Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rizen]

Regardless of if 's OP or not, he gets Aresene too easily. Aresene should be a reward for smart use of rebel's guard not something you get 20% meter of for dying.

 

[BlackInk]

Regardless of if 's OP or not, he gets Aresene too easily. Aresene should be a reward for smart use of rebel's guard not something you get 20% meter of for dying.

That gimmick isn’t even the most bs in the game and it has some severe weaknesses that ironically help to balance out Joker. Arsene may be good but its recovery is bad.

 

[Idon]

That gimmick isn’t even the most bs in the game and it has some severe weaknesses that ironically help to balance out Joker. Arsene may be good but its recovery is bad.

You mean the directional invincible flight that lets Joker go even farther offstage?
Sure, it can be two framed, but most characters would kill to have a recovery like that.
It's not something I'd call a """"severe weakness"""" like you make it out to be.

The fact that a mostly invincible recovery is the ONLY "worse" thing about being in Arsene is pretty telling about how hard you have to reach to justify Joker's "weaknesses" especially in a mode that grants him bigger hitboxes, more damage, more combos and kill confirms, insanely potent kill power,and on top of that changes the properties of some of his already GREAT moves.

"Gimmick even isn't the most bs in the game" my ****ing ass.

 

[Anomika]

So about Joker getting a part of his gauge back when he's KOd... unfortunately I don't think this part is going to get nerfed so he doesn't get any gauge back (but maybe they could still potentially reduce the gain, just not fully), because of in-game tips mentioning it (I think I saw it being mentioned in Help > Techniques yesterday), and I doubt Ninco would completely remove that option. Nerf it somewhat? Could happen. Nerf so that he doesn't get anything? Very unlikely.

 

[BitBitio]

6.1.0.
I'll bet it'll bring minor balance changes to some characters, maybe tweak a hitbox or two, nothing crazy. It will fix the big freeze glitch, bring back Brawler Fair AC, and fix Olimar's shield.
Calling it now.

 

[Kokiden]

Everywhere I go, there's always something about nerfing Joker... good does not mean broken. Just because most of the cast aren't great, dragging down a good character doesn't make them better.

Anyway, I'm hoping it will be more buffs. Bayonetta buffs would be great but I highly doubt they'll be touching her at all.

 

[Rhus]

Everywhere I go, there's always something about nerfing Joker... good does not mean broken. Just because most of the cast aren't great, dragging down a good character doesn't make them better.

Anyway, I'm hoping it will be more buffs. Bayonetta buffs would be great but I highly doubt they'll be touching her at all.

I think most people's issue stems from the way the Rebel Gauge charges.

While fighting Joker, you are punished for winning against him because hitting him charges Arsene's gauge, and even without Rebel Guard, it charges fast enough that your consecutive successful neutral exchanges means he suddenly is allowed to stuff all your hitboxes with gigantic new ones, and his traps and neutral are suddenly a bunch more dangerous and hard to deal with. It's a bad mechanic because it discourages you from hitting him, which is literally the premise of the game. This mechanic is also prevalent with Cloud, Lucario, and Mac, but I think Joker's is particularly obnoxious, though I don't like any of them.

The reason why Joker's is so frustrating to play against and even watch is that there's no real counterplay to Arsene. In many ways, Mac and Cloud telegraph their gameplay after their resources are ready to go - and you can bet once theirs starts to run out they're going to burn it. Joker's does not have this telegraphing - he is simply a much better character while it's active. Lucario's is a bad mechanic too, but at least Lucario's frame data means using his aura means he has to risk dying as he has to be at critical percentage while it's most effective.

Joker has far too many easy kill confirms (with and without Arsene) to have a comeback mechanic like he does - especially when Arsene lacks all windows of interesting counterplay, and honestly just boils down to "run away until Arsene is gone."

 

[NeonNote]

Everywhere I go, there's always something about nerfing Joker... good does not mean broken. Just because most of the cast aren't great, dragging down a good character doesn't make them better.

