This was very insightful and a good articulation of how I've always felt trying to play Byleth. "I've got longer range than you...why doesn't it feel like it?"
Byleth is honestly the most fun FE character in the game despite all of its weaknesses. Feels like a heavy weight that traded some of its weight for more range on some of its attacks.
@@valterain6907 I agree...but Robin can also be so frustrating to play. Purely because Robin sabotages itself by having limited uses on the Tomes and Levin Sword. It's so annoying to run out of them in the most crucial moments. And really makes me wish that Robin didn't have this resource system and that its specials were generally better.
@@Nefaliss I've been playing robin since I picked up smash, and I agree for the most part. Robin also some very bad matchups against characters with reflectors because it completely invalidates their game plan. The resource system does get a lot less annoying when you learn to play around it, and learn how to use book and levin sword discard to your advantage (and, not to mention how many times I accidentally cheese someone because they got hit by an elwind discard off stage trying to ledge guard)
After playing Three Houses his move set makes so much sense. His slow movement speed and punishable attacks really puts an emphasis on decision making, commitment, and positioning. Which is all important in Three Houses (despite it being an easy game). Also he’s actually pretty goofy in his own game and a lovable character even though he’s a silent protagonist
@@Zenitsu-zq4pj Yeah honestly they did a good job designing his character for smash. I’m not that good with him but it’s always fun watching a good Byleth
@ayar2 If you hit the tipper on a jump call out then they can explode at like 100 (depending on character ofc). Only really hit it while messing around but it CAN kill
Um... Pyra/mythra, kazuya, captan falcon, ganondorf, jokerand incineroar all do it equally or better and many of them can create these instances more often
This was really interesting! Byleth is almost never in a comfortable position to consistently apply a gameplan on a character to character basis, but what they are great at is converting normal player-player interactions into devastatingly early stocks
@@mrhalfsaid1389 I don't think about think about them like a heavyweight neccesarily. To me, he's a heavy version of pit. While pit is a gladius to lucina's falchion, he's a zweihander. He takes the best elements of both of them. The close range potential (nair, grab) of pit, the "everywhere" prescence lucina can have, and the spacing required of both
@@tumultoustortellini RPG characters are about out smarting your opponent. Byleth is no different, he has anticipate what the opponent is going to do and punishes them for it, just like playing a Fire Emblem game.
I just feel really bad for byleth. He was completely controversial as a fighter pick and after being released, almost no one gave him a shot due to the stigma of Fire Emblem in the smash community. Anyway, I love Byleth and main him alongside Terry and Cloud. Hope you all have a wonderful day
I feel like the hate byleth got would have been minimized if they just waited until fighters pass 2 to put byleth in and put another 3rd party character in as the final character of fighters pass 1
I used to have that stigma, but turns out I actually love how swordies play. I also love 3H now as well. I give every character a shot, and I'm so glad I gave it to byleth
I didn't mind Byleth, I was never bugged by the "anime swordfighter" thing. And FE having a lot of reps make sense since each game has a unique story and protagonist. Eventually I got around to playing Three Houses and now I'm pretty happy with their inclusion.
Byleth is genuinely such a fun character to play. I feel like his advantage state, while more read heavy than many characters, is the most fun to pilot.
Did not expect to sit down and see myself in the first 30 seconds of the video haha. I think for a roughly high tier character this character isn't meant for everyone, but I like how pretty straightforward Byleths gameplan is, and picking apart someone with raw good reads and neutral is so satisfying to play.
@connorself LMFAO it's all good honestly, Frostbite 2020 was just a few short weeks after the character had released and I was extremely sick that entire weekend so I just went her to try tether cancel shenanigans. Was pleasantly surprised to see I was on here though!
@@Merricktherox still better than I could do, I play smash casually but I’ve been considering taking byleth/Sora to locals. Glad to see I’m not the only one who messes up tether
As someone who’s a Byleth main, I found this intriguing and educational. If you wouldn’t mind adding which characters would beat each character as you do the reviews, that’s helpful. Great video!!
@@gameboyn64 I would agree with this, I train with Byleth (as well as other mains) on each lvl 9 character AI and I find, with my style of play, fighting Inceneroar, Yoshi, Mario, Minmin, Kazuya, Steve to be the most challenging/annoying 😅.
Also, as you said, it was MkLeo, the king of spacing. He's a master of understanding threat bubbles and use them appropiately to make those unsafe aerials safe on shield; he has an innate synergy with characters like Marth or Byleth in that way. Most players are not like him and have more focus on combos, conditioning or mix-ups over perfect spacing and reads. In short, they're TOO BALANCED FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, their massive strenghts come with massive weaknesses you must deal with, altough is not overly disadvantageous or bland, just good balance coming to play, like the true Shotos, Sheik, Greninja or Sora. No doubt a 7/10 character who is not beginner-friendly like Ness.
As a byleth main, it is possible to make him work. And there are dozens of bad match ups that he can win by using cheese. It just mainly requires a good idea of what other mains will do which is something that Leo can do considering his experience.
Yoshi/Byleth Co-main here and all I'm gonna say is despite their flaws imho i think Byleth is by far one of the most fun and unique characters to play. There are very few times not only in smash but fighting games in general when you play a character for the first time and you fall in love with everything from the movement to their moveset. This was me when i was playing randoms against a friend. (I still use the same color i got off of random) 😅
Funnily enough I am one of two Byleth mains at my rather small local scene. With two players, Byleth is one the most represented characters here. In my opinion Byleth is a character with great strengths but pretty big weaknesses as well. The video sadly didn't really go over some of Byleth's strengths and mostly focused on the negatives. Just to go over a few of them: Probably one of the best edge guarding in the game, very early kill confirms and setups, a very strong anti-air game and a very good combo game, especially for swordie standards.
