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The Hero Discussion – To Ban or Not to Ban?

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The Hero from the Dragon Quest franchise was released only a few days ago, but already the Smash community is in a tizzy over whether this crazy new character should be banned in competitive tournaments or not. We’ll go over the arguments for each side and then I’ll give my opinion.

First, a little background on me - I actually organized a Brawl tournament back in 2010 with Meta-Knight (MK) banned. We did this in order to promote character diversity and it went...okay. We made the decision to ban MK because he was simply too good. The entire Brawl meta-game revolved around him. We didn’t have as big of a turnout as our regular Brawl tournaments, but that could’ve been due to any number of reasons unrelated to the ban. The character choices in early bracket were very diverse, as people were emboldened to pick characters with a poor matchup against MK (literally most of the cast). However, as the bracket thinned out you saw the clear top tiers emerge and diversity took a big hit. Most of the top 16 played either Snake, DeDeDe, or Falco, and grand finals consisted of a King Dedede mirror match. Most of the feedback I got after the event was lukewarm - people thought it was interesting and certainly worth a shot, but that they probably wouldn’t come to another similar event. Mostly they felt bad for the Meta-Knight mains they knew who didn’t come. We didn’t run another similar event while I was in school.

The MK situation in Brawl was different than the Hero debate now, because people aren’t saying he’s too good (no one really knows this yet), they’re saying he’s too random. First of all, he has critical hits which have a chance of giving his attack extra damage and knock back. Second, his down-special brings up a list of four out of a possible 21 spells, which likely means the player won’t select the same spell twice. This could result in a lot of Hero players simply spamming down-special to get a random spell. RNG is seen as the enemy of competitive fighting games because losing to a dice roll feels more like gambling and less like a test of skill. This is why so many people are grabbing their torches and pitchforks and clamoring for a ban. However, there are other characters with levels of RNG, and none of them ever heard even a whisper about a ban - Peach turnips, Luigi misfires, and Game & Watch hammers come to mind. Why is their level of RNG acceptable, but Hero’s is not? Exactly how much randomness is acceptable for the Smash community? This is why the discussion is circling the interwebs, the Hero has, by far, the most RNG of ANY character in Smash history – and it’s not even close. But does that warrant a ban?

Due to the sheer volume of RNG in Hero’s kit, the closest comparison that we really have is playing with items on. The Pro-ban side argues that items are banned because they’re inherently full of RNG, so why should Hero be any different? Randomness is bad, therefore the character with a ridiculous amount of randomness should be banned.

The Anti-ban side argues that it’s still too early to take such a drastic measure; we need time to assess if critical hits and random spells are enough of a factor that it actually detracts from competitive play. Furthermore, they point to RNG that is allowed in competitive like the aforementioned examples of Peach, G&W, and Luigi. Some people on this side of the argument even say that some level of RNG is good for competition; it keeps matches from getting stale and makes spectating more fun.

I agree that Hero should not be banned from competitive play so soon. If someone wants to try to run through the bracket with a character as random as Hero and somehow emerges victoriously they should be celebrated as the master of chaos, not scorned as someone just playing a dice roll character. Not being predictable is a core tenant of high level play, and what better way to ensure you’re unpredictable than by not even knowing what your own character is going to do? Looking at some early footage, I think Hero will be a montage-only character. I think he’ll settle into mid-tier on most lists and won’t be picked up by any top players. However, he’ll be extremely entertaining to watch and will likely create many ridiculous highlights. If this leads to an upset victory in a tournament setting, then bring on the pandemonium!

What do you think? Should Hero be banned in competitive play? Let us know in the comments below.
 
Jonathan “Qualk” Martin

Comments

Banning something is the cowardly way out.
It would be like banning peach or G&W, just on a bigger scale. His little buffs arent even that new to smash they’re basically just like shulks monado art ability just upscaled a little and his kit compared to shulk is super lacking in good moves
 
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But for real, I think you just need to let these things run their course: let people start playing him and if it gets out of hand then you'll know, but it would be a shame to ban a cool and unique character that they clearly put a lot of effort to.

