Super Smash Bros: Ultimate - Living up to the subtitle.

[deuterio12]

You know, I just realized something.

In world of light the big bad captures the main fighter's spirits to mass-produce "evil" clones.

But Kirby escaped from the universal rebuilding.

Yet there's multiple "evil" Kirby clones around the world of light.

What gives? Is the Kirby we're playing a fake one and the true Kirby is sealed somewhere hidden? Did Kirby spontaneously split when running away? Was there more than one Kirby all along? Something pink eldritch abomination is beyond our puny concempts of space and time something?

[Resileaf]

You know, I just realized something.

In world of light the big bad captures the main fighter's spirits to mass-produce "evil" clones.

But Kirby escaped from the universal rebuilding.

Yet there's multiple "evil" Kirby clones around the world of light.

What gives? Is the Kirby we're playing a fake one and the true Kirby is sealed somewhere hidden? Did Kirby spontaneously split when running away? Was there more than one Kirby all along? Something pink eldritch abomination is beyond our puny concempts of space and time something?

Meta Knight removed his mask.

[GloatingSwine]

There are other beings like Kirby in several of his games.

They're the ones that were captured with all the spirits.

[tonberrian]

Grr. I missed one of the spirit board events, and now that I've collected EVERY OTHER spirit, I'm still missing two because I didn't think they'd make some only available as events. Lesson learned, I guess.

[Zevox]

Grr. I missed one of the spirit board events, and now that I've collected EVERY OTHER spirit, I'm still missing two because I didn't think they'd make some only available as events. Lesson learned, I guess.

If you're missing two, it's probably not from an event - the only event-exclusive spirits so far were a set of 3. They released two that are currently only available if you have the new Pokémon games on the same Switch as Smash though (the "Let's Go!" games). I saw mention in the news entry about them that they'll be made available to everyone later on sometime, but for now, you only get them if you get those games.

[tonberrian]

If you're missing two, it's probably not from an event - the only event-exclusive spirits so far were a set of 3. They released two that are currently only available if you have the new Pokémon games on the same Switch as Smash though (the "Let's Go!" games). I saw mention in the news entry about them that they'll be made available to everyone later on sometime, but for now, you only get them if you get those games.

Ah, well then. I am slightly less upset. SLIGHTLY. Because I don't plan on picking up Let's Go for myself.

I wonder what the age is recommended on those, though. I do know a pokemon go obsessed 5 year old...

[Zevox]

Huh. So, I reached a new achievement today: got into Elite Smash with a second character. Thing is, it's Cloud. Who is not one of my mains, but one of my also-playeds. I was just playing around with him to warm up before going in with Ike, and bam, made it. And unlike King Dedede, who was my main in 4 and I do think I could still be genuinely better with than other characters in this game just due to all the time I put in with him there (and the fact that not a ton has changed for him in this game), Cloud is someone I didn't play at all until this game, and I don't think for a second that I'm better with him than with my new mains (Ike and Chrom).

Weirdly enough, he seemed to just gain GSP faster than I do with them, getting 50-100k per win at ranks where they're getting 25-40k per win (and it doesn't seem to be based on the ranking of the opponent, either). So, it feels like there may be something going on with the ranking system that makes it harder to reach higher ranks with some characters than others. But I don't think the characters all have separate ranked ladders - if that were the case I'd expect the threshold for reaching Elite Smash to be different based on how many people play the character, but it appears to be the same for Cloud and Dedede, who I'd say are rather wildly different in how many people I see playing them.

So, yeah, I'm left pretty confused as to how the whole GSP ranking system is working here .

[chainer1216]

Im new to smash but it really feels like Cloud is "easy mode" his moves and specials are all so...forgiving and his hit boxes are huge and hes fast.

[Zevox]

Im new to smash but it really feels like Cloud is "easy mode" his moves and specials are all so...forgiving and his hit boxes are huge and hes fast.

Eh, I don't doubt that Cloud's good (albeit nerfed compared to how he was in Smash 4), but "easy mode" seems like an exaggeration to me.

