What Is A “Fundamentals” Character? | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 

Dude, that clip was so sick. Did you see how ___ just did ____ on ____??? Truly one of the matches of all time

@Utsuhoagie Ryeuji Lmao that was definitely a singular match of all time

Yeah, those edgeguards were absolutely insane.

i almost restarted my yt app over that black screen

Pac-Man - seems like a gimmick character for wrong reasons but isn't. Pac-Man - actual gimmick is nothing* is wrong about him.

definition of gimmick: 1. n "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business" 2. v "alter or augment with an extra device or feature." tbh I dont think calling it a gimmick is up to date, specially in a game like ultimate. I see your point plab, you want to know what makes the character either "special " or "different" from others, maybe was the wrong wording. I guess gimmicky would fit best in Melee or 64 because the roaster was very vanilla and more old school. Doing a video like that in ultimate would not work, rather we just call out the best move of each character so we exclude the honest ones regardless of tier lists.

@@Magic0YTid say theres still gimmicks in ult, especially in the dlc characters. jokers arsene is an extra feature. steve had to have every stage rebuilt for his blocks. kazuya is a gimmick. then theres things like bowsers tough guy mechanic or macs KO punch. i agree that people call things gimmicks that arent gimmicks too often but they still exist

@@Magic0YT tbh the Shotos and Item Characters absolutely have gimmicks considering how differently they work

The 1# character is a gimmick

So it’s not just me

Methinks Vars forgot to add an Ike clip here.

Copyright shit?

I was going to say this too. His kit is very unorthodox as well. The frog employs a lot of fundamentals in their play but not enough in my opinion to classify as a fundies char.

I'd say he's a fundies character, as a result of having no shield he has to space a lot better than the opponent to both build damage and kill, especially due to how unsafe most of his moves are on shield. He's also pretty flow charty in advantage in general which is also changed throughout percent windows. A lot of his nuetral requires you to just be the better player with better movement, spacing, and option coverage.

I mostly agree but I do think Greninja grab is really good; it’s pretty large (greninja pivot grab is insane), up throw is either great for combos or juggling, fthrow nullifies shield at ledge >150%. D throw also sets up rps at kill percents.

Amen. Lucina and wolf feel very solid and straightforward and don't seem like they need crazy combo game or super-technical game play to be decent. Greninja is the opposite of that. He feels weird and probably can't win just by positioning well and making good/patient choices.

Greninja might seem like a strange pick, but he truly is a character who is heavy on fundamentals. Good movement is the most important thing a Greninja needs, which can only come from a solid grasp on how to play neutral, push advantage state, and mitigate disadvantage. This is especially important because of his inability to rely on shield like so many other characters do.

FGC?

@@Icemario87 Ryu, Terry Kazuya, ect.

@@CrimsoniteSP oh, fighting game characters, got it.

The goat

Yep, agreed: - Side-B is a braindead gimmick; should NOT be a kill move! - His two projectiles arguably put him in the "Trap" character category - Has extremely good flowchart for kill option (down throw into 50/50) He's close...the above 3 items (especially the side b) would need to be tweaked for him to be fundamental.

@dazed d ROB is actually a very hard character to use. The 0 to death combo takes a lot of skill and ROB needs it when he's in a bad matchup. Wolf is by far a much easier character.

@dazed d I'm not joking. ROB is very overrated.

no he is not lol

Idk Kirby exists

Lucina is not balanced. 😐

@@hubbleworks7872 compared to the others swordies that's not true

@@deanoor9391 oh I can keep going though, let’s not forget lucina. Who is just Marth in easy mode. Oh he said, palu? Now that is absolutely crazy guy. Yeah I totally think it’s balanced that she has 4 amazing special moves that are way better than they have any right to be, an invincible DA and back air, nair poops that are extremely easy to preform and almost always prioritize over any other moves. Need I explain more?