Anyway, I'm hoping it will be more buffs. Bayonetta buffs would be great but I highly doubt they'll be touching her at all.

Peach wasn’t broken and she had to get nerfed. I feel he’s getting a pass just because he’s DLC. I don’t really care either way what happens to him, but some of his stuff does need to be toned down IMO.

 

[bc1910]

I’m calling bug fix patch. Remember that bugs can have a substantial effect on gameplay and replays work by simply replaying inputs in the current build. A big bug such as the Terry/ICs glitch getting fixed would be more than enough to break replays. I’d be shocked to see balance changes so soon after Terry’s release, I wouldn’t bother getting the wish lists out.

At any rate, if they do ever bother to address the top tiers then I don’t see campy Joker getting touched. Gun camping isn’t going to be what’s skewing his win rate in Elite Smash (if that’s even the case), Arsene and/or meter mechanic nerfs will almost certainly come first.

Barely any characters have been killed by a Smash patch ever.

At best, you could argue that were significantly altered but the later two were degenerate af prior to their patching. And all three still remained solid.

Patch hysteria is way overblown

Greninja absolutely was killed by his initial nerfs. He went from winning tournaments in Japan to being entirely competitively irrelevant.

He was only (somewhat) viable by the end of the game’s lifespan because of the changes to shieldstun, nerfs to his worst MUs, a surprisingly good MU spread against DLC and, most importantly, receipt of significant buffs on three separate occasions. There were a lot of changes to him and around him which helped him stay relevant near the end but he certainly zombie’d through the greater part of Smash 4’s life. He was killed and revived, not simply “altered”.

The balance team seem to have learned from their mistakes with Ultimate nerfs thus far but let’s not pretend they never made those mistakes in the first place.

 

[DunnoBro]

So about Joker getting a part of his gauge back when he's KOd... unfortunately I don't think this part is going to get nerfed so he doesn't get any gauge back (but maybe they could still potentially reduce the gain, just not fully), because of in-game tips mentioning it (I think I saw it being mentioned in Help > Techniques yesterday), and I doubt Ninco would completely remove that option. Nerf it somewhat? Could happen. Nerf so that he doesn't get anything? Very unlikely.

He doesn't actually get any back. He just gets a set 20% for every stock after the first. So even if he had 0% when he died, he'd get 20% on a new stock.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I think most people (Reasonable ones) who actually compete and use critical thinking (Read: not Twitch Chat/Your average r/smashbros user). Don’t find Joker overall to be ridiculous just a touch bit overturned. I wouldn’t say Aresen has no counterplay, the Joker’s will play differently with it active than without it active. With Aresen you’ll see more of a “passive aggressive” approach to maximize profit off Aresen time, where as default Joker can play more slower, zone, look for grab combos to open up offense. When your at higher percentages you’ll see more attempts to nuke you with Aresen boosted smashes and bair whereas default Joker will still try these things but maybe need to resort more on a edge guard or setup to kill off as he doesn’t have quite the same raw power.

In adjusting how you play to that change in styles your actively counterplaying, same way you’d retreat to a high place when Mac gets KO Punch just not as profound. A lot of people don’t care for comeback mechanics, I don’t blame them they can be hard to implement correctly without feeling like your being punished for doing what your supposed to be doing. With the case of the other three characters with comeback mechanics, despite them not being liked often you have Mac who has effective (if boring) counterplay and Mac isn’t good, Cloud who has a short timer and is fairly obvious to read which limit move he’s going to use which makes counterplaying it a lot easier, plus you can throw him off stage and reliably force him to burn it on recovery and Lucario who honestly isn’t threatening until he actually gets his damage up which then he’s at risk because he’s at higher percentages.

With Joker the character doesn’t really need any comeback mechanics. He’s a really good character without them. Much like S4 Cloud who didn’t need limit, Joker is perfectly capable without Aresen and so making it so easy to obtain understandable draws ire.

