Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[meleebrawler]

Raises hand

I believe that 's not as overwhelming as quite a lot of people believe and Mythra in particular may struggle a bit vs. characters that can keep up with her combination of range and frame data some. Especially if a lot of trades happen since that interrupts her combo game and trades don't favor her damage-wise. She's still very strong, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that particular has been widely noted.

And yes, I'm ready to eat crow over this if I'm completely wrong.

True mastery of the character will come from liberal use of switching, to if nothing else discombulate your opponent's sense of spacing. You minimize each form's weakness exposures as well using this: Mythra may risk trades going for less-than-true strings, but Pyra sure doesn't. Like Pokemon Trainer, you need to look at how they work in tandem to really understand how they work, not just make assumptions on the the form traditionally accepted as more solo-viable. Otherwise you would probably be better off with someone like Lucina.

I'm right there with you on this from start to finish, honestly. I think both of Mythra's and Pyra's strengths are so extreme that it takes attention away from some serious flaws they have (primarily recovery, which doesn't ruin their competitive viability by any means, but does take them outside of the top 5-10 character discussion imo), but mythra's sheik syndrome combined with a bit of lag on landing aerials and having slightly worse overall defensive options because of foresight (iirc) are also notable enough to mention as a limitation in my eyes.

The biggest thing that's paid off for me so far against Mythra is just accepting that you won't always keep up with her speed, and/or win neutral, but that's fine because you take a lot of percent and farm rage for a solid length of time with good enough patient play (even with the presence of Pyra and her absurd kill power). I actually think is the one still tripping me up more in the MU, because while she's slow on the ground, her air speed is actually somewhat decent and she's SO damn floaty that I end up mistiming an anti-air or landing trap punish and pay dearly for those mistakes (we'll have to see how much of that remains the case as people learn the MU and offline becomes more widespread again; mythra may well improve, but pyra will likely be significantly worse offline even if she's still decent enough).

I too, will surely eat my hat if I'm proven wrong, though.

Pyra's floatiness wouldn't mean much if Mythra's fall speed weren't so fast as a contrast. Though it also doesn't hurt that Prominence Revolt can crash her back to earth with a massive explosion so fast that it will almost certainly catch anyone who even thinks of chasing her into the air. In general running up and shielding seems to be the standard procedure I notice a lot of players use, since it checks most the more rewarding options the duo would like to use when approaching. Luckily both of their neutral specials are good against shields in their own way.

The biggest collective hangup I notice is that neither can edgeguard low recoveries well, since their own aren't very good and many of the best options are high commitments. Ray Of Punishment can help with this, but it tends to be more of a nuisance than a real threat.

 

[DougEfresh]

Pyra's floatiness wouldn't mean much if Mythra's fall speed weren't so fast as a contrast. Though it also doesn't hurt that Prominence Revolt can crash her back to earth with a massive explosion so fast that it will almost certainly catch anyone who even thinks of chasing her into the air. In general running up and shielding seems to be the standard procedure I notice a lot of players use, since it checks most the more rewarding options the duo would like to use when approaching. Luckily both of their neutral specials are good against shields in their own way.

The biggest collective hangup I notice is that neither can edgeguard low recoveries well, since their own aren't very good and many of the best options are high commitments. Ray Of Punishment can help with this, but it tends be more of a nuisance than a real threat.

You make a really good point about the contrast between their attributes adding greatly to the difficulty of properly dealing with Pyra's floatiness: you go from having to guess with your options against Mythra and mashing in a way your character best can to keep the damage pretty even between the two, to suddenly having to considerably delay your options to punish Pyra or simply waiting for mistakes to punish by either camping or baiting her.

Your elaboration on their somewhat lackluster edgeguarding ability is on point too, since it means you're mostly left to just make sure you mix up your ledge options against them to work around ledge trapping (at least if you're one of many characters with decent to good recoveries in Ultimate). Top 20 for Aegis seems like a pretty fair assessment of them for now, but we'll see if they go up or down in time.

 

[blackghost]

Let's move on.

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

Optimized sepiroth will be the most oppressive character in the game.

drops mic

 

[Thinkaman]

I suspect Pyra gets a noteworthy artificial buff online, and am very curious to see where she ends up offline.

I've been relatively pessimistic on Pyra/Mythra (compared to say Twitter), but still think she is really really good. Lots of room for optimization, probably top 15?

Optimized sepiroth will be the most oppressive character in the game.

Can't lie, Ned was making a persuasive argument.

Offline, further polished, in the hands of a Leo or Tweek?

But for the time being I have more attention devoted to Min Min.

 

[RonNewcomb]

I maintain: Seph will get worse offline.

Ned? Lost to a Ness despite Ness's dislike of swords, and Mr E is whiffing Lucina's fair in front of Seph while hovering in his range. (Like, wtf E.)

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Pandemic Anniversary Series Finale

1. Sonix
2. Sparg0
3. Yez
4. ShinyMark
5. Skyjay
5. WaKa
7. ESAM
7. Jake

On the topic of Pyra/Mythra, I gotta say I think Sonic might be their worst matchup.

• Sonic has better mobility than Mythra making it one of the few times she can't use her mobility to get in. When using Pyra it's incredibly hard to get that kill move in because the speed difference is astronomical.
• Spin Dash ignores Foresight and Blazing End
• Sonic has a great 2 framing option in forward smash to deal with their poor recovery and has an easy time edgeguarding them with fair and bair.

 

[meleebrawler]

Results for Pandemic Anniversary Series Finale

1. Sonix
2. Sparg0
3. Yez
4. ShinyMark
5. Skyjay
5. WaKa
7. ESAM
7. Jake

On the topic of Pyra/Mythra, I gotta say I think Sonic might be their worst matchup.

• Sonic has better mobility than Mythra making it one of the few times she can't use her mobility to get in. When using Pyra it's incredibly hard to get that kill move in because the speed difference is astronomical.
• Spin Dash ignores Foresight and Blazing End
• Sonic has a great 2 framing option in forward smash to deal with their poor recovery and has an easy time edgeguarding them with fair and bair.

Actually, Mythra can pretty reliably beat out Spin Dash with both Lightning Buster and Photon Edge. Someone a while ago also mentioned Mythra doesn't really "chase" opponents so much as she hovers near them to try and goad punishable moves out due to her attempts of pure offensive pressure having some holes, which is admittedly something Sonic is also fond of doing, so it becomes a matter between players of who is better at doing that. Sonic has to jump out of spin dashes pretty early to not get hit by Mythra's specials when using them, and that can simplify things a lot for Mythra's defense. Foresight can also be a boon against Homing Attack-happy players.

