Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rizen]

Congrats to Tweek, beating his demon Spargo. Tweek's been on fire these last few tournaments.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

r/smashbros did a tier list

The reasoning for Steve being in his own tier is here
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/107d7fi
BTW, think this is the first time reddit put Pikachu out of the top 5.

 

[Frihetsanka]

After seeing

Results for LMBM 2023

1. Tweek
2. Sparg0
3. Sonix
4. MkLeo
5. Glutonny
5. Light
7. Riddles
7. MKBigBoss
9. Cosmos
9. Gen
9. Dabuz
9. Anathema
13. Chronos
13. Jake
13. ApolloKage
13. Riku
17. quiK
17. Armadillo
17. MPg
17. goblin deez
17. SHADIC
17. enhancedpv
17. Tilde
17. Zomba

Somewhat related question. Is Armadillo's 17th the best Lucario result at a supermajor or has Tsu done something better then that?

After seeing the results, it is clear to me that the meta is being dominated by Steves and Kazuyas, and unless we ban Steve and Kazuya the game is going to die in less than a year. Ban them before it's too late!

/s

 

[blackghost]

takeaways from LMM

lima cant even finish at his seeding placement anymore. stop telling me this character is good. styling on clueless players doesnt make a character high tier.

LOL so when is this sonic discussion gonna happen for real? if more people truly want to win they would replicate sonix playstle.

when poeple say if kazuya hitsyou you just die arent watching actual games with him in play riddles was fooled by di mixups mutiple times in matches its just these players immediatly swung at riddles and got read.

leo marth is pretty.

if you havent watched the hero clip from LMM go watch it. peak smash comedy. and peak disrespect. shield break> hocus pocus> go giant> fullly charge f smash kill,

 

[Hippieslayer]

r/smashbros did a tier list

The reasoning for Steve being in his own tier is here
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/107d7fi
BTW, think this is the first time reddit put Pikachu out of the top 5.

Nice to see them finally realize Cloud is top. Took long enough and he's still kinda low but nonetheless.

 

[Minordeth]

In the midst of Tweek playing like a god, Spargo being an actual robot, Leo's Joker, and everything else, I'm going to point out that Sonix is a top 10 player and can literally beat anyone.

It's only a matter of time until he wins a major and the fact that he gets so much undue hate and so little appreciation for his stellar gameplay is absurd.

The man plays to win. Every. Time.

Watching Sonix when he is behind is a always a lesson in calculated aggression.

I don't play Sonic or have any interest in doing so, but I found every Sonix set at LMBM to be a tense clinic on preparation, adaptation, and skill.

 

[Hippieslayer]

In the midst of Tweek playing like a god, Spargo being an actual robot, Leo's Joker, and everything else, I'm going to point out that Sonix is a top 10 player and can literally beat anyone.

It's only a matter of time until he wins a major and the fact that he gets so much undue hate and so little appreciation for his stellar gameplay is absurd.

The man plays to win. Every. Time.

Watching Sonix when he is behind is a always a lesson in calculated aggression.

I don't play Sonic or have any interest in doing so, but I found every Sonix set at LMBM to be a tense clinic on preparation, adaptation, and skill.

Yes, he is godlike. Some of his games are still snoozefests because of how optimal Sonic gameplay plays out in many matchups which is a shame : (

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

In the midst of Tweek playing like a god, Spargo being an actual robot, Leo's Joker, and everything else, I'm going to point out that Sonix is a top 10 player and can literally beat anyone.

It's only a matter of time until he wins a major and the fact that he gets so much undue hate and so little appreciation for his stellar gameplay is absurd.

The man plays to win. Every. Time.

Watching Sonix when he is behind is a always a lesson in calculated aggression.

I don't play Sonic or have any interest in doing so, but I found every Sonix set at LMBM to be a tense clinic on preparation, adaptation, and skill.

He's already won a major, he won CEO 2022.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

OrionRank's videos have ended, so I'd post the top 50.

Here are the 100 best Smash Ultimate players around the world for the full year of 2022! Videos breaking down the ranking in the tweet below⏬ pic.twitter.com/kUp1W4mThC

— OrionRank (@OrionRank) January 13, 2023

Interestingly, all these rankings have had a different result with the top 3 so far. 1000Rank put MkLeo as number 1, Sparg0 as number 2 and acola at number 3 while EchoRank put Sparg0 at number 1, MkLeo at number 2 and acola at number 3 and OrionRank put MkLeo at number 1, acola at number 2 and Sparg0 at number 3. Shows how close everyone is to the #1 ranking atm.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Genesis 9 Initial Seeding

Genesis 9 Top 32 Initial Seeding pic.twitter.com/wTWxtRx1QL

— R-B | Darknut Stat (@Darknut_stat) January 14, 2023

 

[Frihetsanka]

Dabuz being seeded to miss top 8 feels weird, but it makes sense based on how well other people have performed lately. MkLeo being seeded #4 also feels weird but makes sense.

I hope Kurama can land some nice sponsor.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Dabuz being seeded to miss top 8 feels weird, but it makes sense based on how well other people have performed lately. MkLeo being seeded #4 also feels weird but makes sense.

I hope Kurama can land some nice sponsor.

Dabuz has missed top 8 in four of his last five tournaments. Only one he didn't was Apex, where the three players seeded higher than him all DQed and he still only got 4th. He had a good midyear, but he's fallen off since then; 12th feels very accurate with that in mind.