But yeah, today I kinda had an epiphany that the real way to play Smash is with items and to have fun with it.
 
I think the fact that I've heard an equal amount of "He's totally OP!!" mixed with "He's a total joke, the worst character in the game!!" I'm going to defer to Sakurai and his team's judgement on him averaging out to be balanced.

Granted, the article was about his randomness, but I think it's fine to wait and see how often he's played before deciding. I'm skeptical that we'll be seeing a lot more Heroes than any other character once the hype settles down (possibly after B-K come out).
 
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IDK about you, but MK-banned tournaments were really quite popular and well liked in my scene. We had a unique rule where MK could only be used for 1 win in a Bo3 set, or 2 wins in a Bo5 set and no double MK allowed in doubles. So it wasn't a total ban for MK mains, but it forced them onto secondaries. The only people who had a problem with it were those who were deluded into thinking that because top players didnt support a ban, therefore you would be 'scrubby' to ban him. My state had MK banned for a long time and people said we would fall behind the meta and lack experience. Our state ended up over-performing regionally for a while with a slew of characters no one expected like ZSS, DK, Olimar and Lucario. Of course if you happened to like in an area like Socal or Tri-State, yeah an MK ban would have been unpopular due to the sheer number of top level pros who literally did this as a career. To be honest I never understood why more regions didn't follow our MK rule. It was a great midpoint between a hard ban unfair to MK mains, and forcing more character variety.

Regarding Hero, there has long been a fairly narrow, yet extremely strict criteria to ban a character. Must be over-centralising and must not break the game.

A character having RNG abilities has, afaik, never actually been a criteria applied to any character that would be banned in a fighting game... If you start to define how much RNG a character has, then you're already lost since thats arbitrary. A hero main can simply choose never to use Hocus pocus in a match and now peach is more RNG than hero. In fact, Hero can have twice as much RNG as he does currently, it doesnt matter since unless he is winning every event, you have invented new rules explicitly for him.

There is one and only one definition of whether something is competitive or not; Can people compete in an objective match that involves any sort of skill, where one is determine a winner and one is not. Whether anyone likes it or not, Rock paper scissors is competitive. 'Competitive' is NOT a spectrum where some sports are 'more competitive' than others. Its Binary, either competitive or not. So throw the 'competitive' argument out the window where it belongs. Can you tell me whether NBA is more competitive than NFL? Is chess more competitive than synchronised diving? Is car racing more competitive than horse racing? Its impossible to define, so don't bother. And there are a TON of random elements in those sports, namely umpires and judges. You can absolutely play the exact same way with different referees and have different results. The referees aren't random, but who actually referees, partially is.

The thing you should be arguing, is whether or not playing against hero breaks the game by virtue of upsets happening at a drastically higher level than normal. If you have player A and B who go 80:20 in 100 matches, but when hero is involved it goes 50:50, then you have a point. If Hero's RNG is actually busted good, then theoretically the good player should benefit from it just as much, and the ratio will stay at 80:20. If his RNG is incredibly random, but not actually breaking the game, then he is fine.

A hero ban is totally unwarranted by historical measures. The argument of him not being 'competitive' is weak and dripping with salt. Hero may prove over time to routinely be a problem and causing too many upsets, but that implies that only 'bad' players will benefit from his RNG while good players will lose to it. Unless you have proof of that happening, you're wasting your time.
 
I’ve already listed my response in another thread, but I’ll copy and paste it here:

Honestly I am pretty stuck on this question since its both sided, and I can understand the reason why people want Hero to be banned, and people who don’t want him banned. It is true that Hero is a character with a huge emphasis on RNG, and a formula like that especially in a competitive scene can be disastrous, which is why rules such as items off and hazards off are put into place to emphasize skill rather than RNG. It is a little concerning that the RNG element isn’t on just one move, like G&W’s hammer, but rather on all of his smash attacks because of the chance of a critical hit. I can understand the concern of many people since Hero has many ways of obtaining early KOs, with critical hits, Thwack and Whack, etc.

