Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[StoicPhantom]

Sprag0 got a lot of mileage out of Blazing End

ven seemed to forget he had a teleport move for some of those. I agree with your assessment otherwise, but I'll add that the switch to Pyra is also because Mythra's advantage becomes significantly less useful at those percents (as far as closing the stock goes).

I'll also say that there was quite a lot of punishment left on the table on ven's part. I don't know if it was MU inexperience or pressure, but I feel that there was enough there to win the set. Neutral too could probably not consist of frequent jumps and throwing out laggy moves on what is perhaps the best whiff punish character and chasing after a character with comparable mobility and greater range. More Phantom on retreating Pyra and more shield on aggressive Mythra.

So I think an optimized Sephiroth will do fine for the same reasons an optimized Zelda will do fine and he may even have a better neutral with Shadow Flare. I'm not optimistic about these girls' disadvantage and I think Mythra isn't amazing on defense. I feel like we need to look more towards optimizing for their disadvantage than worrying about whether we match Mythra in neutral. Particularly targeting that recovery and not letting Mythra back down once she's up.

 

[Thinkaman]

Yeah, of the Juice Box 31 sets ven and Sharp seemed to have less of an idea how Mythra plays independent of their characters.

And yeah, there is a survivorship bias that we are only talking about the cases where the new character does well and makes a splash, as is typical and expected. But we're just rubbing together the snippits of information that we've got, slowly inching towards future where we know things.

I'm still skeptical, relative to most I think, of Mythra's unbounded dominance. But I wouldn't find it inconceivable that she is number 1. (I thought the same about Min Min FWIW)

It feels like a lot of people are crying wolf, but that story does, in fact, end with everyone getting eaten by a wolf.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Dabuz made a speculative Pyra/Mythra matchup chart today on stream. He said he could see some of the slightly winning matchups maybe being even and that the two losing matchups could also potentially be even. He said he thinks their matchup spread is overall incredibly good.
View attachment 306856

Yet another Top Tier losing to Diddy...

 

[SKX31]

ven seemed to forget he had a teleport move for some of those. I agree with your assessment otherwise, but I'll add that the switch to Pyra is also because Mythra's advantage becomes significantly less useful at those percents (as far as closing the stock goes).

I'll also say that there was quite a lot of punishment left on the table on ven's part. I don't know if it was MU inexperience or pressure, but I feel that there was enough there to win the set. Neutral too could probably not consist of frequent jumps and throwing out laggy moves on what is perhaps the best whiff punish character and chasing after a character with comparable mobility and greater range. More Phantom on retreating Pyra and more shield on aggressive Mythra.

So I think an optimized Sephiroth will do fine for the same reasons an optimized Zelda will do fine and he may even have a better neutral with Shadow Flare. I'm not optimistic about these girls' disadvantage and I think Mythra isn't amazing on defense. I feel like we need to look more towards optimizing for their disadvantage than worrying about whether we match Mythra in neutral. Particularly targeting that recovery and not letting Mythra back down once she's up.

Yeah, of the Juice Box 31 sets ven and Sharp seemed to have less of an idea how Mythra plays independent of their characters.

And yeah, there is a survivorship bias that we are only talking about the cases where the new character does well and makes a splash, as is typical and expected. But we're just rubbing together the snippits of information that we've got, slowly inching towards future where we know things.

I'm still skeptical, relative to most I think, of Mythra's unbounded dominance. But I wouldn't find it inconceivable that she is number 1. (I thought the same about Min Min FWIW)

It feels like a lot of people are crying wolf, but that story does, in fact, end with everyone getting eaten by a wolf.