 

[Sucumbio]

Has anyone ever tiered just the FE characters? Roy has always stood out and Leo made byleth a thing but how does Robin do or Corrin or Ike compared them? (Marth? Heh).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Has anyone ever tiered just the FE characters? Roy has always stood out and Leo made byleth a thing but how does Robin do or Corrin or Ike compared them? (Marth? Heh).

Roy and Lucina are considered the two best by a mile. After that I think it's typically Byleth and then Corrin. Chrom and Marth are technically good characters but completely outclassed by their Echo Fighter counterparts and then Ike and Robin are traditionally considered mid tiers.

Outside of that, at Genesis 9 today there were a couple of exhibition matches so I thought I'd post the results because while they're not from the bracket I thought it may be useful data.
BO5
Riddles 3-1 Kurama
Zomba 3-0 Sisqui
First to 5
Kameme 5-3 Lui$
Sparg0 5-3 acola

Sparg0 vs acola seems like a pretty big potential rivalry, given they're both top 3 players that had a massive rise due to grinding on wifi and are both young prodigies. Their sets are pretty evenly matched too.

 

[Rran]

Genesis 9 Initial Seeding

Genesis 9 Top 32 Initial Seeding pic.twitter.com/wTWxtRx1QL

— R-B | Darknut Stat (@Darknut_stat) January 14, 2023

The number of unique characters in this seeding brings joy to my heart.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Upset thread. There's a lot of them
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/10hx5pv

 

[NotLiquid]

Felt a bit bad for Justice ultimately losing that set against Leo, especially after dismantling Leo's Joker so devastatingly that it made the old Dabuz counterpick a moot memory. Justice has had a recent streak of game 5 losses against ROBs in majors and he started whiffing way too many grabs by the end of the set; bit of a curse for him at this point. Extremely close set before the close which could've gone either way. Even with that brutal game 4, Leo still seems to play at his most inconsistent against Min Min.

 

[Rizen]

@ Genesis 9, I'm definitely seeing a pattern of Steves losing to characters who out-range him. Big disjointed swords don't care about steve's blocks covering him when he mines. This corresponds with the MU charts I've seen too. Although I will say, Steve has the winning record to say he's better than his pessimistic MU spreads. Swords are extremely powerful in Ultimate. In a world with Steve and Kazuya, players need to start making friends with counterpicking characters.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 64 upset thread for Genesis 9
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/10i91lm

 

[The_Bookworm]

Genesis 9 Top 8

Winner's
Sonix vs MkLeo
MuteAce vs Light

Loser's
Sparg0 vs acola
Glutonny vs Tweek

 

[Frihetsanka]

Hey Smashboards, should we ban Steve and Kazuya? Clearly they're dominating the meta and there's no counter-play /s.

It seems that people are adapting to Steve, and it sure looks like Steve at least has one losing matchup (Cloud), probably more than one. People also seem to be adopting to Kazuya. The way it's going right now, I don't think there's much reason to ban any character.

 

[blackghost]

Hey Smashboards, should we ban Steve and Kazuya? Clearly they're dominating the meta and there's no counter-play /s.

It seems that people are adapting to Steve, and it sure looks like Steve at least has one losing matchup (Cloud), probably more than one. People also seem to be adopting to Kazuya. The way it's going right now, I don't think there's much reason to ban any character.

when it comes to Kazuya the main issue i have is the commentators. basically they keep implying every time a Kazuya lands an electric the opponent will die via "cutscene combo" and that there nothing you can do then the suprised face when it doesnt happen. di and sdi and di mixups continue to be a thing we ignore as a ocmmunity and people need to have commentators in majors that know what they are talking about. not ones spreading incorrect info.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Hey Smashboards, should we ban Steve and Kazuya? Clearly they're dominating the meta and there's no counter-play /s.

It seems that people are adapting to Steve, and it sure looks like Steve at least has one losing matchup (Cloud), probably more than one. People also seem to be adopting to Kazuya. The way it's going right now, I don't think there's much reason to ban any character.

Yeah, acola got destroyed by Sparg0. That was as bad, if not worse then what Leo did to acola at the Ludwig Smash Invitational. I really like how people are starting to exploit Steve and Kazuya's weaknesses with Chase and Leon beating Riddles.

Are they both top tiers? Yes, but they have losing matchups and have significant flaws.

 

[NairWizard]

Thoughts from Genesis:

• Steve is good but just that: good. Never thought he was top 5, you'll never convince me he's top 5 no matter how good the results get.
• Steve and Kazuya aren't balance problems. They're archetypes we've been dealing with for ages. Aegis and Min Min are both far bigger balance problems than Steve/Kazuya, and it's not because Aegis/MinMin win the tournaments, it's just because of how polarizing their matchup spreads are (seriously try playing half the cast vs. a good Min Min; game really doesn't feel too fun).
• Sonic is definitely looking like a top-5 contender, on the other hand, that damage output can be really strong.
• To me, watching Leo's Joker, it's just crystal-clear how not-great Byleth has been all along, wow. So much of the last year's worth of metagame centered on a character who wasn't even top tier; it's utterly mindblowing.
• Peach is still awesome, who ever doubted?
• Genesis was great, what a tournament!

 

[Arthur97]

Are you still trying to claim Pyra and Mythra are a problem?

 

[Sucumbio]

Hey Smashboards, should we ban Steve and Kazuya?

Top Smash Ultimate Player Throws Controller At Tournament, Sparks 'Privilege' Discourse

The game's community is now at each other's throats over the way Riddles reacted to his loss at Genesis 9

kotaku.com

Riddles was so mad. I feel bad for the guy. He said he's taking a break and I agree he should cause this kind of emotional outburst isn't healthy.