In terms of being edgeguarded, I would be more worried about having springs dropped on the blade's heads; 2-framing Mythra while standing on the edge is not as easy as it seems due to Photon Edge and Ray Of Punishment's jump being able to poke people standing too close, and if she wasn't knocked too far, also has that special airdodge which is actually immune to 2-frames if done right.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Stupid opinions: "I think people are wrong about character's weaknesses and they just repeat stuff they saw on twitter" edition:

• problem isn't his recovery, it's that his ground game isn't as absurd as someone like chrom to compensate (why does lm up b deal 8 and chrom 24 lmao).
• is actually stupid oppressive when you have to play buttons with him, has a very good matchup against palutena, and my personal experiences of playing sheik into him are "how the heck do I do anything except needle camp against this abomination". Fortunately most of the cast can refuse to play the game against him but jeeze what even is this frame data lmao.
• problem isn't his out of shield. Ok I mean it kinda is, but not in the "just bully his shield and u win!" way coz he's just gonna dash around your moves, it's just that it makes his offense worse coz dash -> shield is such a powerful option in this game. Give him joker grab and he'd be insane. Also his recovery is actually kinda poor coz it's sooo easy to 2 frame and lacks a hitbox. It does go very far though which is useful when you're the one edgegarding (kinda like arsene in a way).
• isn't that bad, I keep seeing people at my locals mess around with him and then be like "hahaha he's so slow bottom 5 char!!" and when I watch them they don't even use down b aka "the only reason to play the character", go play ganon if u just wanna spam command grab smh. Pretty good against link from my personal experience its very funny to beat nair with half ur tools.
• problem isn't his tail hurtbox. Ok I mean it doesn't help that it makes his backdash terrible and leads to funny twitter clips, but even without it he'd still struggle in disadvantage coz he's a floaty tall light boy. He also wants to play a patient grounded game using shadow ball and his speed but these damn chroys wont stop mashing short hop aerials . Pretty good in matchups where he is allowed to play the game though, shadow ball is just... gross and his edgegarding is stellar.
• isn't that Lucina exists. Ok I mean it kinda is, but also the character is just.... not great? It's very difficult to hit tippers consistently in this game coz of the lack of setups (rip perfect pivot/jab being busted) so in some matchups it feels like u're just moving ur fly swatter around until you hit an hail mary side b tipper. It's also more difficult to play into swordies usual win condition of "get people to ledge and bully them" when some of ur moves will barely send them anywhere. Not unplayable by any mean (it's ultimate after all), and he has one of the best up-b in the game, but when mkleo himself tried out the character for a month promising he was good and then dropped him I think it says something lmao.

As for sephiroth and Pythra I do remain very curious to see where they're gonna end up offline as well. Feels like sephiroth has more room to grow over time too? His kit is more complex than Pythra who's mostly a big ball of good moves and stats (and Foresight I guess). Min Min terrifies me though she just seems straight up overtuned on some moves (up smash screams DLC).

Also France is getting some good offline events back, with Glutonny (surprising right) winning a 141 entrants event yesterday. Didn't get to watch much of top 16 unfortunately, but a set that caught my attention was some (Katascient) VS (Manda, France best Diddy iirc?), which looked... pretty annoying for Diddy lmao. Blocks seemed effective at shutting down Diddy's standard grounded pressure with banana, and fighting him head on is pretty scary. And then on top of that you have to deal with Steve Things :tm:, which well you better have some matchup experience otherwise this stuff happens https://clips.twitch.tv/GeniusDreamyAirGuitarBCouch-LFbXF5dOy75XQ6Sq .
Curious to see where that character will end up too, I guess all of DLC 2 are scary in their own way lol.

 

[Thinkaman]

problem isn't his recovery, it's that his ground game isn't as absurd as someone like chrom to compensate (why does lm up b deal 8 and chrom 24 lmao).

I mean one starts on frame 10 and the other is frame 1 intangible so there you go. (It's also 10% vs 21%.)

Little Mac up-b is more comparable to Rest or Doc up-b.

 

[Nobie]

Speaking of Marth, here's a couple of new videos of MKLeo using him online:

My marth still get his tips!

Played marth on stream the other day and this is what happened, my marth is still a beast man omg!If you wanna watch streams live go to Twitch.tv/mkleossbCoa...

youtu.be

Luigi is broken!

Played vs kiyarash a few matches the other day and it was really funny lolHope you like it a lot, and in case you do subscribe and hit the bell for more! New...

youtu.be

To quote MKLeo: "Why is my Marth way better than my Lucina, bro?! I don't get it. Is it just because I like the character?"

There's a funny point where Marth gets Scintilla'd by Sephiroth at high percent but doesn't die, likely because it caught the sour spot of fair.

Anyway, my not-so-hot take is that Lucina isn't necessarily better in every matchup, and that Marth's robbery skills can come into play. What those matchups are, I have no idea.

EDIT: Correction, I just thought of a matchup: Steve. His lack of animation and hurtbox-shifting means Marth's tippers can probably land consistently.

 

[duxx]

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

Toon Link is the best link. He's got an insane combination of frame data, recovery, and kill power, and his zoning game is one of the most oppressive in the whole game. He doesn't have any "bad moves" outside of maybe down tilt. His combo game, while not as good as Yink, is still decent, with low percent stuff like close up bomb -> grab -> dthrow -> bair -> bair, boomerang -> bair -> bair, and bomb -> dash attack -> utilt -> nair. He's got kill confirms in bomb -> bair -> up b and bomb/boomerang -> fair

 

[Wunderwaft]

It's been a while since I posted some Steve stuff, so here's some Steve jank/sauce.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

This is another option for Steve's already monstrous ledge trapping game. I should add that this isn't a ledge trump, Steve's Elytra hitbox hits the opponent as Steve grabs the ledge which can combo into a back aerial (The Up B hitbox may mess up the DI of the opponent compared to normal ledge trumping).

A good application is to use it as a mix-up for ledge trapping when you either don't wanna waste too many resources or you wanna punish an opponent who is sitting at the ledge too long to avoid your TNT.



Now here's another tech which has recently been shed more light on, and this one I'm really excited to see optimized more.

Steve Guide - No Impact Lands or NIL

Just a quickie on NILs with inputs.macro, not marco btw at 1:19Song:Junk - Paul McCartneyTwitter:https://twitter.com/MilkmanSSBUDiscord:Milkman#4039

www.youtube.com

This tech enhances Steve's movement and removes the endlag when he's put on a block. It opens a new and more optimal combo route for him. Here's a sample of what is being explored:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Oh and as for stupid opinions, I think Steve is gonna be better offline than online

 

[NotLiquid]

• problem isn't his recovery, it's that his ground game isn't as absurd as someone like chrom to compensate (why does lm up b deal 8 and chrom 24 lmao).