 

[AxelVDP]

Peach wasn’t broken and she had to get nerfed. I feel he’s getting a pass just because he’s DLC. I don’t really care either way what happens to him, but some of his stuff does need to be toned down IMO.

Or maybe, just MAYBE, they are not touching him because he's relatively new and there's not enough of a reason to tone him down at the moment from their point of view? The first step towards making mistakes is taking rash decisions.
This "DLC=overtuned/broken" thing has become a meme at this point imo. Plant is actually slightly undertuned, Banjo is fine, Hero is ""stupid"" but far from being amazing/good, Joker is great and arguably slightly overtuned, Terry looks solid but not in a "wtf this character is too good compared to the others" kinda way.
Do you notice a trend in these statements? No? Me neither. I really fail to see how the development team is biased towards DLC characters, at least in Ultimate.
Even in Smash4, I'd argue that Bayo and Cloud were more of "unlucky accidents" that were not toned down due to the game nearing the end of its life cycle rather than characters purposely overtuned to be better than everyone. But this here might just be me being overly confident in them.
Also, reminder that the game has to be balanced around multiple modes and (important) multiple skill levels of the players. It's not a straightforward process.

edit: this post is not directly targeted at you, it's more like an answer to a common mindset I see online

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Meant to throw this in my post, but speaking of Joker, Leo released his most recent Joker MU chart. Definitely thinks the character is one of the best

https://images.app.goo.gl/czQrRRX999gzkykW6

 

[SwagGuy99]

That gimmick isn’t even the most bs in the game and it has some severe weaknesses that ironically help to balance out Joker. Arsene may be good but its recovery is bad.

I'm of the camp that the most BS (gimmicky) comeback mechanic in the game that isn't rage (which is universal and not that bad when compared to Smash 4) is 's aura.

Where get their movement or a few moves buffed, or a (few) new flashy powerful KO option, they all have a time limit (except ) and their moves aren't nearly as rewarding or polarizing as 's aura.

It's funny too. Nobody ever talks about when bringing up the worst designed characters in the game when it's clear that a character who gets rewarded to the degree that does for getting hit is very poorly designed. Not to mention that most of the time he can never even reach max aura because he's not even a heavyweight anymore like Smash 4. But when he does, you die at 40%.

Is it more balanced than Smash 4? Yes, but it's still total BS and it punishes 's opponent for damaging him even worse than the other characters mentioned.

Meant to throw this in my post, but speaking of Joker, Leo released his most recent Joker MU chart. Definitely thinks the character is one of the best

https://images.app.goo.gl/czQrRRX999gzkykW6

Speaking of MU charts, some top players have made some recently that I haven't seen posted here (Not doing every one, just the notable ones). Found them here.

Dabuz
Maister
MKLeo
MKLeo
T
Pandarian
RFang
Zaki, Peli

Edit: Maybe it's just me but some of these MU Charts have some questionable placements.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I have a theory about patch 6.1.0.

Yesterday, we received the news of patch 6.1.0 coming in "a few days". What also comes in a few days? Pokemon Sword/Shield.

This patch, aside from fixing the freeze glitch and maybe more balance changes, are probably also bringing Pokemon SwSh content to Smash Bros., most likely a bunch of spirits (like with Link's Awakening).

So if my theory is correct, this patch was planned and inevitably going to come on Thursday this week, regardless of any sudden bug fixes and/or any last-minute adjustments to the game's balance.

 

[Billy Scrammer]

I'm of the camp that the most BS (gimmicky) comeback mechanic in the game that isn't rage (which is universal and not that bad when compared to Smash 4) is 's aura.