 

[Arthur97]

Okay, not really related, but why would anyone name MkLeo as a Marth main like that article did?

This seems like a nontroversy though. He didn't hurt anybody, and he didn't take it out on his opponent.

 

[blackghost]

It's not that peach was ever bad it's that peach had a literal nightmare of a character in pyra show up and be easy to play and very good. Same issue Mario has had honestly. Learning countervplay takes time. A character your ls inherently struggles with being everywhere will take time to adjust to.

Peach is still capable as is Mario. It's truly amazing how much cloud has ascended just from players stop trying to act like he's not good becuase he lost 1 tool from smash 4.

 

[L9999]

Thoughts from Genesis:

• Steve and Kazuya aren't balance problems. They're archetypes we've been dealing with for ages. Aegis and Min Min are both far bigger balance problems than Steve/Kazuya, and it's not because Aegis/MinMin win the tournaments, it's just because of how polarizing their matchup spreads are (seriously try playing half the cast vs. a good Min Min; game really doesn't feel too fun).

"Half the cast," if by that you mean low tiers and mid tiers, low tiers don't matter because they suck, and mid tiers are there because their matchup spread is even more polarized than Min Min's. Steve, Sonic, Fox and Cloud oppress all those jobbers just as much if not harder than Min Min, they have a better matchup spread than Min Min, and they are as much of a matchup check as Min Min, are they a problem then?

Aegis is not a problem whatsoever, Sparg0 and MK Leo have dropped her and only bring her out against Sonix, Shuton and Cosmos (the Aegis experts) constantly lose their stocks getting clowned offstage, Aegis's recovery is Belmont tier trash at top level.

If we are completely honest with ourselves what Mythra does isn't that different from Fox. The difference is that Fox doesn't have to switch to a sluggish sack of bricks to kill you, he can spam Bair and Nair all he wants, while Pyra can barely get out one Bair or Dair and not get punished.

"Oh but Aegis has disjoints?" Cloud does too, he is just as mobile and ranged as Mythra, doesn't have to switch to a sack of bricks to kill, can pull out a super kill move while Aegis have to fish for kills with their laggy moves, and Cloud can spam Bair as much as he wants and never get punished. Roy can also run around and hit hard, has more reliable kill confirms/strings than Aegis too. Joker is just as mobile as Mythra, has 2 good projectiles as opposed to a joke move, his recovery is ten trillion times better than Aegis, and he can keep his mobility while he has Arsene, which is stronger than anything Pyra has.

Why is Aegis such a balance problem when Roy and Fox have been able to do the same things as her since day one? They have no "$5.99 powers." Joker was also there before Aegis (or Min Min) even existed.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Cloud has the mobility stats and moveset to play rushdown while microspacing simultaneously. Aegis can't do that. No other swordie can really. Cloud has a lot of other things aegis doesn't too, such as a great OOS-game. I think people should listen to what Tweek has been saying about the character.

Aegis may have more results at top level, but no Aegis player has been able to take the character to the heights Sparg0 has reached with Cloud.

I don't think Cloud being the better of the two is something that's completely out of the question. Impossible to know. I wish players like Mkleo and Tweek would use Aegis as a real secondary so we would have some more info.

If Aegis players could find some way to kill using Mythra more the character would be better, there's some potential for side kills with lightning buster that hasn't really been developed that much outside of Cosmos. Also think Mythra could be used to edgeguard more even if it's risky. She's fast enough to whiff and still hit her opponent with up-b coming back up. Not that Pyra is always bad.

 

[blackghost]

"Half the cast," if by that you mean low tiers and mid tiers, low tiers don't matter because they suck, and mid tiers are there because their matchup spread is even more polarized than Min Min's. Steve, Sonic, Fox and Cloud oppress all those jobbers just as much if not harder than Min Min, they have a better matchup spread than Min Min, and they are as much of a matchup check as Min Min, are they a problem then?

Aegis is not a problem whatsoever, Sparg0 and MK Leo have dropped her and only bring her out against Sonix, Shuton and Cosmos (the Aegis experts) constantly lose their stocks getting clowned offstage, Aegis's recovery is Belmont tier trash at top level.

If we are completely honest with ourselves what Mythra does isn't that different from Fox. The difference is that Fox doesn't have to switch to a sluggish sack of bricks to kill you, he can spam Bair and Nair all he wants, while Pyra can barely get out one Bair or Dair and not get punished.

"Oh but Aegis has disjoints?" Cloud does too, he is just as mobile and ranged as Mythra, doesn't have to switch to a sack of bricks to kill, can pull out a super kill move while Aegis have to fish for kills with their laggy moves, and Cloud can spam Bair as much as he wants and never get punished. Roy can also run around and hit hard, has more reliable kill confirms/strings than Aegis too. Joker is just as mobile as Mythra, has 2 good projectiles as opposed to a joke move, his recovery is ten trillion times better than Aegis, and he can keep his mobility while he has Arsene, which is stronger than anything Pyra has.

Why is Aegis such a balance problem when Roy and Fox have been able to do the same things as her since day one? They have no "$5.99 powers." Joker was also there before Aegis (or Min Min) even existed.

Becuase this community believes the characters that are legacy have a right to be good ro even broken. But dlc characters should be awful according to many here.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Becuase this community believes the characters that are legacy have a right to be good ro even broken. But dlc characters should be awful according to many here.

