Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Thinkaman]

I assume you're only counting shields on which attacks actually landed. In that event, this analysis elides consideration of the times where the blocker didn't get attacked. In other words, it's not just the act of blocking an attack that has been altered by this patch... it's the threat imposed by shield, which prevented poorly spaced attacks all by itself before. Now you can misspace some attacks pretty significantly and often come off clean unless you eat a powershield. That is a significant change even for top level play.

Basically, instead of looking only at what happened because Nairo hit ZeRo's shield, look also at what Nairo had to do because ZeRo was holding shield.

But there was also almost zero holding of shield, ever. The only cases I saw were brief and involved platform play against an aerial opponent.

There's no zen philosophy here. The only shield inputs either player was making were instantly released, simple attempts to powershield.

 

[Mario766]

Ike is definitely a winner. Ike's main weakness was that throwing out a hitbox was dangerous because shield grab was so prominent. Ike can actually use jabs in neutral and his 3 main aerials are safer now. It also makes Jab 1 completely safe, as any shield grab attempt will result in a trade because Jab 2 will hit at the same frame, or beat it depending on grab speed. Down Tilt is also a super strong option that's safer than it already was. The shield stun formula favors high damage, and Ike's one of the best at damage to lag ratios.

 

[Shaya]

Alright, two top tier "winners" from this patch are zero suit and pikachu

Attack | Full Action | Auto Cancel | Landing | Patch Diff
Neutral Air | [-27,-33] | [-19,-25] | -2 | 10
Forward Air 1 | [-34,-35] | [-27,-28] | -11 | 4
Forward Air 2 | [-23,-24] | [-16,-17] | -10 | 4
Back Air | [-21,-22] | [-14,-15] | -2 | 5
Up Air | [-14,-20] | [-7,-13] | -2 | 4
Down Air | [-12,-47] | [4,-31] | -24 | 4
Dair Landing | [-22,-23] | | | -3
Grab Air Sour | [-37,-46] | [-38,-47] | -4 | 6
Grab Air Sweet | [-34,-34] | [-35,-35] | -2 | 7

Attack | Full Action | Auto Cancel | Landing | Patch Diff
Neutral Air Sweet | [-27,-28] | [-25,-26] | -18 | 4
Neutral Air Sour | [-12,-26] | [-10,-24] | -19 | 4
Forward Air Pre | [-14,-28] | [-6,-20] | -12 | 4
Forward Air Final | [-11,-11] | [-3,-3] | -11 | 10
Back Air Pre | [-26,-51] | [-17,-42] | -27 | 3
Back Air Final | [-40,-46] | [-31,-37] | -26 | 6
Bair Landing | [-23,-24] | | | -2
Up Air | [-13,-17] | [-6,-10] | -19 | 4
Down Air | [-12,-24] | [-5,-17] | -31 | 10
Dair Landing | [-24,-25] | | | 7

oh and because Ike is fairly simple

Attack | Full Action | Auto Cancel | Landing | Patch Diff
Neutral Air | [-24,-39] | [-30,-45] | -6 | 5
Forward Air | [-30,-34] | [-13,-17] | -9 | 5
Back Air | [-35,-37] | [-17,-19] | -9 | 5
Up Air | [-18,-34] | [-14,-30] | -6 | 5
Down Air | [-26,-27] | [-21,-22] | -12 | 6

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Scrubby question: how do I read those tables? Like, what do those numbers represent and what does "Full Action" mean, etc?

 

[Shaya]

Actually, duh, everyone should be wanting to know about ryu's bat****tyness.

Attack | Full Action | Auto Cancel | Landing | Patch Diff
Neutral Air Sweet | [-14,-16] | [-22,-24] | 1 | 7
Neutral Air Sour | [-1,-15] | [-9,-23] | -1 | 7
Forward Air Sweet* | [-12,-20] | [-23,-31] | -3 | 11
Forward Air Sour | [-15,-23] | [-26,-34] | -6 | 9
Back Air Sweet | [-21,-22] | [-6,-7] | -1 | 10
Back Air Sour | [-22,-23] | [-7,-8] | -2 | 9
Up Air | [-19,-23] | [-3,-7] | -8 | 7
Down Air Sweet | [-22,-26] | [-11,-15] | -7 | 11
Down Air Sour | [-24,-28] | [-13,-17] | -9 | 9

Scrubby question: how do I read those tables? Like, what do those numbers represent and what does "Full Action" mean, etc?

Ranges of frame disadvantage; full action is essentially "staying in the air".

