Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

Thanks for explaining why the third season fluctuates so much. However, even looking at seasons 1 and 2, Pikachu isn't in the Top 20 of both those seasons. And maybe part of the reason why Pikachu had a poor showing in those seasons was Pichu, but unless season 3 comes and makes the character the threat that everyone says it is, I'll still maintain that it isn't popular, and it opens the possibility that it just isn't that good in the current metagame.

Pichu's nerfs happened shortly before season 2 started. Pichu was pretty much spontaneously considered worse than Pikachu after those nerfs, which is an idea that grows stronger today.

Despite this, Pichu still managed to be a placement above Pikachu in season 2. Pichu started off with mediocre results at the beginning of the season, and noticeably lower than Pikachu, but then climbed to exceed Pikachu's results anyways despite the mentality that Pikachu is better.

Pikachu is a very unpopular character that not many people are picking up, despite a lot of them claiming that Pikachu is a best character contender.

The low point start for Pikachu in this season doesn't really surprise me, because a lot of the points Pikachu gets per season is ESAM's contributions, who is currently the only Pikachu player actually getting sufficient results in high level play (aside from maybe DM).

According to Mr. R, Ganon deserves his own tier:

My updated tier list. I obviously still lack a lot of experience against many of these characters and there's still not enough data to place everyone accurately, but this is what I think for now! pic.twitter.com/TyGrerXYUk

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) January 14, 2020

Yeah, yeah, tier lists are clickbaity, blub blub.
Also he didn't put Mac in the D-tier as well.
One huge reason for that is the fact that Mac does very well in Japan resultwise and I can absolutely see that.
Yes, he gets gimped easily but his ground game is still fairly solid. He may have a very poor MU spread but unlike, for example Ganon, he can get it and mess the opponent up really hard. I don't think it's fair calling him the worst character in this game.

Ganondorf is doing terribly right now. I have seen more active players doing stuff with the character, particularly at a regional level (or national level if your name is Gungnir), but I feel that there are fewer Ganondorf players in this game, let alone Ganon players that are actually doing stuff.

There are pretty much only two sources of placements for Ganon in Ultimate: that one upset Nairo did against Light (which didn't work in future attempts), and Smokk getting decent results in the early metagame (but he has since dropped him for Wolf and uses other characters more often as a secondary, despite being a dedicated SSB4 Ganon main in the past).

As time went on, people realized that despite his nice buffs, the nerfs he received from SSB4 is also plentiful, as it exacerbated his weaknesses, and removed/weakened some particularly powerful traits and gimmicks he had before. Him receiving no help in updates while other previous bottom tiers got nice buffs, doesn't exactly help either.

So yeah, I also think Ganondorf may be the worst character in the game right now. Not sure if he is bad enough to warrant his own tier at the bottom, but it doesn't really matter too much.

I agree that is the worst superheavy in the game. Because the five other popular contenders () have that little bit extra which makes them avoid being the worst.

Something I noticed is that you pretty much listed all the other super heavyweights in the game, aside from Bowser. They are not too great either.

Bowser, in the meantime is enjoying his time finally being a solid high tiered threat, while the others are lurking in the lower tiers.

It puts in perspective not only how much better Bowser is in comparison to the other superheavyweights (remember how much we though he would suck back at the E3 demo), but it also expresses how much rough superheavyweights has it in this game despite being in an engine where they have a 3 frame jumpsquat.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I'm edging towards having the entire cast into elite (1v1, no nonsense gimmicks) and my opinion after this run is that DK is worst in game. Ganon is bad but at least his moves are safe on HIT. DK's hurtbox is ludicrous, playing him is literally hurtbox management. I really love DK as a character, he was my secondary in Brawl and I dabbled in Smash 4. As the meta progresses and combo games get ever better reward for a single neutral win DK's future is not looking bright. Really hoping for more patches for the big ape.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Corrin is already 2/3 of the way to matching her score for the entirety of PGR S2 already on Orion Stats with a current total of 1 point.

Also, on the ranking of everyone else, it's only been a few weeks so I'm sure things will change a lot within the next month or so.

 

[Arthur97]

If bottom can't be definitively determined, then, yeah, they don't deserve their own tier. I may sound like a broken record, but these things should not be rushed. In fact, isn't it a good thing that a tier list can't be agreed upon? Yes, the past games have conditioned a desire for a definitive tier list, but it should be clear by now that at this point, little is set in stone even after a year.

Plus, if you won't label a worst fighter, how can you be proven wrong later?

 

[NotLiquid]

A year into this game's competitive life and my biggest takeaway from the cast is that Game & Watch has had the oddest trajectory during this game's lifespan.

In hindsight, it seems absolutely buffoonish that a lot of us (me included) assumed that he was low-tier at best during the early days, and now I absolutely find myself believing that overambitious match up spread Maister posted last year. A lot of other characters pretty much ended up where most people expected them to be, give or take. Even when a lot of top tiers and low tiers were over/underestimated the popular opinion on their competitive viability never wavered enough to drop or push them hard enough. Conversely G&W is the one character who's had an unprecedented meteoric rise in popular perception - and this is without significant patches helping him along the way, and the fact that most people nowadays try to stay modest in their evaluations.

Barring a player managing to uncover Ice Climbers having some kind of secret sauce after all, I'm not sure if any other character in the roster is going to be placed on as steep of a curve as that for the remainder of the game's competitive shelf life.

