and pin is still excellent (though significantly worse than before, granted, but pin was dumb in 4). She's got a lot of mediocrity in her blood, but she's not without some solid moves here-and-there.

I feel like all of those moves are at best okay. Back Air in particular seems to have less than average range? It certainly seems to go quite a bit less far compared to anyone who has a "backwards kick" type move (ie Snake, Samus, ZSS, Bayo, Jiggs, Sonic, etc). It also never kills when I expect it to, which is kind of a big deal because usually your back air is intended to be one of your better kill moves.

I would also put FTilt on the list of okay moves. Really, I don't think the problem is so much in Corrin's hitbox design or frame data, but rather her reward on hit being too low. If basically everything she did killed you like 20-30% earlier I think she'd be fine.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Mii Gunner's neutral, kill options and overall counterpick potential leaves them in a spot far above what I would consider even low tier, let alone the bottom tier. Isabelle, Kirby or Bowser Jr. are the top 3 contenders atm I'd say, hell they may all share an equal tier placement, just call the three of them collectively the bottom tier slot.

It's probably Isabelle. The other two have enough redeeming qualities to probably be low tier rather than bottom tier. Isabelle has hardly any redeeming qualities. She has f-air and b-air and her recovery and that's it.

 

[DunnoBro]

It's probably Isabelle. The other two have enough redeeming qualities to probably be low tier rather than bottom tier. Isabelle has hardly any redeeming qualities. She has f-air and b-air and her recovery and that's it.

I think Isabelle's the safe bet.

While she may not be the TRUE worst, which can never be efficiently proven beyond a shadow of doubt; She does lack the most reason.

A lot of the other candidates either have powerful niches (Kirby, Jigglypuff) or are just super easy to use (K. Rool, Little Mac)

Isabelle isn't particularly hard to use(though still not easy, either), and while it could be argued she has a 2-framing niche with Fishing rod... Villager's fsmash does it way better in most matchups. And his landing, and neutral options with Lloid are also superior.

Fishing rod is lower commitment, and retains more stage control. But the fact Villager can just steal stocks at the ledge (And also feint edgeguards) just kinda overshadows her 'consistency' niche.

Plus Lloid rocket just makes Villager's neutral, and disadvantage SO much better. Isabelle's landings and even her ledge returns are easier to catch due to the lack of it.

I honestly have no clue how they could ever fix this issue of hers either, except by increasing the potency of these already awkward and potentially salt-inducing moves if they were ever 'good'.

 

[Thinkaman]

I could buy that Gunner's (objectively bottom tier) tournament performance is heavily influenced by substitution effects and anti-Mii preferences. I can also believe Gunner enjoys/suffers from Mac-like matchup polarization--a lesser degree but still notably more than most characters. But the hard numbers still suggest that this character has both rock-bottom usage and proportional results.

Contrast with Ice Climbers, who has almost as low usage yet nearly 8x the results according to OrionRank. (Of course, the same arguments can be made against Little Mac and Kirby.)



As for Corrin, I honestly see a lot of substitution effects going on. The biggest nerf to Corrin was the landing lag decrease on Ike's nair. But Corrin is no Dr. Mario! (Doc at least significantly outperforms his very low usage, while Corrin has Gunner-level results.)



Isabelle has higher tournament performance than anyone discussed here, albeit still low. And despite being a new character, she isn't being used much so it's not like this is just a function of popularity. Seriously, it's possible to be an almost-functioning character with just slingshot + good ledge trapping. Pocket is great, Rod gets underrated, her recovery is exploitable but at least has the freedom of distance.

The real tragedy with Isabelle is how her down-b is super underwhelming when it's so close to being super awesome.

Make no mistake: when it works it works! Trap into Rod is like 40% ez. And for all the ways it's worse than C4, the proxity aspect of it makes it a ledgetrap tool anyone would love to have.

But the laments are enumerable: The detonation detection and initial hitbox are too small, it can be (easily) destroyed, Isabelle has to do a full animation from neutral to activate it (unlike say Duck Hunt can, which can be shot during other attacks, grabs, or while you are grabbed), it lasts a very short amount of time, it is usually unsafe to plant in the neutral, it can't be used in the air, it doesn't hit below platforms... I think you'd create a monster if you "fixed" all of these, but as it stands the moves utility is too limited.

