Smash 4, Character Discussion Revised (#35 Pikachu)

[Jedi]

#1 Bayonetta (This post)

#2 Bowser

#3 Bowser Jr

#4 Captain Falcon

#5 Charizard

#6 Cloud

#7 Corrin

#8 Diddy Kong

#9 DK

#10 Duck Hunt

#11 Falco

#12 Fox

#13 Ganondorf

#14 Greninja

#15 Ike

#16 Jigglypuff

#17 King Dedede

#18 Kirby

#19 Link

#20 Little Mac

#21 Lucario

#22 Lucas

#23 Luigi

#24 Mario & Doc
#25 Marth & Lucina

#26 Megaman
#27 Metaknight
#28 Mewtwo
#29 Game&Watch

#30 Ness

#31 Olimar

#32 Pac-Man

#33 Palutena

#34 Peach

#35 Pikachu

Instead of votes, we'll go in alphabetical order, and the discussion will only be 1 or 2 days for each, 1.1.6 is the current patch so I hope you're all updated for this.

Which leads us off with Bayonetta

Kurogane hasn't updated her data

so go off this change list http://smashboards.com/threads/1-1-6-patch-notes-patch-discussion-read-the-first-post-before-replying.436806/

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Bayonetta for her general info

(Image Borrowed from Kurogane Hammer) for a quick visual

Bayonetta, the source of much infamy since her debut, having many aerial combos at launch, which could 0-death a significant chunk of the cast if they weren't careful, with several safe lead ins and decent range with her kicks, she was a force to be reckoned with by that alone, add in the dreaded witch time and the fact she has two spikes, and you're in some danger. She has fairly good damage capabilities as well.

As of 1.1.6 however she's received several nerfs, Including her hitboxes on several moves, her combo capabilities in general, which make her look rather lackluster currently as opposed to the supposed top tier threat she posed before hand. Now she has a fairly lacking neutral game, due to now having to rely on some of her slower moves, and her safer moves now are harder to land overall.

Whats everyone heres opinions on Bayo? Be it on a competitive or even casual standpoint?

Edited September 18, 2016 by Jedi

[The DanMan]

From a strictly casual standpoint, she was never that fun to begin with. You had to really invest in her to actually use her; she had a high "skill floor" so to speak.

I kinda think that the patch should have at least buffed some parts of her and made her easier to use, because now she's a highly technical character that isn't even that great. Basically, they went about nerfing her the wrong way.

[Ken Masters]

You can DI out of every combo she has now, including her "target combos" (I know they are not really target combos, but is the closest thing I can think of right now) which means now you can't be dragged to the blastzone at 0%. And that makes me happy :3

I still think it's an amazing character with tons of potential. She will require a really into-it player to pick her up and find all the new stuff, since she's no longer a train1day=profit. What Trela is to Ryu, someone will have to be to Bayonetta, I guess.

[Jedi]

From a strictly casual standpoint, she was never that fun to begin with. You had to really invest in her to actually use her; she had a high "skill floor" so to speak.

I kinda think that the patch should have at least buffed some parts of her and made her easier to use, because now she's a highly technical character that isn't even that great. Basically, they went about nerfing her the wrong way.

Its interesting because quite a few people said she's very easy to pick up, compared to say Ryu or someone else with tons of technical stuff (I.E people like Greninja or Pikachu). But also some of the pros just couldn't use her properly. We'll see what happens down the road i'm sure.

You can DI out of every combo she has now, including her "target combos" (I know they are not really target combos, but is the closest thing I can think of right now) which means now you can't be dragged to the blastzone at 0%. And that makes me happy :3

I still think it's an amazing character with tons of potential. She will require a really into-it player to pick her up and find all the new stuff, since she's no longer a train1day=profit. What Trela is to Ryu, someone will have to be to Bayonetta, I guess.

I'm gonna guess Pink Fresh will be that dedicated Bayo player, but i'm not 100% sure currently.

[Zera]

They asked for the Bayo nerfs.

They got 'em.

I don't own Bayo, so I don't have anything else to say.

[shadowofchaos]

From a strictly casual standpoint, she was never that fun to begin with. You had to really invest in her to actually use her; she had a high "skill floor" so to speak.

I kinda think that the patch should have at least buffed some parts of her and made her easier to use, because now she's a highly technical character that isn't even that great. Basically, they went about nerfing her the wrong way.

From an extremely casual standpoint, people were satisfied picking her up. They had... maybe... 30 minutes of trouble learning her recovery, but from "just picking her up and having some fun matches", I'd have to challenge your statement.