Both points are valid - just looked at Dabuz's set vs. Maister in the VoD (started at 3 hr 22 mins in), and Maister showed quite a bit of adaptability. Of course, Dabuz went mostly Pyra (probably to outrange and kill MGW early), but still:

• Maister shielded a lot vs Pyra; granted, it is standard G&W stuff, but versus a character with Ike / Byleth-esque range it becomes arguably even more important. Dabuz got a couple grabs, but nothing that outright changed the tides by itself.
• A well-timed shield could just barely tank a charged Flame Nova. Talking frames from breaking territory. Now, GW is one of the best OOS characters in the game, perhaps better than Mythra / Pyra, but still.
• Maister looked to use Bucket quite a few times to discourage Blazing Ends. Sometimes it backfired, but he took advantage of a mis-timed Blazing End at the ledge from Dabuz when he was at 60 %; so he could reflect it -> Back Air to complete a 0-to-death stock in game 3. Game 3 was on Town and City.
• Maister was not afraid to go deep for the edgeguards, which is probably due to Aegis' recoveries being mostly vertical. He was caught by a Photon Edge, but he managed to get a B-Air or D-Air quite a few times.

And Lui$' set vs. WaDi's ROB directly after:

• Regardless of whether Lui used Pyra or Mythta, WaDi played relentless. Okay, ROB has that ability to a large extent, but it allowed him to keep up with if not dicombobulate Mythra / Pyra. Lui was able to adapt to the pressure in Game 2, but had some close calls. That didn't stop WaDi, as he continued some very agressive play in Game 3.
• In particular, he was relentless whenever Lui tried to recover. D-Tilts, Lasers, Spins, Gyros, D-Airs, everything and the kitchen sink thrown at the Aegis girl Lui had out at the time. Some of those were probably missed because of the online (such as one where Lui swapped to Mythra and recovered low, while WaDi tried to read with a Side-B. Lui managed to get a Chrome Dust off to punish.), so I'm assuming that more of those will hit offline. If not, I'm pretty sure ROB players will stuff the kitchen sink with proverbial dynamite just in case.
• The usual ROB tricks in disadvantage - stalling in the air, shooting projectiles etc. - seem to have some effect. But those aren't particularily safe vs. either Mythra - who can catch up fast - or Pyra - who can cover a lot of options with aerials or special moves.
• Sidenote: the end of Game 3 looked like there was enough Spaghetti to feed the entire Smash scene for a week. Seriously, missed conversions all over the place, panic options and general inability to establish any sort of advantage galore. I don't blame them - that does happen from time to time. Also, Spaghetti does make for some really intense Smash though, so I'm not complaining.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I'm not sold on Captain Falcon as a top tier just yet (though apparently ESAM thinks top tier is like top 20-25, and he said top 20 for Captain Falcon). Still, top 20 has a lot of competition, and Captain Falcon that good? I'm not sold, but if any Captain Falcon player wants to enlighten me why he's top 20 I'd be happy to hear it.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Captain Falcon isn't probably Top Tier, but improved a lot through buffs. He's just a solid high tier, high tier in general are just very good characters in this game. Top 35 still makes you viable for the most part in Ultimate.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Idk. Even with a 20-25 character top tier, there are just seriously so many great characters. Especially since Min Min, Sephiroth, and Pyra & Mythra are all better than Falcon imo. I'll have to see what Fatality can accomplish once quarantine ends. He has the potential to improve my opinion on Falcon, but as of now I think he's edged out by 25 characters, perhaps even a few more. It's worth noting that the bulk of top tier is nerfed online. I'd imagine offline Joker, Peach, ZSS, and especially Pikachu aren't fun matchups for Falcon. Falcon is also nerfed online, but not by as much.

 

[blackghost]

not buying falcon as a top tier offline. he has only recived more rough matchups as dlc has gone on and many of his harder matchups are chaarcters that are suffering online right now.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

not buying falcon as a top tier offline. he has only recived more rough matchups as dlc has gone on and many of his harder matchups are chaarcters that are suffering online right now.

As far as Falcons MU with the new DLC

I think Falcons does well vs Steve and likey is going to do alliright vs Pyra/Mythra due to having the speed , tomahawk and burst options to pressure them.

