Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[meleebrawler]

Yeah, when thinking about how I would nerf Sonic, I draw a complete blank. I guess make Spindash less safe? That would probably help but seems like it only barely would.

He already kills quite late if he doesn't get an early edgeguard. I don't think nerfing his KO power would do anything to stop the issue people have with how campy his playstyle is. It might just encourage Sonic players to camp more until they get to those higher kill %s. Increasing his KO power, though, would only make him a stronger character and also do nothing to mitigate the camping issue.

His aerials are good and deserve more use than campy players give them. At the same time, though, they seem pretty fair? They're good combo tools, but I don't think Sonic having a solid combo game is much of an issue. Most characters do. And I don't think their hitboxes are anything egregious. As evidenced by Sparg0's Cloud and the recent rise of Corrin, swords are a decent answer to Sonic that we very may well see continue to get fleshed out.

So yeah, I'm at a loss for how one would mitigate Sonic's current strengths without an overhaul.

Having the highest base mobility in the game is just such a massive fundamental advantage. Brawl Sonic exemplifies that you can make everything else about him hilariously weak and he still ends up mid tier at worst.

Since you can't really make Sonic not be the fastest character in the game without angering fans, the only other option is to shrink the gap between the fastest and the slowest.

 

[NairWizard]

Mobility's stocks are at an all-time low, especially grounded mobility. In a way unprecedented for smash, several top characters for today's meta (Steve, Snake, Min Min, ROB, Samus, etc) set up obstacles that make it difficult to use your mobility to its fullest extent while many of the top characters themselves aren't particularly fast. At the same time, characters like Wario, ZSS, and Palutena are struggling at the top level the most they've ever struggled despite having crazy mobility options. I will always believe in the counterplay for the mobility side, but mobility mixups at close-to-mid range (Steve Minecart, Corrin dash to shield, Snake b-reverse) are key to the meta right now, rather than mid-to-long-range options like running, dash in and out, and double jump away.

Sonic's mobility isn't the issue today, it's Spindash. It's always been Spindash, in one way or another. Spindash is an invincible, unreactable burst that gives Sonic the ability to play from the corner without being in disadvantage. Corner disadvantage is so important against Sonic's archetype of character -- if you corner a similar character like Sheik you get a lot of reward out of it, but cornering Sonic often leads to nothing.

There are design solutions, and most of them are easy to implement should the dev team ever want to. While you can't make base Spindash reactable without deviating from the true spirit of the character, the easiest thing you can do is make consecutive Spindashes weaker and slower, similar to how your roll stales if you use multiple rolls in a row. Sonic shouldn't be able to spindash 6 times in a row with the same invincibility frames, startup, and endlag; it doesn't make him feel more like Sonic. Necessitating mixups makes it easier to punish Sonic for playing from the corner while retaining the spirit of having an unreactable invincible burst built into the kit.

You can even compensate him for this by giving him more mixups during the spindash itself -- he could do some kind of Brawl d-smash mid-spin, or use the spin hop as an attack if he bounces on his opponent's head, or build some traction while turning around and skidding if he holds the stick with a smash input.

There are definitely options to fix Sonic's design without making him slower or making anyone else faster. The one thing you do have to be wary of is how this change would affect Sonic at the casual level, especially in FFAs, but it's probably fine: casual Sonic would just resort to dash attack and f-smash, which are just as strong at that level and accomplish similar goals to spindash in FFA, and none of these changes diminish Sonic's ability to run away on big stages like Hyrule Castle, which is an amusing privilege that should be preserved for sure.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Mobility's stocks are at an all-time low, especially grounded mobility. In a way unprecedented for smash, several top characters for today's meta (Steve, Snake, Min Min, ROB, Samus, etc) set up obstacles that make it difficult to use your mobility to its fullest extent while many of the top characters themselves aren't particularly fast. At the same time, characters like Wario, ZSS, and Palutena are struggling at the top level the most they've ever struggled despite having crazy mobility options. I will always believe in the counterplay for the mobility side, but mobility mixups at close-to-mid range (Steve Minecart, Corrin dash to shield, Snake b-reverse) are key to the meta right now, rather than mid-to-long-range options like running, dash in and out, and double jump away.

