Tag Archives: Smash

Smash Ultimate, Patch 11.0, and Pyra/Mythra

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

A lot has happened since I last talked anything smash related on the blog, since my inability to plan ahead has been perpetually plaguing me for some time now, I figured it would be worth talking about. So without mincing words to much, let us get started.

Pyra and Mythra Have Arrived!

For those who had not heard yet, the newest fighters in Smash Ultimate are Mythra and Pyra of “Xenoblade Chronicles 2.” While the two swordswomen are separate characters, they function much like the Shiek/Zelda of old, with players being able to shift freely between them using their down special.

The two have a very distinct contrast, with Mythra boasting most of the speed and combo potential, while Pyra hold the raw kill power which can consistently K.O. opponents below 100%, with moves like her side smash, up special, and neutral special. Most pro players thus far have said that Mythra feels like the stronger character overall, although players like T1’s MKLeo have warned people not to sleep on Pyra either. Regardless of which one is actually better, most agree that smash’s newest addition is likely to end up at the top of most tier lists.

Personally, I would have to agree. After doing labing so very basic combos and measuring the kill power of these two, their combination as one character gives players the freedom to adapt to a number of situations, and feel strong in almost every scenario. Their one flaw in their somewhat mediocre recovery, but even that feels incredibly hard to punish with sufficient practice. Its hard to say if they will end up as the best, but, at least for now, they definitely have their spot in that conversation. Though, it will be much easier to draw a more accurate picture once results start coming in.

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11.0 Balance Changes: We Got Nerfs?!

It feels as though Nintendo’s philosophy for most of the balance changes thus far has been to buff weaker characters as opposed to nerfing higher performing ones. Still, with the release of the 11.0 patch they did apply some significant nerfs to some of the characters considered top tier, most notably Joker, Palutena, and Wario.

As for Joker, the characters side special now has more lag, along with the inactive version of his Arsene counter. Palutena received a few nerfs as well, with her forward aerial now having more landing lag, making it slightly less safe on shield, as well as her dash attack receiving more end lag. In addition, her standing grab range now has less range. Wario was arguably hit the hardest, as his most powerful, down special, now comes out slower in its third and final versions. As well, his up-tilt attack now has less active frames, making it harder to hit opponents with. If you would like to visual representations of all the changes, check out the video by Beefy Smash Dudes on the latest patch.

All of these felt like pretty reasonably changes, as these characters, even with the nerfs, as still going to be extremely good. The changes, for the most part, just help to reel in people’s ability to spam moves without getting punished. Wario, though, feels like he might just drop out of top tier entirely. While I am not super familiar with how badly this affects his ability to combo, Waft often felt like a free kill that your opponent could just cash in on after a certain amount of time had passed. To a certain extent this also rewards a more passive playstyle, as you could just sit back and charge up waft without much commitment to any specific play. Now it seems as if those combos are going to be a bit more situational, and might require Wario players to fish for them a bit harder with things like falling up air and falling neutral air.

Also, Min Min got nerfed thank god!

One character that has remained almost untouched since the games release, however, is Pikachu. This is surprising considering how many top players have voiced there opinion on the character’s status as the best in the game, with many of those same players calling for changes to the character. The change most would like to see implemented is what is referred to as “pancaking,” or the flattening of the characters model during certain moves, to the point where he becomes nearly impossible to hit. This creates many frustrating situations where an option that would normally be punishable for whiffing becomes functionally unpunishable, one example being Pikachu’s back aerial, which makes him almost entirely flat when landed.

These nerfs to to other top characters, combined with Pikachu’s unchanged kit not only put him more in the conversation of best, but also creates frustration within the community, as it makes it feel to many as if the balance team is not really listening.

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#UnbanNairo

Some not at all familiar with the smash scene might have seen this trending on Twitter, as the top player Nairo was accused by Captain Zack during the summer of last year of being pressured into oral sex when he was 15 and Nairo was 20. However, Nairo released a statement a few months later saying that he was dealing with the situation in court and compiling evidence to prove his innocence after originally apologizing for the situation.

After Nairo released a document with such evidence, along with corroboration from many top players who were at the event which these events took place, many began calling for his re-entry into the community, along with permanently banning Captain Zack. This culminated into the movement #unbanNairo, which was started with the hopes of allowing him back into the community and getting his currently banned Twitch channel unbanned.

Given all of what we now know in hindsight, I will say a couple of things. First, Nairo definitely did not do himself any favors by apologizing immediately. While he never actually admitted guilt, the apology definitely came off that way. It would have been much better for himself if he had waited to collect his thoughts and then spoken about it afterward. Still, regardless of what he did or did not admit to, there is absolutely no reason to have him stay banned considering what has been brought to light.

Now, do not mistake this for me saying that sexual relations with children are ok. However, Captain Zack was not the one being violated here, and especially considering what is also known about his relationship with Ally, and how he purposefully manipulated him during tournaments, the evidence of Nairo’s having been approached by Captain Zack is all but apparent. So, yeah, #unbainNairo


There is a lot in here worth discussing, so please let me know any of your thoughts down in the comments below.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

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A Quick Update Because I am Incredibly lazy

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

Hey friendos! So, I know I haven’t put out any kind of update in a while and I feel really bad about that, because I said that I would make them a regular thing. But, to be honest, every time I establish an actual time window, I never actually find that much to write about. So at this point I think I’m just going to limit update to whenever I have something important going on, which might mean they come more or less often depending on what’s been going on. Speaking of what’s been going on:

Streaming!