Min Min can be a problem..
Falcon can pressure Min-Min onstage well enough as soon as she can get him offstage the tables get turned yard. Min Min laughs at Falcon's Up-buff becuase she does not even need be anywhere near it to edgeguard him

Sepiroth I do not quite know. Falcon can likey land devestating stuff die to Seph having a tall hurtbox and being so light. But once again Sepirtioths scary edgeuarging and ledgetrapping could be a problem for a recovering Falcon . Those offstage fairs and dairs are nasty.

Why does Sepiroth d-tilt able 2-frame so well for a sliding attack? Geez

 

[SwagGuy99]

not buying falcon as a top tier offline. he has only recived more rough matchups as dlc has gone on and many of his harder matchups are chaarcters that are suffering online right now.

yeah, and I also don't think his buffs change the fact that his matchup spread is still somewhat lackluster. None of his matchups are unwinnable, but I do think he has more oppressive losing matchups than a top tier, or most high tiers have in Ultimate.

feel like they should all beat Falcon at least 6:4 still, even after his multiple sets of buffs. I don't think any of them were affected much by Falcon's buffs in 8.0 or 11.0, they all had ways to edgeguard Falcon safely without being rockcrocked before it was changed, Falcon's disadvantage against was (and still is) awful against them, and he still struggles in neutral against all of them to varying degrees.

are all relevant characters who think likely beat Falcon, however I don't think listed here is flat out oppressive to him like those first four characters oftentimes can be.

I also just don't think he beats many characters in the top half of the roster, it's just a lot of losing and even matchups and one or two he potentially wins. I think that Falcon just struggles against too large of a portion of the cast to be a consistent threat offline and while I think this character has the potential to make it far in bracket at a major as a solo-main, I really don't see a Falcon main winning a major without a secondary. The character is just too volatile and struggles against too many characters for me to believe that he's just as capable in the meta as a top tier would be.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

yeah, and I also don't think his buffs change the fact that his matchup spread is still somewhat lackluster. None of his matchups are unwinnable, but I do think he has more oppressive losing matchups than a top tier, or most high tiers have in Ultimate.

feel like they should all beat Falcon at least 6:4 still, even after his multiple sets of buffs. I don't think any of them were affected much by Falcon's buffs in 8.0 or 11.0, they all had ways to edgeguard Falcon safely without being rockcrocked before it was changed, Falcon's disadvantage against was (and still is) awful against them, and he still struggles in neutral against all of them to varying degrees.

are all relevant characters who think likely beat Falcon, however I don't think listed here is flat out oppressive to him like those first four characters oftentimes can be.

I also just don't think he beats many characters in the top half of the roster, it's just a lot of losing and even matchups and one or two he potentially wins. I think that Falcon just struggles against too large of a portion of the cast to be a consistent threat offline and while I think this character has the potential to make it far in bracket at a major as a solo-main, I really don't see a Falcon main winning a major without a secondary. The character is just too volatile and struggles against too many characters for me to believe that he's just as capable in the meta as a top tier would be.

Well I think Falcons will do alliright vs Pyra/Mythra , the character many people are worried about now. If they do become a major threat in the meta it will be okay for him.

He may also do well vs Sepiroth , a character many people are worried about once offline touraments become a thing again and his potential can be realized

 

[Thinkaman]

Recent and relevant:

Yes yes yes, it's online, but C O M E O N. Fatality wasn't even considered a top 50 player going into 2020, and here he is comfortably beating a top 15 player using Reddit's annointed god-king.

And this isn't even patch 11.0.0! ESAM tech-punishes his up-b multiple times!


Fatality wielding buffed Falcon looks like a top 30 player operating a firmly high tier character. Maybe it's all a grand online illusion, but the limits of that explaination is starting to wear thin.

Edit: Can I just say off-topic that Fatality is a a great content creator and what I personally wish everyone was more like? Authentic, straightforward, insightful. Editing that emphasizes not just great plays, but also terrible plays + good moves his opponents did. No clickbait, no begging, no endless social manipulation for subs and donations. No screaming. General positive energy.