And this applies to Incineroar to a lesser extent. He also has a good dash to shield, with tons of oos options. But the cream of the crop is obviously Alolan Whip. Not only is it powerful and armored, it does a lot to help offset his poor mobility. Dash attack also gives him a surprising amount of burst and is a good combo ender and KO tool.

 

[NairWizard]

Sonix just can't win a grands, huh?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

You know, this makes me think back to Tweek Talks when they were talking about characters like Corrin and Fox throwing out disjointed hitboxes on the top of a platform to stop Sonic from using spin dash freely. Was Light doing that?

Results for LVL UP Expo
1. Light
2. Sonix
3. MuteAce
4. Tweek
5. Capitancito
5. Jahzz0
7. Lui$
7. Chase
9. Cosmos
9. Mr. E
9. Lima
9. Wrath
13. Monte
13. Loaf
13. MFA
13. SocietyMan

 

[Rizen]

Light's really making a good case for being a top 5 player. If Acola doesn't start attending more events he could easily drop out of top 5.

On the subject of Sonic's spindash: there are characters who can deal with it and characters who can't. This relates back to what I was saying about needing to counterpick vs Sonic. Spindash has an absurdly skewed risk/reward ratio in Sonic's favor. The best most characters can do is shield but then the situation simply gets reset. It's a move that instantly puts Sonic in a kind of advantaged guessing game. It doesn't help that the move is invulnerable at the start so it can go through and punish projectiles.
There are ways around it however. The biggest one is to take Sonic to small stages. I facepalm everytime someone lets Sonic go to PS2. This is a big deal. Certain characters who have really good midrange zoning can also deal with it. For everybody else you have to shield, reset and try to chase Sonic down before he starts another.

 

[NairWizard]

You know, this makes me think back to Tweek Talks when they were talking about characters like Corrin and Fox throwing out disjointed hitboxes on the top of a platform to stop Sonic from using spin dash freely. Was Light doing that?

Nah, Light just leaves very limited windows of vulnerability to get hit by spindash. There's always either a hitbox or a shield somewhere. He full hops in neutral and either d-airs or n-airs. If he n-airs and lands on spindash he beats it, so that's neat, and if there's no spindash, he lands super fast and can shield after due to Fox's fall speed, or he can input a dash attack right away and that's f4 and leads to combos, so yeah, it's tough.

I mean, Sonix was literally parrying into jab to get hits in the MU. When you have to parry to get 9% you know things are rough.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Nah, Light just leaves very limited windows of vulnerability to get hit by spindash. There's always either a hitbox or a shield somewhere. He full hops in neutral and either d-airs or n-airs. If he n-airs and lands on spindash he beats it, so that's neat, and if there's no spindash, he lands super fast and can shield after due to Fox's fall speed, or he can input a dash attack right away and that's f4 and leads to combos, so yeah, it's tough.

I mean, Sonix was literally parrying into jab to get hits in the MU. When you have to parry to get 9% you know things are rough.

Thank you for the knowledge

Seeding for DELTA 8, a P Tier happening on Friday.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Nah, Light just leaves very limited windows of vulnerability to get hit by spindash. There's always either a hitbox or a shield somewhere. He full hops in neutral and either d-airs or n-airs. If he n-airs and lands on spindash he beats it, so that's neat, and if there's no spindash, he lands super fast and can shield after due to Fox's fall speed, or he can input a dash attack right away and that's f4 and leads to combos, so yeah, it's tough.

I mean, Sonix was literally parrying into jab to get hits in the MU. When you have to parry to get 9% you know things are rough.