On the other hand, I can also understand why some people don’t want him banned. With the RNG element being a large emphasis on Hero, this causes him to be an inconsistent character. You won’t always be able to get an early KO against an opponent. It is true that Hero has RNG, but that RNG will be meaningless if a player doesn’t know how to utilize it properly. Hero has glaring weaknesses which include his slow aerials, bad OOS options, and slowness in terms of his Spell Menu. You can’t move with the menu being out, and the menu closes when you are hit, which requires you to make a quick play to be effective, or else you’ll be vulnerable. I mean just look at this: Down B -> Look at the menu on the bottom of the screen -> Select Option -> Use Spell. This option takes time, and can be difficult to utilize the menu in top play, since you’d have to be quick 99.99% of the time. Not only that but it requires you to read your opponents, since rush down characters such as Joker can easily overwhelm Hero since they can interrupt the menu. With the limited MP Hero has, lower amounts of MP forces one to rush to obtain more MP, and with his glaring weaknesses, it’s difficult for him to compete against rush down characters. I feel like too many people are only paying attention to his Down B being based around RNG, and the random critical hits instead of focusing on his actual weaknesses.

You don’t have to worry too much about Hocus Pocus though, since it has a 5.07% chance of showing up on the menu, which is a rare occurance. You are more likely to use a random spell or receive a bad outcome than getting something good, which hurts its use in competitive play. (Combining both the percentages of random outcome of using spells with bad outcomes in total is 83.84%, greater than the 16.16% chance of receiving a positive outcome.) And Metal Slash is only useful in Hero dittos, so you’ll almost never see it in non ditto matches, unless if it’s used from Hocus Pocus.
Now that I look at it, I don’t think Hero should be banned. He has glaring weaknesses that can be exploitable, and he’s not some character that anyone can pick up and decimate in tournaments. It is true that he has RNG factor, but a player has to be able to utilize the RNG factor to create a perfect scenario to get them the kill. Yes, they have the tools, but they must use them wisely.
 
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At the moment I’d probably say yes ban him.

It’s not just how much rng his toolkit has(which like mentioned is waaaaay more, and not really comparable to the single rng move three characters have, two of which have a bit more high risk to them, the other has lower risk but only gets an ok projectile most of the time that can also be used against them), but just how devastating some of them are. it’s very much possible to get both the attack buff and land a smash attack crit, do so and you’ll literally destroy a character stock at any %, even 0. Or get magic burst and you can cover all recovery options and and watch it kill early, or get snooze on someone in the air and get a free smash as they land(or if they recovered high a guaranteed stock), hell even an actual ohko if he gets really lucky and gets a death thwack. He has a lot of potential stuff that can just destroy a stock in seconds, all from rng.

It might not be so bad if there weren’t so many things that could take out stocks at 0-30% on many characters from just sheer luck, if maybe everything was a bit weaker overall, with the crits or magic bursts being lots of extra damage but not instant stock killers, it might be tolerable.
 
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At the moment I’d probably say yes ban him.

It’s not just how much rng his toolkit has(which like mentioned is waaaaay more, and not really comparable to the single rng move three characters have, two of which have a bit more high risk to them, the other has lower risk but only gets an ok projectile most of the time that can also be used against them), but just how devastating some of them are. it’s very much possible to get both the attack buff and land a smash attack crit, do so and you’ll literally destroy a character stock at any %, even 0. Or get magic burst and you can cover all recovery options and and watch it kill early, or get snooze on someone in the air and get a free smash as they land(or if they recovered high a guaranteed stock), hell even an actual ohko if he gets really lucky and gets a death thwack. He has a lot of potential stuff that can just destroy a stock in seconds, all from rng.