Contrast that with having to put up with HBox on that Juice Box footage, my goodness. And HBox is a fantastic commentator, it's just his streaming style is insufferably optimized around extracting money from, well, whom I assume are young kids out of charity.

 

[Sucumbio]

Recent and relevant:

Yes yes yes, it's online, but C O M E O N. Fatality wasn't even considered a top 50 player going into 2020, and here he is comfortably beating a top 15 player using Reddit's annointed god-king.

And this isn't even patch 11.0.0! ESAM tech-punishes his up-b multiple times!


Fatality wielding buffed Falcon looks like a top 30 player operating a firmly high tier character. Maybe it's all a grand online illusion, but the limits of that explaination is starting to wear thin.

Edit: Can I just say off-topic that Fatality is a a great content creator and what I personally wish everyone was more like? Authentic, straightforward, insightful. Editing that emphasizes not just great plays, but also terrible plays + good moves his opponents did. No clickbait, no begging, no endless social manipulation for subs and donations. No screaming. General positive energy.

Contrast that with having to put up with HBox on that Juice Box footage, my goodness. And HBox is a fantastic commentator, it's just his streaming style is insufferably optimized around extracting money from, well, whom I assume are young kids out of charity.

Great set to watch.. pikachu had trouble sealing stocks in some instances but that shows falcon is definitely a great character choice with powerful options (that usmash on the 2nd match!). Those combos tho ... Online.... Heh.

 

[NotLiquid]

It should be pointed out that Fatality primarily plays with Yuzu, and this FT10 was done through that, so while this was technically online, it was closer to an offline experience.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

I think there other falcons to watch out more that fatality, like andrik or nickC.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

There is some actual relevant competitive news going on . The delayed Smash World Tour has officially started today with the Mexico qualifiers. All qualifiers and preliminaries will be held online, but I heard that further stages of the World Tour are going to be held when hopefully lockdown restrictions are eased hopefully later this year

Here is what the top 32 of the Mexican Qualifiers . Its going to be streamed at 12PM Tomorrow



Winners Side


Sparg0 vs. Regi Shikimi

Andrik vs. Cobra

Chag vs. Leaf

Nair^ vs. Bonilla

Maister vs. Xtorm

AlanDiss vs. Stronghold

MKLeo vs. Rinku

Cloudy vs. BigBoss


Losers Side


JohnY vs. WaKa

Panda vs. MasterKill

Pollo vs. Kraken

Eeveecario vs. Rafita

Ang vs. NATH

Skyjay vs. Vixel

Tury vs. Maikchido

Nalga vs. myk



Some comments

It will be easy to get a kneejerk reactions to the 2.5 in Winners Side, One of them is MKLeo who could of gotten to this point using any character Another is Cloudy who is another very strong Mexican player. Likewise I would not get too triggered if MKLeo does win this with solo Pyra/Mythra. Remember he has been dominating online competitions with pre-buffed for months now

Strong Showings from as it typical in online tournaments, However there is also 3 showing its not just Maister than makes G&W look ridiculous

Two in top 32. Robin has been quietly results in online tournaments we will see if the results can transition to offline tournaments once they begin again.

A good amount of superheavies made in into top 32 losers side, including 2

 

[Frihetsanka]

Remember when I said corrin was a top 15 character?

Idk what kinda bullshit I was spewing

— Cosmos (@CosmosZR) March 14, 2021

He's right though, top 15 was always too optimistic. I think Pyra/Mythra showcases what you need in order to be a good character in Ultimate, namely busted stuff, which Corrin lacks.

 

[PK Gaming]

I've been playing ZSS lately. Really great and fun character, very skill intensive but rewarding. Definitely use her if you wanna schmoove

Remember when I said corrin was a top 15 character?

Idk what kinda bullshit I was spewing

— Cosmos (@CosmosZR) March 14, 2021

He's right though, top 15 was always too optimistic. I think Pyra/Mythra showcases what you need in order to be a good character in Ultimate, namely busted stuff, which Corrin lacks.