Meh, the legacy characters are a little bit weaker and a little bit boring and uninteresting compared to the DLC characters of which most have extra features that the old cast just lack barring exceptions like Peaches float.

They did finally give Ganondorf a sword. But other than that they didn't really do much in terms of updating the older characters to keep them more on par with the newer ones and I don't just mean in terms of viability. I guess it might be asking too much when there's so many characters but there's a lot of small things they could've fixed easily.

There's a lot of good old characters like Mario and Samus etc, still I think it's a valid complaint. It's not a big deal at all but some things stand out. Why does Ganondorf have to have a garbage recovery? It's not cause of casuals because casuals aren't known for their edgeguarding. And then they go and release Kazuya Mishima.

Sure he has 7 frame jump squat holding him back but it's nonetheless very obvious that they have a totally different mindset when it comes to the DLC characters and don't care about their old cast falling behind both in terms of viability and in how interesting they are otherwise Kazuya's recovery would be DK/Ganon level.

The old cast retain weaknesses to balance them out and then they release new ones who have all the strengths and more with minimal drawbacks and flair on top.

I get that the DLC characters have to be interesting and can't suck because people need a reason to buy them. Nonetheless I think there's too many oldies who needlessly suck more than they need to because they suffer under a different balancing mentality than that of the DLC characters, and/or have other ****y features such as useless moves (Yoshi would be a better character if he had no side-b, all that move does is occasionally **** Yoshi players over because they misinput the move, it's not good in casuals either because it causes suicides) or are just plain boring (Marth and Lucina).

 

[Arthur97]

You say they are balanced differently, yet they all seem to fall in line more or less. Even now, people are adapting to the latest peoples' menaces. So clearly they make up the difference somewhere. I'm not sure it's as much the DLC is held to a lighter standard but more Ganondorf in particular is held to a harsher one. Part of it may be their insistence on sticking with a moveset that was largely designed for speed initially but converting it to slow but powerful. Time and time again, that moveset has shown to not really work keeping him this immobile. Then, they also just refuse to put many resources into a fan favorite villain by even having his "new" smash attacks be copied from Ike and Cloud. But, it's not a new thing either. Mac is a newer entry, but he has debilitating weaknesses. Pyra and Mythra even have an extremely exploitable recovery and they may have made Pyra a tad too sluggish. Kazuya is also much harder to use properly than Ganondorf.

I won't deny that DLC loves its gimmicks, but some of the DLC was also fairly tame as far as gimmicks. Sora, Banjo and Kazooie, Byleths, and even Pyra and Mythra are relatively basic. Sora has several multi hits a rotating neutral special, but it isn't that outlandish. Lets also not forget that despite complaining, none of them have broken this game in half.

 

[Hippieslayer]

You say they are balanced differently, yet they all seem to fall in line more or less. Even now, people are adapting to the latest peoples' menaces. So clearly they make up the difference somewhere. I'm not sure it's as much the DLC is held to a lighter standard but more Ganondorf in particular is held to a harsher one. Part of it may be their insistence on sticking with a moveset that was largely designed for speed initially but converting it to slow but powerful. Time and time again, that moveset has shown to not really work keeping him this immobile. Then, they also just refuse to put many resources into a fan favorite villain by even having his "new" smash attacks be copied from Ike and Cloud. But, it's not a new thing either. Mac is a newer entry, but he has debilitating weaknesses. Pyra and Mythra even have an extremely exploitable recovery and they may have made Pyra a tad too sluggish. Kazuya is also much harder to use properly than Ganondorf.

I won't deny that DLC loves its gimmicks, but some of the DLC was also fairly tame as far as gimmicks. Sora, Banjo and Kazooie, Byleths, and even Pyra and Mythra are relatively basic. Sora has several multi hits a rotating neutral special, but it isn't that outlandish. Lets also not forget that despite complaining, none of them have broken this game in half.

Yeah, it's a weak case admittedly. Banjo sucks too despite being dlc and his gimmick is that he can only use his super punishable side-b 5 times. I would say that Aegis swap mechanic definitely qualifies as gimmick, even if its been done before the swap itself is actually good this time around.

Thing is with Mac they did do an honest attempt at fixing his recovery in which did help him a lot, he's still bad, but he's not the garbage character he used to be, nonetheless they could make his aerials twice as powerful and they would still suck and he would still not be good, not sure what they are thinking there in a game with platform stages. His aerials should be garbage, but they don't need to be nearly as bad as they are.

Ganondorfs new smash attacks no doubt help him and are a buff overall, but his lacklustre neutral would've been better with his old upsmash with its minimal endlag which is now gone. He also had that custom down-b in sm4sh which was not OP but buffed his recovery since it made him move more horizontally in the air and gave him some well needed burst mobility on stage that could actually be used a bit since it wasn't nearly as laggy as his regular wizard kick and sent him up in the air and then forwards when he used it., Everyone who tried that move loved it, it was fun and it wasn't unfair or stupid and it looked cool. But in Ultimate he keeps his underwhelming regular wizard kick which is so risky he can barely ever use it because if it gets shielded he's probably getting comboed off the stage.