@@hubbleworks7872 What I am hearing from you is just how the characters you mentioned are strong or high tiers, and that's something that I believe people let their frustrations playing against a character define their view of the whole character

its like you get annoyed each time you play against palutena but that's not the point of the video, the point of the video its that these characters have a good enough balance of tools for these characters to promote the creation of good habits and practicing fundamentals

Thank you for taking the time to spell smörgåsbord with special characters.

i actually agree with that statement, i really think that a character with huge kill moves, a charge shot that does 31%(talent), very good recovery, one of the stupidest forward airs in the game, a reflector that is a command grab that sets up for super early stocks, massive disjoints that arent really offset by tail hitbox, and a watered down free deku nut(talent), is quite skillful.

@@hubbleworks7872 to be fair, he is very big (even without tail hitbox) and light which is not a good combination

@@J.S.M-zo2bw true ig but he still has some cheese that I wouldn’t call fundies, I think any character with a projectile that does over at least 12% max is leaning on that move a little too hard

@@hubbleworks7872 A projectile you have to charge. The base damage of a shadow ball isn’t 12% either. Also, confusion doesn’t have anything true off of it until around 140%, so it isn’t some kind of freebie. You have to read your opponent to get anything great out of it prior to that, which definitely falls under fundamentals. Having a great fair doesn’t make him any less fundamental. Again, Ike and Palu are fundy chars and they had the best nairs in the game at one point. Lastly, disable requires your opponent to be grounded and facing you. It is not something you mash, it requires set ups and reads.

CRAZY STATEMENT

There are characters that teach you the game better than others. A few of these characters are "all arounder" characters but they are called fundies not cause of their playstyle. It's cause they can HELP your fundies be better. That's what he is talking about.

Then you don't understand the game very well. Many characters have built in gimmicks/mini-games that allow players to use as a crutch. Examples of skills + characters that can bypass that skill: - Fundamental skill: "Don't mash. Attack thoughtfully, because if I miss I will be open to getting hit." Character who can ignore this: Sheik. - Fundamental skill: "Space myself properly to KO opponent without getting hit in return." Character who can ignore this: Steve (e.g. minecart, etc) - Fundamental skill: "Use quick attacks to build up opponent's %. Then at kill percent, strategically use stronger attacks to get the KO." Character who can ignore this: Ganon And the list goes on and on. In some cases, this is completely fine because the character isn't that good to begin with (e.g. Ganon). In other cases, it's extremely odious, because players would otherwise be unable to place highly except for their character's skill-breaking gimmicks (e.g. Steve)

@@jeffersonian4 exactly. having a fundies-bypassing mechanic isn’t itself always a bad thing, it’s a problem when that mechanic isn’t balanced against a deficiency somewhere else (like you said, steve)

@@toonlonk Salute, finally, a reasonable person on this site :D

Doc has way better recovery than Chrom or Mac. He has two specials that allow you to rise in the air both up and down special. Doc is only bad because his movement speed is slow and his combos are generally only 2-3 hits max

@@codygruhl5548 mf noooooooooooo. docs air physics are def the worst in the game (besides ganon, but he has a pretty good vertical recovery).

@@codygruhl5548 doc has way worse air speed than both of them and his down b animation is like 100 frames so after he down b's you have 6 years to hit him. Also docs up and down b goes no where

@@rookeyji5177 Doc can still recover in more ways than Mac and chrom which is the point though. Having a wall jump is also another big factor in the differences in their recovery options

Doc is a "fundamentals" character because _if you don't know the fundamentals you're screwed._ (I don't actually know what doc is considered, but its probably not a fundamentals character... he plays more like a heavyweight).

Bair

@@chad762 Enjoy getting shield grabbed and beat by every disjoint in the game.

@@Capta1nTD bruh bair is like -6, you can't shield grab that

@@Capta1nTD You get shield grabbed if you space it poorly or get parried

@@chad762 you definitely can if you don't space it properly. And if you're spacing you run the risk of them moving away and whiff punishing you. Bair is Joker's best move but it's punishable like everything else in his kit. A lot of times it'll just blatantly whiff if you're not landing with it.

I would definitively say yes, and he has more kill power than both of them combined on top of it, and all sorts of off-stage cheese.

Shulk must be a really complicated fundies character then. Or to be more accurate, Shulk is a complicated stance fundies character.