I’ll be honest, I think every single comeback mechanic in this game barring the toned down rage mechanic is absolute poorly designed BS. In other games the universal comeback mechanic comes in the form of getting more meter for taking hits vs. dishing out damage and facilitates a comeback via intelligent management of your resources. In Smash Bros. there is no universal meter mechanic outside of rage and the characters who have unique comeback mechanics have some really wacky and varied traits inherent in their system.

And on the topic of comparing the concept of comeback mechanics in other games to Ultimate,,, , and all get way more reward off their comeback mechanics than what you’ll see from pretty much any other fighting game character. The nature of Smash’s K.O system means that most of the time smash characters will be living longer than FG characters because they lack a health bar, and the absence of a corner makes the disadvantage state extremely unthreatening compared to other games.

I understand Nintendo isn’t used to actually balancing a fighting game like other companies who have more experience in the matter, but I really hope in the future smash Bros. Introduces a meter bar or very seriously alters characters’ unique comeback mechanics going forward.

 

[NotLiquid]

Speaking of MU charts, some top players have made some recently that I haven't seen posted here (Not doing every one, just the notable ones). Found them here.

Dabuz
Maister
MKLeo
MKLeo
T
Pandarian
RFang
Zaki, Peli

Edit: Maybe it's just me but some of these MU Charts have some questionable placements.

Maister's MU chart feels like a fever dream. That isn't the MU spread of a top 15, that's the MU spread of a top 5, especially when only two of those "slight disadvantage" MUs, arguably three, are ubiquitous in competitive play.

I can't argue on whether it's accurate or not (I've had to eat crow multiple times regarding the character) but it's legitimately wild.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

https://www.nintendo.com/consumer/network/en_na/network_status.jsp

So it seems that the original statement for the 6.1.0 Patch has been taken down and there is planned server maintenance this evening. Its looking like the patch is dropping today

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

I've actually abstained from saying anything about Joker due to still learning to get a grasp of the matchup, but it sounds that a reasonable nerf would be to his Rebel Guard meter without killing the character which is what worries me (I'll probably pick up Joker in the near future so I can learn to deal against him).

That aside, I don't really have a problem with any of the other comeback mechanics in Smash. While some may have issues with their implementation, I wouldn't say that they are poorly designed (although I agree with what was said about Joker and Arsene) and from the devs' perspective they probably don't see anything wrong with them and don't have any intentions to change it in the near future. And frankly, I don't disagree with them.

 

[Arthur97]

I'm of the camp that the most BS (gimmicky) comeback mechanic in the game that isn't rage (which is universal and not that bad when compared to Smash 4) is 's aura.

Where get their movement or a few moves buffed, or a (few) new flashy powerful KO option, they all have a time limit (except ) and their moves aren't nearly as rewarding or polarizing as 's aura.

It's funny too. Nobody ever talks about when bringing up the worst designed characters in the game when it's clear that a character who gets rewarded to the degree that does for getting hit is very poorly designed. Not to mention that most of the time he can never even reach max aura because he's not even a heavyweight anymore like Smash 4. But when he does, you die at 40%.

Is it more balanced than Smash 4? Yes, but it's still total BS and it punishes 's opponent for damaging him even worse than the other characters mentioned.


Speaking of MU charts, some top players have made some recently that I haven't seen posted here (Not doing every one, just the notable ones). Found them here.

Dabuz
Maister
MKLeo
MKLeo
T
Pandarian
RFang
Zaki, Peli

Edit: Maybe it's just me but some of these MU Charts have some questionable placements.

I mean, Aresene's time limit doesn't seem all that limiting. Though, Terry's not having a time limit or anything like that does irk me a bit.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Peach wasn’t broken and she had to get nerfed. I feel he’s getting a pass just because he’s DLC. I don’t really care either way what happens to him, but some of his stuff does need to be toned down IMO.