And it's not only Ganondorf who is getting the short end of the stick for no reason. Dr Mario doesn't need that trash recovery to keep him in place either. And then there's Zelda, Kirby, and DDD. The former two have kits and attributes which just don't work. With DDD it's more sad how they took his diagonally upwards sweeping bair from sm4sh and made it worse by having it swing horizontally only, and he'd be so much more interesting with his brawl dair too. And what do they do to fix these characters? They buff their already strong elements which just makes the characters dumb but still bad. There's also a bunch of small stuff that annoys me, certain moves being basically completely useless such as Mii Gunners down air, they know how to make functional moves, they have to know that if they make a move work a certain way it's not going to be useless. Mii Gunners dair is comically bad, try it out, it's supposed to spike but landing that is impossible. Meanwhile the weak hit of Mii brawlers down air is a kill move and Mii Swordfighter continues to be a swordfighter in terms of frame data only.

Guess I'm more annoyed with their balancing philosophy and how they overlooked stuff (some of it for a very long time) rather than the DLC. There should not be useless moves. And characters which have been defunct since sm4sh deserve some real attention rather than lazy buffs that ultimately do not help them. They more than fixed Cloud, so what's the problem? With the DLC it's just Steve, Kazuya and Minmin which are designed in a pretty stupid way. If you can't properly exploit their weaknesses, which a lot of the cast can't then you can't do much against them because they have movesets that are just overtuned compared to the rest of the cast. It doesn't seem like any of them will be an issue but they are still annoying gatekeepers.

 

[Arthur97]

Yeah, it's a weak case admittedly. Banjo sucks too despite being dlc and his gimmick is that he can only use his super punishable side-b 5 times. I would say that Aegis swap mechanic definitely qualifies as gimmick, even if its been done before the swap itself is actually good this time around.

Thing is with Mac they did do an honest attempt at fixing his recovery in which did help him a lot, he's still bad, but he's not the garbage character he used to be, nonetheless they could make his aerials twice as powerful and they would still suck and he would still not be good, not sure what they are thinking there in a game with platform stages. His aerials should be garbage, but they don't need to be nearly as bad as they are.

Ganondorfs new smash attacks no doubt help him and are a buff overall, but his lacklustre neutral would've been better with his old upsmash with its minimal endlag which is now gone. He also had that custom down-b in sm4sh which was not OP but buffed his recovery since it made him move more horizontally in the air and gave him some well needed burst mobility on stage that could actually be used a bit since it wasn't nearly as laggy as his regular wizard kick and sent him up in the air and then forwards when he used it., Everyone who tried that move loved it, it was fun and it wasn't unfair or stupid and it looked cool. But in Ultimate he keeps his underwhelming regular wizard kick which is so risky he can barely ever use it because if it gets shielded he's probably getting comboed off the stage.

And it's not only Ganondorf who is getting the short end of the stick for no reason. Dr Mario doesn't need that trash recovery to keep him in place either. And then there's Zelda, Kirby, and DDD. The former two have kits and attributes which just don't work. With DDD it's more sad how they took his diagonally upwards sweeping bair from sm4sh and made it worse by having it swing horizontally only, and he'd be so much more interesting with his brawl dair too. And what do they do to fix these characters? They buff their already strong elements which just makes the characters dumb but still bad. There's also a bunch of small stuff that annoys me, certain moves being basically completely useless such as Mii Gunners down air, they know how to make functional moves, they have to know that if they make a move work a certain way it's not going to be useless. Meanwhile the weak hit of Mii brawlers down air is a kill move and Mii Swordfighter continues to be a swordfighter in terms of frame data only.

Guess I'm more annoyed with their balancing philosophy and how they overlooked stuff (some of it for a very long time) rather than the DLC. There should not be useless moves. And characters which have been defunct since sm4sh deserve some real attention rather than lazy buffs that ultimately do not help them. They more than fixed Cloud, so what's the problem? With the DLC it's just Steve, Kazuya and Minmin which are designed in a pretty stupid way. If you can't properly exploit their weaknesses, which a lot of the cast can't then you can't do much against them because they have movesets that are just overtuned compared to the rest of the cast. It doesn't seem like any of them will be an issue but they are still annoying gatekeepers.

Well, guess I meant more big gimmicks. The Aegis swap had been done more than once so it's nothing out of line with a base game fighter. It's been a thing since Melee after all. Hence being tame. I wouldn't even really consider Wonderwing a gimmick either as it's contained to one move and impacts nothing else really. Similar for Magic for Sora.

Mac's recovery fixes were half hearted at best since his side special doesn't refresh on hit for some reason. Personally, I would double down on his ground game. He's not really going to be a competitive character. He wasn't designed for it, and that's fine. Just give him a bit more.

Ganondorf seems to struggle mostly from an unreasonably strict adherence to the old moveset and a lack of care. As I said, even his "new" moves are riped from other fighters. They just really don't seem to care much about him despite being from one of the biggest franchises and being a popular villain in said franchise.

But yes, their overall balance work is amazing, but not without some questionable decisions. Though, not sure if Joker might should be added to your DLC list. Suddenly becoming Wolf with Sheik like frame data is a bit much. Even if he doesn't break the game, not sure I'd say it's a pleasant mechanic. Then again, what come back mechanic is?

 

[Hippieslayer]

Well, guess I meant more big gimmicks. The Aegis swap had been done more than once so it's nothing out of line with a base game fighter. It's been a thing since Melee after all. Hence being tame. I wouldn't even really consider Wonderwing a gimmick either as it's contained to one move and impacts nothing else really. Similar for Magic for Sora.

Mac's recovery fixes were half hearted at best since his side special doesn't refresh on hit for some reason. Personally, I would double down on his ground game. He's not really going to be a competitive character. He wasn't designed for it, and that's fine. Just give him a bit more.