 

[DanGR]

Those Ryu numbers make me want to cry.

That's insane.

 

[Nobie]

YOU ARE NOW IN THE THEORYCRAFT ZONE!

(j/k you were here the whole time)

I am skeptical that any of Mewtwo's stuff becomes safe, but I guess we'll see. Jab and d-tilt could benefit quite a bit, in some contexts. Oh, and D-smash probably becomes truly safe! But Mewtwo's reliance on grab and his modest reliance on shield makes him an unhappy floating lemur with these changes. At least Shadow Ball is safer, that's nice.

I think Mewtwo is sort of in the same boat as Luigi in that his low traction made shield an okay at best option, so the update might not have affected him TOO negatively (because punishing OoS was so tough). The only issue might be that it could affect his punishment of attacks that he could actually block/grab previously.

 

[Jehtt]

So someone help me understand; why exactly are Mega Man's F-smash (and possibly lemons) less safe on shield than before? What changed universally that caused this?

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Semi-related to the above but if it's true and projectiles are actually weaker, Kirby's shield got significantly buffed in those MUs.

pls be true, I want to know that Kirby doesn't suck absolute ass now

 

[Locke 06]

The thing people don't get is that the mechanic of shield stun overlapping with shield lock frames makes shield drop actions BETTER in a lot of situations.

If something did 3 frames of shield stun pre-patch, those 3 frames are essentially removed from shield drop actions IF the move hits before shield lock frames are up (an "early shield").

 

[Aunt Jemima]

For those who don't understand what Locke is talking about, I'll translate it:

"The thing people don't get is that Kirby is better"


Shaya

A lot of Lucas' attacks are electric, do you know the post-patch numbers for these on block? If you need an exact list, I can supply it.

 

[Jehtt]

Locke 06 You were saying earlier that the effectiveness of OOS Up tilt might be worse, but wouldn't this change potentially make it better in certain situations?

 

[Deadlybroth]

So someone help me understand; why exactly are Mega Man's F-smash (and possibly lemons) less safe on shield than before? What changed universally that caused this?

IIRC Charge Shot has a hitlag modifier of 0.3,
and in the new patch, attack hitlag is always the same as shield hitlag as opposed to the person sitting in shield having a hitlag modifier of 1.0. I believe that's why Marth and Roy's sourspots are less safe.

These posts sum it up pretty well

shield hitlag = attacker hitlag

- Hitlag of the attacker now matches hitlag of the defender (on shield and otherwise).

Pellets and charge shot all have .3% hitlag modifiers. Decreased hitlag on shield means his most valuable move and "safe when spaced" KO option is less safe on block. While hitlag for pellets may have gone from 2-->1 (I imagine it is already small), fsmash is now unsafe at all distances due to the hitlag decrease, and shield stun eating shield lock frames.

 

[Jehtt]

How much more unsafe are lemons?

 

[Locke 06]

Locke 06 You were saying earlier that the effectiveness of OOS Up tilt might be worse, but wouldn't this change potentially make it better in certain situations?

Yeah, I'm just going over that in my head

It does make it better in certain situations. But it also makes it worse in others. If something does ~5-8 frames of shield stun (a lot of moves now), it can be either equal or slightly worse than pre-patch depending on when you shield.

Before, you wanted to shield things LATE in order to shield drop as quickly as possible (Or you wanted to powershield). Now, you always want to shield things early so the shield stun overlaps with shield lock.


Edit: This is my day 2 understanding of the new mechanics, so feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong. But I feel like I have a solid understanding of what's going on.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I won't get to really play until the weekend, but my head has been churning about Rosa and I feel she should win here. More safely basically means I can use my spatial control options to guess more. Even before, if I was actually just blocking a lot, I was probably losing; that's even more stark now. However, I have to block sometimes since throwing out stuff to intercept approaches will get me killed if I do it all the time. Being able to attack more and block less should be very helpful. I also think the buffs to Floaty Star Bit and Guardian Luma are non-trivial; Guardian Luma seems to have passed a usability threshold that will make me actually use it, and Floaty Star Bit could set up for some much more real pressure with the reduced endlag (I plan to use 2213 primarily this weekend to specifically test these out).

