Ultimate Bowser MU Analysis and Discussion

[Darches]

Demo players need to answer me 3 questions...
Does uThrow still combo into nAir at all?
How early does sideB kill Mario from center stage w/o rage?
Is pivot grab still broken? I've never been a fan of it.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

How early does sideB kill Mario from center stage w/o rage?

Haven't played yet but I've seen this move without rage and Ganondorf lived until like 150-160%, so

 

[S_B]

Hello. It's been a while I haven't posted here. I thought I lost my account but turns out I actually didn't forget my password and mail address.

Anyways. I live in France and I have been able to play Bowser a lot in the demo in a con that recently took place here in Paris.

Bowser felt incredibly good to play in the demo. I'm a huge Bowser fan by default, but I'm really not joking when I say that he is just so much better. He feels even faster than the previous game, has decent and better frame data, and is scary as hell.

There's a few things I want to talk about. First, I am not entirely sure about myself on this, but I THINK that Aerial fortress non longer goes further if we mash B. If anyone can confirm, it would be nice.
Yes, the running tilts are HUGE for Bowser. Up tilt is super good, it's faster, has a bigger hit box, and can juggle. I actually tried to run up tilt in the demo and it turned out to be an amazing tool.
Bowser doesn't seem to be affected much by the grab nerf. I whiffed many grabs while playing and haven't noticed any differences compared to smash 4. Not that it matters since we now have a nasty Frame 6 command grab.

Back air is powerful. It's actually scary to land with it on shields. It's got reduced ending lag which is nice, but it's just as strong. Definitely gonna see some more use of this move in the future. Forward air, with also its buffed lag, is very good. Overall Bowser just feel much safer to use, both in the air and on the ground.

There's still hope for jab follow-ups. I still sometimes managed to get Jab to grab, and jab Down B. I apologize that I cannot give footage, but those are things that I tried in the demo because of how much I did them in Smash 4, and I'm pretty sure I was able to pull them off on some characters, like Link.

Did anyone here actually played the demo? I see a lot of negativity and it makes me quite sad. I will still main Bowser even if he ends up bottom tier, but I doubt he will be. But trust me, Bowser feels much better in Ultimate. And also, I am glad as well that Bowser lost his grab follow-ups, but I also wish that at release, he well get enough buffs to compensate for this loss.

Thanks for reading.

I'm glad he feels better, but you have to remember that Bowser felt amazing in SSB4 as well and there was a period of time where everyone thought so highly of him that ZeRo himself was maining Bowser.

Cautious optimism is the only way to handle this, as we've seen what happens once the combo games of the speedy characters become optimized: Bowser dropped from "top tier" in the early days of SSB4 like a stone.

I'm not saying he won't be better as he certainly will be, but what really matters is how the rest of the cast stacks up with their tools in comparison to his, once all of those tools are optimized.

Again, cautiously optimistic, but that's the most anyone should give the situation.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Played the game. Uthrow doesn't seem to combo literally ever. Dsmash is good at smacking things on the ledge. Air speed fairly massively buffed. Standing grab range seemed buffed.

Everything else sucks though. Ftilt range is nerfed, jab range is nerfed, dtilt is horrifically ****.

Feels good to play him but it felt good to play everyone so I don't think he'll be particularly good.

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

Played the game. Uthrow doesn't seem to combo literally ever. Dsmash is good at smacking things on the ledge. Air speed fairly massively buffed. Standing grab range seemed buffed.

Everything else sucks though. Ftilt range is nerfed, jab range is nerfed, dtilt is horrifically ****.

Feels good to play him but it felt good to play everyone so I don't think he'll be particularly good.

Bowser also feels really weak in the demo. Some of his moves like Side B weren't even able to KO at reasonably high percentages. I'm actually very worried about Bowser in this game. While he got some pretty substantial buffs to his Arial attacks, up B, got a lot of his fat cut thanks to the universal jump squat buff and the new dash mechanics, Bowser is still a massive combo target, doesn't have any combos yet, deals just okay damage for what he takes back, his moves have trouble killing beside smashes and Bair, Side B seems to have gotten nerfed to the ground...