Ganondorf seems to struggle mostly from an unreasonably strict adherence to the old moveset and a lack of care. As I said, even his "new" moves are riped from other fighters. They just really don't seem to care much about him despite being from one of the biggest franchises and being a popular villain in said franchise.

But yes, their overall balance work is amazing, but not without some questionable decisions. Though, not sure if Joker might should be added to your DLC list. Suddenly becoming Wolf with Sheik like frame data is a bit much. Even if he doesn't break the game, not sure I'd say it's a pleasant mechanic. Then again, what come back mechanic is?

I'd want Mac to have better aerials, they are still supposed to be garbage but he needs something to hit people on platforms with other than specials. Doubling down on his already superb ground game would make people platform camp him even more and just camp him harder in general. Would lead to boring gameplay.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

For the next title, giving Ganondorf a reflector for his Neutral B and floating for his Up B with frames of Super Armour would help him as would replacing his up tilt with something like the Axe Kick he has in Project M. 13% damaged based armour on all his smash attacks would be good as would making the sourspot the same as the sweetspot in terms of damage and knockback for his forward tilt, up smash, forward aerial and back aerial. Aerial Flame Choke not sending you into helpless state would be good. If Kazuya can have so many perks, then Ganondorf can as well.

 

[Arthur97]

I'd want Mac to have better aerials, they are still supposed to be garbage but he needs something to hit people on platforms with other than specials. Doubling down on his already superb ground game would make people platform camp him even more and just camp him harder in general. Would lead to boring gameplay.

A fair point, but at the same time will he ever be viable? I don't think he should be cut, obviously, but he just may be a case of he's not viable with his design philosophy. He's still fun though. However, what about a middle ground of making his jumps better to better give chase? Maybe make his up tilt hit higher too.

 

[NairWizard]

Woah a lot of responses. That's good, we haven't had discussion in a while. let me quote some of you:

"Half the cast," if by that you mean low tiers and mid tiers, low tiers don't matter because they suck, and mid tiers are there because their matchup spread is even more polarized than Min Min's. Steve, Sonic, Fox and Cloud oppress all those jobbers just as much if not harder than Min Min, they have a better matchup spread than Min Min, and they are as much of a matchup check as Min Min, are they a problem then?

I just compared Steve and Kazuya to Min Min and Aegis because they're all DLC in the same pack; there was no mention of anyone else. Sonic is just as polarizing of a design as Min Min and Aegis, yes, and just as much of a problem in terms of lopsided matchups. In fact, I'd probably say that Sonic is slightly worse than either Aegis or Min Min.

Fox, Cloud, and Roy are similarly competitive at the top bracket, but overall I'd say that they aren't as oppressive as Aegis (you can definitely make a case for Fox and Cloud though; I'll go over both below).

Roy's air acceleration and smaller range mean that he has to scrap more often. Roy is great at scrapping, but since it is scrapping in Ultimate, he's not that oppressive by default, because sometimes he's going to lose his scrappy exchanges and then his disadvantage is poor (similar to Aegis). Recently, Kola went game 5 against a Dedede and lost to a DK. The same can definitely happen to Aegis, but playing as Roy in bracket, I've had similar experiences against DK and Dedede -- Roy likely wins both matchups (minorly), but it's not easy. You can make mistakes navigating inside of the range of those characters and then juggling them carefully with precise disjoints and then get reversaled. In Roy vs. DK, you have to hit DK with a bunch of sourspots to keep up your advantage, since sometimes you'll get hit if you try to sweetspot. And then at the ledge, you frequently trap right on the lip of the stage with jabs, which is close enough to give DK additional getup options that he doesn't have against other characters.

Mythra has much more leeway in neutral, because she can space tilts and whiff punish with dash attack or dash grab. Dedede and DK can't use their range as effectively as against Roy, so they're stuck in shield more often. From here, Mythra's grab is enormous and fast and leads to great situations. Keeping up the juggle is super easy as Mythra since no sweetspot vs. sourspot to worry about spacing, and if you can't get the juggle, dash attack suffices on the landing. Ledgetrapping with Pyra is also easy on big bodies, and Pyra f-air/d-air absolutely destroys anyone with a frame-4 airdodge. It's just a much easier time.

Cloud is awesome, and I do think that in some respects he's just as oppressive as Aegis. Cloud has a very unique advantage in being the only character in the game to have strong OOS and strong range and strong air drift. This means that he gets easy access to an advantage state that often ends with your stock. Pretty scary for sure! I've been saying that Cloud is top 5 for ages, so I agree with you that he's really strong.

But Cloud definitely does have a couple of weaknesses. Opening the opponent up in neutral can be hard as Cloud, especially if they have good burst range. Cloud's best options in neutral are dash-in shield (to up-b on reaction), cross slash and variations of b-air (sh retreating, full hop fast fall, etc). Sometimes he'll do sliding up-tilt or full hop f-air, but those are definitely riskier. All of those options are good, but Corss Slash is commital, and the total package can be handled in similar ways (stay grounded and burst him down, shield in range and OOS punish, spotdodge once you've conditioned him not to Cross Slash, and a few other common options). Once Cloud does win in neutral, of course, he can just go to town, get a stock, and then space out with b-air next stock, but it takes a bit of patience to get there.

If you watch Sparg0 play against Sho the Meta Knight at G9, there's an example of one matchup where Cloud has a tough time getting things started, which was obvious even with the player difference. MK's burst range that leads directly into tough edgeguard situations against Cloud's relatively linear neutral means that Cloud has to guess and take calculated risks.

