Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[$.A.F.]

They really gutted Pichu's killpower into oblivion, didn't they.
Just played after a long time a Pichu online (in the most ridiculous lag btw. and this char became ultra rare) and nothing killed. Pichu still a ton of damage, though.

So, how'S the general perception of this character? I still see him in high-tier, where he probably belongs to, but I don't really think he scratches the top-tier region by a long shot.

I have to hard disagree. Pichu still has insane kill power. Down Smash and F Smash, Thunder (Which Always sends forward) Bair and Dair offstage etc. F tilt nerf was big, but that is nowhere near the majority of his kill power. Personally I’d definitely say he’s still Top 20 and with more optimization will go up.

 

[Frihetsanka]

So, how'S the general perception of this character? I still see him in high-tier, where he probably belongs to, but I don't really think he scratches the top-tier region by a long shot.

Lower end of high tier, they really didn't have to nerf him that hard (one of the most fun characters to watch, in my opinion, and now he's fairly rare).

 

[The_Bookworm]

I would argue that Pichu dropping off the metagame had more to do with the metagame advancements / people figuring out the character rather than the nerfs.
The nerfs only really accelerated the process, but his results where dropping off before the nerfs.

Typically, characters that where very prominent in the early metagame, such as and most notably , ended up falling off as time went on, in favor of other high/top tiered characters that was viewed less prominently before, with the main culprit being Palutena, a character that was viewed to be at the lower high tiers, but then rose to be one of the best characters in the game (and one of the most hated as well).

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I would argue that Pichu dropping off the metagame had more to do with the metagame advancements / people figuring out the character rather than the nerfs.
The nerfs only really accelerated the process, but his results where dropping off before the nerfs.

Typically, characters that where very prominent in the early metagame, such as and most notably , ended up falling off as time went on, in favor of other high/top tiered characters that was viewed less prominently before, with the main culprit being Palutena, a character that was viewed to be at the lower high tiers, but then rose to be one of the best characters in the game (and one of the most hated as well).

Wolf did get a handful of minor nerfs in balance patches likley did eventullay add up and caused him falling off a little. But he still apparently he still has a place in the meta of being a near hard-counter to Olimar.

Palutena was actullay considered one of thr best characters early in the meta. But that changed once rose up tp be considered the best in the game and the most disliked characters in the meta before 3.1.0 Patch. Then came after MKLeo started domimating with him.

Palutena was never considered worse than lowrt top-tier or top of high-tier. Really people only really paid attention to her again once she finally won a S-Tier Major in Mainstage. Palutena always got very good results before that, but suddenly all eyes (and crosshairs) were on her.
Now she is like top 5 in every pro tier-list you see. Which yeah its hard to argue she is not .

You want to talk about a character falling off for odd reasons look at . I mean he basically was not touched at all thought the history of balance patches

There was a time when he was by far the most commonly seen character in the competive scene and you saw 2 or even 3 in top 8 of big touraments. But then after the best Snake in Ally player was gone from the scene, many other notable mains could not get the same level of success, and also had struggled to get consistent results as well.

I still feel like Snake is a Top 5 character with a ridiculous toolset overall. But it could be another case of players eventullay learning how to deal with all his shennanigans.

 

[Nobie]

So ever since I posted the Earth video, I've been thinking more and more about Pit, and I've come to the conclusion that the Pits have a unique quality that makes them deceptively tricky to use compared to other characters: their incredibly homogenous frame data.

So take a character like Mario. When it comes to normals, he has a range of moves from a quick frame-2 jab up to a slower but stronger frame-15 forward smash. All of it makes sense based on Mario being a short-ranged, up-close character.

Pit's jab is Frame 4. It makes sense, given that he has a disjoint. His down tilt is 6, a little slower but hits low. But then his down smash is frame 5, his up tilt is frame 6, and his up smash is frame 6. As for forward tilt and forward smash, both are frame 10—who else has that? If you look at his aerials, aside from nair, they're all really close in startup too.

Pit has universally fast grounded normals where the benefit is frontloaded in the startup. In exchange, he doesn't really have many combos, and his endlag is fairly punishable. As a result, you don't choose which moves to use the way other characters would. Instead, it's almost entirely based on positioning as a way to win neutral. If up smash and up tilt both start on frame 6, and up tilt doesn't really combo, why choose one over the other? The answer is that up tilt has a slight faster recovery and can hit low profiles, whereas up smash has more kill power, bigger hitboxes above Pit, and can be done OoS (Frame 6 OoS, even!)