Winners and losers is complicated, but I'm going to throw out my guess right now that the biggest winner is Pac-Man pending detailed testing of his dash attack. People don't even understand; Pac-Man was a really bad character before, but his dash attack was one of the best moves in the game because of its relative shield safety. It wasn't quite safe enough to spam against good players, but it wasn't that far off. Adding more shieldstun to that move (as well as Pac-Man's decent jab/ftilt/dtilt while we're at it) crosses power thresholds quickly, and critically, having strong grounded mobile shield pressure makes his awful grab suddenly not a big deal instead of cripplingly bad. The gameplan isn't even complicated. Dash attack a lot, mix in lots of pokes (mostly jab, ftilt, and dtilt), and if your opponent ever backs off, runs away, or otherwise tries to play slowly, just charge fruit and set up traps and otherwise do what Pac-Man conventionally did pre-patch except with the confidence that after you're set up but maybe still need to chase them down you actually have pressure to catch them with. If any of Pac-Man's generally horrible aerials is actually safe to land with so hydrant isn't your only option to get out of juggles, that's even better and more winning for this character.

This, of course, depends on it being safe to dash attack into shields a lot. I intend to play enough Pac-Man this weekend to be quite sure of this point. If it's as good as my tentative speculation suggests, I might be playing a whole lot of Pac-Man going into the future.

 

[Cassio]

But there was also almost zero holding of shield, ever. The only cases I saw were brief and involved platform play against an aerial opponent.

There's no zen philosophy here. The only shield inputs either player was making were instantly released, simple attempts to powershield.

I think peeps didn't really understand shielding wasn't that great in the first place at top level. At least not as good as the general populace seemed to think.

 

[Nobie]

I won't get to really play until the weekend, but my head has been churning about Rosa and I feel she should win here. More safely basically means I can use my spatial control options to guess more. Even before, if I was actually just blocking a lot, I was probably losing; that's even more stark now. However, I have to block sometimes since throwing out stuff to intercept approaches will get me killed if I do it all the time. Being able to attack more and block less should be very helpful. I also think the buffs to Floaty Star Bit and Guardian Luma are non-trivial; Guardian Luma seems to have passed a usability threshold that will make me actually use it, and Floaty Star Bit could set up for some much more real pressure with the reduced endlag (I plan to use 2213 primarily this weekend to specifically test these out).

Winners and losers is complicated, but I'm going to throw out my guess right now that the biggest winner is Pac-Man pending detailed testing of his dash attack. People don't even understand; Pac-Man was a really bad character before, but his dash attack was one of the best moves in the game because of its relative shield safety. It wasn't quite safe enough to spam against good players, but it wasn't that far off. Adding more shieldstun to that move (as well as Pac-Man's decent jab/ftilt/dtilt while we're at it) crosses power thresholds quickly, and critically, having strong grounded mobile shield pressure makes his awful grab suddenly not a big deal instead of cripplingly bad. The gameplan isn't even complicated. Dash attack a lot, mix in lots of pokes (mostly jab, ftilt, and dtilt), and if your opponent ever backs off, runs away, or otherwise tries to play slowly, just charge fruit and set up traps and otherwise do what Pac-Man conventionally did pre-patch except with the confidence that after you're set up but maybe still need to chase them down you actually have pressure to catch them with. If any of Pac-Man's generally horrible aerials is actually safe to land with so hydrant isn't your only option to get out of juggles, that's even better and more winning for this character.

This, of course, depends on it being safe to dash attack into shields a lot. I intend to play enough Pac-Man this weekend to be quite sure of this point. If it's as good as my tentative speculation suggests, I might be playing a whole lot of Pac-Man going into the future.

If Pac-Man's game plan became Dash Attack-focused, that would greatly amuse me. A more waka waka-oriented style seems much more fitting for Pac-Man.

 

[Nu~]

I won't get to really play until the weekend, but my head has been churning about Rosa and I feel she should win here. More safely basically means I can use my spatial control options to guess more. Even before, if I was actually just blocking a lot, I was probably losing; that's even more stark now. However, I have to block sometimes since throwing out stuff to intercept approaches will get me killed if I do it all the time. Being able to attack more and block less should be very helpful. I also think the buffs to Floaty Star Bit and Guardian Luma are non-trivial; Guardian Luma seems to have passed a usability threshold that will make me actually use it, and Floaty Star Bit could set up for some much more real pressure with the reduced endlag (I plan to use 2213 primarily this weekend to specifically test these out).