Yeah, Byleth is what we call "A balanced character", one with strenghts as prominent as its weaknesses. *Strenghts:* Damage per interaction, Juggling, Recovery, Range, Kill power, Shield pressure, edgeguards. *Weaknesses:* Frame data, ground mobility, air mobility, end lag, spacing reliance, landing. Is a 7v6, which again, averages out in a perfectly functional character with great strenghts and exploitable weaknesses, making them powerful but constrained. The definition of a low-high tier or 7/10 character. For comparison's sake, let's see a top tier and a low tier. *Roy's strengths:* Kill power, Ground mobility, air mobility, Damage per interaction, mix-ups, Frame data. *Weaknesses:* Landing, Spacing reliance, off-stage. A 6v3, with so many strengths and not a lot of weaknesses there's no wonder why he's a top tier, a 9/10 according to the tier list. *King DDD's strenghts:* Survivability, Damage per hit, ledge traps, Range. *Weaknesses:* Frame data, Endlag, Ground speed, Air speed, Size, landing, out of shield, shield safety. 4 vs 8, there's a reason he's considered unviable low tier; no, he doesn't kill early like most heavyweights, just on high percentages consistently so is quite average, that's why he's considered a bottom 5 and a 3/10.
PS: If you ask me, Byleth is the best designed DLC alongside Sephiroth. It is balanced which not many DLC can proclaim that btw, it lacks those unfair moments (That discards Hero and Terry), has an enjoyable playstyle for their intended audience (That discarded Sora btw). If your shield got broken is because Byleth read you, the arrows are predictable in timing and is truly slow and clunky; if you lose is a bit of your fault and their reward.
I picked them up when they came out, and they’ve been my main from that day on. I dropped Marth because I didn’t feel he was helpful to my improvement, and when I picked up Byleth, they just clicked perfectly. Their up b and nair have been my most used moves and their speed doesn’t really hamper how fluid they feel to move. Byleth with slingshot helps a ton (unfortunately I don’t get it consistently) and they have a ton of mixups with up b, and it just makes for crazy reversals to getting edgeguarded and their recovery is so cool (wish they had more horizontal movement but win some, lose some). They are a great character who deserves more love and came out at an unfortunate time with all the Corrin hate getting moved to Byleth.
Honestly, I never expected to pick up Byleth in Smash. I remember buying Three Houses because I wanted to try out Fire Emblem for the first time, but I didn't get to it until months later. Byleth being so fun in Smash is what pushed me to play through all four routes in Three Houses, as well as do the Cindered Shadows DLC. I co-mained them alongside Wario during my time with Ultimate. Not only do I like Byleth in Smash, but I also like Byleth in Fire Emblem itself as well. I don't care how many people say they don't have a personality. They do have one. It's just that people write them off as "boring with no personality" simply because they're a silent protagonist.
In a non-competitive environment (ie, playing with my friends), Byleth is great. People make more mistakes at lower levels and will get an axe to the face as a result. They're also easier to read which results in... An axe to the face. She's basically Ganondorf mixed with Palutena and I love those two characters.
Byleth being a high risk, high reward character makes them really fun for me to play, every win feels earned because of the flaws I had to work past and every loss still feels meaningful because I can learn from what I could've done better.
So basically despite having good range they don't have the movement to back it up. Its interesting as I thought Byleth got more popular after Leo's success. Makes sense also how Tweek, Spargo, and Glutto managed to adapt to the character.
11:05 This once again reminds me the concept of consistency, in this case in punishes. Looks like Dead Or Alive 6, were the punishes are mainly the throws, yet they lose to strikes: if an attack can delay a second strike after the first, and a player tries to grab the other during this delay, the one who grab loses because of that ming game. Basically, having negative frame data doesn't necessarily mean it's your opponent's turn, if you can condition them to stay on the defensive.
I find Byleth to be one of the coolest and most unique characters in all of Ultimate. They actually ended up becoming my co-main alongside Wario while I still played the game. I had so much fun with Byleth that it pushed me into playing through all of Three Houses (and yes, I mean ALL of it) and I enjoy Byleth in Fire Emblem itself just as much as I do in Ultimate. I do wish they had voicelines outside of combat, but Warriors Three Hopes does help remedy that.
Please keep making more I beg you I just got into smash it's so informational and its helping me love characters that no one's played and it helps find my main thank you
Love the video, one thing that you forgot to mention is Byleth's recovery. It's unusually good for a sword character. If I were to change one thing about Byleth it would probably be to buff arrow. This might sound like a weird way to fix his problems, but if arrow was good enough to pressure the opponent into approaching, it would really help their game plan.
Great video! I think you touched on a lot of great points such as byleth’s lacking frame data and stats and the need to commit more (with cheese). On the flip side, I think that’s what makes them such a awesome and unique character because a lot of top-tiers are defined by their kits and stats as opposed to their skill levels (with pretty straight forward win conditions). Mkleo is a great example because Byleth has the potential to be played (even better sometimes) as a top-tier through good spacing and mechanics - and various ways to win a match-up. These, I feel are very undervalued in SSBU, but definitely growing in skills as players are getting better at mechanics like parrying, dodging, and spacing. On the flip side, again, Byleth has the potential to be bad on players uninterested in tech chasing, spacing and patience. I know this mostly through playing Byleth casually with friends and I see the difference often with other characters they play. Byleth is def one of my favorite characters to play for said reasons and truly they teach (pun intended) you a lot of fundies but on a more advanced and unique level than other characters. Thanks for making the vods Vars!! Keep em coming!
As a man who mains Byleth but has no patience, I should probably just play a different character or get more patient. I'm not gonna do either of those but I should.
I picked up Byleth around summer of '21, primarily because I was playing a lot of Three Houses. I found them very fun and they quickly became my secondary, after Aegis. It wasn't until later that year I saw MKLeo's usage of Byleth that inspired me to improve with the character. I have more hours in the game as Byleth, both on and offline, than any other character. I now co-main them with Aegis.