Streaming was always something that looked interesting but I never really had the tools to do. Well, now that I have a half-way decent computer, I can do just that, and I have been. I’ve only had a few streams so far, and so far the streams have just consisted of Hearthstone and…well, yeah just that. However, I do have plans to stream other stuff, plus if there is something specifically people would like to see from me, I am more than happy to hear suggestions. Its been more so just something fun to do while I am sitting at home, but if I definitely wouldn’t be mad if you dropped a follow.

Writing Poetry

I have found out something extremely important about myself over the last couple of months. It is something that I think I knew about myself but just did not want to admit: I hate writing longer things. As much as I enjoy writing and will probably continue to do it for the rest of my life, unless I am getting paid to do it, the chances of me finishing a novel are pretty slim. My attention span is not long, so it takes me a while to even finish one project. Poetry works for me because I can spend more time obsessing over specific lines making sure they are perfect, which, if I tried to do with an actual novel, I would literally never finish.

So, because of this, I am spending most of my time writing on poetry and flash fiction. Currently I have plans to enter a number competitions, and I will also be looking for journals to submit to as well. If any of you know of journals that are looking for poetry submissions, feel free to leave those links in the comments as well.

Nintendo is a Trash Company

I know this isn’t as important to most of you reading this, but I want to bring to light to it anyway. For those who do not know, Super Smash Brothers has been around for a long time, and for a large part of its history, there has been a strong grassroots competitive scene for all of its games, even fan modes like Project M. Recently, Nintendo has become a lot more active in shutting down events and organizations it does not like, despite the fact that they have pretty much no infrastructure of their own for a competitive community.

Now, I totally understand that, as the publisher of Super Smash Bros, they have full rights to green light broadcasts and distribution, as well as shut down whatever they do not like, even without any justification. However, apart from being a bad business decision, the shutting down of events related to both Melee and Ultimate because the competitive scene not being how they envisioned people to enjoy the game just feels wrong. Competitive players of these games are usually the most dedicated fans, and many of them have made it their livelihood to play and create content for these games.

Basically what I’m saying is that if you care at all about smash, it might be worth sharing some support on social media. Most people have been using #freemelee and #savesmash. The idea is to just create enough noise that eventually Nintendo will have to address it in some capacity.

Getting Back into Seasonal Anime

While I still do not want it to be the entire focus of this blog, I do plan on getting back into seasonal watching. It is still enjoyable to watch a show while its airing and talk about it with others. Here are some of the shows I plan on watching:

  • The Promised Neverland 2
  • Log Horizon Season 3
  • Dr. Stone Season 2
  • Beastars Season 2
  • 2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volleyball-bu

So, if you are planning on watching any of these, stick around for coverage.


If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

Animated Observations Update #3

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

First off, I want to just say once again thank you to everyone who reads my work here one Animated Observations. I started this blog as a way to escape the real world and deal with my depression in a more manageable way. Since then, I’ve gone through a few name changes, but I have also managed to deal with a lot of my problems from when I started. I am two years in and approaching almost 300 followers, which is crazy to think about. Of course, I probably would be writing stuff even if I did not have an audience, but its always nice to have people willing to levy criticism. So, again, thank you all. With that said though, here is everything I have to update you all on this month.

Solidly Liquid (Sorry, I need the self promo)

I know I have mentioned it a lot already, but If you have not yet, you should check out my new writing blog, Solidly liquid, and follow the blog on social media. It would be a big help in getting my writing out there. I post at least once a week. Right now, I have been focusing mainly on poetry, but I hope to add some other stuff there in the future.

Seasonal Anime and Doing My Own Thing

I have had a lot of problems with balancing both relevant topics and my own creative endeavors, but as of now I am just gonna drop the balancing act and focus on the things I want to write about. Tbh, I was never really that good at it anyway.

All this really means at this point is that any of the seasonal first impressions and episode reactions will just get replaced by other things. Apologies to those who were looking for more seasonal content to consume, It’s just not what I enjoy writing about. I will still probably keep up on some of the seasonal shows, just will not be writing about them anymore.

My New Hobbie: SMASHing

Ok, bad joke. But yeah, I’ve been playing/watching a lot of competitive smash, and I have really been enjoying it. Can’t say I am particularly good, but am definitely learning a lot the more I play. I have also started going to weeklies in my area, and I also got to try commentating, which was a lot of fun.

Admittedly, since I am a pretty emotional personal, losing hits pretty hard, but overall its been a great experience and the people at my weeklies are cool for the most part.

School and Overall Content

College is something I have found, even doing it part time, can take away a lot of your ability to do what you want, which is why doing it full time is probably going to require most of my attention. That being said, it probably means that overall content on this blog is going to be a lot lower. Of course, I would still like to try and be as consistent as possible, so I am going to set myself to a goal of at least one post a week, even when college gets busy.

I start on the 21st of next month, so I still have a bit of time, but I felt it would be better to let you all know now.


What anime have you all been enjoying lately? Let me know in the comments below.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!