 

[meleebrawler]

Did you guys try playing around with dash cancels? And did you ever get to use platforms with side b? Also if his airspeed is buffed, doesn't that mean he can go further offstage to edgeguard?

A little less range on his normals doesn't seem that bad when you can now freely run up to people to use them.

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

meleebrawler
Bowser in advantage probably hasn't changed too much, but please understand that range on ground moves is a big deal for us regardless of Ultimate's dash buffs.

As a super heavy with significant end lag on our pokes, it's imperative that our range be sufficient to win or trade in most cases. This is what makes FTilt useful in Smash 4 because it could even contest swords. Our pressure did not diminish whether it was neutral or pushing stage advantage. In Smash Ultimate, not only have shields been nerfed but our range will come into question vs our adversaries' best pokes more often. Disadvantage will be universally terrible for everyone, so facing more losing scenarios in neutral is enough to really swing our MU spread. Do not underestimate the loss of range on FTilt and Jab with Bowser. Even with our 8 frame dash stop in Smash 4, FTilt and Jab still faced a lot of challenges in neutral vs most of our common MUs in tournament. The balancing act is very delicate.

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

Are we sure about FTilt's nerfed range?
This (good) analysis video shows that it may not be different than Smash 4, at 1:47:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBz-8wzJAT8

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I definitely felt less range. I use ftilt a lot in Smash 4 lol.

 

[Darches]

Looks like same range, less disjoint. Bowser leans a little farther but his arm is bent. Looks too similar to make a big difference, considering Bowser was already outranged by many attacks.

 

[S_B]

Well, it's not like I'm hurting for fat reptiles to main this game...

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

Well, it's not like I'm hurting for fat reptiles to main this game...

Damn feels bad man. I love K Rool and will main him, but it feels so sad to think that we might move on to Ganondorf/DK/Rool/Ridley because Bowser might be ****ty again... You feel me?

 

[meleebrawler]

Damn feels bad man. I love K Rool and will main him, but it feels so sad to think that we might move on to Ganondorf/DK/Rool/Ridley because Bowser might be ****ty again... You feel me?

K. Rool's reach outside of his projectiles doesn't look particularly good, worse than all of the other superheavies probably. Just putting that out there.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Yeah from what I've seen K. Rool looks pretty much worse than Bowser but then again maybe he will surprise us with some broken normals or something that we haven't seen yet.

 

[S_B]

K. Rool's reach outside of his projectiles doesn't look particularly good, worse than all of the other superheavies probably. Just putting that out there.

We've yet to see his jab, any of his tilts, and we have no idea how much damage or knockback his moves actually do.

I'm not holding out hope he'll be top tier, but the problem with Bowser is that these are the moves he has and that's basically the end of it.

This isn't like Overwatch where they completely revamp a character every other month. If Bowser ships with a sub-par kit, the best they can do is try to beef it up a bit but it's still going to be the same losing strategy it has been since Melee.

We'll see, I guess, but I have more hope for KKR or Riddles as they're at least trying something new.

Like ESAM said in his tier list, the thing that makes high tier characters high tier is that they have at least one thing about them that's basically broken. Considering how much worse disadvantage state is, if Bowser doesn't have some tool to better control space to remain on stage, he's going straight into toilet tier until they inevitably give him back his throw followups.

 

[meleebrawler]

We've yet to see his jab, any of his tilts, and we have no idea how much damage or knockback his moves actually do.

I'm not holding out hope he'll be top tier, but the problem with Bowser is that these are the moves he has and that's basically the end of it.

This isn't like Overwatch where they completely revamp a character every other month. If Bowser ships with a sub-par kit, the best they can do is try to beef it up a bit but it's still going to be the same losing strategy it has been since Melee.

We'll see, I guess, but I have more hope for KKR or Riddles as they're at least trying something new.

Like ESAM said in his tier list, the thing that makes high tier characters high tier is that they have at least one thing about them that's basically broken. Considering how much worse disadvantage state is, if Bowser doesn't have some tool to better control space to remain on stage, he's going straight into toilet tier until they inevitably give him back his throw followups.