 

[BitBitio]

Are we sleeping on ? This guy actually has some crazy stuff. His framedata is wicked fast, he has a repertoire of early and effective KO moves like Up-B OOS, Down-B, Fsmash, Fair, Bair, Dair, Usmash, Dsmash, and Bthrow, he has a solid projectile in Pills than can KO confirm, decent combos and damage racking, a reeeeeeeeeeeeally good reflector, good edgeguarding, etc. The list goes on. His biggest issues are recovery, mobility, and range, but this dude has some serious sauce IMHO. Other characters in low tier city have worse weaknesses and fewer strengths like (Bottom 3 disadvantage, gigantic hurtbox, laggy attacks)(low safety at low %, big hurtbox, easy to edgeguard) (low KO power, weak attacks, low range, slow movement, vulnerable recovery, few combos outside of jab and utilt)(no air game, bottom 3 recovery, lacking combos, bad grab)

Edit: In retrospect Isabelle is bottom tier

 

[FruitLoop]

I'm edging towards having the entire cast into elite (1v1, no nonsense gimmicks) and my opinion after this run is that DK is worst in game. Ganon is bad but at least his moves are safe on HIT. DK's hurtbox is ludicrous, playing him is literally hurtbox management. I really love DK as a character, he was my secondary in Brawl and I dabbled in Smash 4. As the meta progresses and combo games get ever better reward for a single neutral win DK's future is not looking bright. Really hoping for more patches for the big ape.

DK is bad, yea. But worst in the game? I don't know chief. Having mostly unsafe on hit moves sounds pretty bad because well... it is since it limits your neutral. However DK Back-Air and Dash Attack are simply great individual normals to utilize in neutral mixed with DK's generally good mobility meaning that as long as the opponent doesn't have an overwhelming camp game, DK should be fine in neutral and his good mobility prevents runaway platform camp from a lot of the likes of Fox or Zero Suit Samus which already puts him many steps above the likes of DDD, Ganondorf, and Incineroar.

 

[Rizen]

A year into this game's competitive life and my biggest takeaway from the cast is that Game & Watch has had the oddest trajectory during this game's lifespan.

In hindsight, it seems absolutely buffoonish that a lot of us (me included) assumed that he was low-tier at best during the early days, and now I absolutely find myself believing that overambitious match up spread Maister posted last year. A lot of other characters pretty much ended up where most people expected them to be, give or take. Even when a lot of top tiers and low tiers were over/underestimated the popular opinion on their competitive viability never wavered enough to drop or push them hard enough. Conversely G&W is the one character who's had an unprecedented meteoric rise in popular perception - and this is without significant patches helping him along the way, and the fact that most people nowadays try to stay modest in their evaluations.

Barring a player managing to uncover Ice Climbers having some kind of secret sauce after all, I'm not sure if any other character in the roster is going to be placed on as steep of a curve as that for the remainder of the game's competitive shelf life.

I recently tried to pick up and can see why people rated him so low at first. He plays very differently than SSB4 and just seems bad if you don't know what you're doing. He got some pretty big changes. However I think a lot of people like Mr.R are confusing Maester being good with G&W being good. G&W has some good tools like Dsmash and the buff to his bucket reflecting projectiles. He's also a glass cannon with strong attacks but is extremely light. Maester, being amazing with reads, can work with him but he's the only one to get significant results. IMO G&W is a mid tier who happens to have a really good player behind him just like .

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

Wish I could agree with all these and I'll give you the grab game, projectile and frame data, however I believe you're overselling Doc.

surprisingly good edgeguarding

-He has good edge-guarding OPTIONS, but he can't go far off stage due to his very limited travel distance which can be the ticket for some characters surviving against him. Another case of his poor recovery biting him. (Although I do think his Ledge-trapping has potential)

great kill moves

-The half of his moveset that can kill are indeed strong (Smashes, F-Air, D-Air, B-Throw & Tornado) but the other half are either below average (Up-Tilt, N-Air, B-Air, Up-Air & Up-B) or just straight up can't kill. (F-Tilt, D-Tilt, DA, F-Throw & Up-Throw).

really good OOS

-OoS game still has some holes, minus grab & tornado, all of his best options (Up-Smash, N-Air, B-Air, Up-Air, D-Air & Up-B) are punishable on hit at low %'s, plus he lacks a long range forward facing option like Marthcina F-Air.
In a vacuum it's respectful, but not prefect.

really good combo game

-This is flat out false, don't let the similarity's to fool you, 's are lacking.
Many of his combo are very percent and positional based due to his crummy speed and sucky knockback values.

*Example: D-Throw > Up-Air > Up-Air only works at 10- 20%.

Too high, sends too far for the 2nd Up-Air to connect.
Too low, the Up-Air is minus on hit and you can get punished for it.

This is the case for many of his combos, and other ones like landing D-Air >Sweet-spot F-Air have a super tight window and while Pill combos can kill, they require him to go all in, so if he miss the punish or guesses wrong, he's eating a big punish. So unless you can get down those Up-Tilt's at low percents, he's going to have to win neutral multiple times just to get the damage up. These issues most characters above him simply don't have to worry about, at least to the degree as Doc.

Are we sleeping on ?

We're not, there's a reason why he has a small playerbase.

In a vacuum his moveset is solid, possibility great. However his bottom tier mobility keeps his approaches telegraphed and limiting his advantage state, if being very prone to getting camped out and having an intentionally designed bad recovery wasn't enough as is.