Byleth’s run animation is fairly awkward aesthetically too. And now that I mention it I don’t know why the Smash dev team thought that Byleth’s run speed in 3H was their canon run speed. If we go off of actual in game 3H stats Byleth should be fast like somewhere between Roy and Lucina. I think that would definitely help Byleth’s game plan. I also think that the team wanted to avoid another FE sword character and they knew that Min-Min was going to be in the game so they opted to not have Byleth use the whip sword to its full extent and instead base their moveset on the three lords of 3H.
Made me happy to hear the Byleth and Sephiroth comparison. I love all the swordies in the game, but once Byleth got in, he basically felt so good that a lot of swordies just lost their chance to become my main. However When Sephiroth got in, he basically replaced Byleth since he does the things Byleth was doing but more in a way that I like, and I have more history with Sephiroth compared to the 6 hours of playing three houses (good game so far, just not high priority. Eventually I"ll finish it!). Still, I wrecked people's faces day 1 with these characters, they feel amazing, but no one else seems to play them properly. Dunno if I'll ever get around to Byleth outside of casuals again though. I realized I prefer playing Ridley over Byleth a bit. Also Cloud & Corrin are close behind for their own reasons. That's not even mentioning non-sword characters.
Leo did not go solo byleth at swt 2021, in fact at the time the run was notable because of how much he used aegis. He did win several sets with byleth, but aegis was also a big part of the run
As a Byleth main since day one I thank you for this video. I never really knew how to put into words why Byleth’s range doesn’t make up his weaknesses.
I understand that every Fire Emblem game has a different cast, and Nintendo wants to advertise the games... But I really don't get why there are so many Fire Emblem characters in this game. Its not even that popular of a franchise as far as I know.
The crazy thing is that I went from scoffing at having another Fire Emblem character to having Byleth as my secondary once I played Smash again after a whole year. I loved Three Houses once I finally played and I decided to give her another shot. She has some of the most satisfying moves in the game and the coolest recovery as well. I’ve had a blast playing Byleth and I regret being so hard on his/her reveal.
Ive seen plenty of Byleths, Incineroars and Ganons when I play in online lobbies, which means that since we mostly play to have fun, we arent affraid to go yolo on matches, people that go to tournaments are more focused on winning and thus tend to pick less risky characters.
I do think Byleth is pretty good at setting up the yolo plays though, her moves just have so much knockback and her nair is so good at setting up two piece combos and tech chases that you get so many opportunities to abuse your really strong tools. Also byleth nair is by no means easy to OOS, people don't get hit by the landing hit every time like in 2021, but it's still really ambiguous when you need to drop shield.
6:27 Exactly right. Byleth has one of the worst burst ranges in the entire game. Other slow characters like Ganon and Incineroar have things like command grabs to mix up pressure but Byleth only has their range. Playing defensive makes it a lot harder for Byleth to get anything done because they are so poor at closing the gap.
TL;DR -- It's 99% disrespect from "aNiMe SwOrD bOy=BaD" and "bRuH fIrE eMbLeM dLc ChArAcTeR" knuckle-scraping Americans who wish it was Waluigi or Geno. Byleth/Byles are undeniably high tier, but you have to actually be good at the game to play them, so many less experienced players would rather pick a much easier character. The small population of players that are good enough and acknowledge their superiority but don't play them do so because they simply like other characters better, which there's nothing wrong with. Edit: Holy cow. I wrote this more or less as a joke before watching the video, expecting them to be torn to shreds. I never honestly expected the video would actually be like "they're high tier, you just need to be good", but as an OG Byleth main, I'm happy it was, lol.
Was not excited to see byleth as a dlc character but after playing them I quickly found them incredible fun. Now I main them. My preferred play style is reaction and punish so they just work really well for me
This was very helpful since Byleth is my secondary. However I’m curious what you think of another Fire Emblem character. Whether they end up in the why everyone or no one plays I’d love to see your thoughts on Corrin. Either way I can’t wait to see who you talk about next.
Byleth is a really special character that breaks the mold of the fire emblem trope. Is that due to being a fire emblem character no one wanted to play him
Byleth is one of those characters where your spacing has to always be on point the fact that he is slow made people don’t want to play him as much but as a byleth player myself I can definitely tell you that you need to put in a lot of time in order to master that character and there are many different playstyles you can use with byleth which makes him fun to play for me leo during his time with the character he proved everyone wrong by winning all those majors and made the character still relevant the fact that he is high tier now makes me want to level up my byleth even more
Actually the moment I played Byleth for the first time I was essentially like "Oh wait this character is funny, this is my main" and I've mained them ever since
I find it amusing that you directly compared Byleth to Sephiroth and Incineroar in how they end up having overlapping game plans. Those three characters happen to be my favorite 3 and it was always difficult to figure out why due to their drastically different designs.
TBH...i could care less about the game hes from but that recovery is my favorite in the entire game, the fact that you can snatch that ass and drag someone into the shadow realm is so freaking satisfying that i just cant help but love the character for pro and casual play.
Honestly i love playing byleth because i also love incin's play style. They play so similar so it's practical to play both depending if i need disjoints or extra kill power
Tbh I think Byleth's playstyle is more faithful to how Fire Emblem plays than Ultimate's other FE characters. There's a certain sort of chess-like aspect to Byleth, using all your tools in concert to force your opponents into positions where they can be heavily punished, that is very satisfying, and feels more appropriate for a character from a tactical RPG than just doing back-air on shield a millions times.
Byleth has been my main for so long and he’s still so fun to play But i just kinda started playing smash as a whole a lot less and decided to try more casual characters now But he’ll always be my favourite character
Leo’s byleth reminds me a bit like hboxs puff in melee. Hbox said it himself that if you play perfect than he can’t beat you which is similar to byleth. It’s also similar is that there are like no other puffs/byleths in the top of their respective games.
