I never thought "Players began to secondary Sephiroth in order to counter Steve from Minecraft" would be a sentence that someone would say unironically.
You didn't? I knew from the moment he was announced that he would be either too strong, or too weak. No amount of incremental changes can fix a character like this. Gimmick characters end up with problems like this all of the time.
Steve is broken because he forces you to dangerously approach. He literally skips the neutral game and puts you in disadvantage by default. Your only option is to play high risk/medium reward by being aggressive. However, Steve is always one step ahead of you, because he makes you play the game on his terms. Ultimate's metagame revolves around punishing aggression and not approaching. Steve exploits this more than anyone.
Forcing approaches isn't new to Ultimate or even Smash as a whole. Covering landings is technically forcing an approach because you need to touch the ground to use your landing combos. There's been worse offenders of forcing approaches than Steve in my opinon. What makes Steve more controversal than them is that he plays so wildly differently than the other characters that force an approach. You can't rush down and press your Nair or you'll eat an Up-smash. Let's take another bait and punish fighter, Piranha Plant. He can juggle you to 80% off a frame 1 projectile trap, he can trap you at ledge if you're too fast picking an option, and smoke cloud forces a reaction that deals 50% if he guesses correctly. And he's mid-tier. Balanced by being a heavywait trapper. Luigi kills you off a single grab, has a frustrating two-frame, and has 2 combo breakers. And he's mid-tier for his predictable gameplan and terrible air speed. Kazuya has a DLC meter, intangibility on all input moves, and kills you if you crumple on FD. And he's no better than than the other shotos. Steve has heavyweight smashes after 1-2 minutes, anti-airs your bad DI for 60-80%, and has no projectiles without some decent supply of iron. Everything with Steve has a downside. Steve wants blocks? No stage control. Steve wants a projectile? You better risk an approach. Steve wants to camp offstage? That crafting table respawn is going to bite your resources. All Steves moves are about resource management. He's built around it. It's not as different than playing agaist hero's MP. Glance at it when you're thrown offstage to see how desperate he is, swordies can punch through his walls, and his sword is smaller than some brawler disjoints. Besides, banning a whole character was a huge deal even in Brawl. Saying "No, you can't play your 1,000 hours character" isn't something you can decide in such a short period of time. People love the characters they play because they resonated best with this one over the 80+ other ones. Banning a character needs time.
@@pumpkinjack1117 The thing about steve is he can easilly transition from one skillset to another in the game, mostly thanks to Block being OP. Steve wants blocks? If the player is smart with reasource management he can easilly zone the enemy out with 3 blocks to let him get a lot more. Risk Approaching with a Projectile? Steve chooses when he approached, can force the enemy into predictable movement patterns even without the projectile. Camping Offstage is limited in how long he can do it, but he can still do it far longer then anyone else; even ariel characters like Jiggs. The hero comparison shows just how bad this entire argument is. Hero's MP recharges overtime and needs to be spent to do anything. The Hero player has to carefully manage the reasource since it isn't limitless or easy to replace, and can completely gimp his recovery and kill power. Hero is also limited in what he can do, most of his spells are either charge based with higher charges using more MP; or randomly avaliable so he doesn't have full access to his entire kit. Steve's Blocks are both far easier to replace (He just has to get space, and he is very good at making space), nigh limitless in application, and different resources are used in different ways. Stone, Wood and Dirt get used for blocks first, Diamond and Gold Weapons, and Iron for the iron Attacks. Sure thats more to manage, but it also means he can use powerful attacks that use one resource with the remaining resource for the others being fine. Steve's issue is ultimately that he gets such massive rewards for such little risk. If he was exploitable like your saying he wouldn't be dominating competetive. I am not sure if its reached the point were a ban is warranted; but the character has been pretty bad for competitive.
@@pumpkinjack1117 I think the argument for banning him isn't that he can't be handled at all by a skilled player with another top tier (definitely not the case that every tournament major is won by a Steve after all), but that he is over-centralizing in the metagame. Steve's blocks just straight up invalidate certain playstyles/characters. As such the simple presence of Steve in the metagame means that there is less variety of styles and characters that will be seen at tournaments, as it simply isn't viable to throw all your time into solo maining something that Steve can essentially just ignore when (as this video points out) like 10-15% of players you see in bracket will be Steves. Even if you do try to persevere, at the very least this means you will have to learn and run a secondary just to be able to (maybe) deal with Steve- and again as the video states even characters who should on paper be good against him (Cloud and Seph) cannot do this consistently. TLDR? The Metagame has a wider variety of valid strategies, characters and playstyles if you just remove Steve from it, and thus it would be a healthier, more fun and more interesting Meta for players and spectators alike.
I think that Steve exemplifies a common problem in game design/balance: If you make a character with huge strategic depth and flexibility (with blocks and such), that tends to give them a high skill ceiling. If you then give them the numbers to be accessible to mere mortals, that makes them OP at the highest level of play.
@bruhskyy ssbu Steve is one of the few borderline impossible matchups in the game I play Steve and fighting against little Mac makes me feel so bad for Mac players.
The fact that the "strongest" characters in the last 3 games are: - The most powerful swordsman in Popstar - A witch with a pact with a demon - Minecraft Steve is immensely funny to me.
Let's not forgot the best character two games before the games you just mentioned: an electric mouse that isn't even in its most powerful form. Even Melee has a funny best character: a fox that has no physical feats besides being good at flying a plane.
Well tbh Steve is pretty powerful in his game since he can carry a lot of blocks of gold while wearing an armor with ease and let's not forget he can puch trees without ever feeling pain
@@supersonic_305 Melee Kirby is lightweight, floaty, lacks kill options, weak throws (one can literally take _him_ to the kill zone) and just generally has bad frame data overall.
He also circumvents pretty much all the normal weaknesses of low-mobility characters, being that his best combos require very minimal movement and he can close distance easily using blocks and minecart.
@@miwiarts lol that's not an objective or win condition in Ultimate. As long as you have good frame data and a good moveset you don't need to worry about movement.
@@grotto185 Custom balancing is just really hard to get all the TOs and such to agree on. Also it makes it hard to practices vs custom balance since it's not available online.
I have nightmares of a future major grand finals starting with two Steves building walls and just mining on opposite sides of the screen with no effort made to engage invoking that travesty with two Bayo's holding guns on opposite sides of the screen.
that would be so funny to see again ngl. I would die laughing if that were the case cuz it would remind me of that set in smash 4 where I couldn't help but laugh at how unprepared everyone was when that happened. everyone freaked out, the TO had to LITERALLY bring up the rules for the event and forcing the players to play the game, all the while both players were kinda just goofing around not even remotely looking like they wanted to take the set seriously. seeing a similar event in ultimate with steve will be hilarious cuz it would be a sign that no one has learned anything lol.
@@thesonicslasher75 what is the point of it though? is it steve players protesting to ban their OWN character? it all makes no sense to me. the only way i can tell is that salem and captain zack wanted to get bayo banned so they pulled that stunt?
@@johnmarkson1990 oddly enough it wasn't salem at all that pulled that stunt with zack it was lima and zack in grands and both but moreso on lima's side has stated that the whole stunt was done not as a means for people to ban bayo, but because they both played together a lot and wanted to have fun during their set, essentially they were playing friendlies during a serious match, on top of that because they were friends who played a lot they also said that they play against one another the best when they have fun, hence why during it 1 of them even homie stocked after an unfortunate SD.
@@johnmarkson1990 as for the point of it happening again with steve, I mean I would just find it funny more than anything due to how ironic it would be, but considering 1 of the best steve's in onin even wants his own character banned and the overall hate the character has gotten, makes it feel like the steve players can live with or without the character at least basing it off of how they act when a ban to their character is mentioned, now do I feel the character should be banned is a different thing entirely. but based on what I've seen in vods and interviews with steve mains, they seem to not care too much if the character is banned or not. treating the whole ban steve debate as more of a joke than anything.
The moment I saw Steve’s reveal I knew he was broken. After playing rivals of aether seriously for a year I realized how incredible the option to place blocks are. In essence he’s built like a rivals character but put in smash bros. That makes him incredibly overpowered. We will soon see if there are work arounds but if there isn’t and he just dominates ppl need to just pull the plug. Lack of viewership and interest kills a scene.
I also think saying “sm4sh bayonetta and brawl meta knight weren’t banned” is a bad excuse to not ban a character. The general consensus among melee and ultimate players is that sm4sh bayo and brawl meta knight (and probably brawl ice climbers as well tbh) should of been banned. Plus, saying that “sm4sh bayo and brawl meta knight weren’t banned so steve shouldn’t be” comes off as saying that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes. Since not banning bayo or meta knight were well…mistakes. I know sm4sh would of been replaced by ultimate regardless, but they still would of gotten more interest and viewership if they had banned Bayonetta. And frankly, It’ll be much easier to recover lost viewership if we just pull the plug and ban steve right now.
It's sad yall stuck with Nintendo. If you had an actual FGC dev there'd just be a patch to nerf him and then poof, problem gone. Like Leroy in Tekken. Instead yall stuck back here in 1996 with Nintendo who don't do shit.
My biggest question when it comes to Steve's design remains: why can he place blocks on thin air? If he had to place a block as it works in Minecraft, where it must be connected to the stage or another block, that would be a sensible limitation to his ability to create platforms, and would be more faithful to the game of origin, which certainly seems to have been a priority for at least the last several DLC fighters.
My guess is because if it did follow Minecraft’s rule of block placing it could be too limiting for Steve. If Steve followed minecrafts rules of block placing he would only be able to build Up, and to the side, and off the stage ledge. Not having a building mechanic would feel wrong since it’s a core part of Minecraft. So they probably figured it would be better that way even though it seems OP, they balance the block placement by having them break really fast and by having stronger blocks take time to even get (Mining). Even further iron being the strongest block you can place is a balancing feature since placing iron blocks can be “Wasteful” since you need iron for Certain attacks, and vice versa.
It's because placing a block is one the same button as mining, so they had the blocks be on air and mining be on the ground so the game can differentiate the two.
Perhaps they could nerf this by automatically placing blocks would instantly place blocks connecting to the stage. Not sure about how it would work, but essentially it would mean that going for huge combos like that or air stalling would use up way more blocks than usual. He would still be able to block in air, but if he did it 5 blocks high, he would use 5 blocks. Again I know this might make some parts of him more annoying, but I think it would actually make his limited resources matter much more when he can’t place as many blocks.
Considering that Sephiroth never uses Meagflare or Gigaflare in FFVII and Kazuya has intangible on multiple moves. It seems midair block placing is a creative liberty to make the character function better rather than a reference.
My question is, why did it take so long for people to figure out how busted Steve is? I hadn't heard much about him at all until a few months ago when people were calling for him to be banned. Felt like it came out of nowhere.
Wi-Fi meta. Quick, highly technical characters like Steve are punished by the extra latency - its one of the reasons Joker kind of disapeared, for example.
Earlier this year everyone was hating on Aegis. People were comparing them to Bayo and talking about how they are ruining the game and stuff. I remember there were quite a few videos of Steves dunking on Aegis and getting praised. Then one day Steve (and Kazuya) is the bane of the community. It's not even some gradual shift, it happened within a span of 2 days.
I've thought of Steve as a heavy like Donkey Kong that ignores all the weaknesses associated with being a heavy. He has a good combo game, frame data, kill options. His recovery is incredibly safe. And despite having a horrible dash and air speed, he can still force a fight by mining, and if they still ignore him he can use minecart, anvil or elytra to burst in. He's broken
Steve is the definition of an overtuned character. Like seriously why does he even need a kill throw when he has 100 kill options that are all safe and kill at like 70-80. He's a combo character that can kill early that can camp and zone that can break the rules of the game that also has a comeback mechanic in diamond.