All of his strengths rest in his advantage state, which is quite good... But not only is it so troubling to even get there, but if he messes up at the wrong time, then he's off-stage without a jump which equals curtains for him.

Did I mention having 6 moves unsafe on hit... Not great for a very slow moving, stubby character who relies on power strikes.
I don't like this problem when it's on and I don't like it any better here.


tldr: IMO is bleh. But he's still better then and maybe even .

 

[BitBitio]

Wish I could agree with all these and I'll give you the grab game, projectile and frame data, however I believe you're overselling Doc.



-He has good edge-guarding OPTIONS, but he can't go far off stage due to his very limited travel distance which can be the ticket for some characters surviving against him. Another case of his poor recovery biting him. (Although I do think his Ledge-trapping has potential)



-The half of his moveset that can kill are indeed strong (Smashes, F-Air, D-Air, B-Throw & Tornado) but the other half are either below average (Up-Tilt, N-Air, B-Air, Up-Air & Up-B) or just straight up can't kill. (F-Tilt, D-Tilt, DA, F-Throw & Up-Throw).



-OoS game still has some holes, minus grab & tornado, all of his best options (Up-Smash, N-Air, B-Air, Up-Air, D-Air & Up-B) are punishable on hit at low %'s, plus he lacks a long range forward facing option like Marthcina F-Air.
In a vacuum it's respectful, but not prefect.



-This is flat out false, don't let the similarity's to fool you, 's are lacking.
Many of his combo are very percent and positional based due to his crummy speed and sucky knockback values.

*Example: D-Throw > Up-Air > Up-Air only works at 10- 20%.

Too high, sends too far for the 2nd Up-Air to connect.
Too low, the Up-Air is minus on hit and you can get punished for it.

This is the case for many of his combos, and other ones like landing D-Air >Sweet-spot F-Air have a super tight window and while Pill combos can kill, they require him to go all in, so if he miss the punish or guesses wrong, he's eating a big punish. So unless you can get down those Up-Tilt's at low percents, he's going to have to win neutral multiple times just to get the damage up. These issues most characters above him simply don't have to worry about, at least to the degree as Doc.



We're not, there's a reason why he has a small playerbase.

In a vacuum his moveset is solid, possibility great. However his bottom tier mobility keeps his approaches telegraphed and limiting his advantage state, if being very prone to getting camped out and having an intentionally designed bad recovery wasn't enough as is.

All of his strengths rest in his advantage state, which is quite good... But not only is it so troubling to even get there, but if he messes up at the wrong time, then he's off-stage without a jump which equals curtains for him.

Did I mention having 6 moves unsafe on hit... Not great for a very slow moving, stubby character who relies on power strikes.
I don't like this problem when it's on and I don't like it any better here.


tldr: IMO is bleh. But he's still better then and maybe even .

Have you never seen Doc use Down-B? This move is crazy. It kills so early, especially offstage. It’s super easy to combo into, allowing him kill confirms, setting up an easy juggle and advantage, and doing heavy damage. It works as a recovery tool as well.

I definitely exaggerated a bit, but this move forms a base for a lot of Doc’s stuff. A great base.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Have you never seen Doc use Down-B? This move is crazy. It kills so early, especially offstage. It’s super easy to combo into, allowing him kill confirms, setting up an easy juggle and advantage, and doing heavy damage. It works as a recovery tool as well.

I definitely exaggerated a bit, but this move forms a base for a lot of Doc’s stuff. A great base.

I don't know what part of my post you're responding to (considering it was a big one to multiple people), but yes I have seen the move, I've been playing the character since the 3DS and I know it's faults, even in Ultimate.

-Tons of endlag.
-Doesn't travel that far and only helps with horizontal recovery.
-The armor only works when grounded and if it's hit by anything that does the same or less then 10%.
-Doesn't get the ability to rise back after getting hit like 's Side-B.


It's a good move but that alone doesn't make up for his horrible mobility.

 

[The_Bookworm]

#31-40 is here:

Season 2 of the #PGRU continues with surprising names and familiar faces.

In partnership with @redbullgaming, we are proud to present to you the 40-31.

Read & Watch: https://t.co/AvqcJUqydB

— PGstats.com (@pgstats) January 15, 2020

31st: Raffi-XNew
32nd: Elegant New
33rd: PandarianNew
34th: Etsuji() New
35th: Umeki+7
36th: NickoNew
37th: Ned() New
38th: VoiD() -29
39th: Lui$() New
40th: ScAtt+1

Spoiler: #41-A51

41st: HIKARU() New
42nd: Goblin() -3
43rd: BestNess() New
44th: Mr R() -8
45th: RFang() New
46th: Kola() New
47th: Riddles() New
48th: KiriharaNew
49th: Big D() New
50th: Ron() New
A51: yeti-17
A51: Wrath() New
A51: Myran-38
A51: LeffenNew
A51: EimNew

One thing quickly apparent about this season's PGR is that Japan events are more weighted than previous years, so it doesn't punish Japan players for not traveling as much as normal.
There is also quite a bit a fresh faces on the PGR as well, which is also impressive.
It is a shame that VoiD is ranked so low, though it is understandable why. Hopefully he bounces back in the future.

 

[meleebrawler]

DK is bad, yea. But worst in the game? I don't know chief. Having mostly unsafe on hit moves sounds pretty bad because well... it is since it limits your neutral. However DK Back-Air and Dash Attack are simply great individual normals to utilize in neutral mixed with DK's generally good mobility meaning that as long as the opponent doesn't have an overwhelming camp game, DK should be fine in neutral and his good mobility prevents runaway platform camp from a lot of the likes of Fox or Zero Suit Samus which already puts him many steps above the likes of DDD, Ganondorf, and Incineroar.

