So I'm still a newb at SSBU, but I'm not a stranger to competitive gaming or pro-gaming or balance between characters (Fighting games)/races (Starcraft)/etc. And with my kid being so good at SSBU, I am very much curious about how things play out and what the louder opinions seem to be about the balance of SSBU at high level play, like in tournaments.
Besides a tourney power tier list, we eventually need a tierlist for fun characters to fight against... as in, which characters sort of ruin the game (Steve is agreed upon by many I hear).
The kid tells me how extremely diverse the tournament results are, and that is very promising to me. For example look here:
https://liquipedia.net/smash/Major_Tournaments/Ultimate
Tourney Power Tier List, mostly
I'm about to go through the ones [tournies] in 2024 in detail, sticking to 1v1 (not doubles) for almost everything, but so far I see a ton of diversity like:
Snake - weird and annoying explosions
Yoshi
Mr. Game & Watch - has a ton of cheese power at low to medium-high levels, wins tournies at high levels. I love this character so far as a lowbie player.
- UPDATE 4-16-24: The kid says the worst matchup for Donkey Kong is this character (although, more fun to play against than Samus or some of the turtley, campy, runaway projectile types).
- Other observations from casual play by me, 2v2 including the kid, and watching tournament play:
- Fastest(?) out of shield up+B move.
- Great mind games/tricky traps with guarding ledge using spammy B (the pan tossing meat and fish).
- Floats/has air movement similar to Wario I think, where you can jump attack and then back out.
- Has great unpredictability using small jumps and bombs (towards-Air or fowards-Air, whatever ppl call it) and back-air and neutral-air attacks.
- B-air and N-air have great hitbox to hurtbox ratio, they stay active forever.
- Noticing his down-air key attack is better than Sonics, aimable, non-commital, can kill (Sonic's can kill), safe off side of map b/c you can up-B and get back on ledge, which is HUGE.
- Cheese includes the random #9 Sign instant death (towards+B) and the down smash stuck into ground side smash semi-guaranteed(?) kill.
- Up-B is basically safe because you can float down and do whatever attacks you want after.
- His up air is great at juggling b/c it hits forever and hits so far up, very safe feeling.
- His neutral-air is also great at juggling.
- N-air is also great at hitting two players in 2v2.
- Weakness is being light and dying easily.
- Weaknesses at my lowbie level of play are:
- Short opponents... I can barely hit them while quick jump+air attacks, b/c I'm hitting jump+attack at the same time.
- Extremely hard to small-jump into n-air attack on the way down. This is the only way to hit short opponents, pressing jump+attack at the same time will whiff.
- Hard for me to jump forward while activating back-air. B-air, the sea turtle, is such an excellent move... but you need to be able to use it while moving forward in the air. Probably true for half the cast though.
- UPDATE 4-19-24: He is not great at chasing down little runaway characters like Megaman. Fairly frustrating due to no real range on any attacks.
Samus - keepaway God-tier (?), destroys low tier big bodies at all levels probably. Sort of breaks the game in being unfun to play against if you are a big body it sounds like.
Luigi - UPDATE 4-16-24, wow, this guy has a ton of instant kill combos (zero to death in SSBU terminology). That alone makes him tourney viable... what the heck. Apparently Kazuya is similar in this vein, says the kid who plays big characters.
Daisy - powerful, hard to master
Sonic - crazy fast, somewhat powerful, hard to master. The kid doubts he's S tier like the newer rankings are claiming. Also a personal fav of mine, although the reputation of runaway games by player Sonix is perplexing/worrying for public opinion. I typically hate keepaway (runaway or camping or super defensive) play, but when I see actual games, nothing stands out as a problem to me. Sonic cannot kill easily without a ton of work, in head-on fights he is fairly bad, so it makes sense to be cautious in some games. I would prefer offensive play to win 90% of fights though so I am torn. EDIT: After playing Mr. Game&Watch a while, I went back to Sonic to chase down annoying runaway characters. But Mr. Game&Watch is much better in 2v2 games so far.