Creates terrain in a platform fighter, has an overtuned moveset, can attain kill power, frame data and mobility incentivized through no interaction. People love and/or grew up with Minecraft
Steve reminds me of what someone said about Pac-Man once: You spend all this time fighting to get in on them, but their frame data is actually good so all you won yourselves was a "fair" fight, not pushing them into disadvantage after you achieved overcoming their obstacles.
With the difference that pacman's hydrant is way less oppressive than blocks and that his attacks do significantly less knockback on average, but he has actually decent mobility to compensate.
Steve's archetype is that of a Setup Character. The name varies in my experience, as not many people talk about them and not many games really have them. The idea is that a setup character is theoretically good at everything, but only get that strong if you let them set everything up. Steve's fundamental balance issue is that he sets everything up at once, in a second or two, with the same extremely safe action.
Well you have to be extremely careful with setup characters. They either don't have anything to defend themselves with while they're building up and people kick them into next tuesday like it's nothing. Or, they do have tools from the get-go to give them a chance to get super powerful, and now they're S++ and completely untouchable. It's super difficult to find that inbetween
The worst part of Steve is that the pro Smash players comunity brought this on themselves. I will never understand the madness that was people claiming Steve was low tier and Sephiroth was top tier. Me and all my friends were starting to think it was some sort of conspiracy. Tons of pro Smash players like Dabuz and Izaw were saying he was low tier, making laughably bad videos about him. Many of my other favorite Smash players like them were all saying the same thing. Few people were even willing to put him in high tier, and it couldn't have been more obvious that he was top tier. Instead, they should have been trying to push his meta as fast as possible so people took notice and nerfed Steve appropriately.
Pro Smash players are weirdos. They're always conspiring behind the scenes. It's so annoying. I don't get it. Pretty sure they script tournament wins as well.
Omuatsu, a Japanese Min Min player, released a great video on Steve counterplay that I recommend you check out. That being said, that video also hints at some of Steve's moves being impossible to directly counter. To paraphrase two things he said, don't assume you can ever punish f-air and b-air because of the autocancel window, and you're screwed if you get grabbed by his Minecart. Also, while he was explaining stage picks, I couldn't help but feel sad that he seemed to miss the fact that Steve players can just ban Smashville and Town & City (Steve's supposed worst stages) in tournaments. However, that's the only criticism I have about the video.
I think it's not hard to understand why Steve is super busted. He's got pretty crazy good performance at almost every aspect. His moves have excellent famedata, he has super easy comically high damage combos, he has a plethora of reliable and safe kill moves that kill insanely early and even moreso with diamond. Anvil and Minecart make his disadvantage insane, mobility great and give him the ability to give pressure from most ranges and directions. And of course block makes him able to camp, be hard to kill, traps people and can gimp and stall offstage in impossible ways. He doesn't even need to go and risk his neck since he can sit back and mine, forcing the opponent to come in and make mistakes he can exploit instead. What I find more interesting is the discussion of is he so broken that he's a problem or is he counterable enough by enough of the cast that people just need to git gud and Steve's immense power will die down to normal levels. His biggest weakness is that early on before he can mine he's got relatively few tools. With greatly improved block breaking and early pressure it's been seen that you can get in his face and mess him up well. But his mining is somewhat inevitable if you don't take all 3 stocks super early. His inventory stays between stocks as does his progress to diamond. To pull this off cleanly you have to let him almost never touch the floor, while he just needs to get you off his back for a few seconds to get loaded up. The other main thing is his best tools like minecart and anvil burn through resources. If you can pressure him to not mine constantly as well as play around and force him to burn his resources he can end up suddenly stuck without his best escape and mobility tools. There is without a doubt a lot more counterplay to be developed. On the other hand, Steve's potential to get stronger is just as bottomless. He's got a lot of tech that isn't even in use by the top players much yet. He's also pretty capable even without his best tools. He's still plenty dangerous even with wood and some table scraps, he just actually has to play the game. Even as more people learn counter tech and the matchup, I think Steve is without a doubt the most dangerous character with most remaining untapped potential. I think some people are too confident all his stuff will have solutions. It might not and he still definitely needs to be kept an eye on. If anyone is going to run away with the game, it's probably him.
his progress to diamond does NOT stick between stocks, it might just seem like that because the opponent plays more defensive, giving him more time to mine. Keep up the offensive and he might not get diamonds at all.
I’m a Steve main and I really appreciate this in depth take on Steve thanks for not just being like oh he’s super busted. One thing I would say is that until you really play as Steve you won’t learn the stress and constant disadvantages Steve puts himself in to gain resources. Constantly thinking about the next stock, what moves they can throw out depending on the durability of their item. Will they sacrifice moves to be able to have a chance in the next stock? And if they do a lot of Steve play relies on them not messing up when they have the resources because if they do lose that stock with diamond quick it can often be game over even with stocks to spare. He’s so in depth and the community is so quick to be like oh he’s busted, no credit to my Steve mains out there
@@carrymcbarry but like, he is super busted though. It's not as bad as Bayo in Sm4sh, cause she would win of just one interaction, but he's gonna get close. He's not even close to being fully optimized yet. This Steve meta is gonna get worse before it gets better.
If they ever change their minds and decide to patch the game again (which I hope they do, Steve is way too overtuned and Pit is still dysfunctional), it would be a great start to make his inventory reset to game start on death. That would not only allow him to be limited on iron and not able to keep diamonds post death, but it would be true to the game too. Without a special setting you drop your inventory whenever you die in Minecraft. Doing the same in Smash would make pressuring Steve far more rewarding and actually possible. He would need other nerfs but that alone would be a great start.
A really good counter to Steve meta right now is playing Batman, since he never really has to deal with Steve stuff. If you don't like DC you can also try Bugs Finn or Shaggy.
With how strong Steve is, it makes me glad I play Chrom. Being able to hit Steve through blocks, or being able to destroy them very safely with down tilt is so good. Not to mention Chrom's jab just kinda shutting down almost everything Steve wants to do
Just think about this, in regards to Steve's in-game stage editor: We ban stages that are not considered fair, but we allow a character that can literally temporarily change a stage to suit them. eg: Some stages are banned because they mess with some character's recoveries but we allow a character that can edit the stage to place blocks at the ledge that literally prevents some characters making to back to stage. Some stages are banned cause of bad platform placement but we allow a character that can make his own platforms wherever he wants. Some stages are banned because they have hazards but we allow a character that can make his own stage hazards.
You Also need to Ban Thins that Some of the items As and the gimmicks for the characters that do that too if your banning stages because of that how about the items
I think the best architype steve represents in FGC terminology is that of a set play character. Set play characters generally have very strong options provided that they "set up" before engaging (charging, gathering resources, etc). Given the general disconnect smash bros has from the FGC and the over reliance on rush down, I don't think they were ready to experience this particular play style. the only other character I could think of that is similar to steve would be pacman in terms of play style.
Would olimar very slightly fall into this category too? The olimar meta seems to have the end goal of getting two purples, but in the meantime they play the game normally.
@@purplyoshi6754 I would say yes but there's no rule that says any given character has to be one type, not just for smash bros but fighting games as a whole.
Lol it's funny because when I picked up Steve I did it just because I'm an avid Minecraft player. (I also love how close it is to actual Minecraft)This is when I first started playing smash. Now that I have been playing for a while, they definitely need to nerf him. Either reduce some of his kill power, or increase his setup time. It's way to easy to setup things, especially with muscle memory. That's why Steve can cover nearly all options, especially if you have good resources.
In vain of nerfs, I really want to see them remove his ability to set off TnT with down-smash without getting hurt himself. Every other explosive hurts both parties in range always. that has always bugged me
@@Omnirose Making his airdodge frame 4 would do the trick. That would also give him a real vulnerability in being easier to combo than most middleweights. If he's going to have Ike's kill power then he should also have Ike's awful airdodge.
I'd personally go with increasing setup time. I think Steve's meant to be OP if you get everything set up properly, so diamond killpower, for example, isn't too big an issue in a vacuum. The issue is that he gets diamonds easily and accidentally while also setting up literally everything else he needs.
Coming from a casual spectator that barely plays Smash. I feel Steve is the direct result of what happens when you put a Rivals of Aether character in Ultimate. The way that he can use all of his tools in tandem with one another to completely lock down parts of the stage and greatly expand his threat bubble and damage is something that most of the cast just can’t do. And if they can it’s much more limited in comparison. It’s kinda true what they say, Steve simply isn’t playing the same game that the rest of the cast does. However I must say that for all of the grief he gives players, I don’t believe he’s gonna kill the game and he certainly doesn’t need to be banned (at least not now). Like, if other fighting games can deal with absurdly broken shit and still harbor a healthy competitive scene I’m positive the Ultimate community can do the same. Just gotta give players time to develop counterplay and if absolutely nothing changes in a year or so then maaaaybe reconsider.
From the beginning, I knew Steve would dominate the competitive scene. Though, at first, people didn't like him, I knew he had a high skill floor but a TOWERING skill ceiling. People are just now reaching higher above that skill floor
I think Shulk is a very fair and interesting comparison. They both have neutral Bs that completely warp the game in a similar way. Wall on back is alot like shield art, block in air is alot like jump art etc. However they rely heavily on micro managing that mechanic to counteract weaknesses like poor jump height. To be fair though there is a major mechanical difference beyond steve just having better numbers than shulk, and that's steve's drawbacks is tied to the time before combat, where shulks drawbacks are tied to combat allowing for more reactive punishment. For example smash art being symmetrical vs diamond charging like clouds limit.
It's such a freaking piss-take that Meta Knight, Pit, and Charizard aren't allowed to glide anymore, but suddenly gliding is allowed again in Smash Ultimate now that Mr DLC Privilege exists? And only he can do it? What a load.
To be fair, Steve has a few more combat options once you get a bit more creative... and look into the Minecraft PvP Scene where certain tactics in that area include what we have seen in the Smash Moveset such as using a Fishing Rod, Flint & Steel to light fires on the ground, and using Lava Buckets as well as what we haven't seen such as Bows, Crossbows, Ender Pearls, Cobwebs to slow foes, and Potions.
I remember speculating on the school playground about what Steve's moveset would be if he was added to Smash 4, and he was my #2 pick all the way up to October 2020 (#1 was Waluigi because I just assumed that Minecraft was too far a stretch for Smash) In my wildest dreams I never could have imagined that he would go on to become Ultimate's greatest villain
I absolutely love Sora, his aerial potential is unmatched and he has (in my opinion) the best recovery options in the game. The problem is, you can kill him at 50 and most soras don’t utilize his full set and end up reusing the same 3 moves, making him really easy to read and punish, especially sideb. To me, Sora is a character with a high a skill floor that many don’t want to try and meet because they could get the same results with a character that’s easier to learn, although they might not have as much payoff in the long term.
Because he just came out? Steve only saw results this year and he was out for a year more than Sora. Sora needs time, it is not that nobody plays him at all, nonody plays him yet
I don't like him because of his animations and phrases, he's too goofy for me as well as KKR (I like serious characters like ZSS, Snake, Kazuya, etc. Just personal preferences) but outside of smash he has one of the best lore I've ever seen in videogames for real
To this day, Steve makes me genuinely angry. I remember saying he would be a cancer online, and yeah, depending on your character, steve can just throw you off platform and build a ceiling while you recover, gimping your stock. The only thing more broken than him is my controller.
How did anyone ever think making a moveset for Steve wasn't feasible. We had the Animal Crossing Villager in Smash on the Wii U. After that point it should be obvious that Sakurai and his team could make a moveset for anyone, and yet there was still debate on it.