I only really lurk here as I don't know **** most of the time and use this as a thread to learn about stuff but didn't Peach outright bypass the shorthop damage reduction? Floating doesn't count as shorthopping so Peach could float close to the ground and use aerials without the reduction literally every other character has to deal with, she 'broke the rules' of the game so her aerials getting nerfed was very much justified in that regard. For her other nerfs, I got nothing

 

[J0eyboi]

I only really lurk here as I don't know **** most of the time and use this as a thread to learn about stuff but didn't Peach outright bypass the shorthop damage reduction? Floating doesn't count as shorthopping so Peach could float close to the ground and use aerials without the reduction literally every other character has to deal with, she 'broke the rules' of the game so her aerials getting nerfed was very much justified in that regard. For her other nerfs, I got nothing

That's true, but it wasn't actually nerfed. Afaik none of the damage values on Peach's aerials were ever changed; she just got a decrease to her Fair kb, among other things.

In other games the universal comeback mechanic comes in the form of getting more meter for taking hits vs. dishing out damage and facilitates a comeback via intelligent management of your resources.

Honest question: what game(s) are you referring to? I can't think of a single fighting game in which the player being hit gains more meter than the one doing the hitting.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

That's true, but it wasn't actually nerfed. Afaik none of the damage values on Peach's aerials were ever changed; she just got a decrease to her Fair kb, among other things.



Honest question: what game(s) are you referring to? I can't think of a single fighting game in which the player being hit gains more meter than the one doing the hitting.

True but still, the nerf was justified as had Peach followed the rules of the universal mechanic, her aerials wouldn't have been as good as they were prepatch.

I think Billy meant "Getting hit increases the super meter too", not "It gets you more than if you dealt damage"

 

[Cheryl~]

I only really lurk here as I don't know **** most of the time and use this as a thread to learn about stuff but didn't Peach outright bypass the shorthop damage reduction? Floating doesn't count as shorthopping so Peach could float close to the ground and use aerials without the reduction literally every other character has to deal with, she 'broke the rules' of the game so her aerials getting nerfed was very much justified in that regard. For her other nerfs, I got nothing

Actually, that never got nerfed, so Peach still breaks the shorthop damage mechanic which is why her conversions often deal 60-80% on average.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Actually, that never got nerfed, so Peach still breaks the shorthop damage mechanic which is why her conversions often deal 60-80% on average.

The knockback got nerfed on her Fair and Bair specifically iirc. It was the same patch that nerfed Olimar's shield and Pichu too

 

[Billy Scrammer]

Honest question: what game(s) are you referring to? I can't think of a single fighting game in which the player being hit gains more meter than the one doing the hitting.

Street Fighter generally has that as a rule, Guilty Gear gives a little more tension gain for taking a hit, and in Samurai Shodown the only way to get meter in the first place is to block or take damage. The meter gain concept as a whole facilitates comebacks.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The knockback got nerfed on her Fair and Bair specifically iirc. It was the same patch that nerfed Olimar's shield and Pichu too

It it Fair and BThrow.

However, it doesn't change her ridiculous combo damage.

 

[KirbySquad101]

On the subject of Maister's match-up chart, he does think is probably a Top 10 character, but didn't want to mention it due to it possibly being too controversial. This is a top 15/20 player we are dealing with here, so feeling as confident as he does about his character does make sense. Still, it's a bit crazy to think G&W loses less match-ups than , but then again, G&W gives even with more characters than Joker does, whereas Joker massacres half the cast (according to MKLeo anyway).


That said, I do think Maister's match-up chart is mostly accurate, at least with the more common character picks. Couldn’t tell you anything on the G&W match-up against characters like the Miis or ICs match-up given that barely anyone plays such characters, so those placements feel more like guesses with a hint of sheer optimism. The major blaring light to me is 's placement given that /Razor Leaf is a thing and that Maister's track record against PTs isn't exactly stellar (lost to both Pandarian at MainStage and Leffen at Super Smash Con). You could also argue is a losing match-up, but MKLeo also believes that match-up is even as well. Aside from that, there's a few match-ups that I feel you could make a case for being even as well (particularly ).