I do think K. Rool's frame data and power will be good enough to compensate for his short range, at least on startup. For the record we have seen at least two of his tilts, the burying stomp and the tail end of a claw swipe above his head, both of which look to have about as much reach as you'd expect from a guy with comparatively stubby limbs. Now maybe they'll do something special for his up and/or down smashes, but for now his longest ranged ground option that isn't a projectile is his boxing fsmash.

The only way to "fix" Bowser would be to not make him big and heavy. But then he wouldn't really be Bowser anymore. No amount of changes to his kit will be enough to circumvent the inherent disadvantages of those traits enough to be really high on tier lists, unless said kit is so utterly busted as to make him incredibly polarizing. They've given him the most important tool a close-range character needs to work well: mobility. That alone makes Smash 4 and Ultimate Bowser better than Brawl or Melee, who catching people with was just hopeless. Just because your tier placement from game to game doesn't change much, doesn't mean the character isn't getting better. It just means most of the others are doing so as well.

If Ridley does well, I'm not sure it'll necessarily reflect well on whether superheavies can be truly viable, because he's quite a bit less heavy than his "peers". Essentially, the way to be a good superheavy... is to not be one. And it's not like HE has anything like an uthrow-uair kill combo.

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

We've yet to see his jab, any of his tilts, and we have no idea how much damage or knockback his moves actually do.

I'm not holding out hope he'll be top tier, but the problem with Bowser is that these are the moves he has and that's basically the end of it.

This isn't like Overwatch where they completely revamp a character every other month. If Bowser ships with a sub-par kit, the best they can do is try to beef it up a bit but it's still going to be the same losing strategy it has been since Melee.

We'll see, I guess, but I have more hope for KKR or Riddles as they're at least trying something new.

Like ESAM said in his tier list, the thing that makes high tier characters high tier is that they have at least one thing about them that's basically broken. Considering how much worse disadvantage state is, if Bowser doesn't have some tool to better control space to remain on stage, he's going straight into toilet tier until they inevitably give him back his throw followups.

We did see two of King K. Rool's tilts. His down tilt is a decently fast stomp that grounds opponents (the only normal in the game able to do so with Wii Fit's jab I believe?) and his up tilt is an uppercut with little end lag, both are seen in his reveal trailers

Edit: outsped

 

[S_B]

I do think K. Rool's frame data and power will be good enough to compensate for his short range, at least on startup. For the record we have seen at least two of his tilts, the burying stomp and the tail end of a claw swipe above his head, both of which look to have about as much reach as you'd expect from a guy with comparatively stubby limbs. Now maybe they'll do something special for his up and/or down smashes, but for now his longest ranged ground option that isn't a projectile is his boxing fsmash.

The only way to "fix" Bowser would be to not make him big and heavy. But then he wouldn't really be Bowser anymore. No amount of changes to his kit will be enough to circumvent the inherent disadvantages of those traits enough to be really high on tier lists, unless said kit is so utterly busted as to make him incredibly polarizing. They've given him the most important tool a close-range character needs to work well: mobility. That alone makes Smash 4 and Ultimate Bowser better than Brawl or Melee, who catching people with was just hopeless. Just because your tier placement from game to game doesn't change much, doesn't mean the character isn't getting better. It just means most of the others are doing so as well.

If Ridley does well, I'm not sure it'll necessarily reflect well on whether superheavies can be truly viable, because he's quite a bit less heavy than his "peers". Essentially, the way to be a good superheavy... is to not be one. And it's not like HE has anything like an uthrow-uair kill combo.

Are we sure the stomp isn't his downsmash? (also having a move that buries people in addition to all his other tools)

As for heavies, as this video points out, what they truly need is OPTIONS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoyrbkdrDk

Bowser has relatively few while KKR and Ridley have more. Hell, having any projectile places KKR worlds above Bowser already and KKR has two. Bowser's options, however, will always boil down to "Try to get in" or "Camp and do literally nothing". Even a weak or easily shielded ranged poke is better than no poke at all.