That reminds me, I remember reading some time ago that Fox is a bad matchup for Sonic. Seems to have held true. Fox definitely has the speed to keep up well and a high damage output

 

[Rizen]

That reminds me, I remember reading some time ago that Fox is a bad matchup for Sonic. Seems to have held true. Fox definitely has the speed to keep up well and a high damage output

I can see that. Fox has slightly better frame data than Sonic and better kill setups, although Sonic beats him offstage pretty hard. The last sets of Light vs Sonix looked pretty even though. Sonix won the first set and almost took the 2nd in a game 5 last hit scenario.

One thing I will say is it looks like Diddy loses to Sonic. Tweek beat Sonix once but has lost the last few times. It also looks like Sephiroth is not the counterpick answer Tweek is looking for. Sephiroth is too slow to effectively wall opponents; he's forced to retreat after his sword is shielded because he isn't fast enough to strike again before getting punished. I've noticed this with Ken's Sephiroth too. Sephiroth just isn't that good of a character. Being as light as Kirby really felt uncalled for.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I can see that. Fox has slightly better frame data than Sonic and better kill setups, although Sonic beats him offstage pretty hard. The last sets of Light vs Sonix looked pretty even though. Sonix won the first set and almost took the 2nd in a game 5 last hit scenario.

One thing I will say is it looks like Diddy loses to Sonic. Tweek beat Sonix once but has lost the last few times. It also looks like Sephiroth is not the counterpick answer Tweek is looking for. Sephiroth is too slow to effectively wall opponents; he's forced to retreat after his sword is shielded because he isn't fast enough to strike again before getting punished. I've noticed this with Ken's Sephiroth too. Sephiroth just isn't that good of a character. Being as light as Kirby really felt uncalled for.

Agreed. I've put a decent chunk of time into Seph and it really feels like the sluggishness holds him back a lot.

 

[Frihetsanka]

As a former Sephiroth main, it saddens me to say that the character is likely mid tier... They really could've tweaked wing a bit more, it's so awkward to lose wing at the final stock, and sometimes not even get wing or get it right before you die, etc. Making wing spawn 10-15% earlier and making him never lose it on his final stock would probably push him into high tier. Still, Tweek could probably use Sephiroth to cover some of Diddy Kong's bad MUs, if Tweek doesn't want to solo main Diddy Kong or pick up some other secondary. Diddy Kong seems like a strong character with some troubling MUs.

 

[NairWizard]

Sephiroth is good enough to hang, just like most of the swordies in this game; definitely not a bad character at all, but he's missing the right player playing him.

If MKLeo, for example, actually played Sephiroth you would see Sephiroth in a lot of top 8s and even winning some events.

Sephiroth's status right now is what Fox would be without Light, or Sonic would be without Sonix. Without Sonix we'd see KEN struggling at a bunch of events and think, "well, Sonic has clear weaknesses, obviously not quite good enough to be top tier despite spindash, but maybe pushing high tier," and without Light no one would ever be thinking about Fox.



Sephiroth does just fine against Snake, ROB, Steve, all the heavies, other swordies (beating Corrin, who is another top meta threat right now), many zoners, random characters who are on the come-up like Bayonetta, popular characters like Falco (+2), etc.


Sure, he loses to Fox/Roy/Diddy/Joker/ZSS, but who cares? Every good character has tough MUs against roughly 10% of the cast. You can overcome a few -1s with enough patience. We see Miya and SHADIC and sparg0 do it all the time with their mains.


Space your f-air and f-tilt horizontally, camp n-air on platform at percents where you can die before you get wing, mix up between retreating up-air and b-air to condition into b-reverse Counter, use orbs in advantage only, bladedash generously against slower characters, use d-tilt to low profile sword characters and dash attack against short characters, and bam. Your Sephiroth can play neutral.

What is this grab into up-throw in neutral nonsense? Man, it just hurts to see.

Advantage is easy and Tweek is good at it, so no need to comment there.


Overall, though, even without Wing, Sephiroth is fast, has huge disjointed range, and a good recovery -- what other character has the combination of all three? Not a single one (Acceleratle Hero or Limit Cloud aside).