I'm probably out of my depth talking about Little Mac since I don't really have much experience with him, but at a cursory glance I don't think his ground game is the issue with him, nor is his weak recovery a damning thing in isolation. It's really his lack of an aerial game in general that holds him back. In your case here when you bring up Chrom for instance, Chrom gets a lot out of jumps and airborne engagements. Most of the best characters in Ultimate do, even the lower tiered characters like K. Rool, Ganondorf and Doc have approaches dictated by transitioning into aerial states. Little Mac doesn't even really have this basic element going for him in his game plan. He's the one character in the game where it seems, on the surface, that he needs to play to avoid a certain state rather than playing alongside it, which feels like a severe handicap in a game where the aerial field is considered dominant to a borderline memetic degree.

 

[Arthur97]

May not be a hot take, but when going vertical, I kinda prefer Pyra's up special over Mythra's even if the latter's does go a bit higher. Pyra's at least seems faster and has some pretty generous magnet hands.

 

[blackghost]

Smash bros by its nature and gameplay shows a character can survive being nearly 100 percent reliant on an air game (puff) vs overly reliance on a ground game. Lil Mac is bad because he doesn't fit the game mechanics.
Compare lil Mac to other grounded characters like ryu Ken and Terry. They have fireballs, mobility specials, and cancels to compensate. Additionally those three have real ground to air confirms and combos and vice versa. Lil Mac doesn't.

 

[$.A.F.]

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

Is a top 20 character and his weaknesses are severely overrated.


Is top 5.

Isn’t top 5 IMO. And Shulk is significantly better as well.

Is top 10 easily and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.

Legitimately does kind of suck and no matter what he always will.

With bug fixes becomes an actual high tier

 

[Frihetsanka]

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

Well, I think they are reasonable takes, but:
ZSS might still be top 5
Pyra/Mythra might not be top 5
Sephiroth is probably not top 5
Peach might be a bit overrated and probably top 10 or maybe even slightly lower than that
Mario might be top 10
Min Min Might be top 10
Greninja is underrated, I don't know how much exactly, maybe top 10, maybe top 15
Snake is slightly overrated and probably more like top 20 than top 10
Diddy Kong is underrated and potentially top 15/20
Lucina is slightly overrated, maybe top 20 or top 25
Pichu is still pretty good, top 25/30, maybe better
Sheik too
Steve is not top 20 offline, maybe not even top 30, not sure
Bowser is overrated
Corrin is mid tier

 

[Ziodyne 21]

despite seeming very well-rounded and solid linda has a very rigid and linear gameplan. Use her big sword to win in both neutral and when edgeuarding. She is a very good character when she can do both those things and can seem almost dominant. But that gameplan falters when she comes across characters that keep up with her game and possibily beat her. Outside of Mr.E Lucina is mostly used as a co-main or CP for those reasons

Lucina does not have too many true combos/confirms and has kinda mediocre kill power outside her admitted strong edgeguarding and a mediocre disadvatnage outside a risky up-B that early. She lacks an varied or explosive advantage stare of other swordies like and even Of course Lucina has her own advantages over these examples (i.e recovery) in most cases.

So yeah she may be among the most "well-rounded" and solid swordie. But being well-rounded or consistent does not mean you will be top-tier in the meta of Smash

 

[Djmarcus44]

1332 Gunner is better than Samus.

 

[Rizen]

Results for Pandemic Anniversary Series Finale

1. Sonix
2. Sparg0
3. Yez
4. ShinyMark
5. Skyjay
5. WaKa
7. ESAM
7. Jake

On the topic of Pyra/Mythra, I gotta say I think Sonic might be their worst matchup.

• Sonic has better mobility than Mythra making it one of the few times she can't use her mobility to get in. When using Pyra it's incredibly hard to get that kill move in because the speed difference is astronomical.
• Spin Dash ignores Foresight and Blazing End
• Sonic has a great 2 framing option in forward smash to deal with their poor recovery and has an easy time edgeguarding them with fair and bair.

Sonix got his revenge in this tournament but keep in mind Spargo's Pythra did 3-0 him in the second GF set of Lunchbox 11.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Most top tiers in this game have something that really stand out, Lucina kind of doesn't. Joker? Arsene. Pikachu? Quick Attack (and his combo game, and neutral). ZSS? Flip Jump. Shulk, Monado Arts. Pyra/Mythra, swap between two extreme forms. Mario, amazing combo game. Min Min, massive range. Sephiroth, Winged Form. Peach, float and turnips. Wario, Waft. Pokémon Trainer (if they're considered top tier), swap between three forms.

I suppose Palutena, Wolf, and Roy/Chrom don't really have any special ability like that, but they are also all fairly overtuned in ways Lucina isn't. Lucina is good, and I doubt she's going to drop to mid tier during Ultimate's lifespan (maybe if the last two characters hard counter her, but that seems unlikely), but I also doubt she's going to be top tier again (assuming she was in the first place). Meta changes and meta development has made her fall behind, DLC giving her potentially four new losing MUs (Min Min, Sephiroth, Joker, Pyra/Mythra) doesn't exactly please her.

I think, at this point in time, Smash Ultimate Lucina is probably worse than Marth in Smash 4, Brawl, and Melee, with the meta in mind (Marth was top tier in every game except maybe Smash 4 where he was either on the low end of top tier or upper end of high tier). Even if Smash 4 Marth was somewhat vanilla as well, he had some nasty setups like jab-tipper f-tilt and such. At least Ultimate Lucina (and Marth) have down-tilt to down-smash, which is something.

 

[KirbySquad101]

It's funny hearing people bringing up how both and will tear up a storm once the online shackles are yanked off, because both come off as two sides of the same coin to me.

Both characters have very similar performances online - very high presence overall at top 8's at online events/weeklies but meager WRs within said Top 8 brackets - yet, one is constantly propagated as being nerfed heavily online, while the other is chalked up to being boosted to a point that he's one of the most notorious Wi-Fi demons alongside other similar cases like or .

Which means in the case of Sephy, people are either:
A. Lying and he's only as good as online makes him out to be, or
B. Telling the truth, and he'll most likely come out as top 5/10 material.

Likewise for Steve:
A. People are telling the truth, and Steve will only stay a Wi-Fi menace, or
B. People are lying, and Steve will also be a high/top tier threat.