I mean i knew a lot of people who thought hed just play like Link. Swords and bows and maybe a fishing rod grab. Lot of boring stuff. Those people were Wrong and Cowards
That's what happens when a fanbase condescendingly calls a game "kid-shit". Since I was 11, when Minecraft was still young, I had always been afraid of PvP. You think Steve is broken in Smash? Imagine getting spawn-killed the moment you join a server by grown ass men who took their anger out on kids online instead of their own children. But.imagine though, what if Steve in Dmash had access to redstone?
Another issue is that even when you take a stock the game gives him more materials and the invincibility frames allow him to craft an upgraded (usually diamond) tool for free. So even when you actually take a stock the Steve player able to reset if not upgrade his power output without you being able to do anything about it.
Imagine if ff7 was real… and you have Steve from Minecraft saving the world from Sephiroth destroying the planet and all of mankind and becoming a god.
imo, Steve is pretty easy to overcome as long as you don't play the game like a platform fighter but rather a 2D fighter. Essentially, you want to always go for on-stage kills and never let him go far away from you (which even includes sending him launching). It's a difficult concept to grasp that really revolves around changing your entire way of thinking, but it works. In addition, Hero is pretty strong against Steve, as Hero's powerful spells and Kazap can not only hit through Steve's weak points, but also passively punish him for mining
I think Steve could be the Bayonetta 2.0. When you compare the reasons on why Bayo was broken in 4 it's very similar. -combo game -kill set-ups at any % basically -strong disadvantage state (with down air, block and mine cart) -really good recovery -high skill ceiling with high potential -and lastly, the creativity and set-ups all around the character. It feels like the character has no limits and is as strong as you can imagine Oh yeah, and they both kill Fox at 0%
This video will probably be one of your biggest (and almost definitely the biggest one on Vars 3).. I can see the algorithm blessing this toward people who have been looking up stuff about the Steve ban..
9:06 I watched this Onin Riddles set but forgot about this amazing drop from ledge, phantom block for turn around Fair spike edge guard. No other character that I can think of can turn around and mix up fair or b air from ledge drop than Steve.
A reasonable nerf would be him loosing material on death. As it is, the only difficult part is getting that initial diamond. After that your damage is so good and you’ll likely have enough time to get close to getting another diamond after getting a stock.
That’s what makes NO sense to me. Why does he get to keep his stats upon death? You’d think that be a universal thing to reset everything character has after losing a stock but apparently it’s ok for Steve to keep his stuff(and Wario and his waft) smh.
This is the most funniest video to have come out about Steve, not because the vod is bad or inaccurate or anything but because Jzaw or whatever made a vod that age horribly about how Steve was prob the worst DLC because he has bad frame options and stuff. Lmao
The most simple answer to steve, is to play the denial game with him, deny him damage against you, deny him resources, and make him use his resources up, try to stop him from upgrading whenever possible but don't give him percent against you. Figure out the playstyle the person has and exploit that the best you can. And most of all keep an eye on his resource gauge. If he's out of metal, use that to advantage, that means no minecart or anvil, but it does mean dirt blocks. Play aggressive because he WILL be mining at that point. If he has metal, play more passively and make him waste resources. It's all about a battle of attrition and patience. Steve punishes high aggression but also gains the tools TO punish you through NO aggression. You must waltz with him merely two steps back, not too close, not too far.
That’s extremely hard to do when he puts the blocks and mines behind you legit either have to go above or break the blocks. Both options Steve can punish if u even try to do that
Sounds like someone trying to explain to to deal with Smash 4 Bayo, like it’s easy or reasonable to have to put yourself through. Steve has the frame data and range to content up close. You’re losing if you give him space to mine. It’s extremely hard to consistently perform what you’re suggesting at a top level.
@@joelcudjoe3833 well if he places blocks you should know what attacks on your character break them so you can get in on him because the player will have to think what you’ll do once you get in on them through the walls.
In my opinion, the biggest problem with Steve competitively is how much depth and flexibility his kit has. Because of it, he has a very high skill ceiling, so competitive players can't just pick up Steve like they would with Wolf or Palutena and figure out the counterplay. They have to spend literal hours and hours of their time learning the combos, setups, and just in general what Steve players go for and even then Steve still has the element of surprise. It seems that every time you figure out a setup with Steve there's always 3 more that will be pulled on you, and you almost never get a chance to find out about them beforehand.
I think what you mean is "skill floor." Learning Steve is incredibly hard. However, his potential is near infinite, which gives him a huge skill ceiling
It isn't so much a skill ceiling but a floor, at base all his tools are easy to use individually and offer huge power. From preventing all non-damage recoveries to throwing a minecraft command grab and chasing it. This is all more of a skill floor. The basics. When you start getting blocks to make the minecart harder to deal with this is the ceiling or going above the bare minimal.
10:23. I would add nil. I started using rapid nil2s for movement outside of combos and it's extremely extremely broken. There's a few other Steve's who do it too but it's extreeeeemly busted. You could also turn all your smash attacks and grounded attacks and even grab into aerial burst options by using nil2.
Here's a nerf route they could do: disallow him to place blocks in the air. It would be more faithful to his game, which seems to be the most important thing when it comes to designing the new characters of Ultimate and thus making it more true to Ultimate's goal. With that, he would still be a pretty good character given most of his setups are grounded while removing the ladder combos and nerfing his recovery. He would be more inline with the likes of Byleth, Terry, Sephiroth, Sora and etc, all high tiers and well regarded as far as balance goes.
If we do that, then couldn't his blocks also be permanent and you would require to break them if he chained himself in? Since well, blocks don't break with a time limit unless it's leaves on trees or snow near a torch
@@lancetheking7524 There is a reason more important not to do that: balance. The point is not to just make them loyal to their series, but to do it while also being fun, which is the most important factor. Nerfing/buffing is easy, but doing so in a manner that makes them true to their goals while also being balanced and fun is what we're striving for.
If we’re talking about making characters faithful to their game then Ridley should be able to fly freely and almost nobody would be able to double jump
While in PvE Minecraft players mostly just use swords, shields, and bows, in PvP it gets a lot more complicated. Fishing rods to pull your opponent towards you or towards a cliff, spiderwebs to trap them and force a more circuitous approach, lava to disrupt opponents pursuing you with a promise of massive damage, chicken eggs to push opponents back while creating distracting hurtboxes in the form of the chicken, and all the various “clutches” that serve players in minigames where you can knock opponents off stage or off of high places like the bedwars minigame, which begins to look smash like. Ender pearl clutches, sometimes being started before you’re even knocked off the island, block clutches, the mlgs, etc. once you try and look at MCPvP it becomes clear just how various, if janky Steve's canon moveset is
He's a terra-former. I think Rivals of Aether came up with the idea first, but now it's been in a bunch of platform fighters. In a game about spacing, having the ability to make platforms is pretty damn powerful
I don’t know why people thought he’d be a gimmick or a bad character, the moment they showed he can place blocks anywhere, I expected him to appear in every game
I think he'll get better as time goes on but so will the counterplay. I can totally see a reality where he's just a better Luigi where people just run circles around him until they take 90-death from one hit.
Unlike Luigi Steve has a lot of kill moves and confirms. If you run around steve he’ll just mine and make sure he gets an advantage or he’ll just time you out
@@Shiggy_MZ then always consider steve to be at max material then what? He has to eventually approach. Characters like the links can just throw non stop stuff and run away all game long. Steve will be forced to approach at some point of the game. And thats the point where he sucks hard. Steve approaching is so bad.
@@Pkey995 max mats and if he has a damage lead, he can just time u out. If he doesn’t, mine cart gold is a fast burst option, and diamond tool will hit hard. Trust me if that was the case, zoners like mega man would be able to defeat leos byleth (slow and can hardly approach btw) and other slow characters, such as incineroar. There’s is no such thing as running away. All your doing is delaying the inevitable. If skyjay can do well with a character that’s probably the most easy to camp with the litter resources he has, then Steve will surely be able too
@@Pkey995 assuming your at 90% and already been combo’s outta kill confirms (which Steve doesn’t need cuz his diamond bair is enough) then you’re the one who’s gonna have to approach eventually, cuz then by tournament rules, who’s ever higher percent is gonna win.
@@Shiggy_MZ how does he have a dmg lead if you never approach? You say you begin at 90% yeah if you approach he can punish you but steve is bad himself at approaching. Side b? His run and jump speed is awfull af. The only reason you see people getting 0 to 64 is because of his punish game. Look at larry vs onin game 1. Watch the 2 stocks larry got and he still lost the game. Why because he started to approach steve. He could just run away lazer and down b but he didnt. As soon as he approached onin he was losing. Characters like falco the links maybe wolf and the 2 pk kids can just run away and force this little shit to approach.
I think a popularity factor that a lot of people miss is that he's the player character of the highest selling video game of all time. Minecraft means a lot to a lot of people. Many Steve players didn't really have an interest in competitive Smash before he came out.
1:13 Clearly, you have not drunk deep from the desert well that is Minecraft combat. Blowing up crystals, throwing a fishing rod at your opponent, shooting a medieval rocket launcher at your foes. And we haven't even gotten into the modded stuff yet. Although, honestly, I think Smash Bros took a lot of inspiration from Alan Beckers Minecraft animations. Makes sense, they are some really creative animations.
Do you think Steve would continue to be a popular character if he was no overtuned? Like if he got the Sheik/Bayo/Rosa treatment where they're fundamentally the same playstyle roughly as they were in 4 but they're just significantly weaker due to their really tight margins for error. Personally, I think he'd fall off in popularity because he has a really unique playstyle, which means players would probably decide he isn't worth the effort, with exception of people who just really like his playstyle. Similar to what happened with Rosa.
Unlike sheik metaknight and bayo i dont think anyone enjoys the steve playstyle of running and mining until you are at a large advantage instead of a small one
@@notleader8128 While that is true, I do want to point out that Pikachu isn't the most popular character either despite Pokemon being insanely popular as a franchise. Tho there's definitely a point to be made about how Pokemon has so many reps with varied playstyles that if you want to play a Pokemon rep there's bound to be one that clicks with you. Still, I wonder if there's any characters who's playrate is carried by their franchise popularity. My first thoughts are DK and Sonic, but I don't really know enough about either character to judge.
Look at Ridley...he was labeled by Japanese fandom as "Captain America" being a fan favorite in western...but after his mediocre playstyle, people forget him in a sad way. Not always being a fan favorite helps the character being relevant.
Steve is great because he rewards creativity. The smash team could learn from his character for future titles. Love watching unique combos and setups. Most characters in this game have a hard set meta. Steve just be schmooving.
I think the reason why steve is such a dank meme is that he doesn't follow the meta HE IS the meta , man's just T-pose over the very fabric of reality of this game
I think one of the easiest ways to nerf steve is to significantly decrease his mining speed. If you ever see him play, you'll notice that on wooden tools he can mine up to ~3 blocks per second, which is ridiculously fast. Along with that, the meter they give him isn't even his maximum block count as he can go higher than that, so reducing the amount of blocks he can have would also help. With a limited amount of blocks steve would be forced to actually think about what they would want to do with them instead of being able to place them for nearly free, and the character would def be a lot more balanced. also a bow would make steve god
I once comment, he would be pretty broken due to the fact he just build a wall at the ledge to combo and block you. Alot of comment instantly jump into my comment and instantly said it wouldn`t work and laugh it off. Look who laughing now.
I've been following your LoL channel for a while now, but I am also a long time Smash fan and wandered why Steve was so strong and hated at the moment and found you're also doing Smash content.
Because he's busted beyond belief, is that simple. Why is he so busted? Well, he has very fast frame data aka a lot of combo potential, not a lot of range but disjointed moves nontheless, can create terrain at will, lots of buttons who just win neutral and has way too much kill power for how easy he has to determine the pacing of the match. And for some reason he doesn't lose diamond with the stock like with regular comeback mechanics.