Cloud - "Best Western Player" Sparg0 uses him to great effect. With new eyes, this character looks just very solid and easy to use at low levels... and apparently ramps up in greatness if you master the game. With so very many characters, this is probably the right character for newcomers to learn if they want to eventually get serious with the game. On the negative side, you hope this character doesn't somehow dominate the scene... insane reach, great anti-airs, hard hits, scary (convenient) power up. But I will say as a newb, I can't recover with this guy to save my life... time to learn.
Corrin - ? Sparg0 used this character in one tourney at least some, I know nothing about it.
Steve - the epitome of weird keepaway play. The vast majority of SSBU players seem to hate this guy, and he is sometimes banned in the west apparently. Japan's "best player in the world" uses him. Ouch. Destroys big bodied characters apparently, and gives tons of players problems as you are stuck playing his game which isn't really a fight in the sense of the word.
Min Min - super keepaway, destroys the big body characters apparently.
Mario - interesting, keeping an eye on him.
Pyra and Mythra - another sword character and apparently top tier. A ton of pro-ish players use this character as a backup if not a main.
Roy - sword eh?
Bayonetta - ?
Megaman - keepaway
Joker
Byleth
Fox
R.O.B. - what's the story here, get a cheese vibe, but is it true?
Ryu - out of Japan, this is news, huh?
Kazuya - some people say he needs to be banned. Apparently the one saving grace is the trickery with getting out of his combos by flicking the stick left and right (etc.) to confuse the Kazuya who is looking for the blue trajectory lines mid-combo. See Riddle's explanation on how. UPDATE: Riddles posted more "how to counter my character" videos. Chunky Kong (using Donkey Kong) took a few games off Riddles, but probably lost more than won during casual play. Kazuya's combos are sick damage... hits as hard as any super heavy, but can get super damage off starting with a crouch jab which might be broken (I definitely don't know enough to know).
Diddy Kong
Greninja - fast fast
Wario - weird combo guy
Sora - I hear top tier.
Mii Brawler
Mii Sword
Incineroar - Skyjay has some great results for a difficult class, the heavy. Incineroar is apparently the smallest of the heavies, and has a lot of weird unique things that make him scary. A couple of good reads and you can win. It seems like SSBU is very very heavy on reading your opponent.
Lucina
And the list goes on.
So with such a huge, monstrous roster, I guess you'd hope there'd be more diversity in tournament wins, and we see this at least this late into the game's history... five years since release. It is interesting to come in so late with my old school perspective.
A Unique Fighting Game
Tell you what, the game is so opposite other traditional fighters it is weird. What do I mean?
- I always want to hold a direction before I come out of an attack or before I get hit or whatever to block. Well, good ole MK style button is blocking so that's still weird to me. And holding a direction before you come out of a hit or jump or whatever just causes you to enter "Walk Slow Mode" and "Tilt attack mode" which is funky as hell for me. Got to unlearn ancient habits.
- Beating the crap out of the enemy doesn't always mean you will win. This is what made me think this game was less skill-based in my old biased view years ago. But seeing how far this game has come, I realize it is very skill-based, just different. The "getting the kill" with a hard-hit or keeping them off the ledge is a huge huge part of the game, but it's a highlight. The damage you do leading up to it still matters in most cases.
-- Kazuya, Mr. Game & Watch, and a few others probably are notable exceptions to this rule. They hit like heavies, but don't have all the same disadvantages as the traditional heavies. UPDATE: Exceptions probably include the touch of death, zero to kill, type combos. I've seen Luigi and some others with these powers... got to keep an eye on them. UPDATE: the DLC money making strategy sadly seems to make DLC characters much more potent. Nintendo thinking with the dollar signs instead of pure fairness for a competitive game, that bothers me.
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