DK will always be a really polarizing character the way he's built now. At the beginning people thought it was toss-up between him and Bowser for best superheavy because of how quickly he could annihilate stocks. That hasn't really changed, it's just that people got better at playing around him. Some days he stomps you, some days you stomp him, just like Ridley in that they have very limited defence in favour of high mobility and power. I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning Ridley in the superheavy discussion, sure he technically isn't but he still plays like one in many ways, weaknesses and all.

 

[BitBitio]

I don't know what part of my post you're responding to (considering it was a big one to multiple people), but yes I have seen the move, I've been playing the character since the 3DS and I know it's faults, even in Ultimate.

-Tons of endlag.
-Doesn't travel that far and only helps with horizontal recovery.
-The armor only works when grounded and if it's hit by anything that does the same or less then 10%.
-Doesn't get the ability to rise back after getting hit like 's Side-B.


It's a good move but that alone doesn't make up for his horrible mobility.

I’m sorry. I didn’t explain my point the right way. What I meant was that a lot of the flaws you pointed out in your post are mitigated significantly by Down-b, not that it alone makes up for everything.

Do I still think Doc has flaws? Absolutely. But I think he’s not as bad as we all say. That’s what I was trying to say.

 

[|RK|]

G&W mid tier????????

Also, Doc has many good things, but he has the double kiss of death.

1) His recovery is the worst in the game. Mac has better airspeed and more mixups, not to mention a stronger neutral to better avoid being put offstage.

2) He's outright inferior to Mario across most categories, save for killpower. So there's no reason you'd pick him up.

Tbh, if they improved Doc's recovery alone, he'd be a genuine threat. Doesn't even necessarily have to be faster. Alas.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Also, Doc has many good things, but he has the double kiss of death.

1) His recovery is the worst in the game. Mac has better airspeed and more mixups, not to mention a stronger neutral to better avoid being put offstage.

2) He's outright inferior to Mario across most categories, save for killpower. So there's no reason you'd pick him up.

Tbh, if they improved Doc's recovery alone, he'd be a genuine threat. Doesn't even necessarily have to be faster. Alas.

Imo, it is going to take more than improving his recovery to buff Dr. Mario. I am not sure if there is any way for the devs to buff his recovery in such a way that makes it at least average anyways.

I think it would help if Doc's mobility would be improved. And not just a small numbers buff, but something more noticeable.

Probably the main thing that made Dr. Mario decent in Melee (at least much better than in SSB4 or Ultimate), aside from his more consistent confirms and his recovery not being much worse than everyone else's, is that even if his slower mobility difference from Mario is much larger than it actually is, he at least has wavedashing, which his' is one of the best in the game and can send him sliding across the floor. Not only the doctor's mobility is much slower relative to Mario, but he doesn't have wavedashing anymore to help compensate for it.

His mobility is even lower relative to the cast than in SSB4, now being a contender for the absolute slowest character in the game in terms of overall speed.
9th slowest air speed.
Below average air acceleration.
7th slowest run speed.
The slowest initial dash in the game by a considerable margin.

Having good frame data is nice, but it is undermined by a bigger issue: he is a very slow character WITH poor range. While low range harms characters like Mario, Wario, and Pikachu, they are at least compensated by being much more mobile (especially Wario) AND having a far more damaging and flexible combo game.

Doc does not.

 

[meleebrawler]

Imo, it is going to take more than improving his recovery to buff Dr. Mario. I am not sure if there is any way for the devs to buff his recovery in such a way that makes it at least average anyways.

I think it would help if Doc's mobility would be improved. And not just a small numbers buff, but something a bit more noticeable.

Probably the main thing that made Dr. Mario decent in Melee (at least much better than in SSB4 or Ultimate), aside from his more consistent confirms and his recovery not being much worse than everyone else's, is that even if his slower mobility difference from Mario is much larger than it actually is, he at least has wavedashing, which his' is one of the best in the game and can send him sliding across the floor. Not only the doctor's mobility is much slower relative to Mario, but he doesn't have wavedashing anymore to help compensate for it.

His mobility is even lower relative to the cast than in SSB4, now being a contender for the absolute slowest character in the game in terms of overall speed.
9th slowest air speed.
Below average air acceleration.
7th slowest run speed.
The slowest initial dash in the game by a considerable margin.

Having good frame data is nice, but it is undermined by a bigger issue: he is a very slow character WITH poor range. While low range harms characters like Mario, Wario, and Pikachu, they are at least compensated by being much more mobile (especially Wario) AND having a far more damaging and flexible combo game.

Doc does not.

The mobility difference is nonexistent between the two in Melee, if anything depending on the build Doc is marginally faster in the air.

Yes, the trophies say he's slower and maybe he was supposed to be, but Melee was a rush job.

 

[Rizen]

Imo, it is going to take more than improving his recovery to buff Dr. Mario. I am not sure if there is any way for the devs to buff his recovery in such a way that makes it at least average anyways.

I think it would help if Doc's mobility would be improved. And not just a small numbers buff, but something more noticeable.