Don’t forget to mention that he has a projectile/recovery option that can’t be shielded (empty cart) and an up tilt combo that does 50+ damage. Oh yeah! Need to camp to dig for material? Just build a wall bro!
honestly the funniest thing about this to me is that steve could be infinitely more broken if he was redesigned to fit around current _actual Minecraft PVP._ i don't really have much of a stake in this race on account of this video being recommended to me mostly because i like actual minecraft content but yeah, no, high-level Minecraft PVP is _absolutely insane_ -- it's a really good thing his recovery is elytra instead of enderpearling, for example. idk i just think it's neat that funny minecraft man op. he might need to be nerfed a bit probably
Have you seen the shit 2B2T has for combat? End crystal PvP, to the point that the only usable armor is enchanted with max blast resistance WITH GOLDEN APPLES
@@commscan314 i mean, yes, but if we're going for the flavor of an actual chunkban then no it would straight up disconnect them from the actual match and count it as a loss
Thank you for this video! I've moved onto fighting games from Smash over the years but wanted to keep up with Ultimate's metagame and this was the perfect channel. :)
Really enjoy your video analysis! As for Steve, I don't play competitively so I can only speak about the experience as the audience/viewer. I don't enjoy watching Steve play. A character that good is just not enjoyable to watch because it's way too oppressive. It looks very unfun for those fighting against Steve, and it's not fun to watch Steve camping with blocks all set.
@@colingregoire3629 Sonic is annoying to watch, but I don't have it as much. Min Min tho: there's a character I always stop watching until she's off the screen completely lol
@@colingregoire3629 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ different people like watching different things then i guess, i really enjoy watching people working to slow down the pace of the game. its a really difficult way to play and i really appreciate the work they put into it when i watch. maybe thats just the competitor in me acknowledging their skill though, so i might be biased
@@youvegot I can respect that at an analytical level you can enjoy it, but for me I'm just looking to turn off my brain when I'm watching smash. I respect players being able to place well at tourneys and know that their skillful but I'm just not tryna watch that style of gameplay
You said the block placing feature was never before seen (and compared to Pac Man’s hydrant) but if we’re throwing in that, then i’d like to nominate Duck Hunt’s disc throw / barrel & Villager’s tree as well !!!!
Some abilities Steve just shouldn't have, from a canon loyalty *and* game balance perspective: -Placing blocks midair. For those who haven't played Minecraft, this is completely impossible there. No block in the game can be placed on thin air. It also *massively* dumbs down the move by allowing builds to start anywhere the player wants rather than requiring them to start from the stage. -Mining materials from his own blocks. If you tried anything like this in Minecraft, you'd break the block beneath you and only get its exact materials back. Moreover, this nonsensical feature makes camping heavily beneficial to Steve no matter the circumstances, since it's effectively impossible for his opponent to stop him from getting materials. -Moves that self-combo. Try spam attacking anything in Minecraft, and you'll find that a solid 2/3 of your attacks miss. This is because each one grants the hit enemy a large period of invincibility to your attacks, so large, in fact, that you'll frequently end up running past them entirely. Or more likely, you'll run into the enemy you're trying to combo and get whacked. If Steve couldn't true combo moves like jab and up tilt into _themselves,_ the skill floor of his ludicrously strong combos would skyrocket. He'd still be a stupidly high damage combo character, but said stupidly high damage combos would actually take skill and effort, and wouldn't be 100% consistent. -Immunity to TNT if he detonates it with down smash. In Minecraft, both lava and TNT, even those you place yourself, will hurt you just as much as they will anything else. Steve is also the only character in the entirety of Smash who can detonate his own explosives on top of himself and come out completely unscathed. He does *not* need this strong a ledge trapping tool alongside the rest of his numerous lethal traps.
I’m ngl hearing about the move set being crazy was surprising, Master Chief would be harder cause he has weapons, wouldn’t really be fun or creative to play. Steve has a world of tools and blocks, it’s pretty obvious his kit would have “more.”
The thing that makes me not actively wanting a ban for him is unlike Bayonetta, you still need to put *SOME* effort into the combos instead of just being given ladder combos out for free with the only answer being thumb pain and a broken joystick/thumbpad. It's not like Melee Fox/Falco can't camp with lasers either if not being approached and have a busted tool that grants a plethora of possibilities for them (shine). There is counterplay to Steve, it's just an adjusting period for everyone to learn how to answer him.
I hope they make steves uptilt slower and jab have more base kb but less bk scaling so that low percent combos are not as insane as thay are, but high percent combos are more consistent like roys jab, and make blocks worse for edgeguarding some characters, I like steve but he is a little overtuned in some ways
@@jamesjoe1690 yea I know, just stating what I hope happens, but at least modding will be easier seeing as its the last update, so I can add it myself lol
@@spicymeatballs2thespicening not sure but if I can learn lua in roblox im sure hacking a device made by a multimillion dollar company that hates modders and goes out of their way to stop and sue hackers and modders, to then altar the files of one the biggest games with some of the most complicated stuff in gaming and then add more characters to it should not be that hard right?
I don't get why jab combos into itself so well. Play Minecraft and try to spam sword strikes on an enemy. They get *a lot* of i-frames from each one, to the point where they can usually hit you at any given point in the string.
12:18 So basically, Steve has been perfectly transported over to Smash bros. Like, this is a perfect description of Minecraft players vs everyone else. And it's extremely unfair. Which has also been transported well from Minecraft
@@jairoharleyvids100 i mean he’d still be able to make wall setups but would reduce the insane ladder combos with infinite jumps. Also would reduce the edgeguards making floating walls blocking the ledge. Could you give some reasons why he’d be unplayable?
I saw a match of yoni playing Luigi the other day vs another Steve main playing mega men, and damn yoni's neutral is really either mid or bad, the fact that Steve doesn't rly play neutral(atleast like the other characters) is also a big reason of why some players that were 0-2 in bracket are now winning vs big names
Steve is dumpstered by Ivysaur, whose entire moveset ignores blocks, but fewer pros play Pokemon Trainer anymore. Ivysaur is SO effective against Steve that it can prevent him from mining.
The worst thing about Steve is that he mines cobblestone but places normal stone
Thats just a sin bro
He also gets to place blocks in thin air, which is also actually a balancing issue like bruh
Steve got Auto-Smelt enchant + use commands
Steve is just playing in creative mode bro
I think a solid and logical nerf would be that he can only place blocks on the ground like survival mode
Honestly he's really balanced. Literally a skill issue
I never thought "Players began to secondary Sephiroth in order to counter Steve from Minecraft" would be a sentence that someone would say unironically.
lmao. The things we catch ourselves saying. And saying it passionately too, like this is a serious topic.
You didn't? I knew from the moment he was announced that he would be either too strong, or too weak. No amount of incremental changes can fix a character like this. Gimmick characters end up with problems like this all of the time.
The Sephiroth presentation even foreshadowed it too, Steve fights Sephiroth for a brief period when Sakurai talks about the Sephiroth Challenge
I never thought we'd hear matchups of Steve and sephiroth in this game unironically
Funny thing is, Steve's Title is World Crafter
Steve is broken because he forces you to dangerously approach. He literally skips the neutral game and puts you in disadvantage by default. Your only option is to play high risk/medium reward by being aggressive. However, Steve is always one step ahead of you, because he makes you play the game on his terms. Ultimate's metagame revolves around punishing aggression and not approaching. Steve exploits this more than anyone.
Plus he forces approaches and wins if you do or don't approach.
Forcing approaches isn't new to Ultimate or even Smash as a whole. Covering landings is technically forcing an approach because you need to touch the ground to use your landing combos. There's been worse offenders of forcing approaches than Steve in my opinon. What makes Steve more controversal than them is that he plays so wildly differently than the other characters that force an approach. You can't rush down and press your Nair or you'll eat an Up-smash.
Let's take another bait and punish fighter, Piranha Plant. He can juggle you to 80% off a frame 1 projectile trap, he can trap you at ledge if you're too fast picking an option, and smoke cloud forces a reaction that deals 50% if he guesses correctly. And he's mid-tier. Balanced by being a heavywait trapper.
Luigi kills you off a single grab, has a frustrating two-frame, and has 2 combo breakers. And he's mid-tier for his predictable gameplan and terrible air speed.
Kazuya has a DLC meter, intangibility on all input moves, and kills you if you crumple on FD. And he's no better than than the other shotos.
Steve has heavyweight smashes after 1-2 minutes, anti-airs your bad DI for 60-80%, and has no projectiles without some decent supply of iron. Everything with Steve has a downside. Steve wants blocks? No stage control. Steve wants a projectile? You better risk an approach. Steve wants to camp offstage? That crafting table respawn is going to bite your resources.
All Steves moves are about resource management. He's built around it. It's not as different than playing agaist hero's MP. Glance at it when you're thrown offstage to see how desperate he is, swordies can punch through his walls, and his sword is smaller than some brawler disjoints.
Besides, banning a whole character was a huge deal even in Brawl. Saying "No, you can't play your 1,000 hours character" isn't something you can decide in such a short period of time. People love the characters they play because they resonated best with this one over the 80+ other ones. Banning a character needs time.
@@pumpkinjack1117 dumb reply, shut up
@@pumpkinjack1117 The thing about steve is he can easilly transition from one skillset to another in the game, mostly thanks to Block being OP.
Steve wants blocks? If the player is smart with reasource management he can easilly zone the enemy out with 3 blocks to let him get a lot more. Risk Approaching with a Projectile? Steve chooses when he approached, can force the enemy into predictable movement patterns even without the projectile. Camping Offstage is limited in how long he can do it, but he can still do it far longer then anyone else; even ariel characters like Jiggs.
The hero comparison shows just how bad this entire argument is. Hero's MP recharges overtime and needs to be spent to do anything. The Hero player has to carefully manage the reasource since it isn't limitless or easy to replace, and can completely gimp his recovery and kill power. Hero is also limited in what he can do, most of his spells are either charge based with higher charges using more MP; or randomly avaliable so he doesn't have full access to his entire kit. Steve's Blocks are both far easier to replace (He just has to get space, and he is very good at making space), nigh limitless in application, and different resources are used in different ways. Stone, Wood and Dirt get used for blocks first, Diamond and Gold Weapons, and Iron for the iron Attacks. Sure thats more to manage, but it also means he can use powerful attacks that use one resource with the remaining resource for the others being fine.
Steve's issue is ultimately that he gets such massive rewards for such little risk. If he was exploitable like your saying he wouldn't be dominating competetive. I am not sure if its reached the point were a ban is warranted; but the character has been pretty bad for competitive.
@@pumpkinjack1117 I think the argument for banning him isn't that he can't be handled at all by a skilled player with another top tier (definitely not the case that every tournament major is won by a Steve after all), but that he is over-centralizing in the metagame.
Steve's blocks just straight up invalidate certain playstyles/characters. As such the simple presence of Steve in the metagame means that there is less variety of styles and characters that will be seen at tournaments, as it simply isn't viable to throw all your time into solo maining something that Steve can essentially just ignore when (as this video points out) like 10-15% of players you see in bracket will be Steves. Even if you do try to persevere, at the very least this means you will have to learn and run a secondary just to be able to (maybe) deal with Steve- and again as the video states even characters who should on paper be good against him (Cloud and Seph) cannot do this consistently.
TLDR? The Metagame has a wider variety of valid strategies, characters and playstyles if you just remove Steve from it, and thus it would be a healthier, more fun and more interesting Meta for players and spectators alike.