Just looking at who's repping who, I can see why people are more inclined to believe B in the case of Sephiroth, and A in the case of Steve. When Sephiroth's raining down on people's parades locally, he's gonna have Nairo, Tweek, and Ned on his side, all PGR-ranked powerhouses. Meanwhile, Steve's best players - Jake and yonni in particular - haven't participated in a single offline event prior to our "Wi-Fi" era.

That said, there's two things I feel like should be considered before going with answer A and B respectively:

1. Rarely anyone - if there is anyone - will admit that their character is buffed online, especially largely successful players like Maister or Dabuz, and this honestly might very well be the case for Sephiroth. Not to say it's true and I don't really think people say it as a way to prop themselves up - or in the case that they do poorly online - save face, but I feel like what most offline players experience is less "my character gets gimped online" and more "my playstyle gets gimped online".

2. Even if a character is "buffed" online, I don't think the transition is as clear-cut or one-to-one as people make it out to be. To clarify what I mean, take Steve as an example - People have gone to heaven and back to prop up how much of Wi-Fi boost Steve's Minecart gets as an unreactable burst option, but are we certain this outweighs the nerfs Steve gets online? Yes, I said nerfs, because I'm really hesitant on believing everything about Steve improves in a more delayed environment, especially when - depending on how knowledgeable his opponent is at the MU - reacting to opponent's DI is one of the most important aspects of Steve's advantage state given his generous SDI multipliers on several of his main combo tools. And we're seeing with the right DI coverage, Steve is most certainly capable of ZtDs or 0 to 60% combos.

Basically people might overrate how good Sephiroth will be offline and people might underrate how Steve will be offline. Honestly really ready to bite the bullet on the former, as trying to argue Sephiroth won't be good with 3 Top 50 players sounds really dumb, but I'm more willing to stick to my guns on the latter, especially considering yonni's consistently good placings at locals.

Oh, and as for stupid opinions? I got lots of them lol. could be Top 5 if aggressive players like Maister and Frido took elements of Wi-Fi GnWs - Quark and LA GRIMACE in particular - and were much more willing to run the clock when they have the lead, especially in more polarizing MUs (easy example of this being LA GRIMACE timing out Nakat's to win Game 5 in their SWT set).

Or if y'all don't want to hear more of me constantly propping up GnW, I think 's a Top 10 character and will only continue to do better as Tea continues to improve.

 

[Wunderwaft]

It's funny hearing people bringing up how both and will tear up a storm once the online shackles are yanked off, because both come off as two sides of the same coin to me.

Both characters have very similar performances online - very high presence overall at top 8's at online events/weeklies but meager WRs within said Top 8 brackets - yet, one is constantly propagated as being nerfed heavily online, while the other is chalked up to being boosted to a point that he's one of the most notorious Wi-Fi demons alongside other similar cases like or .

Which means in the case of Sephy, people are either:
A. Lying and he's only as good as online makes him out to be, or
B. Telling the truth, and he'll most likely come out as top 5/10 material.

Likewise for Steve:
A. People are telling the truth, and Steve will only stay a Wi-Fi menace, or
B. People are lying, and Steve will also be a high/top tier threat.

Just looking at who's repping who, I can see why people are more inclined to believe B in the case of Sephiroth, and A in the case of Steve. When Sephiroth's raining down on people's parades locally, he's gonna have Nairo, Tweek, and Ned on his side, all PGR-ranked powerhouses. Meanwhile, Steve's best players - Jake and yonni in particular - haven't participated in a single offline event prior to our "Wi-Fi" era.

That said, there's two things I feel like should be considered before going with answer A and B respectively:

1. Rarely anyone - if there is anyone - will admit that their character is buffed online, especially largely successful players like Maister or Dabuz, and this honestly might very well be the case for Sephiroth. Not to say it's true and I don't really think people say it as a way to prop themselves up - or in the case that they do poorly online - save face, but I feel like what most offline players experience is less "my character gets gimped online" and more "my playstyle gets gimped online".

2. Even if a character is "buffed" online, I don't think the transition is as clear-cut or one-to-one as people make it out to be. To clarify what I mean, take Steve as an example - People have gone to heaven and back to prop up how much of Wi-Fi boost Steve's Minecart gets as an unreactable burst option, but are we certain this outweighs the nerfs Steve gets online? Yes, I said nerfs, because I'm really hesitant on believing everything about Steve improves in a more delayed environment, especially when - depending on how knowledgeable his opponent is at the MU - reacting to opponent's DI is one of the most important aspects of Steve's advantage state given his generous SDI multipliers on several of his main combo tools. And we're seeing with the right DI coverage, Steve is most certainly capable of ZtDs or 0 to 60% combos.

Basically people might overrate how good Sephiroth will be offline and people might underrate how Steve will be offline. Honestly really ready to bite the bullet on the former, as trying to argue Sephiroth won't be good with 3 Top 50 players sounds really dumb, but I'm more willing to stick to my guns on the latter, especially considering yonni's consistently good placings at locals.

Oh, and as for stupid opinions? I got lots of them lol. could be Top 5 if aggressive players like Maister and Frido took elements of Wi-Fi GnWs - Quark and LA GRIMACE in particular - and were much more willing to run the clock when they have the lead, especially in more polarizing MUs (easy example of this being LA GRIMACE timing out Nakat's to win Game 5 in their SWT set).

Or if y'all don't want to hear more of me constantly propping up GnW, I think 's a Top 10 character and will only continue to do better as Tea continues to improve.

I'm of the opinion that Steve's online buffs aren't that drastic to the character. Everyone is going all over how wifi Minecart is this unreactable beast, yes the cart gets a buff online but the difference is not as drastic to it's offline counterpart as how people are making it out to be.

I found this nice comparison pic that someone on Stevecord made which compares the difference between the burst range of Minecart in online and offline in terms of the standard human reaction time, this accounts for the extra input delay we can find online.

The cart in it's online burst doesn't seem to be travelling that big of a distance compared to it's offline counterpart, barely half a platform. Does the cart get buffed online? Technically yes, but it's not as big of a difference from it's offline counterpart as some might make it out to be.

I'd argue this buff doesn't outweigh the nerf of stricter input timing for certain techs like NIL which are essential for Steve's optimal combo routes.

 

[Nobie]

I'm of the opinion that Steve's online buffs aren't that drastic to the character. Everyone is going all over how wifi Minecart is this unreactable beast, yes the cart gets a buff online but the difference is not as drastic to it's offline counterpart as how people are making it out to be.

I found this nice comparison pic that someone on Stevecord made which compares the difference between the burst range of Minecart in online and offline in terms of the standard human reaction time, this accounts for the extra input delay we can find online.