Probably the main thing that made Dr. Mario decent in Melee (at least much better than in SSB4 or Ultimate), aside from his more consistent confirms and his recovery not being much worse than everyone else's, is that even if his slower mobility difference from Mario is much larger than it actually is, he at least has wavedashing, which his' is one of the best in the game and can send him sliding across the floor. Not only the doctor's mobility is much slower relative to Mario, but he doesn't have wavedashing anymore to help compensate for it.

His mobility is even lower relative to the cast than in SSB4, now being a contender for the absolute slowest character in the game in terms of overall speed.
9th slowest air speed.
Below average air acceleration.
7th slowest run speed.
The slowest initial dash in the game by a considerable margin.

Having good frame data is nice, but it is undermined by a bigger issue: he is a very slow character WITH poor range. While low range harms characters like Mario, Wario, and Pikachu, they are at least compensated by being much more mobile (especially Wario) AND having a far more damaging and flexible combo game.

Doc does not.

This covers Doc's issues pretty well. To make him good you'd have to make him like Mario and there already is a Mario. I don't predict Doc getting buffs or rising much in the future.

About , like I've said before he's an anti-meta character. Bucket went from a limited tool that could only absorb energy to one of the best reflectors in the game. Between it and G&W's great upB OoS he can shut down a lot of certain character's gameplans. The problem is he doesn't have a great answer to swords and is extremely light. I like how Glutonny had a tier for counterpick characters because that's where G&W should go. He also has the issue of needing hard reads to kill because Fair is unreliable and situational. You'll see Maester fishing for Usmash a lot in some sets.

If it wasn't for Maester, everyone would still consider G&W low tier. I hate to say it but G&W is holding Maester back from being a top 5 player like how Glutonny and Samsora were held back in SSB4 by their characters not being top tier. Now in Ultimate Wario and Peach are and they're at the top of their games.

 

[|RK|]

G&W can edgeguard, has RNG kills, and low lag smashes. Just because you have to find some kills doesn't make you a mid tier, ESPECIALLY with tools like that.

You can't seriously be arguing the man who appears in multiple top 8s, won his way into Summit and is probably top ten this season is being held back by Game & Watch, a "mid tier" character. That's bonkers.

Samsora and Glutonny wish Peach and Wario were as good in S4.

As for Doc - every character can be made better by improved movement speed The_Bookworm

The thing is, they're not necessarily trying to give that to everyone. Luigi is my eternal example for this - consistently among the slowest in the game, but manages to work out all the same because of other attributes. Some chars simply aren't supposed to be fast - Incineroar, Plant, and Doc among them.

Not to mention from a personal perspective, I think it's the most boring way to buff a character. Doc could use better jump height and a better recovery, and his pills will honestly do the rest. His recovery right now makes it such that he can't afford to lose neutral that much, which is one of the bigger issues I see when good players have used him.

 

[Rizen]

G&W can edgeguard, has RNG kills, and low lag smashes. Just because you have to find some kills doesn't make you a mid tier, ESPECIALLY with tools like that.

You can't seriously be arguing the man who appears in multiple top 8s, won his way into Summit and is probably top ten this season is being held back by Game & Watch, a "mid tier" character. That's bonkers.

Samsora and Glutonny wish Peach and Wario were as good in S4.

So I guess was secretly a top tier when T used him to get third at Civil War. People can't be good with mid tiers, good to know.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Imo, it is going to take more than improving his recovery to buff Dr. Mario. I am not sure if there is any way for the devs to buff his recovery in such a way that makes it at least average anyways.

I think it would help if Doc's mobility would be improved. And not just a small numbers buff, but something more noticeable.

Probably the main thing that made Dr. Mario decent in Melee (at least much better than in SSB4 or Ultimate), aside from his more consistent confirms and his recovery not being much worse than everyone else's, is that even if his slower mobility difference from Mario is much larger than it actually is, he at least has wavedashing, which his' is one of the best in the game and can send him sliding across the floor. Not only the doctor's mobility is much slower relative to Mario, but he doesn't have wavedashing anymore to help compensate for it.

His mobility is even lower relative to the cast than in SSB4, now being a contender for the absolute slowest character in the game in terms of overall speed.
9th slowest air speed.
Below average air acceleration.
7th slowest run speed.
The slowest initial dash in the game by a considerable margin.

Having good frame data is nice, but it is undermined by a bigger issue: he is a very slow character WITH poor range. While low range harms characters like Mario, Wario, and Pikachu, they are at least compensated by being much more mobile (especially Wario) AND having a far more damaging and flexible combo game.

Doc does not.

THIS.

A good boost in jump & Up-B height won't help in the exhausting task of trying to catch the bugger running away from you while spamming disjoints and projectiles, & no pills & cape aren't the answer, they're very telegraphed.

Doc doesn't need to be a speed demon, but he can't cut it now when other overall slow movers like Peach, Snake & Ivysaur can easily outrun him.
He's been overdue for a proper boost since he was screwed over getting it when nearly everyone else got one from the transition onto Ultimate.

The thing is, they're not necessarily trying to give that to everyone. Luigi is my eternal example for this - consistently among the slowest in the game, but manages to work out all the same because of other attributes. Some chars simply aren't supposed to be fast - Incineroar, Plant, and Doc among them.

Big difference between those two...


-Initial Dash: 1.815
-Run Speed: 1.65



-Initial Dash: 1.5375712
-Run Speed: 1.397792


See what's wrong here...

 

[BitBitio]

So I guess was secretly a top tier when T used him to get third at Civil War. People can't be good with mid tiers, good to know.