I love Byleth more than any other character honestly. I feel like Byleth is a character that requires the good reads to be able to do anything unlike a lot of other characters, but I do think that Byleth is a character who can capitalize on good reads more than most characters. The right read at the right time can destroy a stock at very low%. That's why i find him very satisfying to play.
Byleth's margin for error is much higher than most heavy weights because their recovery is one of the best in the game. That in turn also makes their edgegaurding ability better than other characters in the cast.
Was waiting for someone to point out how many times MKLeo has a cheesed a victory at the end. Props to him for doing it, but the amount of times he was down 2-0 and the opponent made a careless mistake is insane
I'm sure he'll see more play as soon as there's a mod to reskin him as a Monster Hunter, his animations and weapon scales already fit for the most part.
If I didn't play Three Houses in the first place, I would'ce honestly hated him/her, but because I played the game and beat all of tje routes, I was happy for him/her to be in the game. It was fun seeing him/her wielding Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude's weapon at the same time.
Despite all the criticism, Byleth is one of the better Fire Emblem protagonists simply because his moveset represents FE gameplay elements so well. If they downscale the next Smash, he's one of the ones that I hope makes the cut.
Man, the only thing that could have harmed this character any more was if he was announced at the beginning of a pandemic. *checks announcement date* Oop-
@@user-be3qc7re9o Compared to duck hunt, bowser junior, dr. mario, and loads of others, Byleth gets quite a few players. I would say a moderate amount of people play Byleth competitively.
Byleth is so fun, but the community hates him for being the 8th fire emblem character. im glad some people gave him a chance, and had fun with him. (I main Byleth btw)
As you can see, I am a Byleth fan. I don't main him in Smash, but I love watching the few Byleth mains make some noise. He is a viable character, as proven by Sparg0 and MKLeo. However, not many people give him a shot because of "too many swordies" even though he's super unique. If there was a show about SSBU, Byleth would be depressed from the hate (Spoiler alert: he did become depressed in his game).
My favorite characters to play in Ultimate are Bayonetta and Jigglypuff as I kind of understand how to play the characters pretty well. Byleth is one character that I've been using a lot lately in friendlies and Im surprised no one in my local scene plays the character. Part of me wants to use Byleth as a secondary for matchups I can't do well with for Bayonetta
As someone who irrationally can't stand playing popular characters (mirror matches are lame, maximum character variety is king) allow me to say hurray! I love Byleth!
I don't really play in the competitive scene anymore, but I do play with friends a ton and all of them underestimate the fundamentals of the game so their positioning, use of tilts, shield, grab are not as developed as someone who played competitively so I choose Byleth as my main because he's cool as hell visually, his weapon master gimmick appeals to me in a fantasy fighting game, and I help my friends by teaching them how the game works. After every stock exchange I explain what I did and how I did it. No other character feels like mine in the game....except maybe Pirhana Plant. I love trolling parties with Plant's cheese.
Byleth can out punish the characters that I play, and I always feel "oh god there's a byleth". I have respect for the people who do main Byleth, He's fun to play from time to time, but not for me. Also Vars can you please do a why nobody plays Terry? Cuz that is my primary main
i love byleth. they’re the character that made me like the game tbh. i always find myself coming back to them no matter how long i go without using them
Dlc emblem is my favorite character he is my third most used just behind luigi he is damn fun to random nair and uptilts up air upb random combos i love all his moveset honestly, Byleth esta bien perro :v
I main Byleth and while I know Byleth has weaknesses, I've always just felt like it's just been mee being garbage at the game that's the problem 😭 Probably still the problem tbh
This was very insightful and a good articulation of how I've always felt trying to play Byleth. "I've got longer range than you...why doesn't it feel like it?"
Basically yep. Byleth is the distance demon but most characters straight up don't care.
Byleth is honestly the most fun FE character in the game despite all of its weaknesses.
Feels like a heavy weight that traded some of its weight for more range on some of its attacks.
I will counter that by saying - robin. Robin is really fun to play
@@valterain6907 I agree...but Robin can also be so frustrating to play.
Purely because Robin sabotages itself by having limited uses on the Tomes and Levin Sword. It's so annoying to run out of them in the most crucial moments.
And really makes me wish that Robin didn't have this resource system and that its specials were generally better.
@@Nefaliss I've been playing robin since I picked up smash, and I agree for the most part. Robin also some very bad matchups against characters with reflectors because it completely invalidates their game plan. The resource system does get a lot less annoying when you learn to play around it, and learn how to use book and levin sword discard to your advantage (and, not to mention how many times I accidentally cheese someone because they got hit by an elwind discard off stage trying to ledge guard)
“It?” 💀
I believe Corrin is the most fun IMO, but you guys have my #2 and 3 with Byleth & Robin
After playing Three Houses his move set makes so much sense. His slow movement speed and punishable attacks really puts an emphasis on decision making, commitment, and positioning. Which is all important in Three Houses (despite it being an easy game). Also he’s actually pretty goofy in his own game and a lovable character even though he’s a silent protagonist
He has no personality
Excellent analysis! I've played Three Houses, but I never thought about it this way, and it makes so much sense!
@@Zenitsu-zq4pj Yeah honestly they did a good job designing his character for smash. I’m not that good with him but it’s always fun watching a good Byleth
"An easy game" Bro hasn't played madenning xd
@@pepeelghetto1231 Awakening Lunatic+? Conquest Lunatic?
Three Houses is easy past the first few chapters
Part of what makes Byleth so fun for me is how hard they can punish their opponent. No character does it the same way
I mean 3 out of his 4 special moves can kill
@@ayar24/4
@@lordtt3984 cant remember having killed anyone with Areadbhar (outside of a far away edgeguard), still a strong AF attack.