And because of zero combo game, every time Bowser gets in will net him some damage or a KO, but he'll need to start the process all over after every single successful engagement. As we saw in SSB4, it took 3-4 grabs = death for HWs like Bowser and DK to climb to high mid-tier. With all of that gone and no other reliable, safe pokes, Bowser is hurting for options.

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

Are we sure the stomp isn't his downsmash? (also having a move that buries people in addition to all his other tools)

As for heavies, as this video points out, what they truly need is OPTIONS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoyrbkdrDk

Bowser has relatively few while KKR and Ridley have more. Hell, having any projectile places KKR worlds above Bowser already and KKR has two. Bowser's options, however, will always boil down to "Try to get in" or "Camp and do literally nothing". Even a weak or easily shielded ranged poke is better than no poke at all.

And because of zero combo game, every time Bowser gets in will net him some damage or a KO, but he'll need to start the process all over after every single successful engagement. As we saw in SSB4, it took 3-4 grabs = death for HWs like Bowser and DK to climb to high mid-tier. With all of that gone and no other reliable, safe pokes, Bowser is hurting for options.

It's not his down smash, there's no smash sparkle when he performs it.

 

[meleebrawler]

Are we sure the stomp isn't his downsmash? (also having a move that buries people in addition to all his other tools)

As for heavies, as this video points out, what they truly need is OPTIONS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoyrbkdrDk

Bowser has relatively few while KKR and Ridley have more. Hell, having any projectile places KKR worlds above Bowser already and KKR has two. Bowser's options, however, will always boil down to "Try to get in" or "Camp and do literally nothing". Even a weak or easily shielded ranged poke is better than no poke at all.

Falcon is generally great, despite being heavy, easily comboed and gimped, not having many good pokes and lacking any sort of projectile at all. What puts him above Bowser is not being solely reliant on his grab to start combos. With Ultimate the mobility gap has been closed with standardized jumpsquats and lowered landing lags.

 

[S_B]

Falcon is generally great, despite being heavy, easily comboed and gimped, not having many good pokes and lacking any sort of projectile at all. What puts him above Bowser is not being solely reliant on his grab to start combos. With Ultimate the mobility gap has been closed with standardized jumpsquats and lowered landing lags.

He has a much, MUCH smaller hurtbox as well. And the mobility gap isn't really "closed" until everyone has the same ground speed (which shouldn't be a thing).

It's okay to have a character that's a great deal less mobile than most, so long as that character can apply pressure across the screen to force the opponent to come to them or has some other tool that makes approaching at least an equal chance instead of always being in the opponent's favor.

Bowser's problem has always been that he needs to approach but still doesn't have great tools for doing so. The video covers this concept fairly well in explaining that it's really all about options when it comes to making heavies viable, and that's where Bowser falls short.

 

[UltimaLuminaire]

Being a super heavy isn't bad in terms of mechanics in Smash. Being big is bad because it makes it easier to get juggled. Being super heavy means you mitigate weight dependent throw combos and force certain opponent ground options to do almost nothing at early %. On top of that, Bowser is floaty despite being a super heavy, which makes it difficult to keep him in certain combos or throw follow-ups. This is why Bowser is a solid counter-pick character in Smash 4. In MUs where he can't be blown up by jank in neutral, Bowser will almost certainly need fewer plays and trades to win. It's why Cassius laughs at Clouds and Marths that don't understand how explosive Smash 4 Bowser is.

 

[meleebrawler]

He has a much, MUCH smaller hurtbox as well. And the mobility gap isn't really "closed" until everyone has the same ground speed (which shouldn't be a thing).

It's okay to have a character that's a great deal less mobile than most, so long as that character can apply pressure across the screen to force the opponent to come to them or has some other tool that makes approaching at least an equal chance instead of always being in the opponent's favor.

Bowser's problem has always been that he needs to approach but still doesn't have great tools for doing so. The video covers this concept fairly well in explaining that it's really all about options when it comes to making heavies viable, and that's where Bowser falls short.

I was only referring to the gap between Falcon and Bowser, citing things the former currently has over the latter in 4. Yes Falcon is smaller than Bowser and that's an advantage, but not a big one since he's still tall. More importantly he has more options to approach with than Bowser because he has less jumpsquat frames and his aerials have less landing lag.