In any case though, it's less about the characters specifically and more about the weird progression, with Cloud just gaining more ranks per win than Ike or Chrom, which doesn't make sense to me no matter how I try to look at it.

[tyckspoon]

Eh, I don't doubt that Cloud's good (albeit nerfed compared to how he was in Smash 4), but "easy mode" seems like an exaggeration to me.

In any case though, it's less about the characters specifically and more about the weird progression, with Cloud just gaining more ranks per win than Ike or Chrom, which doesn't make sense to me no matter how I try to look at it.

Are there character usage rates/popularity statistics available? Could be averaged against number of players using that character - if Cloud is less commonly used than Ike or Chrom, than a winning Cloud could be weighted higher. If there are relatively few matches involving Cloud it wouldn't take much of a win streak to make you appear to be better than the average Cloud and get moved up the matchmaking ranks.

[Zevox]

Are there character usage rates/popularity statistics available? Could be averaged against number of players using that character - if Cloud is less commonly used than Ike or Chrom, than a winning Cloud could be weighted higher. If there are relatively few matches involving Cloud it wouldn't take much of a win streak to make you appear to be better than the average Cloud and get moved up the matchmaking ranks.

Specific statistics, not to my knowledge. Based on my experience I would wager that Cloud is less used online than Ike and Chrom, but not by a lot. While Ike and Chrom are up there among the most commonly played in my experience (alongside K. Rool, Inkling, Link, Snake, and Marth/Lucina), Cloud's moderately popular, certainly a far cry from the genuinely rarely seen characters like the Ice Climbers.

Edit: Wow. Maybe it was the guy I was up against, but geez does the Mega Man vs Ganondorf matchup feel one-sided in the former's favor. With Leaf Shield now buffed to be a legitimate projectile and the general system changes making Mega Man less vulnerable on many of his moves than before, I was just walking all over Ganondorf, and I would never say I'm a particularly good Mega Man. About the only answer Ganon had to the Blue Bomber's projectiles is Warlock Kick, which blows through most of them - but that's so punishable that he can't afford to use it too often or he'll just die anyway.

Mega Man does feel better to play in Ultimate than in 4 generally though. Might use him more often now.

[oxybe]

i think i'm done with Smash online play.

the lag is tolerable most of the time. I've seen it grind to a halt but it's usually ok. I don't mind a free for all or team game. but the worst is being forced to play rulesets i have only hate and spite towards.

Outside of casual couch games, items can go [oh my!] right off.

and that's like 4/5ths of the games i'm tossed into.

a 4man FFA with items and stage hazards on an annoying stage and something like 1stock and 300HP is not my idea of a good time.

I wouldn't mind sitting in lab a bit longer until it gives me a nice 3 stock, 7min, no items, battlefield only game. you can even FFA it and have 4 players or do a team game...

I'm just tired of these game types i have no love for, and having to suffer 4-5 of them before I get the one I like is really cramping my fun, esp since there doesn't seem to be any tournaments in my area and due to my work schedule it makes it so i usually only get to play really late at night or early mornings.

[Dienekes]

Edit: Wow. Maybe it was the guy I was up against, but geez does the Mega Man vs Ganondorf matchup feel one-sided in the former's favor. With Leaf Shield now buffed to be a legitimate projectile and the general system changes making Mega Man less vulnerable on many of his moves than before, I was just walking all over Ganondorf, and I would never say I'm a particularly good Mega Man. About the only answer Ganon had to the Blue Bomber's projectiles is Warlock Kick, which blows through most of them - but that's so punishable that he can't afford to use it too often or he'll just die anyway.

Mega Man does feel better to play in Ultimate than in 4 generally though. Might use him more often now.

As a Ganon main, yeah this one feels tough. He is so much better in ult now that he actually has the speed to at least try to fight. But any projectile based opponent can stop me in my tracks if they’re good. He does have a few answers to projectiles, but nothing great.

Though MM isn’t as bad as Snake in that regard. I’m not sure if the grenades technically count as projectiles (I think they do), but man when every part of the map is blowing up and the opponent has decent hand to hand range moves as well it’s a real pain.