@ayar2 If you hit the tipper on a jump call out then they can explode at like 100 (depending on character ofc). Only really hit it while messing around but it CAN kill
Um... Pyra/mythra, kazuya, captan falcon, ganondorf, jokerand incineroar all do it equally or better and many of them can create these instances more often
This was really interesting! Byleth is almost never in a comfortable position to consistently apply a gameplan on a character to character basis, but what they are great at is converting normal player-player interactions into devastatingly early stocks
They're like a heavyweight but extremely awkward to play and isn't heavy, it's strange
@@mrhalfsaid1389 I don't think about think about them like a heavyweight neccesarily. To me, he's a heavy version of pit. While pit is a gladius to lucina's falchion, he's a zweihander. He takes the best elements of both of them. The close range potential (nair, grab) of pit, the "everywhere" prescence lucina can have, and the spacing required of both
@@tumultoustortellini RPG characters are about out smarting your opponent. Byleth is no different, he has anticipate what the opponent is going to do and punishes them for it, just like playing a Fire Emblem game.
@@orangeslash1667 That's what every character in the game is supposed to do. Reads, adaptions, punishes, are what fighting games are made of
@@tumultoustortellini oh right.
I just feel really bad for byleth. He was completely controversial as a fighter pick and after being released, almost no one gave him a shot due to the stigma of Fire Emblem in the smash community. Anyway, I love Byleth and main him alongside Terry and Cloud. Hope you all have a wonderful day
I feel like the hate byleth got would have been minimized if they just waited until fighters pass 2 to put byleth in and put another 3rd party character in as the final character of fighters pass 1
I loved Three Houses and Byleth is my secondary. I love how unique she is as a swordie.
I used to have that stigma, but turns out I actually love how swordies play. I also love 3H now as well. I give every character a shot, and I'm so glad I gave it to byleth
@@annettenebiolo6962 bruh
I didn't mind Byleth, I was never bugged by the "anime swordfighter" thing. And FE having a lot of reps make sense since each game has a unique story and protagonist. Eventually I got around to playing Three Houses and now I'm pretty happy with their inclusion.
Byleth is genuinely such a fun character to play. I feel like his advantage state, while more read heavy than many characters, is the most fun to pilot.
Did not expect to sit down and see myself in the first 30 seconds of the video haha. I think for a roughly high tier character this character isn't meant for everyone, but I like how pretty straightforward Byleths gameplan is, and picking apart someone with raw good reads and neutral is so satisfying to play.
Looks like Vars did you a little dirty with that clip 💀
Still awesome that you made it into the video though! Good luck with tournaments
@connorself LMFAO it's all good honestly, Frostbite 2020 was just a few short weeks after the character had released and I was extremely sick that entire weekend so I just went her to try tether cancel shenanigans. Was pleasantly surprised to see I was on here though!
@@Merricktherox still better than I could do, I play smash casually but I’ve been considering taking byleth/Sora to locals. Glad to see I’m not the only one who messes up tether
As someone who’s a Byleth main, I found this intriguing and educational. If you wouldn’t mind adding which characters would beat each character as you do the reviews, that’s helpful. Great video!!
Im pretty sure byleth loses to projectile characters that can force byleth to approach, run away characters, and rush down characters.
@@gameboyn64 I would agree with this, I train with Byleth (as well as other mains) on each lvl 9 character AI and I find, with my style of play, fighting Inceneroar, Yoshi, Mario, Minmin, Kazuya, Steve to be the most challenging/annoying 😅.
@@myroncrowe5520 kaz and steve are actually good matches for byleth
Also, as you said, it was MkLeo, the king of spacing. He's a master of understanding threat bubbles and use them appropiately to make those unsafe aerials safe on shield; he has an innate synergy with characters like Marth or Byleth in that way. Most players are not like him and have more focus on combos, conditioning or mix-ups over perfect spacing and reads. In short, they're TOO BALANCED FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, their massive strenghts come with massive weaknesses you must deal with, altough is not overly disadvantageous or bland, just good balance coming to play, like the true Shotos, Sheik, Greninja or Sora. No doubt a 7/10 character who is not beginner-friendly like Ness.
Byleth is super fun to play. Sad to see no one play them.
As a byleth main, it is possible to make him work. And there are dozens of bad match ups that he can win by using cheese. It just mainly requires a good idea of what other mains will do which is something that Leo can do considering his experience.
I disagree, byleth plays like a heavyweight with basically none of the good attributes of them
@@mrhalfsaid1389 I'm pretty sure hitting hard is a benefit.
@@user-be3qc7re9o he can also recover for free which is more than most HWs could ask for
I wonder why.
Yoshi/Byleth Co-main here and all I'm gonna say is despite their flaws imho i think Byleth is by far one of the most fun and unique characters to play. There are very few times not only in smash but fighting games in general when you play a character for the first time and you fall in love with everything from the movement to their moveset. This was me when i was playing randoms against a friend. (I still use the same color i got off of random) 😅
I kind of had the same feeling with pitt
Funnily enough I am one of two Byleth mains at my rather small local scene. With two players, Byleth is one the most represented characters here.
In my opinion Byleth is a character with great strengths but pretty big weaknesses as well. The video sadly didn't really go over some of Byleth's strengths and mostly focused on the negatives. Just to go over a few of them: Probably one of the best edge guarding in the game, very early kill confirms and setups, a very strong anti-air game and a very good combo game, especially for swordie standards.
Yeah, Byleth is what we call "A balanced character", one with strenghts as prominent as its weaknesses.
*Strenghts:* Damage per interaction, Juggling, Recovery, Range, Kill power, Shield pressure, edgeguards.
*Weaknesses:* Frame data, ground mobility, air mobility, end lag, spacing reliance, landing.