In other words, unlike many characters, Pit doesn't really have the simple idea of "use quick move to be safe, use slower move for big punish." Aside from the huge commitment that is Side B, that is. Instead, the most Pit can do is charge a smash attack. This is actually really weird, and completely changes how you gauge when to do what and why.

When I watch Earth in that video, a lot of what he seems to do is subtle deceptions in spacing and timing. Pausing just a smidge to throw off the opponent's tempo and then getting a quick dash attack. He gets more than one off-stage kill with fair. He tests with forward tilt, just hitting shields to see what reaction he gets.

I don't know if all this means Pit is a secret high tier or anything, but I really think it's an overlooked challenge of using him. He's designed to win neutral, get moderate rewards, and then win again. His frame data can compete with everyone in the game, but he'll never be a brutal punish character outside of continuing to push a positional advantage.

 

[Rizen]

They really gutted Pichu's killpower into oblivion, didn't they.

The only move that was nerfed outside self damage was Ftilt iirc. Pichu still has a dozen insane kill options including Dthrow (I think) into thunder and jab lock Fsmash, which is much stronger than Pikachu's. Pichu's nerfs were exagerated at first and now things are settling with him in 22nd place on Orion stats. IMO he can still climb a little higher.

 

[Frihetsanka]

The only move that was nerfed outside self damage was Ftilt iirc. Pichu still has a dozen insane kill options including Dthrow (I think) into thunder and jab lock Fsmash, which is much stronger than Pikachu's.

F-smash endlag increased by 4 frames, which is pretty significant, making his f-smash much less safe on shield or on whiff. The increased self-damage is noticable and hurts his longevity, as does the hurtbox size increase (to the point where Pikachu is arguably harder to hit than Pichu now in many cases). Pichu was somewhat overrated pre-nerf (I don't think he was close to #1 in the game back then), and the nerfs hit him pretty hard.

Oh, the f-tilt nerf is really significant too, essentially making it a rather poor killmove now, it kills much later. The Pichu and Olimar nerfs (Olimar's shield nerf in particular) makes me worried about the balancing team's nerfing policies, and I kind of hope they take it easy with nerfs from here on. It might be better to let the meta stabilize and then see what should be done, if anything.

With all this being said, both Olimar and Pichu are pretty good high tiers, I don#t think either of them is top 15 anymore, both fell significantly.

 

[Rizen]

F-smash endlag increased by 4 frames, which is pretty significant, making his f-smash much less safe on shield or on whiff. The increased self-damage is noticable and hurts his longevity, as does the hurtbox size increase (to the point where Pikachu is arguably harder to hit than Pichu now in many cases). Pichu was somewhat overrated pre-nerf (I don't think he was close to #1 in the game back then), and the nerfs hit him pretty hard.

Oh, the f-tilt nerf is really significant too, essentially making it a rather poor killmove now, it kills much later. The Pichu and Olimar nerfs (Olimar's shield nerf in particular) makes me worried about the balancing team's nerfing policies, and I kind of hope they take it easy with nerfs from here on. It might be better to let the meta stabilize and then see what should be done, if anything.

With all this being said, both Olimar and Pichu are pretty good high tiers, I don#t think either of them is top 15 anymore, both fell significantly.

I agree Pichu fell out of top 15. IDK how much the hurtbox increase actually hurt him. Pichu can still dash under YL's arrows and is probably still the smallest character in the game, especially since Olimar got a hurtbox increase too.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

F-smash endlag increased by 4 frames, which is pretty significant, making his f-smash much less safe on shield or on whiff. The increased self-damage is noticable and hurts his longevity, as does the hurtbox size increase (to the point where Pikachu is arguably harder to hit than Pichu now in many cases). Pichu was somewhat overrated pre-nerf (I don't think he was close to #1 in the game back then), and the nerfs hit him pretty hard.

Oh, the f-tilt nerf is really significant too, essentially making it a rather poor killmove now, it kills much later. The Pichu and Olimar nerfs (Olimar's shield nerf in particular) makes me worried about the balancing team's nerfing policies, and I kind of hope they take it easy with nerfs from here on. It might be better to let the meta stabilize and then see what should be done, if anything.