It might not be so bad if there weren’t so many things that could take out stocks at 0-30% on many characters from just sheer luck, if maybe everything was a bit weaker overall, with the crits or magic bursts being lots of extra damage but not instant stock killers, it might be tolerable.
Counter, I posit that how likely is it that any of those options will happen within seconds of a match, or that it will be the determining factor of a win, and further more how often will people be able to pull of cheesy strats? Theoretically, I could have psyche up and boost up, and my next smash attack will be a crit, but if I whiff the smash all that means jack diddly doodly, in fact I could get punished and have my stock zero'd to death as punishment for relying on a strategy that might happen every 1 out of 300 matches. That goes for thwack and whack too. Magic burst may be a bit goofy but even high recoveries could avoid that, ditto for snooze. Simply put, we can't know how effective his many random kill options will be until more footage comes out. If Rando McBadPlayer who's literally never been at a tournament before takes Evo from MKLeo using only down b, and that happens consistently, then DM me and I'll concede your point.
 
Back when I competed in community run online tournaments for Fantasy Strike, my secondary was a character who was even more reliant on RNG than Hero. Playing him without some sort of RNG dependence was basically impossible. Despite that, the game remained fun and competitive, and I consistently beat players who were worse than me and lost to players who were better than me, so I have a hard time seeing Hero as bannable. You'll drive away more players by banning him than by keeping him in.
 
Just ban the use of certain spells? Or DownB in general, really. Banning the entire character would be silly.

Then there's the option of modding the game. Someone could easily mod the game so official tournaments have only 4 magic spells.
 
This is ridiculous. As stated in the article, RNG is here in Smash bros. already. RNG by itself shouldn't be the deciding factor, results should and it's embarrassing that a pro player of any caliber would support this ban. But they're just doing the typical nonsense normally found with topics similar to this one. The kind like banning Miis because they had too many moves only to make them legal in Ultimate even though not much had changed. At the end of the day, this is just another topic where people, who don't know what they're talking about, jump the gun and makes irrational decisions before commen sense sets in. Soon enough, this'll be all water under the bridge, but no matter what ends up happening, this will still be a case of hoes being hoes. And you know what? Hoes mad...
Hoes mad...
 
Banning the character without even letting it participate in a single tournament is moronic.

RNG is already in the game. And although people might have a problem with this comparison (Luigi, G&W, Peaisy) yes, Hero has more RNG. The drawback? None of the characters mentioned have RNG AGAINST them. Maybe G&W’s Judgement 1 which causes minimum damage to himself. But Luigi, G&W and Peach/Daisy in general can safely dish them out (heck it’s almost bread and butter to their gameplay style) with no risk behind them.

I would be extremely disappointed, not to mentioned perplexed, if Hero doesn’t get in on a few tournaments before a real decision with actual outcomes can be made.
 
Every character should at least get a shot in tournaments before any ban, but I'm erring on the side that people will naturally come to the conclusion to ban him.

The comparisons to Luigi, G&W, and Peach are not very prudent because their RNG is not a centralising mechanic that you need to play around, nor are the benefits they get from it THAT potent. They also still require some degree of execution to use (hitting a 9 with G&W still takes some skill and set-ups) and in Luigi and Peach's case, can be used against them.

The problem with Hero is that most of his RNG outside of Hocus Pocus (which you can just opt not to use because you have 20 other spells) can't be used against him and can't really backfire. Also just the absurdity of the fact that he has not one, but two moves that potentially OHKO is a problem. And no, it's not comparable to G&W's 9 - you can survive that at low % or if the opponent hits you from the wrong side, and a bit of DI can help. With Hero, you just have the chance to disintegrate on the spot if he gets you with his OHKO moves, and he can very easily set them up, especially from an edge guarding perspective. That's just dumb no matter how you slice.