Mythra doesn't have this problem; she can effortlessly out-burst-range you with dash attack, and since she falls faster and has a bigger grab she by default has more approaching options than Cloud, plus the ability to play better from the corner. Her f-tilt and sliding up-tilt are overall safer than Cloud's grounded options too because of her typical range of operation.

Cloud relying on a limited neutral toolkit is part of the reason why at Genesis 8, MKLeo's Byleth was able to spotdodge so often in neutral. Spotdodge -> jab was the answer to spaced b-airs, because Cloud's mixups from a jump are limited. That kind of counterplay is not possible against Aegis -- try spotdodging a Mythra; she'll land on you with n-air half the time, or fade back and be at her burst range, or even have time to throw out another attack after you spotdodge something depending on your character.

"You can spam b-air as much as you want"

b-air is a great move, but not entirely true; the counterplay for it isn't well-known or refined, but since Cloud has a limited range of options in neutral, he has to rely a ton on b-air. Since he's using b-air so much, each time he hits your shield, he's staling it. Once it's 2- or 3-staled, you can parry it and punish. We saw Light up-smash Sparg0 for b-airing so much at G9.

Cloud's biggest advantage over Pyra/Mythra is ledgetrapping with Limit. Definitely pretty oppressive and could stand to be toned down for matchup balance, but Pyra tilts are more universally effective in pure advantage scenarios (where Pyra's mobility doesn't matter). Cloud's Limit is a big advantage specifically against top tiers like Joker who have a bevy of options at the ledge. Limit up-b and Cross Slash can cover them all, which Pyra can't do.

For Fox, Fox's matchups are kind of polarizing, I do agree -- the fact that he has a hard time vs. Luigi and Ice Climbers but destroys characters like Sephiroth is probably something the balance team could have addressed. But I think Fox is overall much less oppressive -- you partially alluded to it yourself: there are no disjoints to worry about, and Fox's burst range is much smaller. Where Fox excels compared to Pyra/Mythra is ledgetrapping, but in exchange Fox himself is much worse at getting off the ledge (no big sword to command space--jump is the best option off of ledge, and Mythra off of a jump is harder to cover than Fox even if Fox has just as many options). Fox does what Mythra does, but worse, and that's why Mythra doesn't have bad matchups vs. Luigi or Ice Climbers. Fox's polarization problems are a bit different and if it were up to me, I'd probably balance him slightly differently than I would Mythra (I'd purely nerf Mythra's strengths, while I'd both nerf Fox's strengths and buff some of his weaknesses, though probably the nerfs in Fox's cases would be larger).

I'm not saying that Aegis is better than Cloud or Fox (or even Roy) at top level, but I am saying that there's more imbalance in the design that wasn't addressed in balance details. A character having reactive grounded burst range with disjoint, a fast fall, and a big grab is just geared to be fundamentally oppressive. It's impossible to move against Mythra sometimes because every movement option is wrong.

People often say that Sheik has a strong neutral, but Sheik's neutral is honestly really overrated -- Mythra can do what people claim that Sheik can do, very consistently against the cast. You only should switch to Pyra for ledgetraps, edgeguarding, and to mix up juggles on landings (f-air against bad airdodges and low air accel chars), and that's probably the biggest weakness of current Aegis players (overreliance on Pyra -- in a similar vein, it's probably why you don't see Jokers besides Leo doing that well, because of an overreliance on Arsene).

Even looking at some high-to-top tiers, Roy, ROB, and Palutena all get utterly demolished in neutral against Aegis, while you can't really say the same for any of the other characters you named (maybe Palutena vs. Fox lately?). Play those matchups sometime, seriously -- it really feels like you're playing molasses on the other side, and you have so much control as the Aegis player.

Becuase this community believes the characters that are legacy have a right to be good ro even broken. But dlc characters should be awful according to many here.

I keep seeing you rag on the community like this, but people aren't painting the broad strokes that you think they are, and the community isn't one big chanting mass. People's opinions tend to be somewhat more nuanced than this.

Are you still trying to claim Pyra and Mythra are a problem?

I know you love the character, and I actually share that with you. For the record, I main and love playing Aegis. I also mained Min Min for a long time and really like that character too.

Do they make the game unplayable? No, that fear ended up being curtailed by significant improvements in corner play at top level--but if you're talking in terms of strict balance, I think they're a problem, yes, and a much bigger one than Kazuya or Steve (I don't understand the complaints about either of those).

I also think this game is significantly less balanced than people want to believe, and that matchup unawareness and inexperience is responsible for at least some of the variety we see at all levels. How many people even read a Hero's menu and react to it unless they're playing Hero?

But one of the great things the game gets right is balancing previously imbalanced archetypal matchups. Ness and Mario have struggled vs. swords throughout smash history, but in Ultimate, it really doesn't feel that bad.
Ness vs. Rosalina feels even, and Ness vs. Lucina/Cloud are very slight losses. Ness can actually space around swords pretty effectively in this game; with just a little more tuning, he'd have even matchups there.
Mario can trounce most swords just by drifting in with falling up-airs, which is much more effective than his previous strategy of dashing in and grabbing against a misspaced aerial. Mario-Byleth is even, and Mario-Cloud and Mario-Lucina are probably just slight losses.

Swords are still likely the strongest archetype in this engine, because the universally low endlag means it's low-risk to swing, but even traditionally strong swordie matchups aren't free, and that's impressive for balance. I wish Min Min and Aegis (and sure, Sonic, of course Sonic) had been a little more considered in the same way that characters like Ness and Lucina have been considered and balanced.