With all this being said, both Olimar and Pichu are pretty good high tiers, I don#t think either of them is top 15 anymore, both fell significantly.

I still think Olimar is Top 15 at least. The ability to take you from 0-80% in a span of like 3 seconds is still crazy Plus his up-smash is still fairy abusable even after the nerf and if it was not for his sheild issue he could still be top 10 easy.

I still find it funny in the 4.0.0 Patch they gave a buff to his Purple Pikmin fsmash but did NOT fix his shield? nor has it been fixed as of 6.1.0

Is it an intentional choice by the balancing team? Because that is the only reason I cam think of on why it has not been fixed

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Is it an intentional choice by the balancing team?

's jab...

 

[Diddy Kong]

The only move that was nerfed outside self damage was Ftilt iirc. Pichu still has a dozen insane kill options including Dthrow (I think) into thunder and jab lock Fsmash, which is much stronger than Pikachu's. Pichu's nerfs were exagerated at first and now things are settling with him in 22nd place on Orion stats. IMO he can still climb a little higher.

Am pretty sure Pichu still has unchecked potential. But the thing is, there's little reason to play Pichu over his evolved form, Pikachu. Because Pikachu just does everything better for exchange of a little KO power. Even VoiD, back in the days of him playing Pichu at his best, said Pichu was extremely draining to play because one mistake can cost you your stock. And now Pichu's worst nerf wasn't his KO power nerf, but his hurtbox being increased.

Sure miss seeing this character though. Because damn the combos where amazing and how easily the match could sway in each direction. Only Pichu could really do that. I felt he was a justified Top Tier because playing him isn't easy, unlike a few other Top Tiers.

 

[TennisBall]

I agree Pichu fell out of top 15. IDK how much the hurtbox increase actually hurt him. Pichu can still dash under YL's arrows and is probably still the smallest character in the game, especially since Olimar got a hurtbox increase too.

Pikachu is actually smaller than Pichu now I think. For sure if he lands, I think the smallest character is actually Squirtle.

 

[|RK|]

Depends. If you're talking about dashing, Pichu does get mad low, but... Kirby is the smallest just by standing hurtbox size. And then obviously crouching.

 

[Bobert]

The Pits have better framedata than some other swordies (cough Marcina cough Chroy cough). Their jab for example, is frame 4. F smash is frame 10. Their back air is near lagless when landing, it’s an Inkling back air that can kill quicker than a Lucina back air.

Give the Pits better hitboxes and they would be better than most characters.

Their frame data isn't really much better than swordies. Their frame data is extremely comparable to Marcina's actually, with most differences being like one or two frames, and it's not even all in their favor. F-tilt is just worse. Even b-air is comparable to Chroy/Marcina in landing lag, but slower in start-up.

I'm only suggesting that Pit's hitboxes should actually work and match their animations, and that the arms should actually power through moves consistently rather than it practically being a gamble. The hitboxes on n-air in particular really shouldn't be as bad as they are.

Don't forget that Pit still has among the worst airspeeds in the entire game, which already severely nerfs his airgame.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sumabato SP 11 (B Tier)
*Note: PGR'ed events for the rest of the month, like this one, is counting towards the Spring 2020 PGRU.

1st: Paseriman
2nd: Shuton
3rd: Tea
4th: tk3
5th: Kuro
5th: Kome
7th: takera
7th: Kie
9th: Zackray
9th: DIO
9th: Sigma
9th: Tsuna
13th: KEN
13th: Tatsutsuyo
13th: Eim
13th: Lunamado

 

[bc1910]

Raw model size is only one factor in how easy a character is to hit. Mobility and hurtbox shifting are two other factors which are arguably more important. Kirby has the smallest character model in terms of overall size, but he’s not particularly hard to hit since he’s wide, slow and stays the same size in most of his animations, with the obvious exception of his crouch/Dtilt in which his hurtbox does shift dramatically as he squishes down. Pichu is slightly larger but far more difficult to hit because he’s fairly fast and contorts all over the place with his animations, for example pancaking when he lands and stretching his body sideways with his forward and back aerials.

