Im gonna go ahead and start with Chibis strenghts here. You know, get the smaller part done first


For starters, Chibis neutral game is actually really really good now. Blaster is easily one of the best projectiles in the game (and in my opinion actually is the best one right now). Hitstun? Check. Set KB? Check. Forces a laggy landing animation for every hit? Check. Angling? Check. (Sorta.) Absurd fire rate? Check. If you havent noticed by now, I love this move to bits. Amazing both onstage and offstage. It not having free angling capabilities is what lacks the move being perfect in my opinion. Come on, its 2017, give equality to air and ground blaster already

Alongside Blaster, Chibi has a really good Fair as well. While I always kind of overlooked the good old spoon in 0.9b, its propably my favourite aerial at Chibis disposal right now. Granted, the competition got more or less neutered, but Fair still is fast, still has a huge hitbox, still does high damage and still can combo like it could. And of couse there are Nair and Bair with their pretty large hitboxes as well, and then you have an angleable grab and FSmash and FTilt and DTilt, and approaching Chibi can become pretty difficult for many characters. Chibi can really play the spacing game this time around, and much more effective than in the past.


Anti-landing and anti-air game in general is another one of Chibis biggest assets. Up Grab (not Up Throw, why are people mixing this up anyway?), Up Smash, FSmash, Fair/Bair/Nair, Blaster are all decent tools to give anyone above Chibi some issues on their own. But he doesnt have one of those, he has them all. Landing against Chibi is a nightmare, especially on flat stages or if you struggle at landing in general - Marth and Bowser come to mind. Of couse all of these tools also double as solid anti-approach tools, but thats part of Chibis spacing game I mentioned earlier.


And lastly, offstage game. Chibis recovery is lowkey busted now. A move that grants practically infinite horizontal recovery at the cost of some height is nice to have for virtually anyone, especially if you remember that Chibi can interrupt the move at virtually any given time he desires. Also nice for stalling I might add And lets not forget that Beta Copter now goes a lot farther a lot faster AND can finally sweetspot (well, somewhat. Hard, but it works) as well. Blaster is also still very nice to disrupt edgeguards, and rising Fair is still a viable tool. Infact, as long as Chibi doesnt burn his jump, he is more or less guaranteed to make it back to the stage against a huge majority of the cast.

If Chibi is the one edgeguarding, it works out even better for him. Everything I listed as under the "anti-air" section also is a powerful arsenal of edgeguarding tools. Dair and Down Grab are also invaluable, especially the former thanks to its sheer range. At best the opponent eats a lot of damage from Blaster -> FSmash -> back offstage conversions, and at worst you just straight up die. Link for instance gets absolutely bodied by Chibi if he has to recover. Just dont ever find yourself above Chibi or offstage against him. Very bad spot.




Now onto the part where I actually start ranting. Wee. Lets begin with the biggest issue - punish game. Chibis punish game always was... ok-ish. In 0.9b he had his throws, DTilt (which I believe to have been criminally underused and a very reliable setup) and Fair/Nair to start his strings. Low percent punishes were actually not that bad (UTilt USmash, Fairtrain and a bit more), but he had issues once the opponent got past the 70ish% mark. This was largely due to the fact that he severely lacked reliable KO setups outside of grab and a move that increased your hurtbox. His saving grace was the sheer force of his few KO moves - Uair killed almost everyone reliably at 90% or less, and Bair was a powerful KO tool in its own right and much easier to connect with, albeit not a kill move until around 120-130%. It was a struggle, but it wasnt all that bad for the most part. Except the times where you got past DThrow percents, then you were royally f***. Marth syndrome should be called Chibi syndrome for this game.

So naturally, somebody from the dev team decided that the best way to fix this glaring issue and improve Chibis punish game was to... entirely remove his KO power! What a logical and reasonable choice of balancing I must say. Brilliant! Perfect! I think you noticed that Im very very pissed about this by now. Our new Uair, dubbed the Plug of Justice pre-Beta, was promised to function as a second Knee when it came to KO power. Everyone knows that Knee is super powerful, so why exactly does it kill like 80% later than the actual Knee if we are generous? Its a discount Knee at best, and its pitifully weak. No DI Mario can tank Uairs from the top platform on Battlefield up until 132% (I have Refurin backing that up actually. Just in case someone thinks Im making that up.), which is just a bad joke and incredibly sad. Whoever made that fateful Dev Blog #3 seriously must enjoy lying to our little community. Not trying to start another s*** circlejerk, but thats how I feel like. And while this isnt exactly the fault of its s*** KB, DTilt to Uair, formerly one of our best KO confirms, is also gone due to the new hitbox placement on the new Uair. Meh.