Winners and losers is complicated, but I'm going to throw out my guess right now that the biggest winner is Pac-Man pending detailed testing of his dash attack. People don't even understand; Pac-Man was a really bad character before, but his dash attack was one of the best moves in the game because of its relative shield safety. It wasn't quite safe enough to spam against good players, but it wasn't that far off. Adding more shieldstun to that move (as well as Pac-Man's decent jab/ftilt/dtilt while we're at it) crosses power thresholds quickly, and critically, having strong grounded mobile shield pressure makes his awful grab suddenly not a big deal instead of cripplingly bad. The gameplan isn't even complicated. Dash attack a lot, mix in lots of pokes (mostly jab, ftilt, and dtilt), and if your opponent ever backs off, runs away, or otherwise tries to play slowly, just charge fruit and set up traps and otherwise do what Pac-Man conventionally did pre-patch except with the confidence that after you're set up but maybe still need to chase them down you actually have pressure to catch them with. If any of Pac-Man's generally horrible aerials is actually safe to land with so hydrant isn't your only option to get out of juggles, that's even better and more winning for this character.

This, of course, depends on it being safe to dash attack into shields a lot. I intend to play enough Pac-Man this weekend to be quite sure of this point. If it's as good as my tentative speculation suggests, I might be playing a whole lot of Pac-Man going into the future.

Pacman wasn't even remotely bad before, but I agree. PacMan's pressure game is bonkers now

 

[Wintermelon43]

So could anyone give me a list of characters made better and worse in this patch? Thanks.

 

[Trifroze]

I always felt Falcon's landing dair was underrated in his neutral, and now it's actually universally safe on shield. Knee would be...if it had Brawl's landing lag. I'd like to see the safety improvements on both of those moves but I don't remember pre-patch numbers out of memory. Falcon's bair and uair are now also about as safe as ZSS' equivalents, possibly more safe at least in the case of uair.

Ftilt is safe on almost everyone as well, as is jab 1 and jab 2.

 

[Shaya]

I always felt Falcon's landing dair was underrated in his neutral, and now it's actually universally safe on shield. Knee would be...if it had Brawl's landing lag. I'd like to see the safety improvements on both of those moves but I don't remember pre-patch numbers out of memory. Falcon's bair and uair are now also about as safe as ZSS' equivalents, possibly more safe at least in the case of uair.

Neutral Air 1 | [-31,-32] | [-20,-21] | -7 | 4
Neutral Air 2 | [-17,-18] | [-6,-7] | -6 | 4
Forward Air Sweet | [-18,-18] | [-16,-16] | -17 | 12
Forward Air Flub | [-11,-26] | [-9,-24] | -26 | 3
Back Air Sweet | [-14,-15] | [1,0] | -2 | 5
Back Air Sour | [-13,-16] | [2,-1] | -5 | 4
Up Air Sweet | [-14,-18] | [-6,-10] | -1 | 5
Up Air* | [-13,-19] | [-5,-11] | -2 | 5
Down Air | [-16,-18] | [-12,-14] | -11 | 5

 

[Vyrnx]

Buffed: Samus, Ganon, Bowser
Nerfed: Luigi

I just listed characters who's meta might actually change because of the patch (i.e. Rosa's rapid jab doing 1.8 instead of 2 or whatever will not change much). That's about it for buffs/nerfs. Bowser's buff was small but somewhat significant, damage increase and lag decrease on nair, so I put it in. I could do customs as well but the vast majority of characters had one of their customs buffed.

 

[Wintermelon43]

So could anyone give me a list of characters made better and worse in this patch? Thanks.

I meant in shield stun change, forgot to mention that part. I didn't know Ganon or Bowser were buffed though, so thanks!

Also, has anyone found Pac-Man's new glitch yet?

 

[Routa]

Is it just me or did this game just change from "Play it safe" into "LEROOOOOY!"? Well maybe not into that, but a lot more aggressive.

 

[Nu~]

Pacman had all of his glitches removed by the patch.

Sakurai finally caught on to us.

 

[|RK|]

I think peeps didn't really understand shielding wasn't that great in the first place at top level. At least not as good as the general populace seemed to think.

I mean, ZeRo (and maybe it's just because he's ZeRo) had the tendency to just sit in shield in a lot of matches.

 

[Radical Larry]

Okay, going to say that Ganondorf has been heavily buffed with N-Air. The fact that N-Air can link up and still combo from D-Throw is wonderful, and D-Throw > N-Air can be between a good 25% to a great 30% in matches, provided you do jump in time and the opponent doesn't DI away (if the latter happens, make sure to use U-Air, Dash or Wizard's Foot). You can even link this attack up by other means, including Dash Attack's late hitboxes and even Up Smash (and I'm serious, it can link from Up Smash).