The cart in it's online burst doesn't seem to be travelling that big of a distance compared to it's offline counterpart, barely half a platform. Does the cart get buffed online? Technically yes, but it's not as big of a difference from it's offline counterpart as some might make it out to be.

I'd argue this buff doesn't outweigh the nerf of stricter input timing for certain techs like NIL which are essential for Steve's optimal combo routes.

If it were just the Minecart startup itself that was the issue, you might be right. The real problem with online Minecart is that it's also a projectile Monkey Flip. You have to deal with the fact that it can turn into a grab at any time while also factoring in the delayed reaction times.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

We doing Smash hot takes right now?

is high tier. I feel Byleth's advantages are much better than other slow characters such as , and . Having huge disjoints, a great tether recovery that can function for combos and incredible damage output makes him/her pretty good. Having disjoints in this game also makes you a naturally good character IMO, because range is such a huge thing in this game. His/Her moves are also incredible, especially the neutral air, which is basically Palutena's but better.

Having poor disadvantage, bad landing options and poor mobility does harm the character, but that doesn't mean much when if they didn't have that they'd be oppressive to a lot of the cast.

 

[Wunderwaft]

If it were just the Minecart startup itself that was the issue, you might be right. The real problem with online Minecart is that it's also a projectile Monkey Flip. You have to deal with the fact that it can turn into a grab at any time while also factoring in the delayed reaction times.

The reason why I highlighted the Minecart startup is because it's the burst option that most people seem to have a problem with and complain about, it's the fastest part of the move. The only time Minecart truly becomes unreactable is during the burst ranges I posted above, anything beyond those ranges and the move can be reacted to by the player. The speed of Minecart after the startup slows down and the move becomes easier to react to and punish, it's generally not worth it to spend a lot of time on the cart after the startup since it's too risky and it burns resources quickly.

Regardless, the main point I'm trying to go with isn't to say Minecart isn't busted, because I think the move itself is stupid and privileged. What I'm going with is that offline cart is also silly and the differences between it and it's online version aren't drastic enough that Steve would get carried by it online, even with the delayed reaction times.

 

[WatwatBreton]

I mean one starts on frame 10 and the other is frame 1 intangible so there you go. (It's also 10% vs 21%.)

Little Mac up-b is more comparable to Rest or Doc up-b.

Oh yeah woops my bad, I didn't realize it was frame 1 intangible I just thought it was frame 3 lol. Does this have applications to get out of combos? Hitbox seems very thin but f1 invincible options are always valuable.

I'm probably out of my depth talking about Little Mac since I don't really have much experience with him, but at a cursory glance I don't think his ground game is the issue with him, nor is his weak recovery a damning thing in isolation. It's really his lack of an aerial game in general that holds him back. In your case here when you bring up Chrom for instance, Chrom gets a lot out of jumps and airborne engagements. Most of the best characters in Ultimate do, even the lower tiered characters like K. Rool, Ganondorf and Doc have approaches dictated by transitioning into aerial states. Little Mac doesn't even really have this basic element going for him in his game plan. He's the one character in the game where it seems, on the surface, that he needs to play to avoid a certain state rather than playing alongside it, which feels like a severe handicap in a game where the aerial field is considered dominant to a borderline memetic degree.

Smash bros by its nature and gameplay shows a character can survive being nearly 100 percent reliant on an air game (puff) vs overly reliance on a ground game. Lil Mac is bad because he doesn't fit the game mechanics.
Compare lil Mac to other grounded characters like ryu Ken and Terry. They have fireballs, mobility specials, and cancels to compensate. Additionally those three have real ground to air confirms and combos and vice versa. Lil Mac doesn't.

Yeah I feel like "no aerials" is more of an issue as in "you just lack options overall" rather than "you need aerials to compete in this game"? Like I could absolutely see mac being good if he had an elite grab game and better ways to threaten aerial opponents from the ground (like idk, sephiroth usmash lmao, but anything that catches most full hops in neutral would work).
I guess my point was that I think mac is bad coz he's undertuned and not because the design of "very grounded character" is fundamentally flawed.
Or that you can be a very polarized character as long as you have just enough mixups for common situations: ken having both nair and dtilt as strong combo starters, palutena having an elite grab and dash attack to compensate her very bad tilts and smash.

Granted this will never happen until a new game though (and also FFA being a thing/stage list being a competitive social construct are big issues for him design wise) so I'm mostly theorizing for the sake of it XD but i think it could work.

In the meantime Neutral b having some usefulness would be kinda cool , it's one of the "very bad specials" left in the game rn (along with like yoshi side b and falcon punch, but like rob side b went from a meme to a broken special in the transition from s4 to ultimate lol). And having his aerials have some utility instead of being almost entirely memes would be sweet, even if they're very situational conditioning tools - didn't they have some autocancel shenanigans in smash 4 or sth? The character has very strong conditioning tools so it could work to have sh fair be a "once per game" option that beats spotdodges and puts into tech chase to cheese an early kill or something.

Most top tiers in this game have something that really stand out, Lucina kind of doesn't. Joker? Arsene. Pikachu? Quick Attack (and his combo game, and neutral). ZSS? Flip Jump. Shulk, Monado Arts. Pyra/Mythra, swap between two extreme forms. Mario, amazing combo game. Min Min, massive range. Sephiroth, Winged Form. Peach, float and turnips. Wario, Waft. Pokémon Trainer (if they're considered top tier), swap between three forms.

Honestly I'd put her edgegarding abilities (and up b in particular) on the same level as some of these, dolphin slash is just nuts. Frame 1 invincible, the giant hitbox and its speed make it very hard to 2 frame or contest, goes a pretty high distance and of course can actually kill/force repetitive stage spikes. Combine that with good air drift, bair, side b to stall/reverse and a counter and she can force so many 50/50 "if i guess right you're dead if i'm wrong i hope you're ready for ledgetrap" situations.

Granted the character seemed to be losing some steam lately (didn't Protobanham drop her for Min Min or something?) but I don't think this has anything to do with "not having a very broken tool", you can be top tier in this game just by being extremely solid all around (wolf is still super good for that reason, and pit isn't meh by lack of a broken tool he's just meh).

If I had to guess a reason for her ""decline"" (still very relative, I wonder what the stats will be when offline starts again), I'd say that her meta doesn't have as much room to evolve as other characters, and also being a swordy puts you in competition with most DLCs coz they tend to be long ranged characters.