He might have been able to take her there prior to Mythra's release, but it's a done deal now

 

[Frihetsanka]

He might have been able to take her there prior to Mythra's release, but it's a done deal now

I don't think so. Corrin has some very strong tools, but she lacks truly busted tools. In this game, which top 15, or even top 20, character, does not have something really busted? Corrin is more well-rounded than in 4, but well-rounded is not good enough in a game where most/all good characters have some truly silly options.

It will be fun to see what Cosmos can do with Pyra/Mythra. It's hard for me to recommend playing Corrin right now to anyone who wants to do well: This game has many really strong sword characters, with busted moves and/or attributes and/or special abilities. Corrin is not one of them. Neither is Lucina, for that matter; while she's quite a bit better than Corrin, she, too, lacks busted moves/attributes/special abilities. I currently believe that Pyra/Mythra, Sephiroth, Roy, Chrom, Shulk, Cloud are all better swordfighters than Lucina and Corrin. Barring some really good buffs I don't think Corrin will be high tier in this game, and so far many of the DLC characters have been losing matchups for her. Two more DLCs remaining and probably at least two more balance patches, so there's some hope, but it's likely that Corrin will go down as an underplayed mid tier.

 

[Kokiden]

Would be nice to actually get a feel of how good a character is, but I only have access to online now when it comes to playing with others.

I'm pretty sure it's because I suck, but Joker's moves miss so much and so does Bayonetta's.

There are so many times where the move just phases right through the other guy and I'm just like, wtf did I just see?

I'm reading you guys comments, and it's so different from what I'm actually experiencing.

 

[Rizen]

Would be nice to actually get a feel of how good a character is, but I only have access to online now when it comes to playing with others.

I'm pretty sure it's because I suck, but Joker's moves miss so much and so does Bayonetta's.

There are so many times where the move just phases right through the other guy and I'm just like, wtf did I just see?

I'm reading you guys comments, and it's so different from what I'm actually experiencing.

Wifi sucks. Joker probably gets nerfed a bit online. We'll all be glad when offline tournaments return. I read vaccines should be available to everyone by May.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

This game literally does not function properly pic.twitter.com/loRJrhBKva

— Danklin (@TimDanklin) March 14, 2021

Well, this is getting patched...
(Hopefully)

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Wifi sucks. Joker probably gets nerfed a bit online. We'll all be glad when offline tournaments return. I read vaccines should be available to everyone by May.

There are many people saying that can be a potential Top-tiers but he also gets nerfed pretty hard online. Wi-Fi sucks for a lot of characters that depend on high precision comobs-setups or edgeuarging/ledgetrapping



Speaking of Bugs and Patches. The reduced header endlagbbuff was unintentional is is will be reverted back in a future patch. I guess any WFT should enjoy it while they can .

 

[Idon]

Would be nice to actually get a feel of how good a character is, but I only have access to online now when it comes to playing with others.

I'm pretty sure it's because I suck, but Joker's moves miss so much and so does Bayonetta's.

There are so many times where the move just phases right through the other guy and I'm just like, wtf did I just see?

I'm reading you guys comments, and it's so different from what I'm actually experiencing.

Arsene bair covers the entire universe so I'm guessing it's just you.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is the progress of SWT: Mexico.
We are now at top 8.

Winner's
Sparg0 vs Chag
Maister vs MkLeo


Loser's
AlanDiss
Nair^


7th: Stronghold
7th: BigBoss
9th: WaKa
9th: Cloudy
9th: Andrik
9th: Bonilla
13th: Pollo
13th: Tury
13th: Ang
13th: Panda
17th: Nalga
17th: Rinku
17th: Skyjay
17th: Xtorm
17th: Regi Shikimi
17th: Cobra (DQ'ed)
17th: Leaf
17th: Eeveecario


Sniff It has been so long since I have done this...