The hardest characters to hit aren’t necessarily the smallest. Inkling, Joker, ZSS and Greninja are all much larger than the smallest characters yet they are more difficult to hit due to a combination of high mobility and hurtbox shifting during key animations. In addition, Joker and ZSS are notoriously thin while Inkling and Greninja low profile during their dashes, tilts and several other key animations. FWIW I think Inkling is the hardest character to hit in the game.

 

[Space thing]

I still find it funny in the 4.0.0 Patch they gave a buff to his Purple Pikmin fsmash but did NOT fix his shield? nor has it been fixed as of 6.1.0

Honestly, Olimar's shield in principle isn't out of line with with the rest of the cast. Contrary to popular notions, from my testing you CANNOT shield poke him at 100% full shield but you can if it's just a little below that. However, this is true of a lot of characters in this game. Off the top of my head: Link, Pichu, and Peach all can be shield poked at the tip of their head if they are very slightly below full shield. Olimar's case is just more noticeable and effectively easier to do to him just because of the placement where his hurtbox starts to stick out (slightly in front rather than at the top of the shield). With that in mind, I'm not surpised Olimar's shield remains unchanged and the real issue is that shields in ultimate are kinda broken in the bad way lol.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Off the top of my head: Link, Pichu, and Peach all can be shield poked at the tip of their head if they are very slightly below full shield.

You can add or any big body to the list, they get shield poked all the time.

Honestly, it's stuff like this that makes me dislike Shield-Poking/Stabbing as an idea. It's bad enough that your shield breaks when you exhaust it for too long, but now you have to multi-task and try to cover it's blind-spots, which can be very inconsistent due to separate hurtbox sizes on different characters all in the heat of battle?


No thank you.
I'd rather take one or the other, not both.

 

[Megamang]

The shield breaking eventually wouldn't be nearly enough of a nerf. They broke eventually in 4 and especially brawl, yet shield was a go to option in a majority of situations. Good players won't let you break the shield, but since it could repeatedly safely take 30% and be fine you'd end up doing 500% to their shield and making no progress. This might be an exaggeration but not so much, shields having downsides (plural) is very good for the game. And because they toned back the obnoxious dashgrabs for the most part and OoS options abound, grabbing would not be a good enough answer. I'm glad moves are safe, maybe the shield poking could be more equitable (bigger characters have bigger shields so they don't get poked so easily).

There are tons of interactions that exist because of this mechanic, and you are starting to see good players shield shift in block to adapt to the pressure coming towards them. This adds depth in my opinion. You have to ask)

What could poke me? what is the reward for each option poking me? what does my opponent tend to do for his pokes? Will tilting it X direction make a parry easier (GIMR Parry Shifting) or more rewarding?

Put bluntly, the poking gives a reason to have shield angling besides super niche cases, which I think is a great thing. and it gives ult a pseudo high/low block mixup game, which is cool IMO.

PS if you hold special you can tilt your shield without worry of rolling or dodging, I like to map a trigger button to special to take advantage of this.

PPS if you tilt your shield up I'll stop pika bairing it so much.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here are some other PGR'ed events this weekend.


Holiday Heist 5 (C Tier)
1st: Cosmos
2nd: Zinoto
3rd: BooBear
4th: Jw
5th: SKITTLES!!
5th: Daybreak
7th: TonyZTank
7th: Katakiri


Ultimate WANTED 2 (B Tier)
1st: Glutonny (He loves fooling around with secondaries when at his home turf.)
2nd: quiK
3rd: Mr.R
4th: Leon (Yep, the legendary player.)
5th: Flow
5th: PeW
7th: Ogey
7th: Homika
9th: Otakuni
9th: VinS
9th: Meru
9th: Naskino
13th: TriM
13th: Tarik
13th: Patrino
13th: Jeda

 

[Lacrimosa]

But Glutonny won the GF set with Falcon against quik who didn't go with his secondary ZSS.

Mr. R also used Young Link but that didn't go very well. He used YL more than Snake, though.
Same with Pew's Inkling: He used that character but lost pretty much every game he went Inkling.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

The shield breaking eventually wouldn't be nearly enough of a nerf. They broke eventually in 4 and especially brawl, yet shield was a go to option in a majority of situations. Good players won't let you break the shield, but since it could repeatedly safely take 30% and be fine you'd end up doing 500% to their shield and making no progress. This might be an exaggeration but not so much, shields having downsides (plural) is very good for the game. And because they toned back the obnoxious dashgrabs for the most part and OoS options abound, grabbing would not be a good enough answer. I'm glad moves are safe, maybe the shield poking could be more equitable (bigger characters have bigger shields so they don't get poked so easily).