I like shulk cuz he's got amazing fundies, but you can expand your gameplay after learning the fundies by using his monado arts

I think young link's gameplan of mostly zoning a keeping distance until it's time to take a stock isn't qualifiable for a fundies character. what makes young link so scary IS his projectiles and the various way he can mix up the way he throws. Sure you have to be close for fire arrow into fair to connect, but if your opponent backs up you can hold the charge and still hit them with an arrow to push your advantage. At the end of the day, even most zoners still have to play up close in order to take a stock, it's mostly how they play the entire match is what makes them classified to be a 'fundies' character.

Nah, he's too spammy to be a true fundies character. You can play him in a more rushdown, fundies-heavy way, but his optimum playstyle is too heavy on zoning for him to really be a fundies character. He's the closest thing to a fundies character out of the zoners, but he's still a zoner.

Foresight and swapping to Pyra anytime hurts her from beibg a fundie character

I wouldn't count characters that let you "cheat" as fundamental. Said another way, Mythra's physics and frame data are so good, that you can mindlessly mash but often get good results anyway (i.e. "cheat"). In contrast, a fundamentals character forces you to thoughtfully utilize the moveset, and rewards you for doing so without allowing you to get things for free.

Mythra, like Chrom and Roy, lets you get away with mashing because of having a mid-range disjoint+great frame data. Characters that encourage mashing and have easy kill moves and "fuck you" buttons (Chrom, Roy, Pyra/Mythra, Yoshi, ROB to some extent, I'd argue) cant be top picks for "fundies", imo

tjolt

@@hubbleworks7872 I mean tjolt has insane damage build up if it’s not like it’s a kill move, and is more used for conditioning, but I will agree it is the least fundies part of his kit

@@goblingoo8061 pikahu also has no disadvantage with up b and also recovers for free as well. Pikachu dash attack is also absurd.

No, he's a Combo character, and arguably a Glass Cannon (in a similar vein to Sheik; he's just objectively better).

To clarify further: Pikachu's moves come out so fast and have such little lag that he can continuously throw out hitboxes and not really care if they are hitting or not. (The word I think I was looking for before is "rushdown"). In contrast, a fundamentals character has to be more thoughtful about approach. Cloud's don't just rush in. Pikachu's do

I don’t think, even fundies characters can camp. And you can punish his dash attack, dair, nair on shield, down tilt and up air. You can’t punish his bair most of the time tho, you taking about cloud as if he were un punishable in a lot of scenarios when he’s not. The only cheesy thing about cloud would be his up b, and again still on you deal with that .That’s how it works. But he’s a fundies character for sure

How is Cloud's limit "cheesy"? "Cheese" is getting KO with too little effort. Only way Cloud can get that is with Finishing Touch, and even then, opponent has to have at least 60-80%, and the move's frame data is so bad that almost no one ever hits it

@@jeffersonian4 I think the fact Cloud even has a meter mechanic is the cheese part. He may not be a dlc fighter anymore but his origins as one shine through. They toned it down from smash 4 but all his limit moves are still super specials he is granted for simply playing the game (or in his case, charging it manually when possible) plus he gets limit like 3 times a stock so that's nice. Not the most balanced mechanic I feel. Couple that with incredible disjoints, darn good framedata, kill power, damage output, and so on. He's a bit too good at everything for me to consider him a fundies character. Recovery may be booty but that's like his one weakness and it too can be mitigated with limit Not speaking with any hatred here. He's good but he isn't toxic like steve or min-min lmao. If my main had a limit mechanic I'd prob be singing a different tune

@@kaito2220 "Fundamentals" is not describing a character as either high tier or low tier. It's describing whether the player using that character needs to have good fundamentals in order to succeed with them. Steve is a good example of this: players do not need to have good fundamentals to excel with Steve. Regardless of what you think about Cloud's limit, or where he places on the tier list, players have to have good fundamentals in order to succeed with him.