That's more the exception, than the rule. Plus, just has way more consistent and useful tools than ever did. T's success came later in the metagame, but Maister got these results within a year, without even being PRed, and more of them than T. Maister isn't held back by

 

[KirbySquad101]

Wait, Maister's being held back by ? That's news to me; I know I'm going to sound condescending here, but that's one of the most puzzling things I've heard.

- That's like saying Dark Wizzy is being held back by because he's a Top 20 player instead of a Top 10 player, or that Light is being held back by because he's not a Top 5 player, or that MVD is being held back by because he's not even PGR this season. Even then... Top 10 out of over a million Smash players? The way I see it, Maister's already on top of the world. To put things in perspective... he's currently seeded FIRST at Glitch 8. An A Tier event, above Tweek, above Light, above Dabuz, etc. You can argue whether or not that's right, but if anything, it shows that Maister doesn't need to aim for the big leagues: He's already there.

- Don't get me wrong, Game and Watch has had his struggles, but more often than not, Maister's biggest hurdle is... well, Maister. Let's not forget that he has a bad habit of constantly doing the same thing over again (i.e. DAirs over and over to land, using NAir over and over at the ledge, spams USmash with no mix-up even though the opponent knows how to punish it, etc.). More importantly, let's also not forget that a good chunk of his games, he ends up losing a close Game 5 set because he ends up killing himself for whatever reason. Remember that set against Marss at Super Smash Con 2019 where he literally handed Marss games 2 and 4 to him? Or that set against Kameme at LMBM where he threw Game 2? Again, for reference, he ALMOST won Big House 9 - an S TIER event - had he not ended up SD'ing against Dabuz in Game 5.

I don't know, I might be wrong, and I could be just talking out of my butt. But this is admittedly one of the first times I've ever been outright confused about discussion involving GnW.

 

[Das Koopa]

i'm happy to hear people here follow the orionstats tts, but of course, as I learned over 4 years, new phases are wonky and awful and it takes like 6-8 weeks to settle in. If things look weird it's because the sample sizes are poor at the moment since so few tournies are recorded. I'd take it more seriously after EVO Japan/G7.

I'm still working on a tier list project btw, orionrank & personal stuffs took priority. I've had this discussion with PG Stats Discord people but I personally am very skeptical of Pika's top 3 or top 5 status. While the character is perceived as difficult, he's probably no more technical than Peach (a highly used, popular character who has top 5 results in 2019) despite almost nobody using him. I can name people besides the obvious ESAM/Cap L (Kishiru, Enki, Renya, Kisa) but they don't have great international results.

My personal top 3 is some order of Joker/Palu/Wario. I pay a lot of attention to usage since I think practical usage is important when considering who "the best" is, because high technical input is a genuine limiting factor, and tier lists stopped considering "perfect, peak play" a long time ago, in my opinion, the moment the Melee scene moved to the more practical opinion that Marth/Puff were legitimate #1 contenders since "perfect Fox" is rarely achieved.

Wario is (IMO) the most underrated character in the game. Terrifying usage stats, arguably has the best move in the game, has great aerials/air mobility, etc. He suffers in neutral single his range is bad (a legitimate flaw) but his punish game is reminiscent of prior #1 characters who just win. X-Factor is important because it is mentally exhausting to compete against.

Wario with Waft is hard to play versus mentally. I hazard Bayonetta comparisons, but mental exhaustion versus lopsided punish games is very real. It happens with characters like Melee!Icies who aren't even very good comparative to their game's top tiers. Wario in Ultimate is highly used, successful, a major winner from three different players in the three major superregions (Tweek for Frostbite in USA, Gluto for Albion in EU, Aba for SP4 in Japan) and is less difficult to pilot than Joker.

I do think Joker is top 3, but camping probably isn't it; Tweek felt it was, but Shuton effectively deleted his Joker mid tournament and we haven't seen it since. MKLeo is the only one so far to reasonably push Joker's metagame. Zackray has moments where he pushes Joker's Arsene punish game, but the key is no-Arsene Joker. People are so focused on how absurd Arsene is that (I think) they miss how developed MKLeo's base Joker is. Nobody's base Joker is even remotely comparable.

Palutena is a catch-all character with ridiculous ledge play. I love Nairo's play, but I hate how Palutena can just force you into airdodging on stage because her 2frame options are good, because for some awful reason she has maybe the best "practical" backthrow in the game. Others characters have ones that throw farther (Ness, Incineroar, etc.) but Palu's ability to force you to contend with it in a relevant position (the ledge) is really stupid.

We'll have to see what the next patch does. I'd like small nerfs for the above 3, but I don't think it's as critical as nerfs were in 2015/2016 for Smash 4 where characters were centralizing the game. To Ult's credit, no character seems to define it, and the collective of commonly agreed upon top tiers is regularly broken up by mid/high tiers at major events.

 

[VodkaHaze]

This covers Doc's issues pretty well. To make him good you'd have to make him like Mario and there already is a Mario. I don't predict Doc getting buffs or rising much in the future.

About , like I've said before he's an anti-meta character. Bucket went from a limited tool that could only absorb energy to one of the best reflectors in the game. Between it and G&W's great upB OoS he can shut down a lot of certain character's gameplans. The problem is he doesn't have a great answer to swords and is extremely light. I like how Glutonny had a tier for counterpick characters because that's where G&W should go. He also has the issue of needing hard reads to kill because Fair is unreliable and situational. You'll see Maester fishing for Usmash a lot in some sets.