There are tons of interactions that exist because of this mechanic, and you are starting to see good players shield shift in block to adapt to the pressure coming towards them. This adds depth in my opinion. You have to ask)

What could poke me? what is the reward for each option poking me? what does my opponent tend to do for his pokes? Will tilting it X direction make a parry easier (GIMR Parry Shifting) or more rewarding?

Put bluntly, the poking gives a reason to have shield angling besides super niche cases, which I think is a great thing. and it gives ult a pseudo high/low block mixup game, which is cool IMO.

PS if you hold special you can tilt your shield without worry of rolling or dodging, I like to map a trigger button to special to take advantage of this.

PPS if you tilt your shield up I'll stop pika bairing it so much.

Yes even with the nerfs, shields still are a strong mechanic, shields in smash makes you immune to any damage and your shield health recovers fast enough that combined with the freedom of movement in smash makes so the defender can retreat with relative safety compared to other fighting games, this was a big issue in smash 4 an even with the buff to grabs, shield was still a top tier move, I believe the changes to shield is a good thing because they are still strong but they need more skill to use.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

I heavy disagree.

Let me put simply.
You're sitting there shielding and you have to worry about:

-How much health your shield has
-What are your options
-What options the opponent has
-What their attacks will do to your shield
-Will they grab or do an option that beats shield
-Can you parry it

That's a lot to take in. (With likely more I'm not even thinking of)

Throw in:

-Should I angle my shield
-Will I get shield poke
-Is my character prone to getting shield poked

IMO, that's just too much to focus on, but you can't ignore these factors or else you end up paying for it.

Shield angling solely exist to try countering shield poking as a mechanic, but it provides no other uses or help outside of that. It does nothing against grabs, shield breakers, unblockables or well spaced moves, all of which are the biggest enemies of shielding that a simple roll, spot-dodge or even an attack OOS can do more against.

High and Low systems work in other fighting games since often there's no limit to how you long you can keep your guard up. It's there to force the blocker to adapt and do something new.
In Smash, you're losing health just by keeping it up, you have to do something new or you're going to get grab/shield broken. That's a good enough to keep shields from being lame.

If you're at low shield health, your punishment of shield break is enough to keep you from wanting to shield.
Not even being allow to shield weaker moves during this state without getting hit is just too much.

Plus do I even have to mention cases of shields not covering their full body at full health. If the devs haven't gotten it down by now, then does this concept really add to the experience...


In short: It over-complicates the process and all that would happen if it was removed is that characters with bigger hurtboxes and/or bad shields would just get punished less during shielding and I doubt many people would mind that. (Sorry Yoshi)

If shields had less health if it meant shield poking was gone forever, I'd take it with open arms.

 

[NairWizard]

I heavy disagree.

You're sitting there shielding

Why are you sitting in shield? At high levels, you're just going to quickly press shield to block an expected attack and then do something else, not make decisions while hiding within shield.

How much health your shield has

How much health your shield has is something you think about before you decide to shield, not during. Shield is a resource just like a second jump or Banjo's Wonderwing, so before you spend the resource, you do a quick mental check, do I have enough to spend? And then you either do it or you don't.

-What are your options
-What options the opponent has
-What their attacks will do to your shield
-Will they grab or do an option that beats shield
-Can you parry it

You're weighing many dozens of things simultaneously even when you're not shielding. For example, say you're dashing away from your opponent, you may think:
-how will my opponent follow my dash (dash in? jump? roll?)
-what will that mean for my spacing
-will they choose to attack or not
-will I have time to parry
-what percent am I at? do I want to put myself at the ledge or try to roll behind
-but wait. how much have I been rolling lately? will my opponent spot that

-Should I angle my shield
-Will I get shield poke

These should be considerations before you decide to shield. Ideally, when you choose to angle your shield up or down, it's in response to expecting a specific attack from the opponent, like a Pikachu aerial. So in most situations the decision is unambiguous--your opponent is in the air? Angle shield up, no reason to angle it down.