@@jeffersonian4 Amen on the steve comment lol he def carries bad players I'm not saying Cloud is nearly that busted or that players with bad fundamentals are excelling with him. However I am saying his risk-reward is scewed much more in his favor than other purely fundies characters. because he's got all those pretty forgiving qualities. Alotta people play him for a reason lol

Except that cloud is not a top tier,but Lucina, palu, wolf they definitely are

@@inked9361 cloud is definitely top 15 lmao. People downplay him so much because they play an easy character and want it to seem harder than it is

@@Bluerock121 lol top you dead ass said 15, he’s not even better than Lucina. And a lot of people say he’s top 25-30 he’s not that great has a lot weaknesses In this game, no reasons to think he’s top tier. And about cloud being easy, he’s easy to pick but I don’t think he’s easy at top level bro

@@inked9361 The official tier list, made by several dozens of top players, ranks Cloud at 10th, above all of them. That's maybe a little exaggerated, but he's certainly very very powerful.

But not every top tier is fundies.

“Kill throws” are throws that have good knockback scaling that they would usually kill at before 150 in the middle of the stage with no di, and could more than likely kill at 90-120 at ledge (or on a platform for vertical kills) depending on the base knockback. Examples being: Ness back throw, Mewtwo up throw, Doc back throw, and MK up throw. There are plenty of other kill throws, but these are just a few well known examples. Some “kill” throws don’t kill until much higher like Marth/Lucina up throw, but if a throw doesn’t kill until around 200+, it’s not considered a kill throw.

Yes, he means a primary way of taking stocks

Yoshi gets punished for spamming FAR less than someone like Lucina. A player starting on Yoshi very well might get too used to how hard it is to whiff punish Yoshi at low and mid tier play he has such low end lag. Plus his double jump is completely unique and requires thinking about aerial movement differently than anyone else, if you don't use his double jump armor effectively you're playing a fraction of the character.

@@Jeffphuck You are right to a certain extent but I personally think that those 2 atributes don't really nullify him following the rest of the fundies character guidelines very closely. Yes he might be a bit mashy but you learn quickly to not recklessly approach and mash when you play against any character with a sword, or against a character with armour or a counter (like DK for example, if you recklessly mash against him you get headbutted and die, not saying it's a losing matchup, but you have to play smart), so that only really applies to like extremely new players. As for his aerial game, true, it's a bit different from other characters, might be a bit hard to grasp the aerial game of other characters if you solo main yoshi, but that can be applied to a certain extent to other fundies like ROB. Yoshi has great recovery and mixups, but you MUST mix it up, otherwise you get gimped the second you use your double jump. A lot of the time I just save my double jump when recovering slightly high, just mixing up with egg toss. And besides, how is double jump armour different from, say, Lucina having invulnerability frames at the start of UpB?

Not even close. Yoshi gets rewarded heavily for mashing because of how low-risk his aerials are. He has multiple safe-on-shield options and his jump gives him some of the most generous armor in the game (which makes it a one-frame "get out of jail free" card for a lot of combos). Yoshi doesnt rely as much on spacing and risk analysis as a "fundies" character would, and a new player learning the game with him would probably develop some pretty bad habits as as result. Compare that to, say, Lucina, Mario or the Star Fox characters--all of whom will get punished for bad spacing or spamming aerials (things you can easily get away with as Yoshi in a lot of matchups). Bowser is more of a fundies character than Yoshi is (yeah, he has tough guy, but it isnt too much of a factor at all in 95% of MUs, a pretty far cry from Yoshi's combo-breaking jump armor), if you're looking for one that isnt in the video. I also disagree heavily with Joker (overpowered comeback mechanic) and ROB (too much of a trapper, item gimmick, can use up-b to stall out some timers like Monado arts, side-B is both spammy and a kill move) being on the video list

@@BroadwayRonMexico Yoshi double jump armour is put on a pedestal when it shouldn't Yes it breaks combos but the thing is, it sets you up perfectly for a juggle, it's not on the same or even remotely similar level to shield monato or snake granade, sure it's better than nothing but you still get punished, it only mitigates it slightly, and since it's dependent on knockback it can be outright useless against certain moves and at higher percents, since if you get hit even though you reduce the knockback, you just get hit again. At most it's a good way to recover back to stage through some attacks. And the thing is, yoshi is really stubby, even though he has good frame data his attacks are short ranged, meaning if you wiff you can still be punished by longer range attacks, and his only "long range" options are egg and fair. Safety on shield isn't invalidation either seeing how most of Cloud's moves are safe on shield, either from sheer range or due to them not being that negative on shield. Similar stuff with Lucina.