Is a 7v6, which again, averages out in a perfectly functional character with great strenghts and exploitable weaknesses, making them powerful but constrained. The definition of a low-high tier or 7/10 character.
For comparison's sake, let's see a top tier and a low tier.
*Roy's strengths:* Kill power, Ground mobility, air mobility, Damage per interaction, mix-ups, Frame data.
*Weaknesses:* Landing, Spacing reliance, off-stage. A 6v3, with so many strengths and not a lot of weaknesses there's no wonder why he's a top tier, a 9/10 according to the tier list.
*King DDD's strenghts:* Survivability, Damage per hit, ledge traps, Range.
*Weaknesses:* Frame data, Endlag, Ground speed, Air speed, Size, landing, out of shield, shield safety. 4 vs 8, there's a reason he's considered unviable low tier; no, he doesn't kill early like most heavyweights, just on high percentages consistently so is quite average, that's why he's considered a bottom 5 and a 3/10.
PS: If you ask me, Byleth is the best designed DLC alongside Sephiroth. It is balanced which not many DLC can proclaim that btw, it lacks those unfair moments (That discards Hero and Terry), has an enjoyable playstyle for their intended audience (That discarded Sora btw). If your shield got broken is because Byleth read you, the arrows are predictable in timing and is truly slow and clunky; if you lose is a bit of your fault and their reward.
I picked them up when they came out, and they’ve been my main from that day on. I dropped Marth because I didn’t feel he was helpful to my improvement, and when I picked up Byleth, they just clicked perfectly. Their up b and nair have been my most used moves and their speed doesn’t really hamper how fluid they feel to move. Byleth with slingshot helps a ton (unfortunately I don’t get it consistently) and they have a ton of mixups with up b, and it just makes for crazy reversals to getting edgeguarded and their recovery is so cool (wish they had more horizontal movement but win some, lose some). They are a great character who deserves more love and came out at an unfortunate time with all the Corrin hate getting moved to Byleth.
Honestly, I never expected to pick up Byleth in Smash. I remember buying Three Houses because I wanted to try out Fire Emblem for the first time, but I didn't get to it until months later. Byleth being so fun in Smash is what pushed me to play through all four routes in Three Houses, as well as do the Cindered Shadows DLC. I co-mained them alongside Wario during my time with Ultimate.
Not only do I like Byleth in Smash, but I also like Byleth in Fire Emblem itself as well. I don't care how many people say they don't have a personality. They do have one. It's just that people write them off as "boring with no personality" simply because they're a silent protagonist.
In a non-competitive environment (ie, playing with my friends), Byleth is great.
People make more mistakes at lower levels and will get an axe to the face as a result. They're also easier to read which results in... An axe to the face.
She's basically Ganondorf mixed with Palutena and I love those two characters.
spam full charge Failnaught in a 4+ Player match, easy KOs.
Byleth being a high risk, high reward character makes them really fun for me to play, every win feels earned because of the flaws I had to work past and every loss still feels meaningful because I can learn from what I could've done better.
As you keep talking about how Byleth plays... this is exactly how fire emblem plays!
So basically despite having good range they don't have the movement to back it up. Its interesting as I thought Byleth got more popular after Leo's success.
Makes sense also how Tweek, Spargo, and Glutto managed to adapt to the character.
I saw more Corrins too after Leo started to use them
11:05 This once again reminds me the concept of consistency, in this case in punishes. Looks like Dead Or Alive 6, were the punishes are mainly the throws, yet they lose to strikes: if an attack can delay a second strike after the first, and a player tries to grab the other during this delay, the one who grab loses because of that ming game. Basically, having negative frame data doesn't necessarily mean it's your opponent's turn, if you can condition them to stay on the defensive.
Pretty good summation of how fighters with different prefered ranges fight (7:20-7:43)
Byleth got an episode of why no one plays and im happy to see it, because i just needed to hear validation for my struggles
I find Byleth to be one of the coolest and most unique characters in all of Ultimate. They actually ended up becoming my co-main alongside Wario while I still played the game. I had so much fun with Byleth that it pushed me into playing through all of Three Houses (and yes, I mean ALL of it) and I enjoy Byleth in Fire Emblem itself just as much as I do in Ultimate. I do wish they had voicelines outside of combat, but Warriors Three Hopes does help remedy that.
I'll finally know why noone else plays the coolest character in the game
no one is two different words it’s no “NoOnE”🧟♂️🤪🧠🟰0️⃣
@@seamino8329 what is your problem? also seriously liking your own comment come on bro
@@seamino8329 my brother in christ go touch grass or something, mf went to look for the brain emoji for this
Actually, the "Why noone plays: Ganondorf" video came out a while back. You must have clicked on the wrong vid. /j
@@piercearora7681 i didn’t like my own comment LOL. clearly someone agrees.
Please keep making more I beg you I just got into smash it's so informational and its helping me love characters that no one's played and it helps find my main thank you
Love the video, one thing that you forgot to mention is Byleth's recovery. It's unusually good for a sword character. If I were to change one thing about Byleth it would probably be to buff arrow. This might sound like a weird way to fix his problems, but if arrow was good enough to pressure the opponent into approaching, it would really help their game plan.
Byleth is my favorite fire emblem to play, I enjoy how they can recover easily and has fun combos. When you are losing with them however, it's ouchie
Great video! I think you touched on a lot of great points such as byleth’s lacking frame data and stats and the need to commit more (with cheese). On the flip side, I think that’s what makes them such a awesome and unique character because a lot of top-tiers are defined by their kits and stats as opposed to their skill levels (with pretty straight forward win conditions). Mkleo is a great example because Byleth has the potential to be played (even better sometimes) as a top-tier through good spacing and mechanics - and various ways to win a match-up. These, I feel are very undervalued in SSBU, but definitely growing in skills as players are getting better at mechanics like parrying, dodging, and spacing. On the flip side, again, Byleth has the potential to be bad on players uninterested in tech chasing, spacing and patience. I know this mostly through playing Byleth casually with friends and I see the difference often with other characters they play. Byleth is def one of my favorite characters to play for said reasons and truly they teach (pun intended) you a lot of fundies but on a more advanced and unique level than other characters.