G&W is very well-rounded in this game compared to his previous iterations, kind of like , so him not losing a lot of match-ups makes sense when you look at it from that angle. That, and there is a bit of a theme with the characters that he does lose against to according to Maister (pretty much everyone in that group not named can outrange him, outmaneuver him, and bring the hurt on him on when they win neutral). Said theme does start to become less meaningful once you actually break down the nitty gritty of each match-up and think about how much there is to consider, but that's the general gist of it.

Also good to see that everyone except Maister still thinks steamrolls their character.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Joker problem isnt Arsene, but gun, that is how tweek and to a lesser extend mkleo can get make you be the one to aproach and they will get percent and meter regardless if you aproach or not, nerfing Arsene or the meter will not make this change only will make it longer, to be fair guns arent super broken but enough powerfull to make camping a strong strategy, other character with meter and comebacks mechanics cannot do this, hero is too slow and the spells cost too much mp to make camping viable, lucario needs to get reads to kill and aura sphere isnt a camping tool, terry air mobility isnt the best at camping, same with little mac, clouds limit moves arent as good as Smash 4 and he no longer gets free aproachs of limit charging anymore.

 

[Rizen]

I'm of the camp that the most BS (gimmicky) comeback mechanic in the game that isn't rage (which is universal and not that bad when compared to Smash 4) is 's aura.

Where get their movement or a few moves buffed, or a (few) new flashy powerful KO option, they all have a time limit (except ) and their moves aren't nearly as rewarding or polarizing as 's aura.

It's funny too. Nobody ever talks about when bringing up the worst designed characters in the game when it's clear that a character who gets rewarded to the degree that does for getting hit is very poorly designed. Not to mention that most of the time he can never even reach max aura because he's not even a heavyweight anymore like Smash 4. But when he does, you die at 40%.

Is it more balanced than Smash 4? Yes, but it's still total BS and it punishes 's opponent for damaging him even worse than the other characters mentioned.


Speaking of MU charts, some top players have made some recently that I haven't seen posted here (Not doing every one, just the notable ones). Found them here.

Dabuz
Maister
MKLeo
MKLeo
T
Pandarian
RFang
Zaki, Peli

Edit: Maybe it's just me but some of these MU Charts have some questionable placements.

Seeing different MU charts shows how versatile and volatile this game is. A lot of it's subjective and two credible players can have very different takes on MUs. I do think some of these are overly optimistic.

 

[Arthur97]

On the subject of Maister's match-up chart, he does think is probably a Top 10 character, but didn't want to mention it due to it possibly being too controversial. This is a top 15/20 player we are dealing with here, so feeling as confident as he does about his character does make sense. Still, it's a bit crazy to think G&W loses less match-ups than , but then again, G&W gives even with more characters than Joker does, whereas Joker massacres half the cast (according to MKLeo anyway).


That said, I do think Maister's match-up chart is mostly accurate. The only major blaring light to me is 's placement given that /Razor Leaf is a thing and that Maister's track record against PTs isn't exactly stellar (lost to both Pandarian at MainStage and Leffen at Super Smash Con). You could also argue is a losing match-up, but MKLeo also believes that match-up is even as well. Aside from that, there's a few match-ups that I feel you could make a case for being even as well (particularly ).

G&W is very well-rounded in this game compared to his previous iterations, kind of like , so him not losing a lot of match-ups makes sense when you look at it from that angle. That, and there is a bit of a theme with the characters that he does lose against to according to Maister (pretty much everyone in that group not named can outrange him, outmaneuver him, and bring the hurt on him on when they win neutral).

Also good to see that everyone except Maister still thinks steamrolls their character.

Of course MKLeo thinks Joker destroys half the cast. Sometimes pros are too good for their own good on stuff like this. It's not even necessarily a personal bias issue as it is their experience is vastly different from most people's.