​@@nathanwaterser8218 Sure, he has his bad matchups, especially against some characters with disjoints, but not everyone has those. Yoshi can continuously throw aerials against a disjointless brawler without consequence thanks to his airspeed. He can get away with things that most of the roster can't. My point is just that compared to some of the characters here, Yoshi is more likely to teach bad habits. His lack of range and good frame data mean you wont learn spacing very well. His unique shield means you never have to worry about being poked by a down-tilt, but it's also not possible to act out of (which most characters have some way of doing). He has long, active hitboxes without much lag, which means you can pretty much mash and do well up into intermediate levels of play. His jump armor and ability to safely mash said ridiculous aerials without being punished by a very large chunk of the roster makes someone learning the game likely to pick up habits that will get them destroyed when playing another aggressive character. Yoshi makes for a lot bad habits that you have to unlearn when playing other characters, while other things are slower to learn with him, and that's why he's not a good fundies character. Sure, your fundamentals will improve after a while playing Yoshi, but even playing Steve will teach you fundamentals eventually. It's just going to be a slow process compared to someone like Lucina, who has a standard, pure basics swordie-style (and already, swordies are the best to learn spacing with) with no gimmicks. Most of what you learn playing someone like Ike or Lucina (or for non-swordie examples, Wolf or Dr Mario) will be applicable with other characters, while Yoshi has a very specialized and nonstandard playstyle by comparison, which means much of what you're doing won't be broadly applicable to Smash as a whole. Yoshi isnt FGC, Ice Climbers, or Steve levels of gimmicky and hyperspecialized, but he's not a pure fundie like Mario, Pit, Wolf, or Lucina either.

What? I'll give you DK because his hurtbox is huge, but none of those other matchups are hard. And combo wise... What are you on? First of all, those characters are tall, so Nairplanes to F-smash are thing. Also it's easier to land falling Nair confirms. And furthermore, all of those characters struggle to escape juggle situations and Marth is one of the best characters in the game when it comes to juggling. Focus on frame trapping during advantage and you'll be in a much better position. Also... The recoveries on those characters... Marth can just edge guard them. Pretty easily, actually. Either with counter or forward air. Even DK can be dealt with this way. Heck, with DK, you can do some silly stuff like Nairplane to Nairplane to F-smash at like 0-10% I wanna say, for an easy corner carry to edge guard. Not saying the match up easy, mind you, but even in that match up, there's things you can do.

Welp, except for Sephi, i would love to see how your marth can juggle Cloud and his d-air, shulk and his monado or edgeguard Sephiroth consistently ( obviously i talk about some real players that have some work on their disavantage state, not some random masher that dont know that much about planning a game :x ). But yeah, we can always play the game regardless the MU. Ultimate is a very balanced game after all, but still, it doesn't mean that all the MU are even close to fair at all for everyone.

@@aegishdaego Cloud Dair hitbox is narrow and takes a minute to come out and Shulk's frame data is slow. Sure, monado can help him, but it's far from a get out of jail free card since that's mostly useful for escaping combos, not juggle situations. I mean I guess he gets a third jump, but still. And again, edge guarding is very easy against the characters you listed. For example, with Sephiroth, if he's within range to do the shorter version of his recovery, chances are you're close enough to him that you can snuff it out with a forward air since that move has faster frame data. If he's forced to recover low, then you can parry the octo-slash.

Marth has GREAT edgeguards against Shulk, DK, and Cloud.

he definitely is

Too many easy and reliable kill options. He easily kills people at very low percents just landing jab-bair.

Absolutely- he's overtuned a bit- but just utilizes fundamentals instead of a gimmick. A performance enhancing drug, if you will

Probably, but he falls more in the rush-down category, like Fox

Absolutely, Roy is easy but he is a fundies character

If your opponent knows the matchup and is a competent player he will punish Up B and edge guard cloud Parry his bad spaced bairs-frame11 punishable on parry if the cloud player didn’t space it perfectly Limit ?? just hold shield and adapt to the time, just 15 seconds, this is not smash 4. So for sure there are risks to play cloud in this game.