Provided you hit the clean sweetspot of the last hit, this attack can also essentially be a great edge-guarding tool now, thus making all of Ganondorf's aerials amazing edge-guarding tools. It's got the longest range of any of Ganondorf's edge-guarding tools and has some power and start-up speed to it as well.

With the whole first hit now linking to the second on certain hitboxes, the first hit can definitely link into other attacks provided you SHFF the attack and head right to attacking again. Confirmed follow ups on low damages are jab, F-Tilt, D-Tilt and grab if you space it right and do it correctly at low damages.

As for the shield situation, Ganondorf's been buffed in that regard, too! I think it's now iextremely hard to go against Ganondorf without perfect shielding. He has attacks now that can definitely do a number on shields, and the most practical are F-Air, F-Smash, U-Smash and B-Air, the latter two being more safe than the former two. The nerf to shields will aid Ganondorf quite a bit, since he can now more easily break opponents' shields.

And without the potential threat of losing his shield to get-up attacks on Flame Choke, Ganondorf can now retaliate with far heavier attacks and harder hits now that the get-up attacks are not going to harm him much.

I feel Ganondorf's jumped up for the better in quite a lot of MUs. I can see him now as a solid mid-tier character just for this alone, and the highest he could go is around 20-26.

Now I ask, can a reversed Warlock Punch, as well as U-Tilt's sourspot, now break shields due to the increase in shieldstun? That is something I'm currently wondering and need tests on. This is just my curiosity coming.

 

[Shaya]

For those who don't understand what Locke is talking about, I'll translate it:

"The thing people don't get is that Kirby is better"


Shaya

A lot of Lucas' attacks are electric, do you know the post-patch numbers for these on block? If you need an exact list, I can supply it.

Gimme:
Attack [instance]; Damage, Hit Lag Modifier, Electric Attribute?, Hit Frame, Total Duration, Ending frame (FAF -1), Auto Cancel (how dantarion has them, so possibly +1), Landing Lag~

 

[thehard]

Just sitting stuck in shield wasn't good prepatch no, not at the top (where counterplay to it was heads-and-tails above any other skill level). It's free movement that ruled and rules the game, you can aggress and evade, intimidate and bait with it, but with quick shield drop times, high regen, and shielding out of a dash I'm not sure I'd call shields straight out "not that good" esp. in the context of the entire 1v1 game. EVO ZeRo vs. Nairo, they're mostly seen "briefly" but it's that quickness combined with movement that made them such a strong tool. Might just be rambling here. I don't claim to super-understand the game as it was then or now, I don't even have a year of being a Junior Theorycraft Cadet under my belt anyway!

It's really cool that we have a dev team willing to alter the game drastically and add so many things clearly designed with "us" in mind. Every patch has made the game inarguably better which is hard to do! Its future was super bright without major mechanic changes (my only critical hope for the patch was Luigi rework anyway) but I'm an open man and hell, blockstrings sound super fun. And then, for as seemingly 'underwhelming' as this patch was looking before the Big Find, we had direct and multiple custom move changes (a focus on them), back roll and airdodge nerfs, new options for BF, Miis, and custom specials only Tourney mode (which implies future balancing), and a rework (overall nerf) of a supremely polarizing character (and one that could never find himself in a comfortable tier spot) that enforces the fact that the devs truly understand their game (DUHHH). There was a slight fear that they'd leave him be in a misguided attempt to throw the competitive community a bone (those Kids love their Krazy Kombos!) but I'm happy to report that the people who made the game, believe it or not, understand the game too.

Funny how we thought they were slowing down with this patch...

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

This is making me really confused. In my opinion, Kirby was one of the big losers this patch, since shield was a good option for him, and he is still unsafe on shields. I'm not saying he's bottom 5 or even low tier, but I'm curious on how Kirby went up this patch Shaya

 

[Shaya]

More like I thought they were slowing down >_>
WHAT A FOOL I WAS.
Patches for eons CONFIRMED.

Or that they truly are listening to certain things... I'm not sure if they're the right things though.
"More shield stun, shields are op, rolls are op"
how about old buffering?

Actually I wonder if the whole clanking with projectiles thing is still the same as it was last patch?

 

[Nobie]

I feel like certain rolls shouldn't have been dropped down by that 1 frame (or is it now 2 compared to launch?).

There were certain characters whose rolls barely worked, and while everyone else has gone from great rolls to okay rolls, they've gone from barely functional/bad to abysmal.