 

[Nate1080]

Joker problem isnt Arsene, but gun, that is how tweek and to a lesser extend mkleo can get make you be the one to aproach and they will get percent and meter regardless if you aproach or not, nerfing Arsene or the meter will not make this change only will make it longer, to be fair guns arent super broken but enough powerfull to make camping a strong strategy, other character with meter and comebacks mechanics cannot do this, hero is too slow and the spells cost too much mp to make camping viable, lucario needs to get reads to kill and aura sphere isnt a camping tool, terry air mobility isnt the best at camping, same with little mac, clouds limit moves arent as good as Smash 4 and he no longer gets free aproachs of limit charging anymore.

I'm perfectly fine with a camping Joker. Most people aren't that good at camping with him anyways atm; it takes actual skill and strategy to make his camping deadly, adding skill to a character is always a good thing (nerfing it is always bad).

In terms of changing gun, there MIGHT BE a smidge too much knockback/stun per shot. That's the only change I'd make to gun, if any at all.



Tbh, if you nerf his comeback mechanic, you also nerf the effectiveness of his camping as well. Yes, he may be able to camp for longer for Arsene if you nerf it, but if it isn't even that powerful in the first place...does it really matter? Is it still THAT good?

Nerf the amount of meter gain and cut Arsene time in half, that's all you need to do imo. Doesn't kill Joker as a good character, but definitely stops him from being a borderline "oppressive" character in the eyes of many.

 

[blackghost]

i can see we have arrived at the complaints on joker. Every game has a best character and if its joker (and yes thats still an if) thats more than fine for the game. arsen bair is strong yes and he has good confirms but this character is just a normal top tier he is not broken. Every good character does not need to be nerfed. joker and peach are not easy characters and im glad the best characters in this game (and ones that are rising) are hard to play. i'll take joker being the best over lucina or palutena all day.

i can't call arsen a comback mechanic. If you are losing and having your stocks consistently taken arsen doesn't even get to come out so thats not really a comeback mechanic. compare that to Lucario aura where as soon as he is losing either in damage or stocks lucario is getting stronger. Arsen is more of a snowball like terry meter is as well. Also when it comes to arsen if I dont see people sit on the platofrm and wait I dont feel sorry for them because its has utterly basic and easy counter play and people dont do the easy part.

as for this dlc hate its just more leftover smash 4 feelings. there's no merrit in this game so far to feel DLC is favored. of the DLC 2 are bad/ below average one is average and one is elite. doesnt look like favoritism.

honestly it isnt joker that destroys half the cast, its more of the fact that MK leo is still better than most top players by a wide margin. Outside of nairo, tweek, and samsora he isnt losing to others.

 

[Nate1080]

No one here is saying nor implying that Joker is broken.

Arsene is a comeback mechanic in the sense that it rewards you for being behind in percentage/taking damage and it lasts long enough for you to take back stocks (or at least force your opponent to stop playing the game).


What I'm saying, as a Joker player is:

Nerf the amount of meter gain and cut Arsene time in half, that's all you need to do imo.

That doesn't stop him from being a good character, it just fixes the part of Joker that is honestly a bit over the top (and his meter is for a fact, a little too good for the amount of risk/investment for it).

 

[Billy Scrammer]

joker and peach are not easy characters and im glad the best characters in this game (and ones that are rising) are hard to play. i'll take joker being the best over lucina or palutena all day.

Of that entire post, this is about the only thing I don’t agree with. Typically the balancing ideology you will see in most fighting games is that the characters who are considered to be higher tier have extremely high technical requirements. Usually. I agree that Joker and Peach on average are more technically demanding than Palutena and Lucina but from my experience with games like Guilty Gear and Tekken, which are known for their technical difficulty, the dexterity based requirements a character has at higher play is actually more of an absolute implementation that can be compared between multiple games as opposed to being localized within one game.