@@Ericspil790 not big ones. Back air is broken. Up b is completely spammable and broken. Limit is extremely polarizing. It removes his one weakness (recovery), gives him free stage control by forcing an approach, gives him non commital kill moves, buffs his atrributes

Joker is now the best shoto.

He struggles more due to being under-tuned. He definitely fits the fundy definition though.

@@JasonSmith-jv7wl And not only fits into, IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL of the characters, which is clearly intentional considering Pit is Sakurai's stepson. Seriously, a big issue Pit and Pittoo have is being TOO FAIR AND HONEST of fighters, too fundamental-oriented without any sauce or X-factor to make up for it.

@@N12015 People say how balanced ult is yet some characters we’re pretty obviously under and overtuned. I think they could have easily made adjustments to the Pits that would have made them high tier with just simple adjustments to damage and knock back growth. If they just got a bit more out of their exchanges it wouldn’t matter that they didn’t have some mechanic to boost them like many other characters.

@@JasonSmith-jv7wl Oh, i forgot another issue: THEY'RE INCREDIBLY INCONSISTENT. We all know how inconsistent his U-air is, but also applies to N-Air, F-Air, F-Smash and U-Smash. They have in theory the tools to be good, but in practice those tools tend to fail too often to make them good on a tournament setting.

@@JasonSmith-jv7wl yeah, he's the definiton of all rounder, but I feel that when people talk about "fundies characters" they usually mean REALLY good all-rounders. High- top tiers that have every tool to win and won't struggle too much with something

Not exactly. Roy is a rush down character that requires staying in advantage as long as possible.

Sorta, but not really. Roy can safely mash like few other characters in the game (besides Chrom who is an echo, Yoshi, Mythra, and to some extent, ROB, are the only characters that come to mind), and he can get easy kills off of stray hits in a way most "fundies" characters cant.

Random crits are still a thing though

All Pyra and Mythra do is Sword Attacks that's probably why they aren't fundies

Swapping and Foresight.

Foresight, plus Mythra has crazy framedata with mid-range disjointed hitboxes. Mythra can safely mash and rewards mashing to an extent that few other characters do (same reason I dont consider Chrom and Roy fundies)

i agree, i cant recall how many times people would complain about, "no counterplay to monado arts" and then proceed to kill me at 20% bc i had smash art on, or did 45% bc i had jump or buster.

I feel base shulk is a fundies but monado arts shulk is not. The fact that different arts instantly change the state of the match at will means that he can't be a fundie. Your opponent has to adapt to what is basically an entirely new character which is something you are unlikely to see an any other matchup.

@@gameboyn64 this applies to like 2 Arts, which are Jump and Speed. And every art lasts like 10 seconds tops. None of the arts give him moves that become more spammable and harder to play around other than I guess Speed art which makes it easier to short hop fair. Shield, Smash, and Buster simply change the risk/reward factor but ultimately doesnt change how shulk plays, just how the player approaches him

@@obijuandy-liacco328 jump and speed change his physics, shield drastically changes what combos do and don't work as well as drastically changing kill percent windows, buster increases shield stun and shield damage making attacks both safer and more immediately threatening as well as altering his combo game, and smash art can make opposing kill confirms stop working because the knockback is increased and now shulk has kill throws. The point is not that shulk has spammable moves or not. The point is that the state of the match changes. The matchup becomes more about character knowledge and your ability to adapt to a fluid situation rather than a player's fundamental knowledge and skills.

@@gameboyn64 yeah i dont think pyra and mythra are similar in, ANY WAY shape or form, or pokemon trainer, or olimar, or ANY character that switches, and/or comeback mechanic, which essentialy is just an underdog boost. you literally receive it for being bad. Monado arts have the potential FOR a comback, and isnt just automatically give you a win like rage drive, arsene, wing, aura, diamond, etc. I will admit that shulks monados are def the best move in the game bar none, shulk would be a bottom 20 character without monados. and are one of the reason shulk is one of the hardest characters to master. It is hard for both players that have to learn 6 matchups, and for the shulk to learn 6 different characters. Biggest reason for monado arts being skillful is the mental strain it requires to choose the correct art at the right time, otherwise, you get gimped, cheesed, killed at 10%, take 70% for a simple bread and butter, or all of the above. if you were losing before, you are still going to lose.