I think that Steve exemplifies a common problem in game design/balance: If you make a character with huge strategic depth and flexibility (with blocks and such), that tends to give them a high skill ceiling. If you then give them the numbers to be accessible to mere mortals, that makes them OP at the highest level of play.
Minecraft itself (the game) gave the player endless potential to do whatever they want, it kind of reflects that on smash too, endless potential.
If peach was so easy to pick up this game would straight up die.
@@pitimusmaximus Swordies counter her pretty well
@@pitimusmaximus good peach players are awful to fight against
@bruhskyy ssbu Steve is one of the few borderline impossible matchups in the game
I play Steve and fighting against little Mac makes me feel so bad for Mac players.
The fact that the "strongest" characters in the last 3 games are:
- The most powerful swordsman in Popstar
- A witch with a pact with a demon
- Minecraft Steve
is immensely funny to me.
Let's not forgot the best character two games before the games you just mentioned: an electric mouse that isn't even in its most powerful form. Even Melee has a funny best character: a fox that has no physical feats besides being good at flying a plane.
Well tbh Steve is pretty powerful in his game since he can carry a lot of blocks of gold while wearing an armor with ease and let's not forget he can puch trees without ever feeling pain
@@Atlast_I_survived_through_this plus he kills dragon and triple headed demon monsters with all that gold and armor on him
@@ChickenJoeSchmoe and let's not forget he's master at crafting and building
@@supersonic_305 Melee Kirby is lightweight, floaty, lacks kill options, weak throws (one can literally take _him_ to the kill zone) and just generally has bad frame data overall.
Steve mains be like "his mobility is ass"; my brother in Christ, not moving during the match is your whole game plan
He also circumvents pretty much all the normal weaknesses of low-mobility characters, being that his best combos require very minimal movement and he can close distance easily using blocks and minecart.
*uses minecart*
So exploit his lack lf mobility then?
@@miwiarts lol that's not an objective or win condition in Ultimate. As long as you have good frame data and a good moveset you don't need to worry about movement.
@@miwiarts The entire point is that you can't. His lack of mobility is not a weakness in the context of his kit and gameplan.
It’s scary the amount of damage Steve can dish out just by looking up and pressing A. Seriously, that up-tilt is wack.
Yep that's why some people suggest that tournaments use custom balancing
In the same game with sonic's and villager's up tilts btw.
@@grotto185 Custom balancing is just really hard to get all the TOs and such to agree on. Also it makes it hard to practices vs custom balance since it's not available online.
Izaw could never be more wrong putting Steve in bottom tier
actually you just hold A
I have nightmares of a future major grand finals starting with two Steves building walls and just mining on opposite sides of the screen with no effort made to engage invoking that travesty with two Bayo's holding guns on opposite sides of the screen.
that would be so funny to see again ngl. I would die laughing if that were the case cuz it would remind me of that set in smash 4 where I couldn't help but laugh at how unprepared everyone was when that happened. everyone freaked out, the TO had to LITERALLY bring up the rules for the event and forcing the players to play the game, all the while both players were kinda just goofing around not even remotely looking like they wanted to take the set seriously. seeing a similar event in ultimate with steve will be hilarious cuz it would be a sign that no one has learned anything lol.
@@thesonicslasher75 what is the point of it though? is it steve players protesting to ban their OWN character? it all makes no sense to me. the only way i can tell is that salem and captain zack wanted to get bayo banned so they pulled that stunt?
@@johnmarkson1990 oddly enough it wasn't salem at all that pulled that stunt with zack it was lima and zack in grands and both but moreso on lima's side has stated that the whole stunt was done not as a means for people to ban bayo, but because they both played together a lot and wanted to have fun during their set, essentially they were playing friendlies during a serious match, on top of that because they were friends who played a lot they also said that they play against one another the best when they have fun, hence why during it 1 of them even homie stocked after an unfortunate SD.
@@johnmarkson1990 as for the point of it happening again with steve, I mean I would just find it funny more than anything due to how ironic it would be, but considering 1 of the best steve's in onin even wants his own character banned and the overall hate the character has gotten, makes it feel like the steve players can live with or without the character at least basing it off of how they act when a ban to their character is mentioned, now do I feel the character should be banned is a different thing entirely. but based on what I've seen in vods and interviews with steve mains, they seem to not care too much if the character is banned or not. treating the whole ban steve debate as more of a joke than anything.
@@johnmarkson1990 Nah, Captain Zack is just a massive a****** and a blackmailer.
The moment I saw Steve’s reveal I knew he was broken. After playing rivals of aether seriously for a year I realized how incredible the option to place blocks are. In essence he’s built like a rivals character but put in smash bros. That makes him incredibly overpowered. We will soon see if there are work arounds but if there isn’t and he just dominates ppl need to just pull the plug. Lack of viewership and interest kills a scene.
I also think saying “sm4sh bayonetta and brawl meta knight weren’t banned” is a bad excuse to not ban a character.
The general consensus among melee and ultimate players is that sm4sh bayo and brawl meta knight (and probably brawl ice climbers as well tbh) should of been banned. Plus, saying that “sm4sh bayo and brawl meta knight weren’t banned so steve shouldn’t be” comes off as saying that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes. Since not banning bayo or meta knight were well…mistakes.
I know sm4sh would of been replaced by ultimate regardless, but they still would of gotten more interest and viewership if they had banned Bayonetta.
And frankly, It’ll be much easier to recover lost viewership if we just pull the plug and ban steve right now.
Kragg on steroids basically
@@thatlatiasuser Kragg except he gets infinite pillars
It's sad yall stuck with Nintendo. If you had an actual FGC dev there'd just be a patch to nerf him and then poof, problem gone. Like Leroy in Tekken.
Instead yall stuck back here in 1996 with Nintendo who don't do shit.
You really just said "Minecraft Steve is so strong he is going to destroy all viewership for ultimate"
My biggest question when it comes to Steve's design remains: why can he place blocks on thin air? If he had to place a block as it works in Minecraft, where it must be connected to the stage or another block, that would be a sensible limitation to his ability to create platforms, and would be more faithful to the game of origin, which certainly seems to have been a priority for at least the last several DLC fighters.
My guess is because if it did follow Minecraft’s rule of block placing it could be too limiting for Steve. If Steve followed minecrafts rules of block placing he would only be able to build Up, and to the side, and off the stage ledge. Not having a building mechanic would feel wrong since it’s a core part of Minecraft. So they probably figured it would be better that way even though it seems OP, they balance the block placement by having them break really fast and by having stronger blocks take time to even get (Mining). Even further iron being the strongest block you can place is a balancing feature since placing iron blocks can be “Wasteful” since you need iron for Certain attacks, and vice versa.
@@analogapotheosis4275 well we certainly don't want to limit Steve at all, he's perfectly sensible and balanced as he is after all
It's because placing a block is one the same button as mining, so they had the blocks be on air and mining be on the ground so the game can differentiate the two.
Perhaps they could nerf this by automatically placing blocks would instantly place blocks connecting to the stage. Not sure about how it would work, but essentially it would mean that going for huge combos like that or air stalling would use up way more blocks than usual. He would still be able to block in air, but if he did it 5 blocks high, he would use 5 blocks. Again I know this might make some parts of him more annoying, but I think it would actually make his limited resources matter much more when he can’t place as many blocks.
Considering that Sephiroth never uses Meagflare or Gigaflare in FFVII and Kazuya has intangible on multiple moves.
It seems midair block placing is a creative liberty to make the character function better rather than a reference.
Remember when people were saying that Steve would be low tier because of his "lack" of mobility and range
I'm still laughing to these days XD
I knew that was dumb. All that matters in Ultimate is disjoints and frame data.
I remember. Copium before Copium was coined
I remember those days where the majority of the people thought he was ass
He's like the Sans of mobility and range. On paper, his mobility and range are the most ass of ass. But you aren't fighting him on paper.
My question is, why did it take so long for people to figure out how busted Steve is? I hadn't heard much about him at all until a few months ago when people were calling for him to be banned. Felt like it came out of nowhere.
Wi-Fi meta. Quick, highly technical characters like Steve are punished by the extra latency - its one of the reasons Joker kind of disapeared, for example.
It’s because while other people won’t admit it, Steve isn’t an easy character to pick up
Earlier this year everyone was hating on Aegis. People were comparing them to Bayo and talking about how they are ruining the game and stuff. I remember there were quite a few videos of Steves dunking on Aegis and getting praised. Then one day Steve (and Kazuya) is the bane of the community. It's not even some gradual shift, it happened within a span of 2 days.
@@nocturn333 I know! That's what I find so crazy about this whole situation.
@@nocturn333 people thought Aegis and Kazuya were the problem characters until they released it was Steve all along
I've thought of Steve as a heavy like Donkey Kong that ignores all the weaknesses associated with being a heavy. He has a good combo game, frame data, kill options. His recovery is incredibly safe. And despite having a horrible dash and air speed, he can still force a fight by mining, and if they still ignore him he can use minecart, anvil or elytra to burst in. He's broken
Yeah but Donkey Kong has not disjoints or projectiles.
And he’s not even a heavy
Yeah he's like donkey Kong if you were fast and had infinite jumps and a projectile and a disjointed hitbox and an up a that does like 20%
DK's arms are actually super disjointed
@@jackattackhissnack i agree but they aren't intangible like a sword.
Steve is the definition of an overtuned character. Like seriously why does he even need a kill throw when he has 100 kill options that are all safe and kill at like 70-80. He's a combo character that can kill early that can camp and zone that can break the rules of the game that also has a comeback mechanic in diamond.
Sounds like Minecraft lol. A million different options
Creates terrain in a platform fighter, has an overtuned moveset, can attain kill power, frame data and mobility incentivized through no interaction. People love and/or grew up with Minecraft
Steve reminds me of what someone said about Pac-Man once: You spend all this time fighting to get in on them, but their frame data is actually good so all you won yourselves was a "fair" fight, not pushing them into disadvantage after you achieved overcoming their obstacles.
People really slept on Pac. Still do. He's the closest character to Steve in moveset/playstyle.
With the difference that pacman's hydrant is way less oppressive than blocks and that his attacks do significantly less knockback on average, but he has actually decent mobility to compensate.
@@Purpulear Rob is also kind of similar.
Steve's archetype is that of a Setup Character. The name varies in my experience, as not many people talk about them and not many games really have them. The idea is that a setup character is theoretically good at everything, but only get that strong if you let them set everything up. Steve's fundamental balance issue is that he sets everything up at once, in a second or two, with the same extremely safe action.
Well you have to be extremely careful with setup characters. They either don't have anything to defend themselves with while they're building up and people kick them into next tuesday like it's nothing. Or, they do have tools from the get-go to give them a chance to get super powerful, and now they're S++ and completely untouchable. It's super difficult to find that inbetween
I feel like you just described a trapper character and he already covered that...
@@Arc_TheAirPirate maybe I did, idk I haven't looked back at this in months
Tl;Dr: "Steve is absolutely broken, but we'll see how things evolve"
The worst part of Steve is that the pro Smash players comunity brought this on themselves. I will never understand the madness that was people claiming Steve was low tier and Sephiroth was top tier. Me and all my friends were starting to think it was some sort of conspiracy.
Tons of pro Smash players like Dabuz and Izaw were saying he was low tier, making laughably bad videos about him. Many of my other favorite Smash players like them were all saying the same thing. Few people were even willing to put him in high tier, and it couldn't have been more obvious that he was top tier. Instead, they should have been trying to push his meta as fast as possible so people took notice and nerfed Steve appropriately.
They weren't gonna nerf Steve, he's DLC
They already did, once. There was an infinite combo he used to have that got removed.
Pro Smash players are weirdos. They're always conspiring behind the scenes. It's so annoying. I don't get it. Pretty sure they script tournament wins as well.