 

[Hippieslayer]

For the next title, giving Ganondorf a reflector for his Neutral B and floating for his Up B with frames of Super Armour would help him as would replacing his up tilt with something like the Axe Kick he has in Project M. 13% damaged based armour on all his smash attacks would be good as would making the sourspot the same as the sweetspot in terms of damage and knockback for his forward tilt, up smash, forward aerial and back aerial. Aerial Flame Choke not sending you into helpless state would be good. If Kazuya can have so many perks, then Ganondorf can as well.

Big agree on the u-tilt, why does he need it when he already has wizard punch? Big agree on the flame choke too. If they want to keep that move putting him into freefall then at least make it so that Ganon can close out games with.

It's weird that they keep making him a non functional character when he's a fan favourite and very entertaining on stream and when playing with or against him. Or at least he was In the beginning of ultimate by now people are good enough that playing with or against him is mostly depressing because of how gimpable he is. DK's recovery sucks too but that character has so many other things going for him compared to Ganon that it isn't enough to make him bottom tier.

And I'd say DK's recovery is better than Ganondorfs anyway on account of DK having aerial drift and a big hitbox that comes out fast on his up-b. It feels like the balancing team just doesn't understand some things. One of those being that it's not a good idea to combine bad recovery moves with extremely slow air speed.

Another being that it doesn't matter if you buff the moves of a character like Kirby when Kirby still has no way to get in on most of the cast and doesn't have the jump height or air speed to follow-up on most of its moves at all once the opponent gets some percentages put on them.

Also think it's depressing how Ike and Chrom are held back so much by poorly designed up-b's that are so easy to exploit once you learn the timing and spacing. Like they should've known they wouldn't work long term. Those up-b's are so much worse than those of characters like Cloud or Mythra.

Ike would be alright if he had Mii Swordfighters side-b that does the same thing but goes through characters lol. Now you can jump out eat the side-b and watch Ike fall to his death.

I'm just posting all this crap because the thread has been pretty dead for a while. Normally I just read because I don't play or follow the scene enough for my knowledge to match that of most of the other posters here. Too much going on IRL too little time. It's very obvious to me that there are people here who have a deeper more detailed understanding of the game.

Imo Sonic is worse than any of the DLC because he makes the game look bad with how his optimal playstyle works and I can understand that.

Going by YouTube comments there's also a lot of people who seem to hate characters who rely on putting out projectiles constantly. Like the comments on ChunkyKong vs Capitancito. They seem to think it's mindless spamming despite the fact that it should be obvious to anyone with an inkling of understanding of competitive smash that it's anything but that. Every projectile is calculated and you have to keep mixing up when and how you use them or you'd get wrecked by a character like DK who will take your life if you give him an inch.

I'm biased but I think it's way more interesting and entertaining watching Capitancito doing things you don't get to see from any other player making a middling at best character actually look real good at times. What ChunkyKong does is cool too but it's nothing new and less exciting because Hikaru does it so much better. Makes me wonder what level of understanding the average viewer has of the game.

Gunner is not a passive camper, they have to be actively pressuring, they are nothing like a character like Sonic, they are a pretty fun character to watch because they have to be so creative to get their wins. Watching Tilde destroy Glutto a while ago only to lose to Capitancito afterwards was pretty cool. And you can tell the commentators who know what they are talking about like watching Capitancito's Gunner too.

On a sidenote: Another character whose design is horrible and shouldn't exist is Bayo. Doesn't matter that she's not that good. The fact that counterplaying requires you to repeatedly SDI as hard as you can for prolonged periods of time makes her an awful character to me. I've experienced this myself in locals and it's goddamn horrible and hurts.

Oh well, now I'm just writing whatever comes to mind. But my point is I wish they would think a little bit more about the watchability of characters, someone like Sonic should not exist. Ultimate is never going to be as good a sport as melee in terms of how entertaining it is to watch. But it would be better if they could think a little bit more about what works as entertainment. Sonic certainly does not except when he gets timed out himself, but that doesn't happen that often.

But at the same time maybe catering to the average viewer in isn't such a great idea when they don't understand what they are watching anyway. But Sonic man, why? They should've known from Sm4sh. Perhaps they didn't actually know because Sm4sh had exciting Sonic players like 6WX. In any case I think viewership really matters in the long run.

Why I think Steve and Kazuya are also bad:

What do you do if you are a character who is not a Swordie or a Zoner and you have to fight Kazuya up close? Aren't the odds extremely stacked against you then. Well Hikaru recently destroyed Tea's Kazuya IIRC so maybe not. At least not always. And Kazuya is exciting to watch. So come to think I guess he's not a problem even though I don't like his character design.

Steve though: If you can't effectively get past blocks fast enough and prevent him from mining he becomes extremely overtuned. Diamond is crazy strong. Down Air is crazy strong and an OOS option on top. Gold Minecart is crazy strong. And Steve has very good low percent strings which put his opponents at near kill percents in one interaction.

Many characters just cannot keep up with the sheer power of Steve. Nonetheless he's also a very interesting character to watch because of how complex he is and how he also relies on creativity to compensate for his innate weaknesses; the not quite good enough to compete with a Swordie range and poor mobility. But the average viewer will not understand even half of what Steve players do. And he looks very unfair a lot of the time, and I don't think it's just that he looks unfair, I think he is. Other characters bar the few who do well vs him like Cloud have to execute their stuff much better than Steve has to get the win on him.