 

[Nah]

oh right I think I have one too

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

Disjoint is an overrated attribute given the rather excessive amount of armor and i-frames in this game, and most non-disjointed moves get to safely clank with disjoints anyway. Range is important, but sometimes it feels like when people talk about it in regards to swords they're in some sort of fantasy land where everyone with a disjoint has one the size of like Masamune/Monado/Min Min ARMS and they literally always get to space perfectly.

flog me daddy <3

 

[NotLiquid]

Not sure if these count as stupid opinions but what the hell, I'll throw in some into the ring

If Banjo had one better grounded kill option he'd be a genuine menace at high levels of play, arguably one of the best zoners of the meta, and possibly one of the more reviled characters of this game. Between the advancements of his character specific tech and mid-range flurries, plus his overall aerial coverage, he's an aggravating stone wall that I'm surprised has been viewed in a relatively lukewarm fashion.
If the competitive scene wants to insist upon the notion that Pikachu is a Top 5 character at worst, then accounting for pure relativity there's no way Inkling is lower than low top tier/upper high tier.

 

[SKX31]

Oh and I'll add another stupid opinion related to my main:

might not be harmed that much offline compared to online since he still has a very solid offensive and reactionary toolset, and few of his MUs are aggravating. While he doesn't have as many potent advantages that does, I believe that he has the potential to reach upper high tier should his off stage advantage game and tilt-canceling be further developed.

 

[Thinkaman]

Oh yeah woops my bad, I didn't realize it was frame 1 intangible I just thought it was frame 3 lol. Does this have applications to get out of combos? Hitbox seems very thin but f1 invincible options are always valuable.

It's extremely applicable to combo breaking, though it needs his attacker to be on top of him rather than purely below or to the side. Otherwise the medicine might be worse than the cure, though not as extreme as Rest.

Mac up-b is perhaps the most underutilized disadvantage 50:50 in the game. It's just really hard to internalize every f1-link situation in the game.

Yeah I feel like "no aerials" is more of an issue as in "you just lack options overall" rather than "you need aerials to compete in this game"? Like I could absolutely see mac being good if he had an elite grab game and better ways to threaten aerial opponents from the ground (like idk, sephiroth usmash lmao, but anything that catches most full hops in neutral would work).
I guess my point was that I think mac is bad coz he's undertuned and not because the design of "very grounded character" is fundamentally flawed.
Or that you can be a very polarized character as long as you have just enough mixups for common situations: ken having both nair and dtilt as strong combo starters, palutena having an elite grab and dash attack to compensate her very bad tilts and smash.

Your thesis is correct; Mac being a "flawed design" has been a poor take since 2014. (I should know; it's what I thought before release, and I had to eat crow when I played the character a lot.) Mac is undertuned and polarized (even more so in Smash 4), and has weird implications with stages and rulesets, but the moveset itself is pretty dang coherent and functional.

Where I think you are off-base is the focus on aerials. Mac honestly doesn't need aerials any more than Puff needs ground moves. (There are some astricks there--Mac would be fundamentally flawed without his up-b and side-b, and Puff would be flawed without grab, and Zerg would be flawed without Zerglings. Many extreme characters rely heavily on key tools that "plug the hole" in their otherwise opposite extreme gameplay.)

Between his movement and fast high reward moves like d-tilt and side-b, Mac can punish landings on stage, BF-height platforms, and ledges just fine.

Watch top Mac players like Peanut or Tarakotori, and you'll see a character who gets to play "his game" about as much as a typical character for the matchup on display. There honestly aren't many moments you look at and say "Man, if Little Mac just had a decent fair, that would somehow make this situation better."

Mac's core problem is his overall disadvantage state, with his recovery just being one part of that. When Mac gets hit, he suffers as much as a heavy; sometimes more! Only he doesn't have the weight of Bowser or K. Rool compensating. He dies in probably the fewest average neutral losses of any character. (Maybe Ganon competes?) And while Mac hits hard back, and DOES land plenty of those d-tilts, it's not proportional.

Of course you could just uptune Mac's reward to where it's an equal bloodbath on both sides; buffing damage, giving Smash Ultimate Mac Smash 4 d-tilt, doing anything that makes KO Punch more usable. But I don't think that's targeted to this polarized character's worst matchups, where the disadvantage issues are at their peak. I'd rather see buffs to neutral-b and down-b, and possibly some aerial tweaks. (That aren't what other people have in mind.)

Splitting the difference, you could also make the argument that Mac's lackluster grab (and reward) is the weak link, and that that would be one of the better ways to holistically improve him. I still think general disadvantage is the bigger issue, but this does make more sense than anything else people talk about with Mac.

In the meantime Neutral b having some usefulness would be kinda cool , it's one of the "very bad specials" left in the game rn

It's not bad, but its use is limited. You'll see Peanut pull it out quite a bit, and it's incredible against low-damage Mythra. In some matchups like Mario or Sheik or ROB it can salvage what would otherwise be an extremely bad disadvantage situation.

The ability to cancel/release it sooner, less endlag, or (most importantly) a higher armor threshhold (than 8%) would go a long way in making this tool apply to more matchups. Like Zelda Phantom, I think improving the move to that state is the best path for Mac.

And having his aerials have some utility instead of being almost entirely memes would be sweet, even if they're very situational conditioning tools - didn't they have some autocancel shenanigans in smash 4 or sth? The character has very strong conditioning tools so it could work to have sh fair be a "once per game" option that beats spotdodges and puts into tech chase to cheese an early kill or something.

Smash 4 Mac had a SHAC fair, which could be done out of a d-tilt instead of a side-b or up-b if you were feeling cheeky. It was mostly a disrespect move, but if you caught them off-guard it could function as a questionable combo extender.

Like many characters/moves, the higher gravity of Ultimate makes Mac's short hop 1 frame shorter, so fair no longer SHACs. This also happened in the transition from Brawl to Smash 4, where 1 frame difference cost moves such as Ganon dair and Lucas nair their SHAC usage.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I suspect this is the point where I say that this off-topic topic has run its course and everyone has contributed what they have to add. At this point emotions are just getting enflamed.

Let's move on.

Who has a stupid opinion about a Smash Bros. character ready to be flogged?

• is on the lower end of high tier and probably won't ever drop below the top of mid tier at worst. This is mainly due to how good he is at capitalizing off of human error and just because his kit in general is overall really solid.
• No Smash Ultimate DLC is Top Tier with the exception of and the only ones I could see myself changing my minds on later are and maybe .
• isn't a Top Tier (still a very solid high tier though).
• is at worst the best character in high tier, but is probably just a top tier.
• is Top 3.
• isn't a top tier, just a high tier.
• is bottom 2 and worse than .
• and are solid mid tiers

 

[Thinkaman]

is bottom 2 and worse than .

I'm sticking to my guns of "Lucario is just extremely volatile and cursed to play in tournament formats that measure performance as a function of your worst games rather than best/average." (Applies to Mac too.)