@@measlesplease1266 Absolutely wild take, no they don't lmfao
@@juniperrodley9843 pretty obvious
Omuatsu, a Japanese Min Min player, released a great video on Steve counterplay that I recommend you check out.
That being said, that video also hints at some of Steve's moves being impossible to directly counter. To paraphrase two things he said, don't assume you can ever punish f-air and b-air because of the autocancel window, and you're screwed if you get grabbed by his Minecart.
Also, while he was explaining stage picks, I couldn't help but feel sad that he seemed to miss the fact that Steve players can just ban Smashville and Town & City (Steve's supposed worst stages) in tournaments. However, that's the only criticism I have about the video.
As a Sonic main I'm thankful for the existence of Steve mains as they help take the the heat off of us lol
Sonic mains SUCK
You guys aren't nearly as bad as pyra mythra mains, I hate them more then Steve and sonic players combined
It's nice and all that Steve won smash con, but have you heard that sora won one game?
That's adorable, good for him
Good for sora he deserves it 👏 👏
I think it's not hard to understand why Steve is super busted. He's got pretty crazy good performance at almost every aspect. His moves have excellent famedata, he has super easy comically high damage combos, he has a plethora of reliable and safe kill moves that kill insanely early and even moreso with diamond. Anvil and Minecart make his disadvantage insane, mobility great and give him the ability to give pressure from most ranges and directions. And of course block makes him able to camp, be hard to kill, traps people and can gimp and stall offstage in impossible ways. He doesn't even need to go and risk his neck since he can sit back and mine, forcing the opponent to come in and make mistakes he can exploit instead.
What I find more interesting is the discussion of is he so broken that he's a problem or is he counterable enough by enough of the cast that people just need to git gud and Steve's immense power will die down to normal levels. His biggest weakness is that early on before he can mine he's got relatively few tools. With greatly improved block breaking and early pressure it's been seen that you can get in his face and mess him up well. But his mining is somewhat inevitable if you don't take all 3 stocks super early. His inventory stays between stocks as does his progress to diamond. To pull this off cleanly you have to let him almost never touch the floor, while he just needs to get you off his back for a few seconds to get loaded up. The other main thing is his best tools like minecart and anvil burn through resources. If you can pressure him to not mine constantly as well as play around and force him to burn his resources he can end up suddenly stuck without his best escape and mobility tools. There is without a doubt a lot more counterplay to be developed.
On the other hand, Steve's potential to get stronger is just as bottomless. He's got a lot of tech that isn't even in use by the top players much yet. He's also pretty capable even without his best tools. He's still plenty dangerous even with wood and some table scraps, he just actually has to play the game. Even as more people learn counter tech and the matchup, I think Steve is without a doubt the most dangerous character with most remaining untapped potential. I think some people are too confident all his stuff will have solutions. It might not and he still definitely needs to be kept an eye on. If anyone is going to run away with the game, it's probably him.
How would they answer to yophey Cart Bair if they don't even. Know that tech Yeah Your not only countering Steve your countering Steve mains labbing
his progress to diamond does NOT stick between stocks, it might just seem like that because the opponent plays more defensive, giving him more time to mine. Keep up the offensive and he might not get diamonds at all.
I’m a Steve main and I really appreciate this in depth take on Steve thanks for not just being like oh he’s super busted. One thing I would say is that until you really play as Steve you won’t learn the stress and constant disadvantages Steve puts himself in to gain resources. Constantly thinking about the next stock, what moves they can throw out depending on the durability of their item. Will they sacrifice moves to be able to have a chance in the next stock? And if they do a lot of Steve play relies on them not messing up when they have the resources because if they do lose that stock with diamond quick it can often be game over even with stocks to spare. He’s so in depth and the community is so quick to be like oh he’s busted, no credit to my Steve mains out there
@@carrymcbarry but like, he is super busted though. It's not as bad as Bayo in Sm4sh, cause she would win of just one interaction, but he's gonna get close. He's not even close to being fully optimized yet. This Steve meta is gonna get worse before it gets better.
If they ever change their minds and decide to patch the game again (which I hope they do, Steve is way too overtuned and Pit is still dysfunctional), it would be a great start to make his inventory reset to game start on death. That would not only allow him to be limited on iron and not able to keep diamonds post death, but it would be true to the game too. Without a special setting you drop your inventory whenever you die in Minecraft. Doing the same in Smash would make pressuring Steve far more rewarding and actually possible. He would need other nerfs but that alone would be a great start.
A really good counter to Steve meta right now is playing Batman, since he never really has to deal with Steve stuff. If you don't like DC you can also try Bugs Finn or Shaggy.
this is true! Steve can't even touch Iron Giant!
With how strong Steve is, it makes me glad I play Chrom. Being able to hit Steve through blocks, or being able to destroy them very safely with down tilt is so good. Not to mention Chrom's jab just kinda shutting down almost everything Steve wants to do
HA
Imma pick up Chris now
@@eligibson3572 yea Chris is really good a beating steve
@@jairoharleyvids100 Chris Redfield for the win!!!! lol oops
Well, we now know how the competitive community “adapted” to Steve…
Just think about this, in regards to Steve's in-game stage editor:
We ban stages that are not considered fair, but we allow a character that can literally temporarily change a stage to suit them.
eg:
Some stages are banned because they mess with some character's recoveries but we allow a character that can edit the stage to place blocks at the ledge that literally prevents some characters making to back to stage. Some stages are banned cause of bad platform placement but we allow a character that can make his own platforms wherever he wants. Some stages are banned because they have hazards but we allow a character that can make his own stage hazards.
W comment. You raised some excellent points.
👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
You Also need to Ban Thins that Some of the items As and the gimmicks for the characters that do that too if your banning stages because of that how about the items
@@nothingherezero7182 Random items are already set to not spawn, unless you're talking about character items.
Cry about it
@@senormacaco2834 The original comment made a valid point about why people in the Smash Bros community don't like Steve. Moronic response mate.
I think the best architype steve represents in FGC terminology is that of a set play character. Set play characters generally have very strong options provided that they "set up" before engaging (charging, gathering resources, etc). Given the general disconnect smash bros has from the FGC and the over reliance on rush down, I don't think they were ready to experience this particular play style. the only other character I could think of that is similar to steve would be pacman in terms of play style.
Would olimar very slightly fall into this category too? The olimar meta seems to have the end goal of getting two purples, but in the meantime they play the game normally.
@@purplyoshi6754 I would say yes but there's no rule that says any given character has to be one type, not just for smash bros but fighting games as a whole.
Nah. That's stupid. He can build walls to force you not to approach or approach in a bad way. That's way different than a set play character.
@@measlesplease1266 He still needs to Mine to put down those blocks, Steve without resources is a bad character, how is that not set play?
@@sylux70 because mining takes seconds to do you absolute brainlet.
Lol it's funny because when I picked up Steve I did it just because I'm an avid Minecraft player. (I also love how close it is to actual Minecraft)This is when I first started playing smash. Now that I have been playing for a while, they definitely need to nerf him.
Either reduce some of his kill power, or increase his setup time. It's way to easy to setup things, especially with muscle memory. That's why Steve can cover nearly all options, especially if you have good resources.
In vain of nerfs, I really want to see them remove his ability to set off TnT with down-smash without getting hurt himself. Every other explosive hurts both parties in range always. that has always bugged me
@@Omnirose Making his airdodge frame 4 would do the trick. That would also give him a real vulnerability in being easier to combo than most middleweights. If he's going to have Ike's kill power then he should also have Ike's awful airdodge.
@@N12015 heck just give him a frame 5 air dodge, make it bad!
@@Omnirose I 100% agree. Never understood that tbh
I'd personally go with increasing setup time. I think Steve's meant to be OP if you get everything set up properly, so diamond killpower, for example, isn't too big an issue in a vacuum. The issue is that he gets diamonds easily and accidentally while also setting up literally everything else he needs.
Coming from a casual spectator that barely plays Smash. I feel Steve is the direct result of what happens when you put a Rivals of Aether character in Ultimate. The way that he can use all of his tools in tandem with one another to completely lock down parts of the stage and greatly expand his threat bubble and damage is something that most of the cast just can’t do. And if they can it’s much more limited in comparison. It’s kinda true what they say, Steve simply isn’t playing the same game that the rest of the cast does. However I must say that for all of the grief he gives players, I don’t believe he’s gonna kill the game and he certainly doesn’t need to be banned (at least not now). Like, if other fighting games can deal with absurdly broken shit and still harbor a healthy competitive scene I’m positive the Ultimate community can do the same. Just gotta give players time to develop counterplay and if absolutely nothing changes in a year or so then maaaaybe reconsider.
Steve is in an Alan Becker AvM episode and everyone else is playing smash
From the beginning, I knew Steve would dominate the competitive scene. Though, at first, people didn't like him, I knew he had a high skill floor but a TOWERING skill ceiling. People are just now reaching higher above that skill floor
Even a tower has limits lmao, unlike this skill ceiling
@@aguyontheinternet8436 Well we're talking expectations of Tower of Babel levels of skill ceiling, then.
I think Shulk is a very fair and interesting comparison. They both have neutral Bs that completely warp the game in a similar way. Wall on back is alot like shield art, block in air is alot like jump art etc. However they rely heavily on micro managing that mechanic to counteract weaknesses like poor jump height. To be fair though there is a major mechanical difference beyond steve just having better numbers than shulk, and that's steve's drawbacks is tied to the time before combat, where shulks drawbacks are tied to combat allowing for more reactive punishment. For example smash art being symmetrical vs diamond charging like clouds limit.
It's such a freaking piss-take that Meta Knight, Pit, and Charizard aren't allowed to glide anymore, but suddenly gliding is allowed again in Smash Ultimate now that Mr DLC Privilege exists? And only he can do it? What a load.
To be fair, Steve has a few more combat options once you get a bit more creative... and look into the Minecraft PvP Scene where certain tactics in that area include what we have seen in the Smash Moveset such as using a Fishing Rod, Flint & Steel to light fires on the ground, and using Lava Buckets as well as what we haven't seen such as Bows, Crossbows, Ender Pearls, Cobwebs to slow foes, and Potions.
I remember speculating on the school playground about what Steve's moveset would be if he was added to Smash 4, and he was my #2 pick all the way up to October 2020 (#1 was Waluigi because I just assumed that Minecraft was too far a stretch for Smash)
In my wildest dreams I never could have imagined that he would go on to become Ultimate's greatest villain
Don't worry, he's just Speedruning
You should do a why no one plays Sora.
By far one of my favorite character but has underwhelming flaws
I second this
I absolutely love Sora, his aerial potential is unmatched and he has (in my opinion) the best recovery options in the game. The problem is, you can kill him at 50 and most soras don’t utilize his full set and end up reusing the same 3 moves, making him really easy to read and punish, especially sideb. To me, Sora is a character with a high a skill floor that many don’t want to try and meet because they could get the same results with a character that’s easier to learn, although they might not have as much payoff in the long term.
Because he just came out? Steve only saw results this year and he was out for a year more than Sora.
Sora needs time, it is not that nobody plays him at all, nonody plays him yet
You sound like a fanboy that's mad your DLC character isn't amazingly broken. Sora is good if you aren't playing braindead.
I don't like him because of his animations and phrases, he's too goofy for me as well as KKR (I like serious characters like ZSS, Snake, Kazuya, etc. Just personal preferences) but outside of smash he has one of the best lore I've ever seen in videogames for real
To this day, Steve makes me genuinely angry. I remember saying he would be a cancer online, and yeah, depending on your character, steve can just throw you off platform and build a ceiling while you recover, gimping your stock.
The only thing more broken than him is my controller.