 

[blackghost]

greninja fall off in interest and perception can be tracked to joker's release. we saw a similar effect in smash 4 with cloud release vs other sword users. If theres a new character that is both more fun (subjective measurement) and more effective (objective measurement) both kinds of players (competitive top level and mid level and below) will be drawn to that character.

when characters are super unique and dont have overlap they dont experience this kind of drop off. ken, shulk, bayo, snake, olimar these characters have dedicated , mains in every game to push their metagames because they offer unique gameplay.

while its wrong to say joker is a greninja clone or wannabe he does objectively fit in to the category of fast, light, frame data strong, combo character, with a strong air game greninja, shiek, and joker all fit into this bubble. joker is just objectively the best one in almost any measure i can think of. if and when joker hype dies down greninja may make a return.

 

[Rizen]

I think Isabelle's the safe bet.

While she may not be the TRUE worst, which can never be efficiently proven beyond a shadow of doubt; She does lack the most reason.

A lot of the other candidates either have powerful niches (Kirby, Jigglypuff) or are just super easy to use (K. Rool, Little Mac)

Isabelle isn't particularly hard to use(though still not easy, either), and while it could be argued she has a 2-framing niche with Fishing rod... Villager's fsmash does it way better in most matchups. And his landing, and neutral options with Lloid are also superior.

Fishing rod is lower commitment, and retains more stage control. But the fact Villager can just steal stocks at the ledge (And also feint edgeguards) just kinda overshadows her 'consistency' niche.

Plus Lloid rocket just makes Villager's neutral, and disadvantage SO much better. Isabelle's landings and even her ledge returns are easier to catch due to the lack of it.

I honestly have no clue how they could ever fix this issue of hers either, except by increasing the potency of these already awkward and potentially salt-inducing moves if they were ever 'good'.

I'd argue K.Rool's one of the harder characters to use due to managing spacing and positioning for belly armor. Ganon's easy to use.

Isabelle's mine should have it's duration increased; that move doesn't stay long at all. Make it easier to catch opponents too. Other than that give her neutral attacks a little more power. She's not a threatening character.

 

[|RK|]

Joker in particular further highlights the weaknesses of Isabelle (and copy-less Kirby).

They're not even the same archetype, but Isabelle's strength - like Joker's - work best when her opponent has to approach her.

Her smash attacks, her traps, so on. But in the end, Isabelle has no ways to force her opponents to approach, and no way to keep them from just shielding. She can't close distance quickly, her grab is incredibly slow, she doesn't fall so fast as to be a fastfaller, she can't safely pressure shield (in a way that scares her opponent out of it), so on.

Her projectiles aren't unreactable... yeah.

Honestly, more than the mine, if you gave her something that made her opponents have to get out of shield (e.g. more shield damage to fair and bair without a change in kb/damage), she could be a threat. Faster grab, too maybe.

That's all she needs though, imo.

 

[Thinkaman]

Her smash attacks, her traps, so on. But in the end, Isabelle has no ways to force her opponents to approach, and no way to keep them from just shielding. She can't close distance quickly, her grab is incredibly slow, she doesn't fall so fast as to be a fastfaller, she can't safely pressure shield (in a way that scares her opponent out of it), so on.

Her projectiles aren't unreactable... yeah.

Honestly, more than the mine, if you gave her something that made her opponents have to get out of shield (e.g. more shield damage to fair and bair without a change in kb/damage), she could be a threat. Faster grab, too maybe.

Right; Villager was able to work well in large part because of Lloid Rocket as an approach and harassment suppliment to slingshot, as well as enabler to his otherwise poor grab.

But for tools to force people to approach, you could still do a lot worse than just slingshot.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I'm gonna talk about Ganon , because I recently dropped the character entirely from my list of secondaries and just wanted to come by and say everyone who was bad-mouthing him was.. correct. This used to be a character I'd switch to sometimes and manage to just, run through the remainder of a set like a powerhouse.. but now? Ganon just feels like a handicap and every time I switch to him I regret it after.

Yes, Ganon kills you off of a handful of interactions or a couple of reads. Yes, Ganon has Smash attacks that reach like 1/4 of FD and can kill stupid early. Yes, Ganon has some mixups and combo potential that do at the very least give him SOME potential.

None of that saves him from the fact he's a big lumbering anchor with a 'please combo me to 80% in one string' sign taped to his back moving across the stage at the speed of a geriatric tortoise with the frame data of an aging power lifter to boot. Every time I die to a Ganon F/USmash now I can't help but feel like it's just because I was bad at the game for a second, not because those moves are inherently 'good' or anything. Yes, as I said, tons of range and power.. but the speed? The speed? Lol.. These have pretty much no way to combo into them or confirm them consistently, at least not that I could find. If you get hit by these, it's because you got read / walked into it, that's pretty much the only reason unless you got parry-punished into DSmash at the ledge or something but again that doesn't always work. This isn't even getting into the issues like how he's a free edge guard and loses HARD to zoning / projectiles / range of any kind on a character. Fighting against a Ness/Lucas as Ganon is an exercise in both patience and masochism.