[Zevox]

i think i'm done with Smash online play.

the lag is tolerable most of the time. I've seen it grind to a halt but it's usually ok. I don't mind a free for all or team game. but the worst is being forced to play rulesets i have only hate and spite towards.

Outside of casual couch games, items can go [oh my!] right off.

and that's like 4/5ths of the games i'm tossed into.

Really? Huh, that's odd. Ever since the patch that dropped one week after launch that said it had increased the matchmaking's focus on pairing people with similar rules I've almost never gotten rulesets that weren't 1-on-1, no items, Omega or Battlefield, and 2-3 stock, and I've been playing pretty much daily. I'm pretty sure I could count on one hand the number of times since then that I've seen someone who had items on, and even then half the time it was smash balls only, and I legitimately don't think I've been forced into a FFA or 2v2 since the patch at all. Very surprised to hear that patch didn't fix that problem for everyone.

Maybe go into arenas instead? Easy to find those with such rules. I know I wish I could get into smaller ones more often, but if you've got the time to wait a few minutes for your first opponents to show up you can always start a 3-4 person arena yourself, so you're not waiting too many matches in between turns if you lose.

As a Ganon main, yeah this one feels tough. He is so much better in ult now that he actually has the speed to at least try to fight. But any projectile based opponent can stop me in my tracks if they’re good. He does have a few answers to projectiles, but nothing great.

Though MM isn’t as bad as Snake in that regard. I’m not sure if the grenades technically count as projectiles (I think they do), but man when every part of the map is blowing up and the opponent has decent hand to hand range moves as well it’s a real pain.

Yeah, the grenades do count as projectiles - not that that often matters, since he's mostly just dropping them on the ground somewhere to control space. He's just a painful matchup no matter who you are I feel like, as there's no obvious counters to those grenades, nothing at all that you can do about his C4 besides try to avoid it, the Nikita is just nuts at edgeguarding anyone without a good reflector, and many of his normals are fantastic. He doesn't even need his smash attacks either, f-tilt and u-tilt kill as well as most characters' smash attacks. And with his option to recover super high with that up special of his it's almost impossible to edgeguard him, plus he's a heavyweight who's hard to kill outright. Dude's probably one of the top characters in the game I'd wager.

[danzibr]

I suddenly want to get better with MM and Snake (current mains: Ike and Ganondorf).

[deuterio12]

I know that Kirby's at the bottom of the ultimate tier list, but somehow he seems to be my MPV in spirit collecting, succeeding where all others fail.

In particular, the AI seems... Afraid of him.

I particularly remember a battle against the big boss spirit where the spirit literally threw themselves off-stage just by Kirby spamming up B. And now a battle against an Infernroar had a similar end where they were returning to stage only to down-b as Kirby was charging up a smash.

[Zevox]

I suddenly want to get better with MM and Snake (current mains: Ike and Ganondorf).

If those characters appeal to you, go for it. I wouldn't go jumping ship to other characters that don't appeal to you just because they might be stronger competitively or (more likely in MM's case case) have a good matchup against yours though. I mean, Ike's one of my mains too, and boy does he struggle against Link in my experience, but I just don't like playing Link. And as good as Snake seems to be, he doesn't feel like he's for me either.

Speaking of character choice though, a surprising thing I noticed while skimming my records last night: I've actually played exactly 30 different characters in Quickplay online. I actually hammered the panel for that challenge since I had a bunch of hammers left as I was running out of challenges and didn't feel like waiting on that, so I didn't know when I'd hit it, but I have. Kind of crazy to think about, there's no other fighting game out there where I play nearly this many, even as a percentage of the overall roster rather than in absolute numbers terms.