And if it's ambiguous? That means you're playing a grounded neutral, in which case you don't even need to be shielding since you have so many good universal options (dash back, tilt, walk, spotdodge, roll).

-Is my character prone to getting shield poked

Shouldn't you already know this well before the match even starts? Why is this something to focus on?

Shield angling solely exist to try countering shield poking as a mechanic, but it provides no other uses or help outside of that.

it's not much different from SDI in this regard; how do you feel about SDI?

High and Low systems work in other fighting games since often there's no limit to how you long you can keep your guard up. It's there to force the blocker to adapt and do something new.
In Smash, you're losing health just by keeping it up, you have to do something new or you're going to get grab/shield broken. That's a good enough to keep shields from being lame.

Shielding gives you instant invincibility to all non-grab moves, and with very minimal endlag, which is a lot more powerful than blocking 50% of attacks. This extra power means that you don't have to think about it much--the limited amount of cognitive load that angling adds to the equation still doesn't make smash shielding as complicated as high/low blocking in other games.

If you're at low shield health, your punishment of shield break is enough to keep you from wanting to shield.
Not even being allow to shield weaker moves during this state without getting hit is just too much.

What, specifically, makes this "too much" in your eyes?

If shields had less health if it meant shield poking was gone forever, I'd take it with open arms.

Shouldn't the ideal solution be to buff those characters who are particularly susceptible to unnatural-looking neutral shield pokes, instead of eliminating a skill-testing mechanic entirely?

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Shouldn't the ideal solution be to buff those characters who are particularly susceptible to unnatural-looking neutral shield pokes, instead of eliminating a skill-testing mechanic entirely?

A similar case could of been said for L-Canceling and it was still a bad mechanic. (Yeah I said it)

Sure you could focus on tilting your control stick in small windows and slightly improve your defense to show your skill off that way...
Or you can just take this mechanic out and not have to do that and hey, you can put all your focus on your other, more important OOS options and have free use of your Control Stick in the process while still making just as good plays...
It artificially increases the skill-cap and makes shielding overall less consistent, which doesn't work super well in game that requires consistency to win.

I appreciate the idea of this beforehand, but IMO the cons out-weigh the pros and considering that this game streamlined it's overall mechanics from past entries by get rid of those small oddities like weight-depended throw and RCO lag from Up-B's, I think shield stabbing should of gone with those too.

Besides like I said before, I don't have that much faith in the devs to fixes all the hurtbox issues behind this concept if Olimar is any hint.

 

[Nobie]

Shield stabbing is a feature, not a bug.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Ultimatum 2 (C Tier)

1st: Grayson
2nd: Awestin
3rd: C. Falcon
4th: Ismon
5th: KingK
5th: SaSSy
7th: Gidy
7th: Cannon Red
9th: Lima
9th: Crump
9th: YellowRello
9th: ARMY

Yep, triple R.O.B. players in top 8 in this tournament.
Btw, I am nowadays seeing more Roy players having a secondary/co-main Chrom, and vice versa. Interesting trend that is going on.

 

[blackghost]

Ultimatum 2 (C Tier)

1st: Grayson
2nd: Awestin
3rd: C. Falcon
4th: Ismon
5th: KingK
5th: SaSSy
7th: Gidy
7th: Cannon Red
9th: Lima
9th: Crump
9th: YellowRello
9th: ARMY

Yep, triple R.O.B. players in top 8 in this tournament.
Btw, I am nowadays seeing more Roy players having a secondary/co-main Chrom, and vice versa. Interesting trend that is going on.

those ROBS managed to bob and weave around lima as well. Grayson loses to lima virtually every week at their local. rob is still very bracket luck dependent.

 

[Space thing]

A similar case could of been said for L-Canceling and it was still a bad mechanic. (Yeah I said it)

L-Canceling was simply a dexterity check 99% of the time with basically no reason not to do it (with huge benefits for doing it as opposed to not) and the only consideration for it was changing the timing slightly based on hitlag. This is the issue most people have with L-canceling. Shield angling, especially with the double shield button, is super easy to do in execution and the only difficult part is choosing to do it or not. Furthermore, angling your shield isn't always the best idea as can make it easier to be shield poked in different areas. It's also non-binary unlike L-canceling and creates an interaction with your opponent, as they can decide to try to exploit how you angle your shield or exploit you not angling your shield.

