What is "viability" about?

[Deleted member]

I'm not a competitive player (or at least I don't want to be one), but I always see talk of character viability. I think for a character to be viable, they have to be able to plausibly beat at least more than half of the roster offline. The more flawed a character is, the less characters they can beat (This is what I assume tier lists and matchup charts show).

Though I'm not really sure I'm right, my best characters are below high tier (), and from experience, I'm on the fence about whether I should keep playing them or play better, personally less fun characters. So I'd like to know: What makes a character viable? Are unviable characters really pointless to main? How much of this matters outside of serious play?

 

[Oddball]

You're not a competitive player. You said it yourself, so don't worry about viability. Stick with the character that you think are fun to play.

 

[Golden Icarus]

Ultimate is easily the most balanced Smash game ever, which is insane considering its roster size. Pretty much the entire cast is considered viable as we've seen a lot of low to mid tier characters make it all the way to grand finals. Look at this awesome Bowser vs DK match.

The only characters that are commonly considered "unviable" by a lot of pros are Doc, Little Mac, and Ganon and we've seen plenty of upsets with each of those characters. Also, the Smash team has done a great job at doling out balance patches to assure that the game is as balanced as possible.

Play who you want to play. If a character's playstyle appeals to you, then that's the character you should be playing. Bowser Jr. is considered low tier by most, but his moveset works for me and I win more often with him than I do with any top tier.

 

[Nah]

Viability is not a term that has ever had a very clear and generally agreed upon definition or criteria in this community.

Most people fall into one of two broad schools of thought on the matter though, which basically comes down to if you value peaks or consistency. The latter is easy enough to understand what it means, but as for the peaks side, some people view the best single showing of a character as a measure of viability, believing that instance showcases the character's true potential. It's seemed to me that there's more people who subscribe to the peaks school than the consistency school (I fall into the consistency one myself).

But in regards to your question about whether you should stick with your current characters or change to others: that depends on what you want to do and what is enjoyable to you. Once you know what that is, you can start to decide what you're going to do character-wise.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Viability isn't black and white. The better characters in the game are that way through their own, specific good traits. So, I couldn't really give you an answer as to what makes a character good, as it's specific to each respective character.

Who you play depends on what you want to do. This is Ultimate, so honestly, every character is viable save for a handful (, , , , and maybe are the only ones I'd argue to be lacking to the point that playing them is more of a struggle). That being said, you are going to have more success the higher on the tier list you go. It's going to be much easier to secure wins with rather than , as an example, assuming you play the two at about an equal level.

So, let's get into your characters. and suffer from the problems generally associated with heavies (big bodies lead to easy combos, and they have very rough disadvantage states as a result) so while they do have some nice strengths, it will be hard to play to those strengths a lot of the time. You may want to save these two strictly for matchups they do alright in. But, who told you that isn't high tier? Because well, he's high tier. An excellent character who always places well. I'd argue he doesn't even struggle with swords as badly as in past games. He's easily viable as a solo-main, so you'd do fine maining him.

 

[Deleted member]

and suffer from the problems generally associated with heavies (big bodies lead to easy combos, and they have very rough disadvantage states as a result) so while they do have some nice strengths, it will be hard to play to those strengths a lot of the time. You may want to save these two strictly for matchups they do alright in

So does this mean that these two, in matchups they generally lose in, always lose in them? There no possible upset opportunity? I remember just barely beating a tough with , and the former is a top 3 character.

 

[StrangeKitten]

So does this mean that these two, in matchups they generally lose in, always lose in them? There no possible upset opportunity? I remember just barely beating a tough with , and the former is a top 3 character.

Of course the DK player won't always lose. Ultimate is a well-balanced game in which player skill matters more than tier lists and matchups. We'd never get occasional upsets from low tiers if every last beat every last 100% of the time! The thing with tier lists and matchup charts is, they're heavily theoretical. They're based on players of equal skill, who play their characters at at least a high, if not top, level. Top Pikachus, for example, will have their combo game and edgeguarding completely on point, and more often than not, wipe out top DKs. If a Pikachu player doesn't have these on point, it opens up a lot of opportunity for DK to make a comeback. Additionally, tier lists and matchup charts are based on offline play. Online severely increases input delay even with the best of connections, to the point that fast, combo-heavy characters such as Pika are notably worse and hard-hitters such as DK are notably better. is also better online, and I'd say remains more or less the same, with Yoshi still being the best character of the three.

What's also worth noting, is that humans make mistakes. I could also see a top DK upset a top Pika if the DK player is playing really well that day and the Pika player isn't. That's the premise behind saying a matchup is 60:40 (which is around what I'd assume Pika:DK to be). The Pikachu player should win roughly 60% of the time, and the DK player should win roughly 40% of the time. There's enough margin of error there that DK has a shot at winning.

 

[Doc Monocle]

So does this mean that these two, in matchups they generally lose in, always lose in them? There no possible upset opportunity? I remember just barely beating a tough with , and the former is a top 3 character.

Hmmm... So you are having difficulty with the puncher thunder vs the thunder puncher.... Try baiting Pikachu into doing full jumps while he is about one and a half Dedede hammer-lengths away from Donkey Kong. It should be your attempt to bait and read this action so you can close the gap, hold position, and wait for Pikachu to land right in front of you, but only if he executes the attack as soon as he accelerates toward you . Tell me how this general trick works for you.