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Cloudy (formerly Captain Levi) using Pyra took MKLeo's newly buffed Bytleth to game 5 oj last stock, then Cloudy ended up getting eliminated 3-1 to Nair's Ridley

The volatitly being shown from competive footage of due to knowing knowing the MU yet. Or they will just end up being very volatile characters in general

Also nothing that MKLeo used Pyra vs Rinku was ended up going right down to the wire. I saw lots of stocks Rinku took were due to proper edeguards

But I am starting think people may be possibly be sleeping in Robin just a teeny bit. I mean they may not be Top-tier or anything bu the stuff I saw Robin players to in these online tournaments man

 

[Frihetsanka]

To be fair, it's not like Joker really dominated after a few weeks either. Give people some time learning the characters. Also, for some reason MkLeo pretty much plays solo Pyra rather than Mythra + Pyra, which is probably not ideal at all... I guess he just likes Pyra?

I agree that Robin is a bit underrated, I don't think she's quite high tier but she's not as bad as people think. Mid tier somewhere.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I wouldn't be surprised if Alandiss becomes the best Snake player in the world one day.

 

[NotLiquid]

MKLeo on the surface plays neutral with a very heavy Pyra bias, moreso than I've seen other players. Unsure whether that's just an online preference or whether it's just something that's more analogous to his Byleth mindset at present, but it's worth pointing out that Rinku 3-stocked Leo in their second game, which is where he more or less exclusively attempted to go Mythra.

 

[Frihetsanka]

MkLeo 3-0 Maister G&W pretty solidly, this time using both Pyra and Mythra rather than mostly Pyra. Clearly MkLeo's Pyra/Mythra is already quite good if he can beat a top player like Maister so solidly. This doesn't necessarily mean that Pyra/Mythra is a good character (MkLeo also has gotten good results with Byleth, after all), but given that more players than just MkLeo use Pyra/Mythra it's a pretty good indication that the character is good. Pyra is probably better online, but Mythra might benefit from offline, and Mythra seems like the overall better character in the duo. I'm very optimistic for them right now and I think they have a very high chance of being top tier.

 

[blackghost]

To me it looked less like an issue for leo due to the characters but more of a mental block. he seemed to have no faith in his mythra in the round vs robin. he wasnt switching and he wasnt even attempting to use mythra. later vs maister he played both more equally. he does clearly prefer pyra but vs cloudy and Miaster he went mythra just to show a different look and modify timing.

also when foresight is more optimized people are gonna be complaining about it. so far only cloudy seems willing to go and abuse foresight.

the trajectory of myhtra and pyra looks good. but i think the trajectory of pyra in particular needs to be reevaluated by some people they really sold her short.

 

[Frihetsanka]

also when foresight is more optimized people are gonna be complaining about it. so far only cloudy seems willing to go and abuse foresight.

My take: It's really good vs projectiles and other moves that are heavily telegraphed, but in practice vs other moves it's really hard to time Foresight, so it won't be quite as good as people think. Still really good ofc, and people will complain about it regardless, since it's annoying.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Clean 3-0 from MkLeo's against Sparg0, advancing him to grand finals.

MkLeo throughout his set has been mainly using Pyra at low and high percents, while using Mythra in mid percents, kinda similar to the Min Min Ramram-Megawatt dynamic. I forgot if it was NotLiquid who predicted about the usage of this, but it has so far paid off well for MkLeo.

Of course this strategy gets adjusted depending on the matchup and the situation, but it has been Leo's general strategy against Sparg0 (haven't seen the Maister set yet, but I am assuming he did the same there as well).

An interesting observation by TKBreezy, is that MkLeo uses Mythra quite a bit for pressuring Sparg0, instead of focusing on racking up damage. While Mythra does have some solid combos to here name, her damage per individual hit is very low. Pressuring the opponent is something Mythra does indeed do well thanks to her frame data and mobility.

Not sure if this strategy will catch on / stay relevant as the character's meta progresses.