 

[WatwatBreton]

It's extremely applicable to combo breaking, though it needs his attacker to be on top of him rather than purely below or to the side. Otherwise the medicine might be worse than the cure, though not as extreme as Rest.

Mac up-b is perhaps the most underutilized disadvantage 50:50 in the game. It's just really hard to internalize every f1-link situation in the game.

I see! That's actually super cool and unique lol, I absolutely take my "why is this move bad" back.

Where I think you are off-base is the focus on aerials. Mac honestly doesn't need aerials any more than Puff needs ground moves. (There are some astricks there--Mac would be fundamentally flawed without his up-b and side-b, and Puff would be flawed without grab, and Zerg would be flawed without Zerglings. Many extreme characters rely heavily on key tools that "plug the hole" in their otherwise opposite extreme gameplay.)

Agreed! I do like moves to have some fringe utilities (the ones you don't see often but that make you go "damn that's such a clever use of this", like wario up b outside of recovery situations or gren dair) which is why I talked about aerials, but I could definitely see mac work with his current kit of (bad) aerials. I did went to watch some Tarakotori though and he uses them way sometime which made me very happy to see haha, seeing a mac sh dair in neutral and moving his lil fist with all his might to deal 3% just makes me laugh.

Of course you could just uptune Mac's reward to where it's an equal bloodbath on both sides; buffing damage, giving Smash Ultimate Mac Smash 4 d-tilt, doing anything that makes KO Punch more usable. But I don't think that's targeted to this polarized character's worst matchups, where the disadvantage issues are at their peak. I'd rather see buffs to neutral-b and down-b, and possibly some aerial tweaks. (That aren't what other people have in mind.)

Yeah I'd love to see these changes too honestly, I'm not a big fan of making polarized characters even more polarized and would rather give them more options. Like I loved the kirby inhale buffs, but at the same time man at some point this character will kill at 40 out of a smash and will still be kinda bleh, just infuriating to play against in some matchups.

So far dev team seems to have experience a bit on both sides of this coin? Incineror got recovery buffs but also buffed side b which was already a pretty good move. Mewtwo had a weird phase of "let's make his dsmash stronger" (which I'm not sure anyone was complaining about? just fix usmash ffs) until they finally buffed underwhelming moves like uair, or gave him more options with teleport. These teleport changes were amazing honestly, helps to solve the character issue in a cool and fitting way, maybe one of my favorite balance changes in the entire game.

To get back on mac, I really like down b as a concept in particular as a mostly defensive counter/hail mary recovery option, it's pretty unique in that regard - most counter in this game fall either in the "use this on bad recoveries" (pretty much all of FE) or "use this because it's stupidly overtuned and will reverse advantage on a hit" (arsene, sephiroth). Reminds me a bit of focus attack in a way? Which I guess combined with neutral b buffs mac would have both parts of focus attack on separate moves .

and are solid mid tiers

These ones interest me coz I feel like they are pretty difficult to fit in tiers since they're so polarized (especially richter). Are you a mid tier when you get hard dunked by half the cast but are very competitive against the other? I guess it's probably better for a character to have fringe counterpick utility (like richter vs olimar as we saw before, and im sure there's more) than to be just kinda bleh.

Jr is very close to being good though imo, I feel like he's just a bit too easy to shutdown in some matchups coz slow + bad grab + linear approach options. His advantage state and damage output are very solid though, and defensively he enjoys a combination of high weight, an ok hurtbox, reduced damage taken on the kart and a pretty ok recovery. Just please give him less lag on neutral b I wanna use it as a setup in neutral to limit options sooooo baaaaad.

Smash doesn't have that many characters based around limiting opponent options with pre-emptive hitboxes in general - there's Isabelle and Villager I guess but they're mostly using them to hit more slingshots, snake, mewtwo (shadow ball mixups on shield are SO GOOD) and... duck hunt? Returning link boomerang? Might be forgetting some but it's a thing I love and not many characters scratch that itch for me.

 

[DougEfresh]

As a contrast to the posts above, I'm actually convinced is just a handful more of frame data improvements from being a solid upper mid tier/lower high tier that's nearly solo-viable. It's not his weight that hurts his survivability because he has plenty of solid movement options to stay elusive; it's that his tilts (namely dtilt and ftilt) and certain aerials (nair and bair) are a bit too slow to be as useful as they could be relative to his short attack range on most of his kit.

He's saved partly by relatively low cooldown frames and landing lag (i.e., dtilt only having 10f of cool down and nair having only 5f landing lag). There's a lot of potential to be explored in his ground game, using Lucario as a grappler who goes for tech chases and simple but rather consistent combos/strings at low/mid/high percents, respectively. But, his start up frames are currently just a bit too slow for him to effectively play offense to be a potent mix up character between a highly mobile bait-and-punish and semi-rushdown, grappler playstyle that can put on decent damage while pressuring you in the corner till your stock is gone.

His ledge trapping flow chart with AS is very well established at this point, but his edgeguarding needs to be looked into more with some outside-the-box thinking like using FPF at high percents as a large, horizontal poke tool to force bad options out of the opponent or outright kill offstage (something Armadillo does from time to time). Small aura spheres are another worthwhile thing to optimize to help with Lucario's edgeguarding because it'll stop their drift back to stage if it lands, but allows for a clean, low-risk edgeguard to kill with something more powerful (i.e., fsmash) from putting your opponent in a worse spot.

For all the streamlined simplicity Ultimate has to offer in its cast, Lucario is just the opposite, which makes him highly anti-meta and misunderstood. If players allowed themselves to be more open-minded and creative, they'd have a greater chance of seeing that isn't in nearly such a dismal spot as he is often made out to be, but he has just enough flaws that are notable enough to prevent him from truly standing out, particularly with recent DLC having sexier designs and movesets to take advantage of. I'm looking forward to see what Jeda and Armadillo will show us as offline events become more commonplace again; Tsu was always a false prophet for the character and shouldn't be looked at as a reliable source of what the character is capable of.

 

[Hippieslayer]

What is Lucina supposed to do vs Sephiroth or Aegis?

She's slower and has way less range than him. Neutral is bad. She kinda has to make reads to get in. And I think that was what Mr E was trying to do vs Ned when hovering in the air in front of him. Sephs counter also sucks for her. I played the matchup some as Lucina and to me it feels horrible, like really bad. I'm not that good but it felt like there really wasn't much she could do and the Mr E vs Ned match looked very similar to my own games. You get stuffed if you go in straightforward so you try to space around Sephiroths hitboxes vertically but then the problem is she's not very good at that because her fastfall speed is slow.