I also like to put him into perspective compared to some other characters. My best example is Jigglypuff, who's entire centralising, unique mechanic, is that it puts opponent's to sleep and has a powerful move that it can use to follow-up from that. But Jigglypuff's Sing requires getting up in the opponent's face, and can only be used on the ground.

But Hero over here gets the exact same thing, except his Snooze is an INTANGIBLE projectile, can send opponents to sleep in mid-air (which can be used to literally guarantee off-stage KO's without any further interaction), and he STILL has all of the other powerful spells and Crit hits and OHKO's? The fact that these elements rely on RNG doesn't mean much because you're usually always getting one of these over the top tools at any given time.

It's blatantly obvious that Hero was not balanced or intended for competitive play. Yes, Smash as a series was never supposed to be competitive but people formed a scene around it anyway, but by Ultimate, it's clear that the devs are aware of the competitive community and try to take them into consideration. But Hero feels like a huge departure from that design philosophy. He's incredibly fun as a casual play character but will become incredibly toxic in serious settings where money is involved.

TL;DR: Let him have his time in the sun for a couple of tournaments but I think people are naturally gonna come to the conclusion that he should be banned until he's heavily reworked.

Also, as an ex-Rosalina main from Smash Wii U/3DS, apologise. The fact that the majority of the community constantly penned Rosalina & Luma as broken and cheesy (and people STILL think that's true even after Ultimate completely butchered her) yet apparently a RNG based character with OHKO's is being ardently defended by so many is completely fine and fair as just...fascinating to me.
 
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This is why I'm starting to say **** the competitive scene; it's disrespectful to the game.
 
no because competitive smash is already dead boring and Hero is just what it needs and competitive smash players are the last thing you want to even bend over for
 
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Oh please, until The Hero has some results can we stop this hypothetical fear mongering? Let’s address the meta in a few months when we have some actual data.
 
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he's super fun to play and watch, that's for dang sure, but the potential for someone to get the lucky thwack/crit roll at 0 and just win instantly really sucks in a tournament setting. i'd personally wait until we've got more results as far as how often his rng screws people over before we go straight to bans, but the potential is there so i kinda doubt they'll let him run amok for long
 
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I think his playstyle is genius.

Sure, it is technically Random Number Generation.
However, in the case of the Hero, the effect is more like button mashing.
Randomly choosing moves without warning will not result in repeatable wins.

The playstyle itself actually reflects a Role Playing Game quite well, requiring the player to be able to quickly read, quickly interpret, and quickly strategize information.
 
I think his playstyle is genius.

Sure, it is technically Random Number Generation.
However, in the case of the Hero, the effect is more like button mashing.
Randomly choosing moves without warning will not result in repeatable wins.

The playstyle itself actually reflects a Role Playing Game quite well, requiring the player to be able to quickly read, quickly interpret, and quickly strategize information.
Of course, since the moves too has a chance to not work, miss or a complete gamble if multitasking can be done on opponents ranging from quick to powerful.
 
It's ridiculous we're even bringing this up right now considering Hero has only been out for a couple of days and there's nothing to point towards them being some sort of completely OP choice. Hell, they have lots of lag on their moves, the Down B menu restricts movement heavily, and the RNG works so much more against the player than against the opponent. There are real drawbacks to using Hero. The only true RNG that applies to fights are the Critical Hits and Hocus Pocus, and Hocus Pocus has a major drawback of being able to backfire and seriously harm you as the player. The rest is just RNG to see if the menu gives specific spells or not, which is really not that consequential in terms of RNG affecting matches.

This sounds like another instance of the Smash competitive community whining that something is complicated and requires them to be ready for a lot like with Mii Fighters. And the rest of Hero's RNG is pretty damn comparable to Mr. Game and Watch, Peach/Daisy, and Luigi in terms of the critical hits. And I doubt that Hero will really be that OP in the grand scheme of things like Meta Knight was in Brawl... (Not to mention, I'm against banning characters altogether, but that's another topic entirely).
 