Boohoo
@@aloeveil comments like this only confirm that I was right. Steve brought to Smash a new level of toxicity that completely throws the game off for me
How did anyone ever think making a moveset for Steve wasn't feasible. We had the Animal Crossing Villager in Smash on the Wii U. After that point it should be obvious that Sakurai and his team could make a moveset for anyone, and yet there was still debate on it.
I mean i knew a lot of people who thought hed just play like Link. Swords and bows and maybe a fishing rod grab. Lot of boring stuff.
Those people were Wrong and Cowards
That's what happens when a fanbase condescendingly calls a game "kid-shit".
Since I was 11, when Minecraft was still young, I had always been afraid of PvP. You think Steve is broken in Smash? Imagine getting spawn-killed the moment you join a server by grown ass men who took their anger out on kids online instead of their own children.
But.imagine though, what if Steve in Dmash had access to redstone?
If you ever had doubts, you should look up 2b2t
Another issue is that even when you take a stock the game gives him more materials and the invincibility frames allow him to craft an upgraded (usually diamond) tool for free. So even when you actually take a stock the Steve player able to reset if not upgrade his power output without you being able to do anything about it.
If Steve crafts diamonds you can frame trap him although if crafts anything else tough luck
Imagine if ff7 was real… and you have Steve from Minecraft saving the world from Sephiroth destroying the planet and all of mankind and becoming a god.
imo, Steve is pretty easy to overcome as long as you don't play the game like a platform fighter but rather a 2D fighter. Essentially, you want to always go for on-stage kills and never let him go far away from you (which even includes sending him launching). It's a difficult concept to grasp that really revolves around changing your entire way of thinking, but it works.
In addition, Hero is pretty strong against Steve, as Hero's powerful spells and Kazap can not only hit through Steve's weak points, but also passively punish him for mining
So basically... punish cheese with cheese
@@JDReC100
Pretty much, though I see it as playing the game how it should have been played from the start
@@zerochill4096 ...
I can vouch for that
Heavy Projectile characters utterly shaft steve. It’s cheesy but cmon, it’s a valid strat lol.
@@ishanparikh5587 Let me guess: Snake side special spam.
I think Steve could be the Bayonetta 2.0. When you compare the reasons on why Bayo was broken in 4 it's very similar.
-combo game
-kill set-ups at any % basically
-strong disadvantage state (with down air, block and mine cart)
-really good recovery
-high skill ceiling with high potential
-and lastly, the creativity and set-ups all around the character. It feels like the character has no limits and is as strong as you can imagine
Oh yeah, and they both kill Fox at 0%
Steve is proof that gag-manga characters > shonen characters in 1 to 1 fights.
This video will probably be one of your biggest (and almost definitely the biggest one on Vars 3).. I can see the algorithm blessing this toward people who have been looking up stuff about the Steve ban..
9:06 I watched this Onin Riddles set but forgot about this amazing drop from ledge, phantom block for turn around Fair spike edge guard. No other character that I can think of can turn around and mix up fair or b air from ledge drop than Steve.
A reasonable nerf would be him loosing material on death. As it is, the only difficult part is getting that initial diamond. After that your damage is so good and you’ll likely have enough time to get close to getting another diamond after getting a stock.
That’s what makes NO sense to me. Why does he get to keep his stats upon death? You’d think that be a universal thing to reset everything character has after losing a stock but apparently it’s ok for Steve to keep his stuff(and Wario and his waft) smh.
@@riotron1026 Steve raged one time after falling in lava and he turned keep inventory on.
Nah let’s not do that
@@riotron1026 well he is fighting goda in this game so he thought eh might have to keep inventory on
This is the most funniest video to have come out about Steve, not because the vod is bad or inaccurate or anything but because Jzaw or whatever made a vod that age horribly about how Steve was prob the worst DLC because he has bad frame options and stuff. Lmao
The most simple answer to steve, is to play the denial game with him, deny him damage against you, deny him resources, and make him use his resources up, try to stop him from upgrading whenever possible but don't give him percent against you. Figure out the playstyle the person has and exploit that the best you can. And most of all keep an eye on his resource gauge. If he's out of metal, use that to advantage, that means no minecart or anvil, but it does mean dirt blocks. Play aggressive because he WILL be mining at that point. If he has metal, play more passively and make him waste resources. It's all about a battle of attrition and patience. Steve punishes high aggression but also gains the tools TO punish you through NO aggression. You must waltz with him merely two steps back, not too close, not too far.
Which is extremely hard to do
That’s extremely hard to do when he puts the blocks and mines behind you legit either have to go above or break the blocks. Both options Steve can punish if u even try to do that
Sounds like someone trying to explain to to deal with Smash 4 Bayo, like it’s easy or reasonable to have to put yourself through. Steve has the frame data and range to content up close. You’re losing if you give him space to mine. It’s extremely hard to consistently perform what you’re suggesting at a top level.
@@joelcudjoe3833 well if he places blocks you should know what attacks on your character break them so you can get in on him because the player will have to think what you’ll do once you get in on them through the walls.
@@ae_angles If u try to he can punish you or run away with side b and as you know side b has super armor
Watching steve players is like watching modern Fortnite streamers. Come into a gun fight and build a full ass mansion before you start to fire
Never compare minecraft steve with fortnite >:y
Never compare minecraft steve with fortnite >:y
The funny thing is your not wrong
In my opinion, the biggest problem with Steve competitively is how much depth and flexibility his kit has. Because of it, he has a very high skill ceiling, so competitive players can't just pick up Steve like they would with Wolf or Palutena and figure out the counterplay. They have to spend literal hours and hours of their time learning the combos, setups, and just in general what Steve players go for and even then Steve still has the element of surprise.
It seems that every time you figure out a setup with Steve there's always 3 more that will be pulled on you, and you almost never get a chance to find out about them beforehand.
I think what you mean is "skill floor." Learning Steve is incredibly hard. However, his potential is near infinite, which gives him a huge skill ceiling
That infinitely high skill ceiling would be Minecraft for you lol
It isn't so much a skill ceiling but a floor, at base all his tools are easy to use individually and offer huge power. From preventing all non-damage recoveries to throwing a minecraft command grab and chasing it.
This is all more of a skill floor. The basics.
When you start getting blocks to make the minecart harder to deal with this is the ceiling or going above the bare minimal.
steve is the best thing to happen for this game
Agreed
10:23. I would add nil. I started using rapid nil2s for movement outside of combos and it's extremely extremely broken. There's a few other Steve's who do it too but it's extreeeeemly busted. You could also turn all your smash attacks and grounded attacks and even grab into aerial burst options by using nil2.
Here's a nerf route they could do: disallow him to place blocks in the air. It would be more faithful to his game, which seems to be the most important thing when it comes to designing the new characters of Ultimate and thus making it more true to Ultimate's goal. With that, he would still be a pretty good character given most of his setups are grounded while removing the ladder combos and nerfing his recovery. He would be more inline with the likes of Byleth, Terry, Sephiroth, Sora and etc, all high tiers and well regarded as far as balance goes.
If we do that, then couldn't his blocks also be permanent and you would require to break them if he chained himself in? Since well, blocks don't break with a time limit unless it's leaves on trees or snow near a torch
Not defending Steve, but that's also part of it
@@lancetheking7524 There is a reason more important not to do that: balance. The point is not to just make them loyal to their series, but to do it while also being fun, which is the most important factor. Nerfing/buffing is easy, but doing so in a manner that makes them true to their goals while also being balanced and fun is what we're striving for.
@@rafaelbordoni516 yes what you said is true
If we’re talking about making characters faithful to their game then Ridley should be able to fly freely and almost nobody would be able to double jump
You executed your script and points in efficient clean and articulate fashion, very good production with a professional quality data backed argument
I'd love to read M2K's thoughts on Steve's frame data.
While in PvE Minecraft players mostly just use swords, shields, and bows, in PvP it gets a lot more complicated. Fishing rods to pull your opponent towards you or towards a cliff, spiderwebs to trap them and force a more circuitous approach, lava to disrupt opponents pursuing you with a promise of massive damage, chicken eggs to push opponents back while creating distracting hurtboxes in the form of the chicken, and all the various “clutches” that serve players in minigames where you can knock opponents off stage or off of high places like the bedwars minigame, which begins to look smash like. Ender pearl clutches, sometimes being started before you’re even knocked off the island, block clutches, the mlgs, etc. once you try and look at MCPvP it becomes clear just how various, if janky Steve's canon moveset is
All the comments about "Steve's easy combos" But none about "Funni block man from Minecraft"
He's a terra-former. I think Rivals of Aether came up with the idea first, but now it's been in a bunch of platform fighters. In a game about spacing, having the ability to make platforms is pretty damn powerful
I don’t know why people thought he’d be a gimmick or a bad character, the moment they showed he can place blocks anywhere, I expected him to appear in every game
"He can tech the blocks"
Steve now: Casually techs move
I think he'll get better as time goes on but so will the counterplay. I can totally see a reality where he's just a better Luigi where people just run circles around him until they take 90-death from one hit.
Unlike Luigi Steve has a lot of kill moves and confirms. If you run around steve he’ll just mine and make sure he gets an advantage or he’ll just time you out
@@Shiggy_MZ then always consider steve to be at max material then what? He has to eventually approach. Characters like the links can just throw non stop stuff and run away all game long. Steve will be forced to approach at some point of the game. And thats the point where he sucks hard. Steve approaching is so bad.
@@Pkey995 max mats and if he has a damage lead, he can just time u out. If he doesn’t, mine cart gold is a fast burst option, and diamond tool will hit hard. Trust me if that was the case, zoners like mega man would be able to defeat leos byleth (slow and can hardly approach btw) and other slow characters, such as incineroar. There’s is no such thing as running away. All your doing is delaying the inevitable. If skyjay can do well with a character that’s probably the most easy to camp with the litter resources he has, then Steve will surely be able too
@@Pkey995 assuming your at 90% and already been combo’s outta kill confirms (which Steve doesn’t need cuz his diamond bair is enough) then you’re the one who’s gonna have to approach eventually, cuz then by tournament rules, who’s ever higher percent is gonna win.
@@Shiggy_MZ how does he have a dmg lead if you never approach? You say you begin at 90% yeah if you approach he can punish you but steve is bad himself at approaching. Side b? His run and jump speed is awfull af. The only reason you see people getting 0 to 64 is because of his punish game. Look at larry vs onin game 1. Watch the 2 stocks larry got and he still lost the game. Why because he started to approach steve. He could just run away lazer and down b but he didnt. As soon as he approached onin he was losing. Characters like falco the links maybe wolf and the 2 pk kids can just run away and force this little shit to approach.
I think a popularity factor that a lot of people miss is that he's the player character of the highest selling video game of all time. Minecraft means a lot to a lot of people. Many Steve players didn't really have an interest in competitive Smash before he came out.
They didnt have an interest in competitive smash before steve because they couldnt make it without him
@@imam1113 “You only play steve because he is op1!1!2!!!!”
“Haha funni block man look at him go”
Steve is too complicated for a casual player like me. Thank you for this explanation
1:13 Clearly, you have not drunk deep from the desert well that is Minecraft combat. Blowing up crystals, throwing a fishing rod at your opponent, shooting a medieval rocket launcher at your foes. And we haven't even gotten into the modded stuff yet.
Although, honestly, I think Smash Bros took a lot of inspiration from Alan Beckers Minecraft animations. Makes sense, they are some really creative animations.
Do you think Steve would continue to be a popular character if he was no overtuned? Like if he got the Sheik/Bayo/Rosa treatment where they're fundamentally the same playstyle roughly as they were in 4 but they're just significantly weaker due to their really tight margins for error. Personally, I think he'd fall off in popularity because he has a really unique playstyle, which means players would probably decide he isn't worth the effort, with exception of people who just really like his playstyle. Similar to what happened with Rosa.