Thanks for making the vods Vars!! Keep em coming!
As a guy who mains byleth I can say this video perfectly describes what kinda character he is
Ah yes, another man of class who plays byleth
As a man who mains Byleth but has no patience, I should probably just play a different character or get more patient.
I'm not gonna do either of those but I should.
@@fluffydemon1 well said brotha
@@fluffydemon1 His slow movement speed and punishable attacks really puts an emphasis on decision making, commitment, and positioning.
I picked up Byleth around summer of '21, primarily because I was playing a lot of Three Houses. I found them very fun and they quickly became my secondary, after Aegis. It wasn't until later that year I saw MKLeo's usage of Byleth that inspired me to improve with the character. I have more hours in the game as Byleth, both on and offline, than any other character. I now co-main them with Aegis.
Is Aegis the anime sword girls
@@giygas9305 Yes (Pyra/Mythra)
Byleth’s run animation is fairly awkward aesthetically too. And now that I mention it I don’t know why the Smash dev team thought that Byleth’s run speed in 3H was their canon run speed. If we go off of actual in game 3H stats Byleth should be fast like somewhere between Roy and Lucina. I think that would definitely help Byleth’s game plan. I also think that the team wanted to avoid another FE sword character and they knew that Min-Min was going to be in the game so they opted to not have Byleth use the whip sword to its full extent and instead base their moveset on the three lords of 3H.
Imagine being called a distance demon and the next fighter has better range than you
Made me happy to hear the Byleth and Sephiroth comparison. I love all the swordies in the game, but once Byleth got in, he basically felt so good that a lot of swordies just lost their chance to become my main. However When Sephiroth got in, he basically replaced Byleth since he does the things Byleth was doing but more in a way that I like, and I have more history with Sephiroth compared to the 6 hours of playing three houses (good game so far, just not high priority. Eventually I"ll finish it!). Still, I wrecked people's faces day 1 with these characters, they feel amazing, but no one else seems to play them properly.
Dunno if I'll ever get around to Byleth outside of casuals again though. I realized I prefer playing Ridley over Byleth a bit. Also Cloud & Corrin are close behind for their own reasons. That's not even mentioning non-sword characters.
Leo did not go solo byleth at swt 2021, in fact at the time the run was notable because of how much he used aegis. He did win several sets with byleth, but aegis was also a big part of the run
As a Byleth main since day one I thank you for this video. I never really knew how to put into words why Byleth’s range doesn’t make up his weaknesses.
Am I the only one who remembers sakurai calling byleth the distance demon
I understand that every Fire Emblem game has a different cast, and Nintendo wants to advertise the games... But I really don't get why there are so many Fire Emblem characters in this game. Its not even that popular of a franchise as far as I know.
Fire Emblem is THE SRPG in the world.
The crazy thing is that I went from scoffing at having another Fire Emblem character to having Byleth as my secondary once I played Smash again after a whole year. I loved Three Houses once I finally played and I decided to give her another shot. She has some of the most satisfying moves in the game and the coolest recovery as well. I’ve had a blast playing Byleth and I regret being so hard on his/her reveal.
I know this series refers more to the competitive scene, but it feels funny to see this pop up after sparring with a Byleth yesterday.
Ive seen plenty of Byleths, Incineroars and Ganons when I play in online lobbies, which means that since we mostly play to have fun, we arent affraid to go yolo on matches, people that go to tournaments are more focused on winning and thus tend to pick less risky characters.
I do think Byleth is pretty good at setting up the yolo plays though, her moves just have so much knockback and her nair is so good at setting up two piece combos and tech chases that you get so many opportunities to abuse your really strong tools. Also byleth nair is by no means easy to OOS, people don't get hit by the landing hit every time like in 2021, but it's still really ambiguous when you need to drop shield.
6:27 Exactly right. Byleth has one of the worst burst ranges in the entire game. Other slow characters like Ganon and Incineroar have things like command grabs to mix up pressure but Byleth only has their range. Playing defensive makes it a lot harder for Byleth to get anything done because they are so poor at closing the gap.
4:35 he froze 😂 my guy hasnt moved in 40 minutes
Byleth got me into FE so for that alone, i love byleth. But they are also a very unique fighter, maybe not competitively but idc
Playing Byleth feels like playing chess during a fighting game
I'm.. not sure if the title "Why NO ONE Plays" is accurate, if the BEST PLAYER plays that character but, still excited to see what's up
I main Byleth, mainly because I love landing the axe moves, (down b, down smash, and down air), but landing the up special spike is awesome!
TL;DR -- It's 99% disrespect from "aNiMe SwOrD bOy=BaD" and "bRuH fIrE eMbLeM dLc ChArAcTeR" knuckle-scraping Americans who wish it was Waluigi or Geno. Byleth/Byles are undeniably high tier, but you have to actually be good at the game to play them, so many less experienced players would rather pick a much easier character. The small population of players that are good enough and acknowledge their superiority but don't play them do so because they simply like other characters better, which there's nothing wrong with.
Edit: Holy cow. I wrote this more or less as a joke before watching the video, expecting them to be torn to shreds. I never honestly expected the video would actually be like "they're high tier, you just need to be good", but as an OG Byleth main, I'm happy it was, lol.
shouldve been meg, a real FE queen
Ironically most of the people who are asking for waluigi or geno probably wouldn't even play those characters.