 

[Shaya]

Makes it skillful for someone to use pivoting into forward rolls, like M2K and then eventually all Meta Knights did in Brawl.

This is making me really confused. In my opinion, Kirby was one of the big losers this patch, since shield was a good option for him, and he is still unsafe on shields. I'm not saying he's bottom 5 or even low tier, but I'm curious on how Kirby went up this patch Shaya

I don't know anything either way, but I think multi hit moves can come out on top here. Or anyone with more than 1.25 hit lag modifier~

 

[Nobie]

It's also really weird to see people abandoning their characters after a day of theorycraft and possibly a few games. Like it's possible that certain characters are just worse off than they were, but I really think a lot of people are jumping the gun. I hope it's just people being exaggeratory with their complaints but you could easily fool me.

 

[BSP]

I've seen comments that Pac-Man has bad OoS options. He has the fastest up B OoS in the game, albeit with low range, and it beats shield. Who is he being compared to?

 

[Wintropy]

Y'know, prior to the patch, I dabbled in a bit of Little Mac. Just online shenanigans, nothing big. I'm not very good, but I beat a few mediocre players. It was pretty sweet. Every time I saw a Mac run blindly at me and try to f-smash my face in while I'm sitting in shield, I wanted to wrap them up in a blanket and feed them soup. Either they've never seen a real boxing match (or a real fight of any kind), or they'd been devoured by the myth that Mac is the best rushdown fighter and you definitely need to hit things until it stops moving; to defy that wisdom is godless Communism and to be frowned upon, because real Americans run in and hit things, etc etc.

Point is, Mac thrives on footsies. My experience with Mac helped me understand just how vital good footsies is and how much for granted the Smash 4 community took shields. It was easy to test the Mac's skill by watching his reaction to shield-bait. I'd seen so many Macs just get caught in my shield, grabbed and thrown off-stage. They didn't respect the shield, and they got punished for it. REAL SOVIET DAMAGE.

Now I'm not so sure. This is blatant theorycraft, so feel free to tell me I'm objectively incorrect and need to sit in the corner for a while, but I'm a wee bit scared of how Mac is going to progress from here. For quite a few characters, especially fighters without good response times and (if you will) boxing options, the shield was the impregnable barrier between you and the pint-sized Bronx boy trying to rearrange your face. That's if the Mac wasn't very good and, quite frankly, stupid - Mac-tossing being the favourite pastime for many a For Glory pioneer. Still, it was an option, and it forced Mac to rethink his strategy. Good Macs knew when to grab and why, and could followup from it reliably; poor Macs thought the shield was more of a formality than a de facto mechanic to be respected and kept in check. I can't help but wonder now how this is going to change the way we perceive rushdown fighters and how a character with the kind of frame data and raw punishment options as Mac will, in theory, benefit.

I don't think it's going to mean much. Dominating neutral isn't very beneficial if you still die in mid-decimal percents and rely fundamentally on stage choice. It's nevertheless an interesting concept and I really do wonder if this is going to affect Mac in any distinct way, even if it's just "he's a bit better at taking local tourneys".

Thoughts, clever people?

 

[Thinkaman]

I've seen comments that Pac-Man has bad OoS options. He has the fastest up B OoS in the game, albeit with low range, and it beats shield. Who is he being compared to?

Up-b is high commitment and does not cover any space in front of him. Contrast with Charizard, my favorite OoS monster, or anyone with a dragon punch.

 

[bc1910]

I've seen comments that Pac-Man has bad OoS options. He has the fastest up B OoS in the game, albeit with low range, and it beats shield. Who is he being compared to?

That thing has NO range, low reward and can lead to very hard punishment if you miss. It's fast, but literally every member of the cast has at least one safer, more rewarding OoS option usually with better range.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

This is making me really confused. In my opinion, Kirby was one of the big losers this patch, since shield was a good option for him, and he is still unsafe on shields. I'm not saying he's bottom 5 or even low tier, but I'm curious on how Kirby went up this patch Shaya

Kirbys N-air is naturally better on shields then before which is certainly a perk because its such a close-ranged move.
Shielding being weaker hurts his approach but he doesn't lose anything for higher shield stun when he himself is attacking.

If I would highlight anyone I would assume its sword/disjointed characters who are now better rewarded for their spacing. Shielding through their spacing is going to be a lot more problematic, I would imagine this is big for Link & Tink in particular.

Yes a character like Pikachu is safer for instance but characters that outrange Pikachu also are, which means making sizable punishes on those characters is going to decrease and reduces notably part of their weakness.