I'd wager you're looking at it from a higher skill level, even if not at the competitive level.

Literally the "watch the trailer and buy her" casual doesn't need or want to know about the technical stuff she can pull off. She's just easy to pick up more than Ryu and such.

[The DanMan]

From an extremely casual standpoint, people were satisfied picking her up. They had... maybe... 30 minutes of trouble learning her recovery, but from "just picking her up and having some fun matches", I'd have to challenge your statement.

I'd wager you're looking at it from a higher skill level, even if not at the competitive level.

Literally the "watch the trailer and buy her" casual doesn't need or want to know about the technical stuff she can pull off. She's just easy to pick up more than Ryu and such.

Though having virtually no experience with either of them, I personally prefer Ryu; his smash attacks feel like they've got power to them (Bayonetta's are almost deceptively weak) and they aren't too laggy, and he has his focus attack if you're in a bit of a pickle. Couple that with the relatively easy quarter-circle back and quarter-circle forwards special inputs (the shoryuken input is harder to do on the fly), and Ryu just feels like a more fulfilling character in low-level play. True, he has a whole lot of nuance, but I'd argue that Bayonetta is the more overwhelming of the two at first. While Ryu feels like a Smash character with more bells and whistles than normal, Bayonetta has a whole different feel and needs to be played entirely differently from the get-go.

Of course, this is just my opinion; everybody in the semi-competitive to competitive community found her to be much easier to use.

[shadowofchaos]

The thing is, from your statements, the Ryu inputs are things you are familiar with. Belinda and a bunch of my friends found Ryu harder to use because they had zero experience whatsoever with traditional fighting game inputs. And even if they could use Ryu without the inputs, they almost felt pressured to try and learn it to get the most use out of him... probably through his reputation and icon of the fighting game scene.

Edited May 24, 2016 by shadowofchaos

[Jedi]

Though having virtually no experience with either of them, I personally prefer Ryu; his smash attacks feel like they've got power to them (Bayonetta's are almost deceptively weak) and they aren't too laggy, and he has his focus attack if you're in a bit of a pickle. Couple that with the relatively easy quarter-circle back and quarter-circle forwards special inputs (the shoryuken input is harder to do on the fly), and Ryu just feels like a more fulfilling character in low-level play. True, he has a whole lot of nuance, but I'd argue that Bayonetta is the more overwhelming of the two at first. While Ryu feels like a Smash character with more bells and whistles than normal, Bayonetta has a whole different feel and needs to be played entirely differently from the get-go.

Of course, this is just my opinion; everybody in the semi-competitive to competitive community found her to be much easier to use.

See, theres only like one significantly powerful Ryu player in the entire world (And he hasn't won anything super major), while Bayo had several people pick her up instantly (Then again they didn't do anything to really make that big of a splash either, they just did way better than they did previously due to how powerful she is), I can even tell you my friends who are casual at smash, had a much easier time picking up Bayo than Ryu, because she doesn't have "complicated" inputs or stuff like the Focus Attack Cancel Dash.

Ryu is intimidating for people to play because he takes quite a bit of skill to utlize effectively, he actually doesn't have too many actual outright KO moves, unless you know how to chain into True Shoryuken and a few others, kinda like Peach in the aspect that, he does tons of damage, but doesn't exactly have the easiest time killing, unless you know exactly how, Bayo in comparison has like instant gratification. Or had more like.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Jedi

[Ema Skye]

I think you should've waited to talk abut Bayo. It's too soon to see how much 1.1.6 impacts her metagame.

[Jedi]

I think you should've waited to talk abut Bayo. It's too soon to see how much 1.1.6 impacts her metagame.

It might have been the better choice, but if I was gonna streamline this I figured Alphabetical

Plus people always seem to like talking about Bayo so I thought it could be an attention grabber.

[Comet]

a bair or up air nerf could've done what was needed to bayonetta

rip the witch, i won't miss her htough

[Jedi]

So do we have anymore to say or shall we move on to the next character?

[euklyd]

See, theres only like one significantly powerful Ryu player in the entire world (And he hasn't won anything super major), while Bayo had several people pick her up instantly (Then again they didn't do anything to really make that big of a splash either, they just did way better than they did previously due to how powerful she is), I can even tell you my friends who are casual at smash, had a much easier time picking up Bayo than Ryu, because she doesn't have "complicated" inputs or stuff like the Focus Attack Cancel Dash.

Ryu is intimidating for people to play because he takes quite a bit of skill to utlize effectively, he actually doesn't have too many actual outright KO moves, unless you know how to chain into True Shoryuken and a few others, kinda like Peach in the aspect that, he does tons of damage, but doesn't exactly have the easiest time killing, unless you know exactly how, Bayo in comparison has like instant gratification. Or had more like.