Bowser USED to be far less mobile than most. Now he's pretty much on par with the Captain in everything except walk speed, but that's not a huge deal in Ultimate what with being able to do pretty much anything out of a dash. If Captain Falcon can work without having anything to force approaches with, as you say, then why can't Bowser? He might even be better than Falcon at approaching on the ground now since Falcon's tilts are not that great and so he doesn't benefit nearly as much with dash-cancels.

 

[Dε√ilj∦o]

I was only referring to the gap between Falcon and Bowser, citing things the former currently has over the latter in 4. Yes Falcon is smaller than Bowser and that's an advantage, but not a big one since he's still tall. More importantly he has more options to approach with than Bowser because he has less jumpsquat frames and his aerials have less landing lag.

Bowser USED to be far less mobile than most. Now he's pretty much on par with the Captain in everything except walk speed, but that's not a huge deal in Ultimate what with being able to do pretty much anything out of a dash. If Captain Falcon can work without having anything to force approaches with, as you say, then why can't Bowser? He might even be better than Falcon at approaching on the ground now since Falcon's tilts are not that great and so he doesn't benefit nearly as much with dash-cancels.

This would have been cringy to say in Smash 4... But with Bowser leaving the ground on frame 3 now, this is right.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Hrm, four more years of "Bowser is a rushdown character" huh? I guess I won't knock it until I have the game in my hands. Obviously we'd be better at that sort of playstyle with our air to ground to air transitions being this much faster. I just think there's a deficit of people fully appreciating our sword hands.

KuroganeHammer Did you try out fortress boosting in the demo?

 

[S_B]

I was only referring to the gap between Falcon and Bowser, citing things the former currently has over the latter in 4. Yes Falcon is smaller than Bowser and that's an advantage, but not a big one since he's still tall. More importantly he has more options to approach with than Bowser because he has less jumpsquat frames and his aerials have less landing lag.

Bowser USED to be far less mobile than most. Now he's pretty much on par with the Captain in everything except walk speed, but that's not a huge deal in Ultimate what with being able to do pretty much anything out of a dash. If Captain Falcon can work without having anything to force approaches with, as you say, then why can't Bowser? He might even be better than Falcon at approaching on the ground now since Falcon's tilts are not that great and so he doesn't benefit nearly as much with dash-cancels.

Falcon's moves in SSB4 had a lot of natural combos though, many leading into 50/50s that could KO rather early.

I expect he'll keep those in SSBU, as well.

The reality of the situation is that with likely 70+ (possibly 80) characters in the game, some of them are going to be left behind.

All we can do is hope the post release balance patches are on point.

And spoiler alert, Pikachu outright deletes Bowser (and most heavies) right now. Really hoping they do some more balancing before release or we have reason to dread every time we see that little yellow ******* show up in online matches...

I just think there's a deficit of people fully appreciating our sword hands.

Sword hands are great. Less range on them? Not so much.

 

[meleebrawler]

Falcon's moves in SSB4 had a lot of natural combos though, many leading into 50/50s that could KO rather early.

I expect he'll keep those in SSBU, as well.

The reality of the situation is that with likely 70+ (possibly 80) characters in the game, some of them are going to be left behind.

All we can do is hope the post release balance patches are on point.

And spoiler alert, Pikachu outright deletes Bowser (and most heavies) right now. Really hoping they do some more balancing before release or we have reason to dread every time we see that little yellow ******* show up in online matches...



Sword hands are great. Less range on them? Not so much.

I doubt most online players will be ESAM.

And who's to say Bowser won't gain some more natural combos of his own now that he has less landing lag and can get in the air quicker? It may be why some of his moves seem weaker on paper, to balance out his combo potential. Regardless, if his moves being a bit undertuned is the worst thing you can say about the demo's Bowser (beyond his disadvantage which isn't ever going to change, although if his airspeed is indeed increased that'll help him drift away a bit easier), then I'd say he's in a solid spot, since those are some of the easiest things to fix.