I honestly see zero reason to compare these two mechanics, even in the sense that they are very limited in the areas of the game that they are used. To be thorough, SDI also requires awareness from the player and creates interaction as well as choice in a similar fashion to shield angling. You can dislike needed to angle your shield sometimes and that's fine, but that doesn't make it inherently a bad mechanic.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Shield poking is very necessary as it prevents shield from being completely overpowering. You can maneuver around stage easily and shields recharge rather quickly, the threat of being shield broken doesn’t exist outside of shielding a super strong move that you know you shouldn’t be. There are very few actual block strings in this game that would warrant actual concern that your shield will break. Being able to negate all forms of offense sans grab with such little threat to the blocker isn’t good. Especially when the blocker can transition into a counter attack (OOS options) further weighing the favor in the defender side. When this happens you have S4, which was a shield heavy and slower paced game due to how often you simply would be at a disadvantage for pressing an offense.. That’s why other games still have stuff like guard breakers and chip damage to your overall heath bar, so that blocking isn’t the universal defensive option without risk.

If we were to get rid of shield poking the game would need more actual block strings so that you could have more interactions that would viably threaten shield breaks more often and therefore discourage the use of shield as the overwhelming majority of your defensive options. Shield regen would also need to be slowed down as well. Shield health would also need to be adjusted so slower characters who can’t use mobility as well to defend wouldn’t be at risk of being shield broken as much as faster characters who can use their mobility to buy shield regen time.

 

[|RK|]

Question for the class...

Why IS Ultimate so much more defensive than Melee?

 

[KakuCP9]

I'd like shield poking more if getting poked felt less arbitrary. Like in past games, it was very clear cut where shield covered and when it had low health, you could see the areas that were exposed. Thus, you could tilt the shield to cover those areas and get the most out of your diminished shield. In this game, you can have instances like Kirby getting hit with Hero's Snooze or Olimar/Pichu's shield in general where you get poked at full health and it is not in anyway intuitive. When the answer is 'just tilt' all because of a teeny tiny extremity that is exposed is hit and you can't see it, it feels less a display of skill and more like playing a slightly less bad case of Melee Game and Watch. FWIW it has more to do with shield than shield poking, but goddamn do I hate it.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

I'd gladly take less shield health and/or slower regulation over studying a bunch of full health shield sizes, shielding hurtbox stances and other quirks like Snooze ignoring Kirby's shield. Favoring consistency over this factor that may or may not help/hurt me against the opponent on the defensive or offensive, and just focus on the more important aspects of shields like OOS options, the opponent's position and how much more health it has left.

 

[bc1910]

Question for the class...

Why IS Ultimate so much more defensive than Melee?

More hitstun in Melee gives actual reward on hit, encouraging aggressive play. Disadvantage is also universally worse. The game still grinds to a standstill when Puff is involved, mostly because you can’t combo her much and she has one of the only good disadvantage states in the game.

Shields are also very strong in Ultimate as shield drop is only 11 frames and most attacks remain significantly minus on shield, if not directly punishable by good OoS moves, which most of the top tiers have. There are no real block strings or strong shield pressure options beyond the few dedicated shield breaker moves, and grabs are universally worse. Melee has a weaker shield with more shield drop frames and significantly safer, not to mention more rewarding, grabs. Melee is the only game in the series to get shielding right IMO, it’s either been too weak (64) or too strong (Brawl onwards) in all the others. I don’t want to get involved in the shield poking discussion but I will say that it doesn’t stop shielding from being strong in Ultimate, it just adds some unfortunate jank to what is otherwise a still pretty braindead option. Ideally shield poking would be toned down but characters would be afforded some actual options to pressure block, which, surprise surprise, is how it works in Melee (outside of obvious exceptions like G&W’s full shield not covering him).

Edgeguarding is also far stronger in Melee since recoveries are by-and-large significantly worse, particularly in terms of ledge snaps. If you’re not playing a combo character and your best option is to throw the opponent off the stage, this is still a much more viable option than in Ultimate where they’re probably going to just snap to the ledge anyway. Puff is the exception again, with her strong recovery once again discouraging offensive play since there’s little reward to be found in getting her off the stage.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Question for the class...