 

[Rizen]

Strong Showings from as it typical in online tournaments, However there is also 3 showing its not just Maister than makes G&W look ridiculous

I was waiting for top 8 to come out to respond to this. As I predicted Maester's the only to get top 8. The problem with this whole argument is 3 of one character getting top 32 at a regional where that character is strong anyway isn't that impressive. I could do the same thing for if I found a regional from (iirc) Nebraska, where skittles is from. If you want to use Maester's amazing results as a reason why G&W is top tier you have a good point. I however disagree for the following reasons:

Let me ask this to the thread: what results has G&W gotten aside from Maester? This plays into my point that G&W is very strong but not on the same tier as say pre-nerf Palutena and Maester's incredible skill is carrying the character, not the other way around.
As a counterpoint, who I've claimed is top tier, shows up in top8s everywhere including getting 7th in this one (Big Boss). For ROB you have Wadi, Grayson, BennyandtheJets, 8bitman, and another who I can't remember his name, placing online and being the #1 character on Orionrank before the pandemic. It's very unlikely that all these players were carrying ROB when he has so many different results. However, one player, Maester is carrying a huge portion of G&W's results.

Let's talk about G&W as a character. He has traits that counter several characters. If you don't have disjoints his OoS upB is f3 and Usmash has so little lag it can't really be punished once it's started. This is hell for characters who have to jump on top of him like CF. G&W also can reflect projectiles and bucket energy which makes characters like Snake have to change up their whole gameplan.

But he can be counterpicked with big disjoints. Look who Maester loses to: MKLeo's Ike reverse 6-0ed him in GFs. Leo's Mythra just beat him. Spargo and Kola's Clouds have winning records vs him. Ned, who usually plays PT, counter picked Sephiroth and beat him 3-1 with the game he lost having an SD.
My point is if your character is struggling vs G&W do what Ned did and pick up Sephiroth instead of complaining that G&W needs nerfs (which haven't happened).

Why am I saying this? Because the very best player I've played offline mains (the best online player was ZeRo). He was ridiculously good; if you've ever seen an amazing CF's advantage state it's scary as hell. I'd be lucky if I beat him one game a night during smashfests. His CF was top tier. But I recognize his skills carried the character and didn't say CF was top or even high tier (this was before the CF buffs btw) or that CF beat my main (pre buff it was +1 YL's favor and now it's even imo). He outplayed me; it's that simple. I'd played other CFs and beaten them. This is why I don't believe in basing a character's ranking on one player's results. Maester is simply that good and is outplaying the competition in ways no other G&w can.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

One thing I noticed about the Sparg0 vs MKLeo set is that Spargo did not try to edgeguard or Challenge MKLeo offstage, like at all the entire set. In Game 3 I counted multiple times where Sparg0 launched MKLeo as Pyra way off stage , and then just stood there and waited like over 5 seconds as MKLeo just barely managed to get to the ledge.



I get that Cloud does not have the best recovery himself and going too far offstage can potentially be risky for Cloud . But I would Sparg0 would at least try to capitalize on Pyra's biggest weakness

 

[Kokiden]

Arsene bair covers the entire universe so I'm guessing it's just you.

Right... let's go ahead and discount all his other moves, and why Bayonetta stuff just phases through as well.

 

[Frihetsanka]

But he can be counterpicked with big disjoints. Look who Maester loses to: MKLeo's Ike reverse 6-0ed him in GFs. Leo's Mythra just beat him. Spargo and Kola's Clouds have winning records vs him. Ned, who usually plays PT, counter picked Sephiroth and beat him 3-1 with the game he lost having an SD.
My point is if your character is struggling vs G&W do what Ned did and pick up Sephiroth instead of complaining that G&W needs nerfs (which haven't happened).

Every character has losing matchups in this game, even top tiers will often have 5-10 losing MUs. Besides, if you counter-pick him he could just counter-pick your counter-pick for the next game. Ned's Sephiroth seems promising by the way, I think he'll use it for more than just G&W. Anyway, a lot of top tier characters have only a few notable players, it's not too surprising in a game with around 80 characters. If G&W isn't top 15 he'll be at least close to it, even if we consider the "very few players play him" objection, no? OrionStats had him at #16 before covid (and chances are his results are better now, like I doubt Inkling is top 15 still). I do think G&W got a bit worse due to Sephiroth and Min Min and Pyra/Mythra being added to the game, all which seem like likely losing matchups. Still, G&W should have a good shot at being top 15 or at least top 20, I think.