I don't really care if a character's changes significantly affect their tier standing from game to game or not, so long as I can notice the changes making the character better and more fun to play. After all, for every character that rises, another one falls. I'd rather have a consistent game to learn than a flip-flopping patch mess trying to fix every complaint about characters being good or bad in a specific mode.

 

[S_B]

I doubt most online players will be ESAM.

You don't need to be ESAM to be good with Pikachu.

I'd rather have a consistent game to learn than a flip-flopping patch mess trying to fix every complaint about characters being good or bad in a specific mode.

History suggests that we should expect the latter, though.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Sword hands are great. Less range on them? Not so much.

Ah? Don't be so sure of nerfs we have no data on. And if it helps, check out F-tilt in Smash 4. No disjoint. Pretty precisely as much range as Marth Jab 1. I wonder if we still F-Tilt through people in Ultimate? Could be the issue they're trying to address if they have a hitbox centered on Bowser's upper arm. If there's any disjoint I'd want on that attack, it's a vertical disjoint. Up angled F-tilt to stuff aerials approaches, down angled to two frame recoveries. 'Course I could always work with Smash 4's hitbox. I just didn't like the super precise spacing to make use of it as a 2 frame.

 

[S_B]

Ah? Don't be so sure of nerfs we have no data on.

I was referring to Kurogane playing him and saying he felt Bowser had less range.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I was referring to Kurogane playing him and saying he felt Bowser had less range.

Yes, I'm following along. He said "I felt" not "I datamined a copy of the demo and found out"

And spoiler alert, Pikachu outright deletes Bowser (and most heavies) right now. Really hoping they do some more balancing before release or we have reason to dread every time we see that little yellow ******* show up in online matches...

I do share this concern however. Well except for playing online since who cares. I think we can believe the ESAM hype for the rat this time. Not just because of the Mewtwo Nair but because several of Pikachu's underused moves have also gotten extremely significant buffs to frame data. That should make him more well rounded and reduce the skill floor to playing him - meaning more pikachus in bracket. Speaking of Mewtwo Nairs, his hits only six times instead of nine, making drag downs far more unlikely. So that's an obnoxious feature of that matchup we don't need to worry about as much.

Feel like we need a matchup speculation thread centered on confirmed changes. There's just so much to talk about.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Correct, I never like using absolutes but please don't be surprised when I'm invariably right.

 

[S_B]

Correct, I never like using absolutes but please don't be surprised when I'm invariably right.

Deducing that Bowser has less range isn't something I feel you'd throw out there without being at least 90% certain, especially because you know how to watch for the placebo effect.

Also, I don't think I've seen any of the top players put any real effort into trying him out, other than "His throw followup is gone."

I'm inclined to believe Nintendo will be shooting for much better post-release balance this time out because it's clear they intend to make SSBU into as much of an esport as they can (like they're actively doing with Splatoon 2).

However that raises a potentially troubling question...

Does Nintendo plan to strive for as much balance as possible across the entire roster, or are they content with a "League of Legends" situation where different characters fall in and out of meta favor depending upon the cycle of nerfs and buffs?

While the former is more of the "ideal" situation, the latter is much easier to come by and has its own advantages, mainly in that metas never get too stale, like they did in Brawl and near the end of SSB4's life.

No one truly knows at this point, but I'm at least optimistic that there's a chance of Bowser being buffed enough post-release that he'll be more viable than he ever was in SSB4.

I think we can believe the ESAM hype for the rat this time.

Apparently Nairo (and I believe Zero as well) played against ESAM and agreed about Pika's potential. He just has a ton of amazing tools this time out.

Again, post-launch balancing will make or break this game for most of us, really.

 

[Darches]

Have all the demo matches been with items thus far? Perhaps Bowser was nerfed because the 20% 1vs1 buff makes him kill much earlier?

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Have all the demo matches been with items thus far? Perhaps Bowser was nerfed because the 20% 1vs1 buff makes him kill much earlier?

On the first page I was hunting for fresh damage values since I also thought Bowser was dealing less than he would be with that modifier active. But it was a while later when players started to notice that the presence of items shuts off the 1v1 damage modifier. So all the moves I pointed out as dealing exactly 20% less damage were only doing so because items were present. The only damage nerfs Bowser received is to his jab combo, Dtilt for obvious reasons, and to his air fortress. Meanwhile his grounded Fortress, Uthrow and Dthrow are dealing more damage than the Smash 4 versions would be. Long story short our damage is still massive but we need to study how precisely the new knockback scales compared to last game.