If it wasn't for Maester, everyone would still consider G&W low tier. I hate to say it but G&W is holding Maester back from being a top 5 player like how Glutonny and Samsora were held back in SSB4 by their characters not being top tier. Now in Ultimate Wario and Peach are and they're at the top of their games.

I'm imagining Maister will be in the Top 10 of this PGR. Saying he's held back by his character is kind of funny especially when you consider how hard it is to get into the Top 10, let alone Top 50. I will grant that Maister carved this character's meta and made people realise that he isn't bottom tier, but needs to be played differently than from Smash 4.

Also, while a counterpick tier may have some merit to it, Glutonny recognises that G&W isn't in that tier and said he's a solo viable character in Ultimate.

i'm happy to hear people here follow the orionstats tts, but of course, as I learned over 4 years, new phases are wonky and awful and it takes like 6-8 weeks to settle in. If things look weird it's because the sample sizes are poor at the moment since so few tournies are recorded. I'd take it more seriously after EVO Japan/G7.

I'm still working on a tier list project btw, orionrank & personal stuffs took priority. I've had this discussion with PG Stats Discord people but I personally am very skeptical of Pika's top 3 or top 5 status. While the character is perceived as difficult, he's probably no more technical than Peach (a highly used, popular character who has top 5 results in 2019) despite almost nobody using him. I can name people besides the obvious ESAM/Cap L (Kishiru, Enki, Renya, Kisa) but they don't have great international results.

My personal top 3 is some order of Joker/Palu/Wario. I pay a lot of attention to usage since I think practical usage is important when considering who "the best" is, because high technical input is a genuine limiting factor, and tier lists stopped considering "perfect, peak play" a long time ago, in my opinion, the moment the Melee scene moved to the more practical opinion that Marth/Puff were legitimate #1 contenders since "perfect Fox" is rarely achieved.

Wario is (IMO) the most underrated character in the game. Terrifying usage stats, arguably has the best move in the game, has great aerials/air mobility, etc. He suffers in neutral single his range is bad (a legitimate flaw) but his punish game is reminiscent of prior #1 characters who just win. X-Factor is important because it is mentally exhausting to compete against.

Wario with Waft is hard to play versus mentally. I hazard Bayonetta comparisons, but mental exhaustion versus lopsided punish games is very real. It happens with characters like Melee!Icies who aren't even very good comparative to their game's top tiers. Wario in Ultimate is highly used, successful, a major winner from three different players in the three major superregions (Tweek for Frostbite in USA, Gluto for Albion in EU, Aba for SP4 in Japan) and is less difficult to pilot than Joker.

I do think Joker is top 3, but camping probably isn't it; Tweek felt it was, but Shuton effectively deleted his Joker mid tournament and we haven't seen it since. MKLeo is the only one so far to reasonably push Joker's metagame. Zackray has moments where he pushes Joker's Arsene punish game, but the key is no-Arsene Joker. People are so focused on how absurd Arsene is that (I think) they miss how developed MKLeo's base Joker is. Nobody's base Joker is even remotely comparable.

Palutena is a catch-all character with ridiculous ledge play. I love Nairo's play, but I hate how Palutena can just force you into airdodging on stage because her 2frame options are good, because for some awful reason she has maybe the best "practical" backthrow in the game. Others characters have ones that throw farther (Ness, Incineroar, etc.) but Palu's ability to force you to contend with it in a relevant position (the ledge) is really stupid.

We'll have to see what the next patch does. I'd like small nerfs for the above 3, but I don't think it's as critical as nerfs were in 2015/2016 for Smash 4 where characters were centralizing the game. To Ult's credit, no character seems to define it, and the collective of commonly agreed upon top tiers is regularly broken up by mid/high tiers at major events.

I agree with you that Pikachu is overrated and Wario is underrated. Pikachu just doesn't have the results that characters like Joker or Palutena have, which might just be the character is unpopular or isn't as good as we make it out to be. Wario is scary because despite his range and lack of a projectile (minus bike), he can effectively camp some characters.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I come back to see that a brief mention of that I made sparked a lot of conversation.

IMO, he's a flawed character with some potential to function as an anti-zoner (because of cape) and a bait-and-punish (due to his ability to punish mistakes fairly well).

While I personally don't think he's the worst, he's probably bottom 10 and doesn't really have any super relevant winning matchups against any top or high tiers and doesn't really have a lot of even ones either (maybe ?). The only really good thing he has going for him in the MU spread is that he doesn't lose nearly as hard to the Top Tiers as some of the other low tiers IMO and his matchup against is significantly better than most low and mid tiers.

In terms of strengths and weaknesses, he probably has more of the former than the latter, but his weaknesses are so major that he can't use his strengths as well.

Strengths

• High kill power
• Great damage output
• Short combos that deal a lot of damage quickly
• Solid edgeguarding
• Great OOS game
• A great projectile
• Good grab followups (also has one of the strongest kill-throws in the game)
• A lot of good moves overall
• Great frame data

Weaknesses

• Poor vertical recovery
• Mediocre horizontal recovery
• Poor ground movement
• Poor air movement
• Poor range on most moves

His biggest stand out issue to me that I think could be easily fixed in a patch is that his air speed is garbage meaning that he can't use his aerials and pills to their fullest potential and that his up-b is really bad as a recovery. To fix Doc, his needs his air speed (and air acceleration) increased significantly and the distance on up-b increased a bit to be anywhere close to being a good character. A buff to his ground mobility would be nice, but I don't actually thinks he needs it that badly if his air speed gets buffed.