Spoiler: Those characters

Show

Mains: Ike & Chrom
Secondaries: King Dedede, Palutena, Corrin.
(My) Top 10: Inkling, Falco, Marth & Lucina, Ness.
Also Played: Mii Brawler, Mii Swordfighter, Richter, R.O.B, Toon Link, Mega Man, Sonic, Cloud, Ridley, Zero Suit Samus.
Rarely Played: Pit, Mii Gunner, Pac-Man, Shulk, Bayonetta, Robin, Wolf, Lucario, Lucas, Mewtwo.

Also, I've played a little Pokèmon Trainer (mostly using Squirtle) in Arenas, but haven't taken him into Quickplay yet. And in past games I've played some Mario, Meta Knight, and Captain Falcon, and just haven't really ever picked them in this one so far, since I like so many others more than them.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I know that Kirby's at the bottom of the ultimate tier list, but somehow he seems to be my MPV in spirit collecting, succeeding where all others fail.

In particular, the AI seems... Afraid of him.

I particularly remember a battle against the big boss spirit where the spirit literally threw themselves off-stage just by Kirby spamming up B. And now a battle against an Infernroar had a similar end where they were returning to stage only to down-b as Kirby was charging up a smash.

As they rightly should, for he is Kirby, Destroyer of Worlds.

[WhismurWanders]

In particular, the AI seems... Afraid of him.

I particularly remember a battle against the big boss spirit where the spirit literally threw themselves off-stage just by Kirby spamming up B. And now a battle against an Infernroar had a similar end where they were returning to stage only to down-b as Kirby was charging up a smash.

The AI does weird stuff sometimes. I recall The Boss also being a relatively easy fight because the bot did something very silly.

[GloatingSwine]

I know that Kirby's at the bottom of the ultimate tier list, but somehow he seems to be my MPV in spirit collecting, succeeding where all others fail.

What works in spirit battle isn't necessarily what works in competitive.

Little Mac is fantastic in spirit battles because the AI doesn't know how bad he is off stage so it just comes and tries to manfight him. Which is a bad plan.

[danzibr]

If those characters appeal to you, go for it. I wouldn't go jumping ship to other characters that don't appeal to you just because they might be stronger competitively or (more likely in MM's case case) have a good matchup against yours though. I mean, Ike's one of my mains too, and boy does he struggle against Link in my experience, but I just don't like playing Link. And as good as Snake seems to be, he doesn't feel like he's for me either.

Speaking of character choice though, a surprising thing I noticed while skimming my records last night: I've actually played exactly 30 different characters in Quickplay online. I actually hammered the panel for that challenge since I had a bunch of hammers left as I was running out of challenges and didn't feel like waiting on that, so I didn't know when I'd hit it, but I have. Kind of crazy to think about, there's no other fighting game out there where I play nearly this many, even as a percentage of the overall roster rather than in absolute numbers terms.

Spoiler: Those characters

Show

Mains: Ike & Chrom
Secondaries: King Dedede, Palutena, Corrin.
(My) Top 10: Inkling, Falco, Marth & Lucina, Ness.
Also Played: Mii Brawler, Mii Swordfighter, Richter, R.O.B, Toon Link, Mega Man, Sonic, Cloud, Ridley, Zero Suit Samus.
Rarely Played: Pit, Mii Gunner, Pac-Man, Shulk, Bayonetta, Robin, Wolf, Lucario, Lucas, Mewtwo.

Also, I've played a little Pokèmon Trainer (mostly using Squirtle) in Arenas, but haven't taken him into Quickplay yet. And in past games I've played some Mario, Meta Knight, and Captain Falcon, and just haven't really ever picked them in this one so far, since I like so many others more than them.

Oh the matchup thing isn’t my reason. I actually wanted to get good with Snake when I first saw him in Brawl, and MM when I saw him in 4. Then I played both of them a bit... and went back to my mains. But now, remotivated to play them.

I felt that way about a few others. Potential new mains that I just dabbled with. Sonic, ZSS, Corrin, Ridley.

[Zevox]

Well, I have another character in Elite Smash now, and I'd say this one definitely proves there's something nonsensical about Smash's ranking system. That character is Pit, someone I have played only a little of in every game since he was added in Brawl. In fact, in Ultimate's ranked (Quickplay) mode, I've played exactly three games with him. Yes, 3, no more. I won all of them, but still, just 3. Somehow that's enough to make Pit my highest-ranked character. That third match he gained five times more rank for the win than my Ike does when fighting around the same rank.