Basically, what I’m getting at is Joker and Peach, in the general scheme of things, are not that much harder to play than Palutena or Lucina or anyone else for that matter (from an execution standpoint anyway, I could see arguments being made for the decision making process) and compared to low tiers like Dhalsim in SFIV or Zato in Rev 2 they are piss easy. I’m fine with both characters being top tier, but overall I do not like how they get a lot of mileage out doing things that are trivially easy to pull off. I kinda wish Nintendo would raise the execution demands for some of these characters in that regard, as I feel it would justify their stronger aspects.

 

[Megamang]

The question is, have we arrived at 'perfect' balance? If not, we can do better. I'll never understand the mentality of 'nailed it, stop updating our game now'... except I guess people fear nerfs on their character, which I legitimately understand because the Peach fair nerf is frustrating to me as well (ZSS gets to be much more mobile and her bair slaughters you at lower percentages too? It seems to at least, the nerf is quite noticeable on the Peach end and people survive to high damages against Peach pretty frequently.)

But haven't all these buffs been wonderful? I love when a neglected character gets some more gas, it can only serve to make our game more diverse. And all the nerfs so far have been extremely conservative, not a single move has been 'gutted' so much as it kills slightly later, does a bit less damage, etc etc. Projectiles were the closest thing to being gutted, and honestly that was a positive change for the game in so many ways.

 

[ARISTOS]

Greninja absolutely was killed by his initial nerfs. He went from winning tournaments in Japan to being entirely competitively irrelevant.

He was only (somewhat) viable by the end of the game’s lifespan because of the changes to shieldstun, nerfs to his worst MUs, a surprisingly good MU spread against DLC and, most importantly, receipt of significant buffs on three separate occasions. There were a lot of changes to him and around him which helped him stay relevant near the end but he certainly zombie’d through the greater part of Smash 4’s life. He was killed and revived, not simply “altered”.

The balance team seem to have learned from their mistakes with Ultimate nerfs thus far but let’s not pretend they never made those mistakes in the first place.

Greninja was the one character I excluded, and the only one I would've said "Maybe more time should've been used to look into this". There's no way to say whether Greninja was fine, given the 3DS meta was like a month and a half lol.

Almost every other change was positive, and no other character got gutted. Ergo, almost entirely baseless complaining. For the most part, Bandai Namco have gotten it right.

As far as Joker is concerned he's fine but downward gun and Arsene changes would be enough to make the character less tedious to play against. Bair nerf might be a bit too much.

 

[NeonNote]

If the tippity top tiers had to get nerfed, then I personally believe whoever is perceived in that spot now should too for fairness sake. It’s not how things SHOULD work, but I never thought they made the best decisions anyway, and I’m sure it’s not gonna stop. They went overboard with pichu unnecessarily.

 

[Billy Scrammer]

If the tippity top tiers had to get nerfed, then I personally believe whoever is perceived in that spot now should too for fairness sake. It’s not how things SHOULD work, but I never thought they made the best decisions anyway, and I’m sure it’s not gonna stop. They went overboard with pichu unnecessarily.

One reason why this happens for Smash in particular is because Nintendo doesn’t know how to balance the tiers the first go ‘round, and even at the end of a Smash game’s life the tier list is hella unbalanced. The gap between arguably the best and arguably the worst character in this game is insane compared to the other entrants at Evo right now. I don’t even know if Joker and Peach are obscenely good right now, it could just be that the people sitting in low tier are god awful and borderline unplayable in some aspects. As such, it seems Nintendo’s answer in the past has been to hand out the nerf hammer either within the game itself or as a transitional change. I really hope Nintendo keeps this trend of only slightly nerfing the stronger characters while giving some serious tuning to the guys lagging behind because that’s a better way of narrowing the gap in this game without taking away the good characters’ defining aspects.

 

[Arthur97]

You seem to be forgetting that Nintendo (or whoever they have balance the game) isn't strictly concerned the woes of the competitive community. That's not something most (non-knockoff) games have to contend with.