Unlike sheik metaknight and bayo i dont think anyone enjoys the steve playstyle of running and mining until you are at a large advantage instead of a small one
i mean people will probably still play steve by virtue of minecraft being absurdly popular
@@notleader8128 While that is true, I do want to point out that Pikachu isn't the most popular character either despite Pokemon being insanely popular as a franchise. Tho there's definitely a point to be made about how Pokemon has so many reps with varied playstyles that if you want to play a Pokemon rep there's bound to be one that clicks with you. Still, I wonder if there's any characters who's playrate is carried by their franchise popularity. My first thoughts are DK and Sonic, but I don't really know enough about either character to judge.
Look at Ridley...he was labeled by Japanese fandom as "Captain America" being a fan favorite in western...but after his mediocre playstyle, people forget him in a sad way. Not always being a fan favorite helps the character being relevant.
"Hey, Mr Sakurai! Can you put mine-camp Steve into the game?"
"Sounds pretty cringe, I'll allow it."
"I love building brown bricks with My Crap" - Masahiro Sakurai
You would think it’s a coincidence that the most overpowered character comes from the best selling video game and is a DLC character.
Top level Minecraft pvp can be pretty intense. Even if some pvp is just click spam, some pvp modes are pretty tactical
Short version: HE'S BROKE AS HELL
You mean he has no money?
No
Steve is great because he rewards creativity. The smash team could learn from his character for future titles. Love watching unique combos and setups. Most characters in this game have a hard set meta. Steve just be schmooving.
Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to pull this kind of thing off again.
People on release until literally just recently: "Steve is midtier"
Because he breaks the game conventions, blocks most if not all recoveries
You play Steve because he's a top tier with good frame data.
I play Steve because I like Minecraft.
We are not the same
I think the reason why steve is such a dank meme is that he doesn't follow the meta HE IS the meta , man's just T-pose over the very fabric of reality of this game
Me: Please ban steve.
Me after picking him up: He is completely fair what are you talking about?
I personally think that only base game should be used for competitive Smash.
@@commscan314 so fricking true
I think one of the easiest ways to nerf steve is to significantly decrease his mining speed. If you ever see him play, you'll notice that on wooden tools he can mine up to ~3 blocks per second, which is ridiculously fast. Along with that, the meter they give him isn't even his maximum block count as he can go higher than that, so reducing the amount of blocks he can have would also help.
With a limited amount of blocks steve would be forced to actually think about what they would want to do with them instead of being able to place them for nearly free, and the character would def be a lot more balanced.
also a bow would make steve god
I once comment, he would be pretty broken due to the fact he just build a wall at the ledge to combo and block you.
Alot of comment instantly jump into my comment and instantly said it wouldn`t work and laugh it off.
Look who laughing now.
At least your videos will still be bad regardless.
I've been following your LoL channel for a while now, but I am also a long time Smash fan and wandered why Steve was so strong and hated at the moment and found you're also doing Smash content.
I think it’s funny how the block man is making everyone mad
It's funny to me but I'm still disappointed in him
@@themarioking7127 what did he do? Did you tell him to take out the dogs and he forgot?
@@Magic_Ice 👍
Really interesting video. Could you do a Why No One Plays Sephiroth?
Waiting to see people use the age old response "Steve isn't op/broken you just need to learn the match up." 😐
You do need some time to get to diamond, you know...
also many people just grew up with minecraft and it just makes it that much more likely that the next smash god starts out with steve
Because he's busted beyond belief, is that simple. Why is he so busted? Well, he has very fast frame data aka a lot of combo potential, not a lot of range but disjointed moves nontheless, can create terrain at will, lots of buttons who just win neutral and has way too much kill power for how easy he has to determine the pacing of the match. And for some reason he doesn't lose diamond with the stock like with regular comeback mechanics.
Don’t forget to mention that he has a projectile/recovery option that can’t be shielded (empty cart) and an up tilt combo that does 50+ damage. Oh yeah! Need to camp to dig for material? Just build a wall bro!
@@Hypeman10 Minecart and Up-tilt are what i meant with "Buttons who just win neutral".
Steve be playing Minecraft hungergames or survival mode while everyone else aside from Kazuya be playing smash ultimate.
@@N12015 if you think up tilt is a win button for neutral, allow me to introduce you to h o r i z o n t a l s p a c i n g.
@@donovanmahan2901 B L O C K
I like how the lack of combat in Minecraft was a concern for fans when smash literally has animal crossing characters.
honestly the funniest thing about this to me is that steve could be infinitely more broken if he was redesigned to fit around current _actual Minecraft PVP._ i don't really have much of a stake in this race on account of this video being recommended to me mostly because i like actual minecraft content but yeah, no, high-level Minecraft PVP is _absolutely insane_ -- it's a really good thing his recovery is elytra instead of enderpearling, for example.
idk i just think it's neat that funny minecraft man op. he might need to be nerfed a bit probably
Have you seen the shit 2B2T has for combat? End crystal PvP, to the point that the only usable armor is enchanted with max blast resistance WITH GOLDEN APPLES
@@commscan314 minecraft steve's final smash: chunkbans the opponent, instantly disconnecting them from the match
@@sol_ARG So it omega-stocks them, then?
@@commscan314 i mean, yes, but if we're going for the flavor of an actual chunkban then no it would straight up disconnect them from the actual match and count it as a loss
Thank you for this video! I've moved onto fighting games from Smash over the years but wanted to keep up with Ultimate's metagame and this was the perfect channel. :)
Really enjoy your video analysis! As for Steve, I don't play competitively so I can only speak about the experience as the audience/viewer. I don't enjoy watching Steve play. A character that good is just not enjoyable to watch because it's way too oppressive. It looks very unfun for those fighting against Steve, and it's not fun to watch Steve camping with blocks all set.
Whenever I see Steve (or sonic) come on stream I just go watch something else cause life isn't long enough to do something you don't enjoy
@@colingregoire3629
Sonic is annoying to watch, but I don't have it as much. Min Min tho: there's a character I always stop watching until she's off the screen completely lol
@@colingregoire3629 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ different people like watching different things then i guess, i really enjoy watching people working to slow down the pace of the game. its a really difficult way to play and i really appreciate the work they put into it when i watch. maybe thats just the competitor in me acknowledging their skill though, so i might be biased
I like watching steve because it's kinda funny and top players always surprise me with a new set up
@@youvegot I can respect that at an analytical level you can enjoy it, but for me I'm just looking to turn off my brain when I'm watching smash. I respect players being able to place well at tourneys and know that their skillful but I'm just not tryna watch that style of gameplay
You said the block placing feature was never before seen (and compared to Pac Man’s hydrant) but if we’re throwing in that, then i’d like to nominate Duck Hunt’s disc throw / barrel & Villager’s tree as well !!!!
Some abilities Steve just shouldn't have, from a canon loyalty *and* game balance perspective:
-Placing blocks midair. For those who haven't played Minecraft, this is completely impossible there. No block in the game can be placed on thin air. It also *massively* dumbs down the move by allowing builds to start anywhere the player wants rather than requiring them to start from the stage.
-Mining materials from his own blocks. If you tried anything like this in Minecraft, you'd break the block beneath you and only get its exact materials back. Moreover, this nonsensical feature makes camping heavily beneficial to Steve no matter the circumstances, since it's effectively impossible for his opponent to stop him from getting materials.
-Moves that self-combo. Try spam attacking anything in Minecraft, and you'll find that a solid 2/3 of your attacks miss. This is because each one grants the hit enemy a large period of invincibility to your attacks, so large, in fact, that you'll frequently end up running past them entirely. Or more likely, you'll run into the enemy you're trying to combo and get whacked. If Steve couldn't true combo moves like jab and up tilt into _themselves,_ the skill floor of his ludicrously strong combos would skyrocket. He'd still be a stupidly high damage combo character, but said stupidly high damage combos would actually take skill and effort, and wouldn't be 100% consistent.
-Immunity to TNT if he detonates it with down smash. In Minecraft, both lava and TNT, even those you place yourself, will hurt you just as much as they will anything else. Steve is also the only character in the entirety of Smash who can detonate his own explosives on top of himself and come out completely unscathed. He does *not* need this strong a ledge trapping tool alongside the rest of his numerous lethal traps.
To be fair, his immunity to Tnt is not a feature Sakurai added, but a glitch the players exploited
@Roger Loe You must be talking about the 1.9 cooldown, not the I-frames you get every time a player hits you in Minecraft.
I’m ngl hearing about the move set being crazy was surprising, Master Chief would be harder cause he has weapons, wouldn’t really be fun or creative to play. Steve has a world of tools and blocks, it’s pretty obvious his kit would have “more.”
I hate playing against Steve, even though I main Terry so I can kick the minecart and input rising tackle through the anvil
The thing that makes me not actively wanting a ban for him is unlike Bayonetta, you still need to put *SOME* effort into the combos instead of just being given ladder combos out for free with the only answer being thumb pain and a broken joystick/thumbpad. It's not like Melee Fox/Falco can't camp with lasers either if not being approached and have a busted tool that grants a plethora of possibilities for them (shine). There is counterplay to Steve, it's just an adjusting period for everyone to learn how to answer him.
I hope they make steves uptilt slower and jab have more base kb but less bk scaling so that low percent combos are not as insane as thay are, but high percent combos are more consistent like roys jab, and make blocks worse for edgeguarding some characters, I like steve but he is a little overtuned in some ways
They won't, updates are over
@@jamesjoe1690 yea I know, just stating what I hope happens, but at least modding will be easier seeing as its the last update, so I can add it myself lol
@@zechariahcaraballo8765 how difficult is it to mod your own balance changes
@@spicymeatballs2thespicening not sure but if I can learn lua in roblox im sure hacking a device made by a multimillion dollar company that hates modders and goes out of their way to stop and sue hackers and modders, to then altar the files of one the biggest games with some of the most complicated stuff in gaming and then add more characters to it should not be that hard right?
I don't get why jab combos into itself so well. Play Minecraft and try to spam sword strikes on an enemy. They get *a lot* of i-frames from each one, to the point where they can usually hit you at any given point in the string.
12:18 So basically, Steve has been perfectly transported over to Smash bros. Like, this is a perfect description of Minecraft players vs everyone else. And it's extremely unfair. Which has also been transported well from Minecraft
Would only being able to place blocks on the ground like survival mode be a solid nerf to steve?
It would make him unplayable
@@jairoharleyvids100 i mean he’d still be able to make wall setups but would reduce the insane ladder combos with infinite jumps. Also would reduce the edgeguards making floating walls blocking the ledge. Could you give some reasons why he’d be unplayable?
@@MrMosebey that would be a /setblock command
I'm surprised everyone plays Steve despite him being a controversial character I honestly thought he would fall into the why no one plays category
I saw a match of yoni playing Luigi the other day vs another Steve main playing mega men, and damn yoni's neutral is really either mid or bad, the fact that Steve doesn't rly play neutral(atleast like the other characters) is also a big reason of why some players that were 0-2 in bracket are now winning vs big names
Steve is dumpstered by Ivysaur, whose entire moveset ignores blocks, but fewer pros play Pokemon Trainer anymore. Ivysaur is SO effective against Steve that it can prevent him from mining.
I feel a little bad playing steve, but he's the only dlc character I really really wanted, so I will continue
Don't feel too bad. He's top 1, but he's by *far* the most arguable and balanced top 1 in any Smash game to date.
Compared to things like Brawl Meta Knight and... Sm4sh Bayonetta, Steve is pretty tame for being the best character on the roster.
Will we be seeing a “The Problem with World of Light” anytime soon?