Just like with Metaknight, just like with Bayonetta...

When the possibility of banning is being discussed, the core of the argument typically is centralization. The community is worried about centralization in which a considerable portion of meta cruxes on a specific character or specific strategy or more and thus diminishes the value of the game.

RNG inherently has no bearing on this factor.

The question isn't "Is it too Random?" The question is "Is the effects of this randomness over-centralizing?"

In this case I don't think I even need to mention that Hero hasn't been around long enough to even answer the question. Is there even anything in Hero's moveset than can be considered centralizing or even be utilized in a centralizing way? Let's list the worst of it:

  • Whack/Thwack: Chance to kill at any %, odds of killing dependent on target's %. Also dependent on appearing in the user's Menu AND the opponent being in range AND the opponent doesn't shield or has a reflector. Yes the possibility of success exists at all these moments. Sure it's frustrating to die at 0% in a high stakes match. But that happens and has happened before Hero arrived. The frustration here comes from results born of chance rather than skill. But is it possible to harness this effect to a centralizing degree?
  • Kamikaze/Magic Burst: Both are similar enough to lump together as they're both huge AoE attacks with huge costs. Kamikaze costs a stock and is pretty much a massive Bob-Omb-strength explosion that can't be blocked. Can definitely steal stocks. Cannot be used to win matches on last stock. Again, such a thing has already existed before in the form of Suicide Moves. Never centralizing. Meanwhile Magic Burst depletes Hero's MP resource and can potentially edgeguard a target with ease. The power of the move however depends on the amount of MP remaining, not to mention Magic Burst has a lower appearance rate than other spells. Basically this becomes another Whack/Thwack situation where the win condition is both considerably situational and low. Is it thus possible for either of these moves to become centralizing to Hero's game plan?
  • Critical-Hit Smashes (and Oomph + Psych Up boosts): 12.5% chance of dealing extra damage and knockback. Somewhat comparable to Marth's tipper smashes or Roy's deep hit smashes. But those two require skillful spacing while Hero's is completely random. Regardless, neither Marth's or Roy's powered up smashes have been so strong as to become a centralizing aspect to their game plan. Now Hero can also boost his power and make them hit even harder. But then this becomes another issue of random chance and whether the player earned the rewards of landing those powered up attacks. In this case I would say yeah, they did earn it. They found the opportunity to find and cast Oomph and/or Psych Up, and they landed the Smash attack that produced a critical hit. Does the hit randomly inflicting extra power matter? Doesn't it matter that Hero doesn't exactly have the best range on his Smash attacks? Could anybody realistically shift an entire meta around powered-up Smash attacks?
Being frustrated about RNG is one thing. But RNG in games in general have been a thing for... ever! Video games, card games, board games... We all should be aware of this and used to this by now. What people don't like is dealing with RNG in a game where so much is dependent on strategical and dexterous skill. That's nothing new though; A lot of us dislike Items On for this very reason.

But the difference between Items On and Hero is the power one has to influence matches. Hero has a lot of randomness, but the player has to initiate the moves that produce these random effects. In as such even the harnessing of RNG can be considered a skill in itself. Items On however are completely separate from the interaction of the involved players. It is an uncontrollable intrusion on a match that immediately alters the flow, pace, and results of a match without prejudice, notably because of random spawning, not because the items themselves. Items On would obviously be centralizing and unhealthy to a competitive environment.

And then there's the "anti-competitive" argument I've seen thrown around. Which is silly because the very term suggests "against the existence of competition". Not even Items On are anti-competitive. They just create a poor environment for deciding matches based around skill. The only thing that's been truly "anti-competitive" is random Tripping in Brawl. That was a direct attack on competitive play, specifically the high skill-focused kind most of us exclusively enjoyed.