Yeah, I don't know how Nintendo is calculating GSP, but safe to say the results of it are not making any sense.

[Sylian]

Regarding Elite Smash: Once you have one character in Elite Smash it'll get easier to get more characters into Elite Smash, in many cases you can get a new character in after 1-2 wins. This is to avoid having good players having to grind to get in Elite Smash with other characters.

[Zevox]

Regarding Elite Smash: Once you have one character in Elite Smash it'll get easier to get more characters into Elite Smash, in many cases you can get a new character in after 1-2 wins. This is to avoid having good players having to grind to get in Elite Smash with other characters.

I already have three characters in Elite Smash, actually - Dedede, Cloud, and Pit. Yet my Ike continues to gain 20k or less GSP per win while within about the last 200k before the cutoff to get in. While of course losing almost twice as much per loss.

It honestly feels like the system is designed for you to have larger GSP swings the fewer matches you've played with a character, and gets more and more set as to what your rank is the more you've played them. I've played hundreds of games with Ike now and his rank gain has stagnated because of how low the numbers he's getting have become, but every time I pick up a character I've played a lot less with, even if they're up in higher ranks, they have much bigger rank swings per match, win or lose. Like the goal of the rank system is to figure out the rank you "belong" at after a certain number of matches played with a given character and more or less keep you there unless you go on a big win streak. Which, if so, would not be a great design for a rank system I'd say.

But oh well, I'm still really enjoying the game - I mean, after a month and a half of playing it basically daily, I still have to force myself to stop when the time comes to end a play session.

Lately I've been playing more with the Miis, and have to say, I'm quite happy that they're online-legal this time around. I didn't play them much in Smash 4 since they weren't and I didn't get a ton of offline play with them aside from the little single-player I did, but it's really nice having these customizable characters that I can make stand-ins for characters that aren't in the game. Personal favorites so far are my Yang (RWBY) Brawler with Falcon Punch Burning Kick and Firey Dropkick, Chie (Persona 4) Brawler with all the kick specials, Viridi Swordfighter with that whirlwind neutral special (which I have a very hard time not just putting on all my swordfighters because it's so good), and Trish (Devil May Cry) Swordfighter with the shuriken neutral special standing in her for lightning blasts from MvC3. Not as big a fan of the Gunner, I find that one a bit awkward, but I play it sometimes too, usually with my Proto Man or Doctor Robotnik.

I've also taken Pokémon Trainer into quickplay lately, and become a much bigger fan of her/them. Very surprised to find myself liking all three of the Pokémon, even Charizard, who I very much never expected to like. Squirtle is still definitely my favorite, but they're all surprising me with how fun they are, and in general with how fun being able to switch characters mid-match to adapt to the situation or specific opponent can be. The Trainer's definitely climbing the ranks of my played characters pretty quickly.

[tonberrian]

And 2.0, with Piranha Plant, is live. You can also find the Mario event-only spirits and Companion Pikachu and Companion Eevee in the Spirit board. I now have a complete spirit-dex!

[Zevox]

This is also a good time to remind everyone that if you want Piranha Plant to be free, you'll have to grab him up fast - that window closes at the end of the month, so only two days to get him if you haven't. Just have an account with Nintendo and register your copy of the game from the home menu of the Switch, and they'll e-mail the download code to whatever e-mail you have the account under.

Tried him myself tonight in Classic Mode, and eh, he is weird, and not in a way that feels fun or appealing to me. I will definitely take all of the matches I'm getting against people trying to figure him out online though, kind of nice getting some easier fights in between more challenging opponents for a change.

Hopefully this means we're only a couple of months out from when we'll see Joker's release now. I am eager as hell for that one. Heck, even just give me a gameplay trailer for him, I just really want to see him in actual action already, so that him being in Smash actually feels real.