Why IS Ultimate so much more defensive than Melee?

Better question. Why do you believe Melee isn't just as defensive as Ultimate?

Optimal play in Melee is EXTREMELY defensive in the nuetral.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I don't know how defensive Melee is as a game, but I think people's fears/bets on Ultimate becoming more and more defensive in the future stem from the back-to-back events of growing animosities towards in light of Maister's dominance at Kongo Saga, and the wake of phantom footstooling, courtesy of GimR's recent video.

1. Mr. Game and Watch is a character that encourages you NOT to play the game in order to beat him, and is the complete antithesis of aggression. Characters like and already imply counterplay through means of noninteraction due to how absurd their CQC can be; now imagine the byproduct of those characters that also happens to be tournament viable.

2. Whether or not phantom footstooling will be meta-changing can be debated, but at the end of the day, it's a mechanic that provides potentially another means of escaping disadvantage; who it benefits varies, but the intent behind said technique remains the same regardless.

There has been always mechanics in Ultimate that steered it towards being defensive in multiple areas like bc1910 pointed out in his post, but I feel like the two events (and occurring in such a short time span as well) above have sort of been a... well, a "wakeup" call for most players.

 

[|RK|]

Better question. Why do you believe Melee isn't just as defensive as Ultimate?

Optimal play in Melee is EXTREMELY defensive in the nuetral.

I thought so, but even then, it seems like people are better rewarded for doing something aggressive in Melee. Even if they're being safe a lot of the time, it seems like they can choose moments to just go in (save for Puff).

Maybe that's an answer though, as bc was getting at. Just higher reward for just doing something every now and again.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Melee is still able to be played pretty defensively but you can also play it rather aggressively which is the main draw. You just have more options available to you to express yourself. I haven’t kept up with Melee in a while but people would HATE Falco if all the Falco’s played a slower laser camp heavy defensive style he is very much able of doing.

Compared to Melee, Ultimate just has a more forgiving disadvantage state and less options to play neutral. Which aren’t bad things they just mean you have a different type of game, but it’s alot more plausible to lose a stock off 1-3 neutral interactions in Melee than it is Ultimate so the reward to aggro is very inciting

 

[Dream Cancel]

Ultimatum 2 (C Tier)

1st: Grayson
2nd: Awestin
3rd: C. Falcon
4th: Ismon
5th: KingK
5th: SaSSy
7th: Gidy
7th: Cannon Red
9th: Lima
9th: Crump
9th: YellowRello
9th: ARMY

Yep, triple R.O.B. players in top 8 in this tournament.
Btw, I am nowadays seeing more Roy players having a secondary/co-main Chrom, and vice versa. Interesting trend that is going on.

Texas is loaded with ROB players at the regional level. All three of them are on the Texas PR, I believe. (They have a top 15 PR)

As for Roy players, I think Roy is easier to main and reserve Chrom for particular match-ups than the other way around. The prevailing opinion for Chrom usage is for smaller characters like Pikachu, where his range and still strong killpower make a big difference against small and light characters.

 

[Megamang]

Melee players also choose to be more aggressive. There are characters that can be permanently invincible on the ledge FFS, and you know for a fact every top 100 level player can do this. This isn't to say they could stall indefinitely, and they're still in the corner... but you could certainly make a point to quash momentum when you do get the ledge grab by shino stalling etc. Now there are advantages to getting back on stage and returning to the onslaught of course... but I also think players want the game to be faster, from a gameplay perspective and a spectator one.

And of course Hungrybox, many M2K sets when he was using fox, etc etc. Melee is fast, and people think that means aggressive.

I find ultimate to be pretty aggressive, when someone is playing a reserved neutral I find it easier to break in and get a strong win, even if I don't win neutral more my wins matter much more if I am pressing the offensive because stage positioning is so important. Of course, pika has an amazing zonebreaking special, can garner frame advantages by camping and then going in, etc etc. And his stage positioning is very important because of that zonebreaking move combined with getting tons of kills off of ledgeguarding.

Still, I find the way kills work out in this game also helps to reward the person pushing the offense. LOTS of moves will have you survive pretty high percentages centre stage, yet murk you for being near the ledge and kill you even earlier for being near the blastzone. As it should be, that's kind of the point of platform fighters !