I guess I should mention that improving his air speed also goes a long way to significantly improving his recovery.

 

[The_Bookworm]

So Byleth is character #5. I was expecting him to come at one point, but didn't expect so soon.

The salt online about another FE character is real lmao. At least it is from a very successful and acclaimed entry from the series AND is released in the US already a while ago, as well as already having knowledge that we have 6 more characters on the way.

How do you guys think Byleth will play? His moveset seems to be like Banjo where there are less things that shouts "gimmicky".

 

[Arthur97]

Uh, it's not like most FE fighters come from failures of games (though, both of Ike's seriously underperformed, not like many people care though).

I'm all for less gimmicks, so that's fine and dandy, but is this the place to speculate about unreleased content?

 

[Untouch]

After the showcase I can't really see a way in which he ends up above low tier.

A character with piss poor mobility needs hitboxes better than this.

 

[Arthur97]

That's one move, and, remember, it was a months old build. He even made sure to comment that not everything might be the same. Say, maybe fixing some hitboxes.

 

[Lacrimosa]

She looks very slow.
Moves also aren't that fast.

And one good projectile doesn't help when you can't steer it (like Pit's arrows).

But ok, first impression of her are rather...unimpressed (if you can say it like that in English).
But I also wasn't impressed by Joker at first, however Joker doesn't have hitbox issues at all.

E: ok, that's an all build. Was kinda expecting that. But we'll see.

 

[Thinkaman]

The Venn diagram overlap of this thread and unreleased content filmed on a dev build two months ago is roughly the size of Corrin's relevance.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Byleth.

Poor Mobility

Seems to have lots of range between all the Hero Relic Weapons, but many moves seem to have lots of startup and endlag

Specials all seem super-comittal and punishable and not that great. Neutral Arrow may be powerful, but it cannot be steered like Pits arrows, and if you fully charge you cannot cancel out of if.

Recovery seems to be pretty suspect

 

[Lacrimosa]

Byleth.

Poor Mobility

Seems to have lots of range between all the Hero Relic Weapons, but many moves seem to have lots of startup and endlag.

Specials all seem super-comittal and punishable and not that great. Neutral Arrow may be powerful, but it cannot be steered like Pits arrows, and if you fully charge you cannot cancel out of if.

Recovery seems pretty meh

She can spike you with that. Reverse edgeguarding is a thing.

I don't go off-stage against her.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Byleth seems to be a character that has to hard commit for a lot his/her moves and options. Which is not really a good thing in Smash

The Spear fair and bair do have ridiculous range, but only do good damage if you hit with the blade and have slow startup and lots of endlag. It likely wont be effective and spacing out. super-fast slippery characters like Fox, ZSS and Inkling

Failnaught looks to be a strong projectile, but if you fully charge it you are basically stuck on firing it.

Amyr Down-B special Falcon-Punch like move but slower? yeah thats basically a write off.

The Whip-Sword normals seem to fair better while still having good range and combo setups as the trailer said, but with Byleth apparently having very low mobility will they be that effective.

That Side-Special Spear Slash seems like it can be decent neutral option considering the huge range and distance it covers

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Byleth.

Poor Mobility

Seems to have lots of range between all the Hero Relic Weapons, but many moves seem to have lots of startup and endlag

Specials all seem super-comittal and punishable and not that great. Neutral Arrow may be powerful, but it cannot be steered like Pits arrows, and if you fully charge you cannot cancel out of if.

Recovery seems to be pretty suspect

Her recovery is probably the best bit, it's Joker's tether, and we know how good that one is.

 

[DungeonMaster]

So the character no one wanted looks to be a better Belmont. Which is to say he's probably bad, but maybe not quite so bad as Belmont. At first blush he can do something very important that Belmont can't : pressure shields. At least 3 moves that can break or damage shields. This is Belmont's biggest weakness (and if someone says 1/2 second startup axe they and their opponents are incompetent). His angle coverage looks considerably better, hitboxes appear way less thin on the spear. Has burst option with the side b. His moves kill earlier then 160%. Yeah, just a better Belmont.

 

[Thinkaman]

Excessive range can overcome speed problems and make for a competitive character, as evidenced by Corrin. It is also possible it doesn't, as evidenced by Corrin.

Recovery seems fine. Side-b looks good for covering platforms, air dodges, and similar trapping cases. (If nothing else, it helps avoid Zelda syndrome.) Down-B's armor appears generous enough to find use cases in things like punishing Chrom/Ike recovery; is the armor aerial? If so that's way more relevant. Uair and u-smash look solid, as does nair. (Regardless of stupid memes)

 

[Arthur97]

Weren't you just talking about how we shouldn't be discussing this here?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Well hopefully they fix some of Byleth's hitboxes from that older build...

But initial impressions for me? Low mobility (not quite bottom of the barrel, but pretty meh) + bad throws + lots of moves with long startup/noticeable cooldown or decent speed but narrower hitboxes + one projectile with fairly limited mixup potential = not a character that inspires confidence.

Things can change from since November, etc etc, and I really like the look of that Up B and Uair. And obviously range helps a lot and the damage looks fairly high per hit. But currently I'm suspicious that we're looking at the weakest of DLC Pack 1's characters. A lot of bad looking pieces that aren't going to be overhauled completely as they mentioned them specifically in the video.