Ganon wins by one virtue, your opponent doing poorly and making mistakes. The second you get up into higher tiered characters Ganon is an uphill struggle to use. His gimmicks such as Wizard's Foot torpedos down into overly-aggressive jugglers and Ganoncides are the type of thing that only work once if EVEN once, and if you find yourself landing lots of kills with FSmash / USmash do note it's not Ganon doing well, it's usually more the other player doing badly. I don't say that in an attempt to throw shade at anyone who has lost to a Ganon, lord knows I've lost to the old man my fair share of times too, but as this meta has aged he's only suffered.

I just cannot see the meta being kind to him going forward, I only see things getting worse for him. His damage output and such is enough to assure he never drops to low tier, but I do see the character being confined to the lower echelons or mid-tier for the rest of his Ultimate career now. I know I'm not saying anything that's like, news, to some people.. but I still see people defending Ganon at times (up until recently, I was one of them) and after some recent experiences switching to him at a weekly I've made the decision to drop him for good. Patience destroys Ganon, as does tight play and my god is his MU spread in the higher tiers just abysmal.

 

[Untouch]

Villager has some great matchups against certain characters because the tree and lloid allow him to camp and shut down projectiles, mixed with pocket taking away really important tools.
Isabelle losing both just make her a minor pest, she can't camp reliably and gets shut down by anyone who knows what they're doing.

Villager feels designed in a very specific way, and they got rid of that design with Isabelle while giving her nothing really reliable in return.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Routa Gunner's jab is better than the Smash 4 version. The Smash 4 version has some issues connecting against floaty characters. Gunner's new jab is safer, and it can force techs at low percents for charge blast follow ups. Also, Gunner's projectiles are better for keeping the opponent away. Gunner's projectile options can cover more area

bc1910 Obviously, we aren't playing the same character. Moveset jokes aside, Gunner definitely has a advantage outside of ledge trapping. Up tilt is great for catching the opponent's landing, and up air can beat out almost any downward move when spaced properly. Up smash has good coverage above Gunner. Up tilt and up air can be used to follow up into each other for kills. Forward smash lasts longer than airdodges. These tools make Gunner good at trapping landings.

I have already addressed that Gunner has a good amount of options in disadvantage for landing and recovery. I have also stated how Gunner's charge blast can be better in advantage (Gunner's shorter height helps charge blast among other moves when compared to Samus).

While grenades are worse for killing than charge blast, the move still confirms into missile/stealth burst at kill percents. Up throw to uair frame traps most of the cast at kill percents.

 

[DJ3DS]

One character I'm really uncertain about in Ultimate is Jigglypuff. She doesn't get a lot of exposure and often gets lumped around the mid-tier void, but I'll be honest in admitting I don't really have a good grasp on how effective she is in Ultimate. She's unquestionably a better functioning character, but I'm not sure what the consensus is on how the engine/mechanics changes affect her; as far as I can tell, the new game is a whole lot of "yeah, but..." statements for her.

• The airdodge limitations allow her to harass offstage much more effectively, but they also harm one of her most-used neutral strategies in 4 (airdodge+weaving as a bait-and-punish tool) and also harm her disadvantage state (she falls too slowly to make good use of an airdodge as committal as Ultimate's compared to 4)
• The weakened OOS options across the cast means she can pressure with aerials more safely, but the improved ground speed and options out of dash harm her aerial approach game while providing almost no tangible benefit for herself

I'd really like for some Puff players to chime in and let me know if I've got mechanics impressions wrong for her and how they feel about her place in the meta. At the moment, she still seems to be a likely candidate for worst-in-the-cast for 1v1 rulesets -not because she's a broken, disfunctional character, but rather because everything else improved around her at similar rates (i.e. "My moveset works now, but everyone else got these great quality-of-life mechanics that I can't play with too?"). I could be way off, but I'm really curious about how others are perceiving her right now.

Puff is sadly terrible in 1v1. There are several reasons but there are a few that really stand out to me whenever I play her:

- difficulty dealing with shield: Puff doesn't scare players in shield unless they're already damaged enough for side b to break it. She doesn't have any measurable reward off of grab whatsoever (honestly possibly the worst on the game) and so an opponent is incredibly free to just shield. Compare to melee where she had grab followups into rest on the fastfallers and the difference is night and day.