Another modifier to look out for is the shorthop multiplier. If you do an aerial from a shorthop it will deal 15% less. It also explains what I thought was a nerf to our N-Air damage but the example I cited was a short hop.

I've noticed this once staled B-air shouldn't have killed Ryu this early. And earlier we brought up this F-Air. Inkling would have to weigh no more than Jigglypuff for that F-Air to kill at max rage in Smash 4 Both of these are free for alls on old stages so you can recreate these scenarios in Smash 4. Though there is a possibility that Rage is stronger in Ultimate so the latter scenario is tricky to judge. At first it was just balloon knockback making everything look like a violent kill move, but I think there's reason to believe knockback really is scaling higher than in the previous game, resulting in earlier kills. Or it could be just unknown Bowser knockback value buffs.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

That reminds me the uthrow collateral is gone and that made me sad.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

That reminds me the uthrow collateral is gone and that made me sad.

There still exists a Uthrow collateral pointed out by S_B It's just upward so that everybody caught in the move ends up around the same place. But yeah the old one would have been gnarly for the Ice Climber matchup since Nana freaks out whenever popo is grabbed. At least, when her AI is behaving appropriately.

Have to wonder if they did a similar treatment to Luma in Ultimate. They haven't skipped a beat yet when it comes to nerfing high/top tiers. Except Ryu. And Pika if you considered him high tier in 4. I didn't.

 

[S_B]

So after watching KRool's first match, I'm...confused.

He looks like a strictly better version of Bowser: two projectiles, Bowser's Bair for his Fair, amazing Nair, faster frame data, and a counter.

I'm starting to wonder if SSBU is succumbing to feature creep. It's like how new cards in the "Magic: The Gathering" CCG have a tendency to be strictly better versions of old cards.

I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not seeing how Bowser will be relevant at all when KRool has a kit this loaded...

 

[meleebrawler]

So after watching KRool's first match, I'm...confused.

He looks like a strictly better version of Bowser: two projectiles, Bowser's Bair for his Fair, amazing Nair, faster frame data, and a counter.

I'm starting to wonder if SSBU is succumbing to feature creep. It's like how new cards in the "Magic: The Gathering" CCG have a tendency to be strictly better versions of old cards.

I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not seeing how Bowser will be relevant at all when KRool has a kit this loaded...

He's nowhere near as fast as Bowser, and he has far less range. His air-to-ground looks better but not his air-to-air, because he has nothing like Bowser fair. I see K. Rool struggling with swordies more than Bowser will.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

So after watching KRool's first match, I'm...confused.

He looks like a strictly better version of Bowser: two projectiles, Bowser's Bair for his Fair, amazing Nair, faster frame data, and a counter.

I'm starting to wonder if SSBU is succumbing to feature creep. It's like how new cards in the "Magic: The Gathering" CCG have a tendency to be strictly better versions of old cards.

I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not seeing how Bowser will be relevant at all when KRool has a kit this loaded...

y'know, K rool has a subforum. All the great heavyweights that are better than bowser do, such as Pac-Man.

Not sure how you think K Rool is great when he was definitely losing to Snake in that fight before cheesing the kill with a Final Smash. That N-Air looks ripped from Dedede except slower and it hits them away instead of up so it probably won't combo. Comparing his F-Air to Bowser's B-Air isn't accurate. Comes out as fast as our F-Air, with about 12% base damage and a smaller hitbox. Also doesn't autocancel from shorthop. I'm most disappointed in that move.

Crown looks good. I would definitely argue that looks like a great tool for controlling space almost as good as Link's Boomerang. It doesn't have rang's godlike endlag but the crown travels super slowly which is what you'd want. But most of the moves we saw in that short match were just aerials and in that regard he looks less effective than Bowser or Dedede. Wait to see more moves, like that Dsmash that allegedly buries or if any of his throws can kill or combo.