Vs Pyra/Mythra it's not as bad but the sum of those two characters just outclass her.

Imo Lucina's fallen victim to the power creep and she's gonna trail off more and more unless buffs which seem highly unlikely. There are too many better swordies.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Here is a question when offline comes back. Wil many characters top-tier or possible top-tiers that fell off in usage and results in the online era due to not doing as well online and/or their top mains not participating in many online tournaments or a combination of both. being just a few examples. Will they continue to get the strong results they were getting right away once offline touraments start. How will they fare in MU's FP2 characters remain strong and popular offline ? We also cant forget some of them got slight nerfs (Joker,ZSS) while some examples got slight buffs (Fox).

On the other side will characters considered "online buffed" i.e and possibly (Pyra specifically) and will they manage to keep up. I mean aside from the FP2 characters they were already were being used by top ranked players in the world and were getting good results pre-pandemic. But will the keep up the near dominat "online era" results?

Its something that I am thinking as I see all these online tournaments lacking these characters considered top-tier and were seen in top 8, constantly.

Of course all this is not assuming we will get a possible significant balance patch with the next DLC character

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is a question when offline comes back. Wil many characters top-tier or possible top-tiers that fell off in usage and results in the online era due to not doing as well online and/or their top mains not participating in many online tournaments or a combination of both. being just a few examples. Will they continue to get the strong results right away once offline touraments start. How will the fare in MU's FP2 characters remain strong am popular offline ? We also got to take that some got slight nerfs (Joker,ZSS) while some examples got slight buffs (Fox).

On the other side will characters considered "online buffed" i.e and possibly (Pyra specifically) and will they manage to keep up. I mean aside from the FP2 characters they were already were being used by top ranked players in the world and were getting good results pre-pandemic. But will the keep up the "online era" results?

Its something that I am thinking as I see all these online tournaments lacking these characters considered top-tier and were seen in top 8, constantly.

Of course all this is not assuming we will get a possobe significant balance cing with the next DLC character

In terms of the top tiers that took a break from the online scene:

• I think Joker and ZSS will probably be back in form immediately. Both characters have placed decently well in online tourneys despite not having their best players (Leo and Marss, respectively) play them.
• For Peach, obviously not cause Samsora is banned.
• For Mario and especially Fox, I think it depends on how active their mains will be once offline returns.

In general, I think it all depends on how immediately active their best players will be when offline returns.
Out of the bunch you mentioned, Fox's tournament presence is probably determined by this the most.
Peach's tournament results will go down, but that is an outlier since the character's best player by far is banned.

For the characters considered online buffed.

• Cloud, Ness, and Sonic will probably see some slight drop-off in results, but I think they will continue to place very well. Ness has always placed well in tournaments since the beginning, Sonic has been popping-off in tournaments in the second-half of the offline era, and Cloud's results was climbing up significantly between the short period of his buffs (7.0.0 was January 28th) and the online era (about mid-March).
• I personally think the Aegis will be about the same in terms of viability when offline returns, but I think we will more defined mains of the character. Steve is still a bit on the fence due to his complexity and polarizing stats. I am still on the "worse offline" camp, but who knows what will happen.

Similar case with Game & Watch: Maister was already a top 10 player easily prior to the shift to online. As a matter of fact, he has gone on record to say that he likes offline better. Not sure how the switch back to offline will affect other Game & Watch player's performances, but we will see.

The point is that a lot of the prominent characters buffed by online, was already performing well prior to the switch to online.
For lesser used characters buffed by online (Dedede, DK), to be determined in that regard.

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm expecting Sonic to see a flat curve in the grand scheme of things.

It's easy to forget that his character results were on the rise within the latter days of the pre-pandemic meta. Players like KEN and Wrath were becoming more dominant and raking in notable wins with the character after he'd been dismissed as a shell of his former self. Furthermore the main reason Sonix was such an unspoken variable in the past was primarily because he was in a region that forced him to be more recognized as a wi-fi warrior. Sonic is also one of those characters who's online deep bracket pick rates don't stack up against his win rates. The same applies for Cloud, which raises the possibility that he may stand to gain in the average once offline returns.

Ness is the one exception of that, and I expect him to drop, though I've mentioned in the past how (assuming discourse about Min Min's potential offline dominance comes to pass) he'd basically be the exception to the online "top 5" being considered universally top shelf just in context of the game itself, and even then he's always been considered a good character - probably the easiest character to pick up if all you want to do is play to win.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Going to take in this opportunity to pick-up on what Ziodyne and Frihetsanka said earlier regarding .

I find this to be a very strange thing to say, especially regarding the lower power level of Ultimate's DLC vs SSB4's DLC, but I feel that Lucina is one of the characters most adversely affected by DLC powercreep in Ultimate.

While she still has her notable players (i.e. Mr. E, Etsuji, Leon), she is definitely feeling more and more vanilla as a character. DLC, especially Fighter's Pass 2, would introduce more enticing DLC characters to play with than Lucina, especially regarding Sephiroth and Pyra/Mythra.

Two of her best players would drop her in favor of a higher-tiered DLC character, with MkLeo switching to Joker early on, and ProtoBanham recently stick-with and obtaining great success with Min Min.

On top of that, two of the already existing top tiered swordsmen, Roy and Shulk, started to gain more and more momentum as time went on, the former being somewhat similar moveset-wise, but hyper aggressive (and very effective at that) and easy to pick-up, resulting in him being extremely popular in tournaments (especially prior to online meta) with great results, and while the latter has a noticeably lower representation, but has obtained strong results thanks to Nicko and especially Kome, with some players outside of these two also doing well (i.e. DoubleA, Uncivil ninja, Tru4).

These two (and Chrom I guess) rose while Lucina, for the most part, stagnated. Add the more inviting DLC characters into the blender, which you can also add Cloud to the blender (especially regarding the online era), and you see Lucina's unfortunate situation right now. You end up seeing less and less of the character as time goes on.

Personally see her at the upper-end of high tier, probably around the same level as Cloud.

Speaking of which, once offline returns, we might see also endure a somewhat similar fate as Lucina.

While he is still a more inviting character given him speed, safety, and Limit shenanigans, his overall moveset at its core is also vanilla. We can kinda already see this come into affect, as Sparg0 is starting to mess around with Pyra/Mythra now, with some promise that he may stick the character into his repertoire permanently, especially once offline returns.

However in the case for Cloud, this is merely speculation. As mentioned in my post earlier, he was freshly buffed shortly before online started and seen some noticeably improved results because of it. We will wait and see how far the character may drop in the future, if he will at all.