One thing I noticed about the Sparg0 vs MKLeo set is that Spargo did not try to edgeguard or Challenge MKLeo offstage, like at all the entire set. There was tikes where Sparg0 would launch MKLeo as Pyra way off stage and just stand there asMKLe just barely manages the get back on the ledge

I know Cloud does not have the best recovery himself and going too far offstage can potentially badly for Cloud him. But I would Sparg0 would at least try to capitalize on Pyra's biggest weakness

MkLeo was doing a good job making it hard for Sparg0 to edgeguard by throwing out a Blazing End to cover his recovery or by going low to up-B. Pyra's recovery may not be amazing but it's still an Ultimate recovery and it's really not as bad as some people make it out to be (though if you can gimp her she dies early).

 

[KirbySquad101]

Would be nice to actually get a feel of how good a character is, but I only have access to online now when it comes to playing with others.

I'm pretty sure it's because I suck, but Joker's moves miss so much and so does Bayonetta's.

There are so many times where the move just phases right through the other guy and I'm just like, wtf did I just see?

I'm reading you guys comments, and it's so different from what I'm actually experiencing.

In the case of, it might be because of two things (I'm using this site as a reference: https://ultimateframedata.com/joker.php ).

The first thing is that depending on where you look, several of Joker's hitboxes aren't actually that lenient (base Joker's anyway), and are in most instances strictly mapped to his dagger or his legs, like with his forward tilt or DSmash. This holds especially true for his UAir and NAir (the former of which only covers the tip of his legs), which combined with his slippery movement can make them easy to miss without good timing. Funny enough, two of his attacks that don't follow this criteria - dash attack and BAir, both which have hitboxes not mapped to a part of Joker - are some of his best melee attacks, especially BAir. People like to make fun of how massive the Arsene version is (and rightfully so), but even its base version has some pretty generous hitbox placements that cover quite a healthy chunk o' area behind him.

The second thing is most likely an instance of animation implications. There are several moments where moves' animations' imply they should be more active than they actually are (Joker's DTilt is the biggest criminal of this, as well as most "baseball slide" moves in general). Wario's nerfed UTilt is a prime example of this, where the duration of that move's attack frames were reduced, but no changes to its animation were made, leading to a fairly bizarre - and frankly, misleading - animation. Arc-type attacks are also pretty guilty of misleading animations, where most "swing"-type attacks (like Ike's UAir) have animations that cover a lot more area than the move itself actually does.

The second point isn't really unique to Joker. It's something that pops up with a LOT of characters in the game.

 

[Idon]

Right... let's go ahead and discount all his other moves, and why Bayonetta stuff just phases through as well.

Things don't just "phase through", bro.
You can look up his hitboxes and see for yourself.
Joker's hitboxes are pretty damn generous all things considered.


Either
1: You're mistaking the weapon trails he has for being actual hitboxes when they're just visual flair.
2: Using one of Joker's more precise moves that only have hitboxes where the visual "attack" is (up air, nair, side B)

I really can't feel any sympathy for Joker of all characters when Marth exists.

 

[PK Gaming]

Would be nice to actually get a feel of how good a character is, but I only have access to online now when it comes to playing with others.

I'm pretty sure it's because I suck, but Joker's moves miss so much and so does Bayonetta's.

There are so many times where the move just phases right through the other guy and I'm just like, wtf did I just see?

I'm reading you guys comments, and it's so different from what I'm actually experiencing.

You need more experience using the character.

You want to play reactive with Joker. It's not difficult to land FH Nair, especially with momentum. Dash attack is a solid burst option for him. Bair is extremely fast and has good range. Ftilt is a good midrange tool, and his fsmash is a situationally useful ranged move, particularly after a read

I struggled with the same thing, but once I spent a lot of time with the character, it became easier to land his attacks.