But ok, Uair sucks now. Our most powerful and prominent KO tool, our signature move, is just gone without any real replacement. Surely that means that Back Air is super strong now to make up for it, doesnt it? Turns out... it doesnt. For the record: Bair being nerfed was rumoured back in 2015, back when Beta was still nothing more than just the next update that would come around soon enough. Even back then, the few Chibis that were around at the time (that being pre-troll Zero Suit User - hard to imagine, I know - myself and prolly two more guys) were all against that change. I went ahead and asked random people that didnt know jack s*** about the character, and even those were opposing a potentail Bair nerf. But lo and behold, for the infinite wisdom of some balancer thought otherwise! Bair as a kill move is now pretty much gone up until the 150%+ realm. So in just one update, Chibi didnt just lose one, but BOTH of his KO moves! What a great idea! I really cannot overstate how much this baffles me. Could whoever is responsible for this at least tell me what the thought process behing this idea was, assuming there was any? I have been wondering about this for the last month, and I actually have no clue. It just doesnt make sense. Generally I rarely take a stock before the opponent hits said 150%, which is simply worse than the old "kill until 130 or dont kill till 200" scenario that used to be around. With this another issue opens up: Thanks to Chibis punish game being complete a** now, the character has to win neutral the whole game to actually win the match. A character that cant kill for s***, but is one of the easiest characters to 0-Death tends to struggle a LOT. Just for the record, I actually had people tell me that they think that Uair and Bair need buffs not because they play Chibi, but because they played against one and it felt it was too weak when they got hit by it. Thats how bad you f*** up. Sheesh.


But lets be fair, what did we get in exchange in the KO department? Lets see... UTilt, BThrow and DSmash. Sounds nice and all at first glance, but of course there have to be some major issues with those as well. I mean, its Chibi we are talking about here. While the KB buff on UTilt is highly appreciated and actually gives the move a purpose now (it essentially was an inferior DTilt back in 0.9b), it doesnt really KO all that well against anyone who is not a floatie. I am not saying that the move should be stronger (although I really wouldnt mind) though. The issue lies somewhere else. Ill let you guess what I mean.

BThrow is one of the strongest kill throws in this version now, which I have advocated for a while now, and I was super happy about this at first. But god does this move get absolutely neutered by proper DI. Unless your DI is absolute s***, this move usually should not kill before 160ish, which is only marginally better than 0.9b BThrow. The move itself is fine, but DI just destroys its purpose entirely. Could someone look into this pretty please?

And lastly, DSmash. I am more than happy to admit that DSmash is a f*** beast now, killing idle Fox from the ground of BF as low as 79% uncharged. (Does this ring a bell?) This is almost absurdly powerful. But in all honestly, this is what the move should have been for the last 3 years. And getting a sweetspot DSmash is next to impossible against anyone who actually knows what a tech is. Im getting so many DThrow Dair setups that I almost feel bad. Like, seriously, git gud. That s*** is not real at all. DI or tech or just dont be AFK if I grab you. Just stop falling for that. I guess you could use DSmash as a super hard read to catch an airdodge landing or something like that, but that is a super rare setup. Ngl though, in the rare instance that DSmash sweetspot connects, it hits really hard. It being next to impossible to land is propably a fair trade for its destructive power.

And I guess USmash is a bit stronger now. Hype.


Speaking of Up Smash... I already have whined about this a few times, but here it is again - the hitboxes on USmash are a joke now. 0.9b USmash was way too big, and the nerfs were well deserved, but now USmash is way too small. It effectively is an anti-air that cannot anti-air, thats how small it is. Catching landings with Blaster -> USmash was one of the most basic things that Chibi had, but its pretty much replaced by FSmash now. (Speaking of FSmash, I would mention that FSmash can be TECHED for whatever BS reason, but its Chibi, its Chibi FSmash, who gives a f*** anyway). Just give it some bigger hitboxes (not much, but it does need a bit) and call it a day for that one.


The next point on my list is going to sound weird, and it is about recovery. I already said that our recovery is lowkey busted now, and its largely due to Toothbrush. The move grants infinite horizontal recovery at the cost of a bit of height, offers decent protection from the front, and Chibi can cancel it whenever he pleases to. Thats not good design. 0.9b Shuttle Loop was very similar in the whole "infinite recovery" department (although it did make you helpless afterwards and offered very little protection), and it consequently got removed. PM Meta Knight also had a very good way of solving that problem in my opinion. SSF2 does not have that sadly. Infinite recovery is a dumb concept by default. Whenever Chibi gets sent offstage, all he needs to do is Side B somewhat close to the ledge and still have access to his full rescources. Get hit again? No problem, just Side B again! And again! And again and again and again until you make it back! You see what the issue is? Nerf Side B. Be it a fuel system, limiting the move to only 3 boosts per airtime, make it usable only once per airtime or whatever else you might wanna do with it, but nerf it. Please. Im asking this as a Chibi main for the sake of good game design. I would dig up the Zip Lash idea I had way back in 2015 here, but Im too lazy for that rn If anyone wants to see this, Ill happily provide a link for that though.



I propably could think of a whole lot more to say, but Im going to cut it short here. Inability to deal with rushdown and pressure, s*** OoS game, a buggy Down B, FSmash being techable, arguably the worst disadvantage stage in the game, yadda yadda.



Short version: Already s*** KO potential got nuked into the Shadow Realm. Punish game went from bottom 3 to undisputed worst in the game. Anti-air USmash cannot anti-air properly. Recovery is poorly designed and lowkey busted. Character has to abuse his 3 big pros (neutral, anti-air, edgeguarding) hard to even have a shot at winning. Get hit once and youre royally screwed. Still does well against floaties or characters that hate zoning/landing/recovering, but loses to just about everyone else. New Uair makes floaty MUs a much bigger struggle though. Prolly a low mid tier.