You can also find the Mario event-only spirits and Companion Pikachu and Companion Eevee in the Spirit board. I now have a complete spirit-dex!

Oh, they appear on the board now as well? I noticed the news update said they'd be in the shop, and I nabbed Companion Pikachu there myself, but didn't know they'd be elsewhere. Good to know I can grab the Evee off the board if the shop doesn't cooperate, since he's now the only one I don't have.

Also, we have actual patch notes for the first time ever! That's surprising. Lots of minor changes mostly it looks like (a lot of random air attacks had their landing recovery or the time they prevent you from grabbing the ledge reduced a bit), but with a few notables:

Spoiler

Show

- A number of attacks with the bury effect had the duration shortened... though it says "on undamaged opponents." If that literally means only on characters at 0% damage, that's a pretty meaningless change I'd say, but if it's a general duration decrease, it might matter quite a bit, especially with two of the moves being K. Rool's down throw and Inkling's roller.
- King K. Rool was the subject of a couple of other nerfs, with the duration that he can hold the suction effect of his neutral special shortened and the "attack range" of his up special reduced. A quick test of the former showed it to be a very noticeable decrease, so you won't see K. Rools getting away with just holding that at the ledge forever anymore. I'm assuming the latter refers to the propeller hitbox, since quick testing showed the distance that it travels still seems the same. Though that same quick testing still had the propeller hitting through the platform when he grabs the edge, so, not sure how big that particular nerf was.
- Chrom's up special now causes him to die first in suicide-kill situations, like Bowser and Ganondorf's suicide moves. Pretty predictable and fair nerf.
- Incineroar's recovery was buffed, with his up special getting both vertical and horizontal distance increased, which might be big for him since that's his biggest weakness.
- Palutena's neutral air lost some hitstun. Quick testing shows me it can still true combo into itself at low percents, so I'm guessing this just means she can't string 3-4 of them together anymore for 40% or so damage like I saw some tournament players were able to do.
- Mii Brawler got a lot of buffs... though some of them are unclear since they're just labeled "[direction] special," and obviously the Miis have three of those each. And the changes aren't to all three, since there's separate entries for some to imply that two of the three were changed. King of annoying that, but eh, Brawler needed buffs, so nice to see them getting them.
- Dedede's gordo range got nerfed for some reason (not entirely sure whether this means travel distance or hitbox size/priority). Not sure why they did that, Dedede needs buffs, not nerfs.
- Snake got a slight buff to his up tilt for some ungodly reason.
- Sheik got a couple of buffs to her smash attacks. Not sure how much that'll help her, since I don't play her, but I've heard she's pretty bad in Ultimate due to loss of killing power, so maybe this will be what she needed.

And a couple of more universal changes: first, they added a shortcut to do a short-hop without attacking by hitting both jump buttons simultaneously. That's awesome, since the faster jump animation in this game had made the window to do a manual short-hop pretty darn tight. Definitely a fan of that one.

Second, they changed the way that GSP is calculated for online play... somehow. No explanation of how that works. The change is definitely noticeable, though, since a bunch of my characters had their GSP change a bit - and in fact, I had all of my Elite Smash characters fall out of that except for King Dedede. Which is a bit odd since he wasn't my highest GSP character before, Pit was. But oh well, I was able to get Ike back in with just one win, and don't much care if Cloud and Pit get back in. Guess we'll see if GSP starts seeming to make any more sense now after this unspecified change.

[DaOldeWolf]

Been playing piranha plant since its arrival. I like the carácter. It has been a lot of fun. It feels quite heavy as a a char. It might become a new main. It can pack quite the punch. Now, my sights are on getting the amiibo.

I wonder how long it will take for the next char to arrive. Meanwhile I might play WoL again with Piranha plant.

Words of caution. Dont play all star with piranha plant!

[tonberrian]

Dont play all star with piranha plant!

More on this: Apparently piranha plant in All-Star Mode can corrupt your save data. So yeah, don't do that.