9B may go back to Ryu if the Bayo nerfs are so serious.

As he should. Fuck Bayo.

[Jedi]

9B may go back to Ryu if the Bayo nerfs are so serious.

As he should. Fuck Bayo.

Still strongly against her eh? Haha.

I agree, I think 9B may go back to Ryu, but I'll keep what I said earlier, I see Pink Fresh sticking with her.

[euklyd]

I mean Pink Fresh wasn't really getting many results before Bayo (like he was good, but not many results) so yeah I don't see him shifting away.

Meanwhile 9B was amazing.

[Comet]

False is a Ryu main too, jsyk

[Jedi]

I don't think I've actually seen 9B play, just heard of him, although I'm learning of other players I had no idea about/only heard about more and more like SupergirlKels whos become my favorite Sonic to watch lol.

Yeah Pink Fresh has gotten much better results with Bayo than, (I believe Pit?) it'll be interesting to see what he does in the face of the nerfs I could see him developing his Pit more alongside Bayo, if she fell significantly, but stick with his guns for the most part. I mean he was one of the few people who, when they picked Bayo up wasn't outright disrespected for it, because he had skill to back it up. The stigma was kind of silly, but I'll admit I kinda had a gut reaction to join in on it at first, which just goes to show I can be childish every now and again.

I still think Bayo can be a pretty nasty threat, Witch Time is still a thing, and i'm sure people will find other ways to combo, I mean when Metaknights uair got hit, MKLeo from Mexico and Japanese Metaknights found workaround methods.

Edit: False... I seem to always forget about.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Jedi

[Ken Masters]

False even had its own 2GGT saga!

As did Pink Fresh.... curiously enough, that Saga was won by Trela after completely obliterating everyone with Ryu :P

[Ema Skye]

I still think Bayo has a claim to the top tiers in 1.1.6.

And this is after this scrub decided to hit up tournaments. I didn't win (because scrub), but other Bayo players did.

Her punish game was her biggest strength pre-patch and it still is. The only things gone are Dive Kick and the combos out of it. Her punish game is incredibly scary. All she needs is one read. Her death combos still exist, but are DI dependent now. This is why reads are so important to her now. How many people can DI/SDI on reaction? If they can't anticipate the UpB/SideB, they can't DI/SDI it and therefore can't escape.

I'd encourage you to watch

if you think Bayo is shit after 1.1.6.

Not to mention Witch Time. Any read off of Witch Time can realistically result in death. It's not something you want to rely on, but it's existence alone is intimidating because people know it exists.

On a scale of 1-10, 1.1.5 Bayo was a 13. 1.1.6 Bayo is like an 8. This character is fair now. I'm confident she's still top 10 (with Rosa, Diddy, Cloud, Sheik, ZSS, Mario, Sonic, Mewtwo and Meta Knight).

[shadowofchaos]

That was actually a fun match to watch for Bayo, instead of all the "same boring 0-death combos" that was plaguing smash.

[General Horace]

tbh the metaknight jumped into her combos more than once and didn't look like he knew how to DI them properly.

I don't think she's trash but she's definately not a (major) tournament threat like she was before.

[Comet]

SDI isn't very hard

[euklyd]

SDI is even less hard when the SDI multiplier on like half of her moves went from 1.0 -> 2.0

[Jedi]

Thank you all for the Bayonetta discussion as short as it was, now lets move onward to our next character in the list.

(Image taken from Kurogane)

His general data and frame data

Bowser, the heavyweight that everyone has wanted to see really good at least once, to the point where everyone thought he was potentially S tier on release, with tournament results right out the gate in the 3DS days, featuring some heavy punish play, Bowser can end a stock instantly if given the chance, however he has multiple weaknesses, such as his weight class by default, his inability to land safely, he gets juggled by pretty much the entire cast, although he can hold his own with some decent ground speed and reach, his weaknesses overall hamper him too much to be played super effectively in top level play although his b moves are decent and he still is quite scary at close range. In Casual play, he has fun, stomping through multiple foes with his devastating attacks.

Patches have been both kind and mean to Bowser, he lost his ability to suicide win, 1 stock to 1 stock, and said special can be broken out of and recovered from, he gained a solid throw combo which could actually kill, but then was nerfed at random the next patch. His Up B was improved to be able to grab the ledge from both sides, his other buffs/nerfs were less noteworthy.

So general opinions on BOWSER?

Edited May 25, 2016 by Jedi