- edgeguarding is hard: Puff doesn't and never has liked the strengthening of recoveries. Her lack of vertical movement combines with this and her relatively stubby range to make it very difficult for her to successfully edgeguard many characters. This feeds into the next point...

- killing as Puff is also hard. You pretty much have three options outside of edgeguarding; f-smash (but God forbid you miss), back air and dash attack. Landing any of these against a defensive opponent is a struggle, and you can forget Rest. She has some cool setups into it (such as from landing upair) but they are incredibly difficult to land against conscientious opponents.

- she sucks at trading due to her lightweight. If you hit someone with fair or Nair at low percents, they're probably hitting you back and it's gonna hurt you a lot more.

It's really difficult to say a matchup I think Puff would legitimately win. I believe she loses badly to swordies because she can't deal with their disjoints, and I think she struggles with heavies because they have similar range alongside superior damage and kill power. CQC characters just outframe her, and zoners just exacerbate her already noticeable difficulties approaching. I love Puff, but I honestly think there's no merit playing her currently.

 

[Rizen]

I really don't know what low tier looks like after the last 2 patches. A lot of buffs were thrown around. Top tier is a similar story except from nerfs. IMO Pichu's fallen down to high tier and might even be worse than YL now. Wolf got a few wrist smacks but those add up. How many minor nerfs before a character sees real performance issues? There's a good case for Snake to be number 1 now. Maybe Ryu and Ken will end up in high or even top tier I really don't know. We may have to define low and top tier as closer to middle and high tiers while still keeping characters like Olimar and Peach in top tier. Before there was a noticeable power gap between them. Whatever the case one things for sure: the tier landscape has been shaken by patches.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Puff is sadly terrible in 1v1. There are several reasons but there are a few that really stand out to me whenever I play her:

- difficulty dealing with shield: Puff doesn't scare players in shield unless they're already damaged enough for side b to break it. She doesn't have any measurable reward off of grab whatsoever (honestly possibly the worst on the game) and so an opponent is incredibly free to just shield. Compare to melee where she had grab followups into rest on the fastfallers and the difference is night and day.

- edgeguarding is hard: Puff doesn't and never has liked the strengthening of recoveries. Her lack of vertical movement combines with this and her relatively stubby range to make it very difficult for her to successfully edgeguard many characters. This feeds into the next point...

- killing as Puff is also hard. You pretty much have three options outside of edgeguarding; f-smash (but God forbid you miss), back air and dash attack. Landing any of these against a defensive opponent is a struggle, and you can forget Rest. She has some cool setups into it (such as from landing upair) but they are incredibly difficult to land against conscientious opponents.

- she sucks at trading due to her lightweight. If you hit someone with fair or Nair at low percents, they're probably hitting you back and it's gonna hurt you a lot more.

It's really difficult to say a matchup I think Puff would legitimately win. I believe she loses badly to swordies because she can't deal with their disjoints, and I think she struggles with heavies because they have similar range alongside superior damage and kill power. CQC characters just outframe her, and zoners just exacerbate her already noticeable difficulties approaching. I love Puff, but I honestly think there's no merit playing her currently.

I think the biggest insult on Puff is rest. As you said, going for it is a nightmare, the hitbox on the move whiffs when I swear it shouldn't and its kill power has been gutted to the point where going for it is rarely worth the risk that comes from whiffing (which on Puff is a big RIP past 20-30%) and since she's no longer able to get more reliable confirms into it such as UThrow > Rest she's left with landing reads on platforms, lullaby confirms and etc. These are NOT good ways to get in a rest, and the reward you do get is just.. almost sad. The amount of times I've had people survive rest only to fall back down and punish me.. well I've lost count. This move has no kill power compared to the Melee version, it genuinely makes me sad to see the state rest is in now.

Pound does good shield damage, but as you said, not enough to be a truly threatening option to break shields with. Her throws aren't the 'worst' in the game but they're down there for sure, I'd still put a character like Cloud's throws as lower reward than hers though. Now that characters can consistently recover and MANY characters have access to reliable projectiles and spacing options, the basic premise of Puff's gameplan is sundered. There's definite good things about this character for sure, but her holes are so massive it dooms her.

One of my best friends and long time practice partners is a Puff main, or was, carrying over from Melee. Never have I seen character loyalty slowly break a man like I have with Puff on him, he finally switched to Falco after an experience at a local left him in a state of flabbergasted depression. Puff is a strong candidate for bottom 5 imo.