[Zevox]

Been playing piranha plant since its arrival. I like the carácter. It has been a lot of fun. It feels quite heavy as a a char. It might become a new main. It can pack quite the punch. Now, my sights are on getting the amiibo.

Piranha Plant is definitely heavier than you'd expect from his size, that's for sure. I don't know if he's truly into heavyweight status, but higher end midweight for sure.

From a couple of days of playing against him, I'm thinking he's probably not going to be all that great by competitive standards. His normals seem mostly just okay - fairly potent forward and up smashes as far as killing power goes, but little else of note. He has a few pretty strong uses for his specials, but they each seem to contain a serious flaw too: the spike ball is powerful, has edge-guarding applications, and can drop on someone hitting him if he just holds it over his head, but is slow, only flies at a very specific angle, and if he tries the hold it and get hit thing he can get screwed by someone just stopping in front of him and forward smashing or the like. The poison cloud does a lot of damage but has no hitstun and can be easily avoided in most situations. His down special has armor and range and serious power if he hits from a long distance, but is weak if he hits up close, can't change the angle after the pot tips over, leaves him stationary, and like all armored moves can be thrown. And the up special has fantastic distance, but its hitbox is out to the sides, leaving him more vulnerable to dair spikes than most. He seems like a character that's going to be more goofy fun for people to screw around with than anything you'd see in tournaments, basically.

On a separate note, remember how I mentioned there was a change to a few characters' bury attacks (K. Rool's down throw, Inkling's roller, and Zero Suit Samus' flip kick) in the patch, but it was a it unclear how it worked due to the wording? Turns out it's a weird one. Apparently they nerfed the base bury time, but increased the multiplier for how much time damage adds. In practice, that means those attacks' bury effect basically lasts less time now when under about 100-120% damage, but actually lasts longer than it used to once damage gets above that. So that was arguably a buff, actually, since you most want those effects at those high percents to set up for a guaranteed smash attack to get a kill. Yeah, not sure if that's what they intended to do there.

[DaOldeWolf]

Piranha Plant is definitely heavier than you'd expect from his size, that's for sure. I don't know if he's truly into heavyweight status, but higher end midweight for sure.

From a couple of days of playing against him, I'm thinking he's probably not going to be all that great by competitive standards. His normals seem mostly just okay - fairly potent forward and up smashes as far as killing power goes, but little else of note. He has a few pretty strong uses for his specials, but they each seem to contain a serious flaw too: the spike ball is powerful, has edge-guarding applications, and can drop on someone hitting him if he just holds it over his head, but is slow, only flies at a very specific angle, and if he tries the hold it and get hit thing he can get screwed by someone just stopping in front of him and forward smashing or the like. The poison cloud does a lot of damage but has no hitstun and can be easily avoided in most situations. His down special has armor and range and serious power if he hits from a long distance, but is weak if he hits up close, can't change the angle after the pot tips over, leaves him stationary, and like all armored moves can be thrown. And the up special has fantastic distance, but its hitbox is out to the sides, leaving him more vulnerable to dair spikes than most. He seems like a character that's going to be more goofy fun for people to screw around with than anything you'd see in tournaments, basically.

On a separate note, remember how I mentioned there was a change to a few characters' bury attacks (K. Rool's down throw, Inkling's roller, and Zero Suit Samus' flip kick) in the patch, but it was a it unclear how it worked due to the wording? Turns out it's a weird one. Apparently they nerfed the base bury time, but increased the multiplier for how much time damage adds. In practice, that means those attacks' bury effect basically lasts less time now when under about 100-120% damage, but actually lasts longer than it used to once damage gets above that. So that was arguably a buff, actually, since you most want those effects at those high percents to set up for a guaranteed smash attack to get a kill. Yeah, not sure if that's what they intended to do there.

Yeah I agree. I would add that its normal attacks dont have that much range and it has a pretty poor air game. Many aerials dont let you act after using them. The down b is easy to predict due to the moving pot. Neutral game is a big disadvantage for PP but it has a good moveset to keep the pressure coming. I dont see it being top tier material either. Still, I think it has a fun enough playstyle to main.