So there it is. We as gamers have long since dealt with RNG just fine. It's not inherently an unhealthy element for competitive play. What we need to worry about is any element that becomes detrimental to the growth of the meta. And that typically happens when something become so prominent that the entire environment starts to stagnate.

...And if anything, Randomness is antithetical to Stagnation.
 
I still maintain the character warrants a ban. I can see too many sets with this character determined by whether RNG smiles in his favour.
 
items are banned specifically because they appear in random spots on the stage. if they showed up in set locations at regular intervals they would probably be looked at as another tool to be worked into and around a player's strategy

so comparing hero to items is a flimsy argument in my view because you can generally expect them to check the menu at predictable times during neutral, advantage, and disadvantage. tbh magic burst is the thing I've been having difficulty working around, and only specifically when I'm off stage. consistent counter-play to their kit will be discovered relatively quickly, I'll wager
 
the fact this is even a discussion is embarrassing to the smash scene. this character s not ban worthy. this character may not even be decent.
 
Most of the spells are good. I'm not sharing my opinion to be criticized but what about people who like to play Hero?
 
Life is RNG... let the Hero play! He will play if and until a ban is outright obvious.
 
Not ban. Hero is currently the only DLC fighter in this game that I like, and if he's banned, what's the point?
 
The call for an all ban to a character this early in his release is an overreaction. The Hero's critical hit is on par with Luigi's misfire and Peach's turnips. and Mr. Game and Watch's hammer. RNG is already here, and the random factor is a nonissue in terms of these characters and yet The Hero is getting a bad rap, which I find a little unfair. So no, I don't think he needs to be banned because of a few salty try-hards and entitled 'pros' say so.
 
I disagree with a ban b/c in my mind, Hero's RNG-ness is a downside. A major downside. It makes the character worse, not better. Consistency is the name of the game, and Hero doesn't have it.
 
Let's see what happens. If he needs to be banned, I'm all for it, and I say someone should just put their foot down and do it instead of arguing about it for months until the game isn't relevant anymore and causing tons of mid-low level players to quit (like Bayonetta), but we have to know for sure if he's going to be a problem in tournaments causing RNG to take too much precedence over skill.

This discussion should begin after we see if he even gets any results at all in tournies, and never before.
 
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Just like with Metaknight, just like with Bayonetta...

When the possibility of banning is being discussed, the core of the argument typically is centralization. The community is worried about centralization in which a considerable portion of meta cruxes on a specific character or specific strategy or more and thus diminishes the value of the game.

RNG inherently has no bearing on this factor.

The question isn't "Is it too Random?" The question is "Is the effects of this randomness over-centralizing?"

In this case I don't think I even need to mention that Hero hasn't been around long enough to even answer the question. Is there even anything in Hero's moveset than can be considered centralizing or even be utilized in a centralizing way? Let's list the worst of it:

  • Whack/Thwack: Chance to kill at any %, odds of killing dependent on target's %. Also dependent on appearing in the user's Menu AND the opponent being in range AND the opponent doesn't shield or has a reflector. Yes the possibility of success exists at all these moments. Sure it's frustrating to die at 0% in a high stakes match. But that happens and has happened before Hero arrived. The frustration here comes from results born of chance rather than skill. But is it possible to harness this effect to a centralizing degree?
  • Kamikaze/Magic Burst: Both are similar enough to lump together as they're both huge AoE attacks with huge costs. Kamikaze costs a stock and is pretty much a massive Bob-Omb-strength explosion that can't be blocked. Can definitely steal stocks. Cannot be used to win matches on last stock. Again, such a thing has already existed before in the form of Suicide Moves. Never centralizing. Meanwhile Magic Burst depletes Hero's MP resource and can potentially edgeguard a target with ease. The power of the move however depends on the amount of MP remaining, not to mention Magic Burst has a lower appearance rate than other spells. Basically this becomes another Whack/Thwack situation where the win condition is both considerably situational and low. Is it thus possible for either of these moves to become centralizing to Hero's game plan?
  • Critical-Hit Smashes (and Oomph + Psych Up boosts): 12.5% chance of dealing extra damage and knockback. Somewhat comparable to Marth's tipper smashes or Roy's deep hit smashes. But those two require skillful spacing while Hero's is completely random. Regardless, neither Marth's or Roy's powered up smashes have been so strong as to become a centralizing aspect to their game plan. Now Hero can also boost his power and make them hit even harder. But then this becomes another issue of random chance and whether the player earned the rewards of landing those powered up attacks. In this case I would say yeah, they did earn it. They found the opportunity to find and cast Oomph and/or Psych Up, and they landed the Smash attack that produced a critical hit. Does the hit randomly inflicting extra power matter? Doesn't it matter that Hero doesn't exactly have the best range on his Smash attacks? Could anybody realistically shift an entire meta around powered-up Smash attacks?
Being frustrated about RNG is one thing. But RNG in games in general have been a thing for... ever! Video games, card games, board games... We all should be aware of this and used to this by now. What people don't like is dealing with RNG in a game where so much is dependent on strategical and dexterous skill. That's nothing new though; A lot of us dislike Items On for this very reason.

But the difference between Items On and Hero is the power one has to influence matches. Hero has a lot of randomness, but the player has to initiate the moves that produce these random effects. In as such even the harnessing of RNG can be considered a skill in itself. Items On however are completely separate from the interaction of the involved players. It is an uncontrollable intrusion on a match that immediately alters the flow, pace, and results of a match without prejudice, notably because of random spawning, not because the items themselves. Items On would obviously be centralizing and unhealthy to a competitive environment.

And then there's the "anti-competitive" argument I've seen thrown around. Which is silly because the very term suggests "against the existence of competition". Not even Items On are anti-competitive. They just create a poor environment for deciding matches based around skill. The only thing that's been truly "anti-competitive" is random Tripping in Brawl. That was a direct attack on competitive play, specifically the high skill-focused kind most of us exclusively enjoyed.

So there it is. We as gamers have long since dealt with RNG just fine. It's not inherently an unhealthy element for competitive play. What we need to worry about is any element that becomes detrimental to the growth of the meta. And that typically happens when something become so prominent that the entire environment starts to stagnate.

...And if anything, Randomness is antithetical to Stagnation.
holy macarole, this is leagues more eloquent and detailed than I would think up when I discussed the topic where I go...!

I would like to suggest providing focus on card games like any average TCG as an example of skill in an game with luck as a major factor... there's typically entire deck builds that will often minimize the luck factor as much as possible, such as drawing extra cards or seeking out a specific card from the deck, even with all that said, Luck still plays a major factor on whether or not you can make the winning move as early as the first few turns.

so what that the Hero has luck play a role in their moveset... that just means you can't give your opponent many chances to push it. plus, as you said, Whack and Thwack can be blocked and reflected. while Kamikazee cannot be shielded, it CAN be avoided with a well timed dodge. also, Magic Burst can be interrupted, and if that happens you're safe, and he lost his resources for awhile.
 
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The RNG mechanic itself is not the problem. The problem is that some of his moves deal way too much damage, and can kill extremely early. I had a match against a Pichu, where I used Oomph and got a critical hit with my F-Smash, which took him from 0-Death. (I think it was 62% total.) Kafrizz also does way too much damage for a neutral B move. Another game that I posted the ID of on my profile posts, resulted in me beating a Little Mac in 17 seconds, though that was probably was because of his awful recovery anyway. Asking for a ban, just because RNG is involved is dumb argument imo, but the insane amount of damage he currently deals is where the real problem lies. A ban is unnecessary in my opinion, but he does need quite a lot of nerfs before being considered balanced. That's all I have for now. I still enjoy playing him tho.
 
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