@@gameboyn64 and similarly, most likely haven't even played SMRPG.
In my scene there’s at least 3 Byleths running around.
Even if they're not popular, I still plan on being a Byleth main.
I clicked on this at light speed
Was not excited to see byleth as a dlc character but after playing them I quickly found them incredible fun. Now I main them. My preferred play style is reaction and punish so they just work really well for me
This was very helpful since Byleth is my secondary. However I’m curious what you think of another Fire Emblem character. Whether they end up in the why everyone or no one plays I’d love to see your thoughts on Corrin. Either way I can’t wait to see who you talk about next.
I didn't know MKLeo changed his gamer tag to NO ONE
Byleth is a really special character that breaks the mold of the fire emblem trope. Is that due to being a fire emblem character no one wanted to play him
The same can be said for Corrin and especially Robin.
Byleth is one of those characters where your spacing has to always be on point the fact that he is slow made people don’t want to play him as much but as a byleth player myself I can definitely tell you that you need to put in a lot of time in order to master that character and there are many different playstyles you can use with byleth which makes him fun to play for me leo during his time with the character he proved everyone wrong by winning all those majors and made the character still relevant the fact that he is high tier now makes me want to level up my byleth even more
Actually the moment I played Byleth for the first time I was essentially like "Oh wait this character is funny, this is my main" and I've mained them ever since
I find it amusing that you directly compared Byleth to Sephiroth and Incineroar in how they end up having overlapping game plans. Those three characters happen to be my favorite 3 and it was always difficult to figure out why due to their drastically different designs.
As a puff and byleth duo main, I live for this character archetype.
No one even knows the world's famous Byleth player mkleo who competed in every smash tournaments with his top 5 main character
TBH...i could care less about the game hes from but that recovery is my favorite in the entire game, the fact that you can snatch that ass and drag someone into the shadow realm is so freaking satisfying that i just cant help but love the character for pro and casual play.
Honestly i love playing byleth because i also love incin's play style. They play so similar so it's practical to play both depending if i need disjoints or extra kill power
Feels like these kinda videos come down to the respective character not having good frame data
Tbh I think Byleth's playstyle is more faithful to how Fire Emblem plays than Ultimate's other FE characters. There's a certain sort of chess-like aspect to Byleth, using all your tools in concert to force your opponents into positions where they can be heavily punished, that is very satisfying, and feels more appropriate for a character from a tactical RPG than just doing back-air on shield a millions times.
Honestly I would love to see a why no one plays for duck hunt!
Byleth has been my main for so long and he’s still so fun to play
But i just kinda started playing smash as a whole a lot less and decided to try more casual characters now
But he’ll always be my favourite character
Please do a duck hunt episode!!! I love your videos and format
Mkleo be like : idc about that i am better
Leo’s byleth reminds me a bit like hboxs puff in melee. Hbox said it himself that if you play perfect than he can’t beat you which is similar to byleth. It’s also similar is that there are like no other puffs/byleths in the top of their respective games.
I love Byleth more than any other character honestly.
I feel like Byleth is a character that requires the good reads to be able to do anything unlike a lot of other characters, but I do think that Byleth is a character who can capitalize on good reads more than most characters. The right read at the right time can destroy a stock at very low%. That's why i find him very satisfying to play.
Byleth's margin for error is much higher than most heavy weights because their recovery is one of the best in the game. That in turn also makes their edgegaurding ability better than other characters in the cast.
Was waiting for someone to point out how many times MKLeo has a cheesed a victory at the end.
Props to him for doing it, but the amount of times he was down 2-0 and the opponent made a careless mistake is insane
This is funny because in my region the 2 most common characters are Cloud and BYLETH
For me, Byleth is easily the coolest character in the game, and that’s not just because of MKLeo piloting him. I just wish he was a little heavier.
I'm sure he'll see more play as soon as there's a mod to reskin him as a Monster Hunter, his animations and weapon scales already fit for the most part.
Yeah and have the tournaments get shot down by Nintendo, great idea.
If I didn't play Three Houses in the first place, I would'ce honestly hated him/her, but because I played the game and beat all of tje routes, I was happy for him/her to be in the game.
It was fun seeing him/her wielding Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude's weapon at the same time.
Huh? Maybe not at a top level, but Byleth is by far one of the most popular characters in my scene and online
Down special is by far their worst attack, but still has a use
Since they're very good at breaking shields, having a move that kills at 20% is usefull
Despite all the criticism, Byleth is one of the better Fire Emblem protagonists simply because his moveset represents FE gameplay elements so well. If they downscale the next Smash, he's one of the ones that I hope makes the cut.
Forgot robin being a sword mage.
Because Byleth is mid and MKLeo is so godlike he still dominates with mids. As he has shown with other mids he put enough time into.
Man, the only thing that could have harmed this character any more was if he was announced at the beginning of a pandemic.
*checks announcement date*
Oop-
I'm surprised there hasn't been a "Why nobody plays Lucario"
I mean, quite a lot of people play Byleth.
Competitively, no.
@@user-be3qc7re9o Compared to duck hunt, bowser junior, dr. mario, and loads of others, Byleth gets quite a few players. I would say a moderate amount of people play Byleth competitively.
@@boooooooga Doctor Mario has quite a few players, I disagree that he has a worse playerbase than Byleth
@@user-be3qc7re9o That sounds like something a dr. mario main would say.
@@boooooooga No, seriously the amount of registered Dr Mario Mains are higher than Byleth.
So basically he's a glass cannon 😎
You need to make a video on why no one plays causal smash any more can only find 1v1s arenas no one wants to play 4 player smash with items
Byleth is so fun, but the community hates him for being the 8th fire emblem character. im glad some people gave him a chance, and had fun with him. (I main Byleth btw)
I pity the fool who bought the fighters pack and got this “surprise” at the end of it.
Never pre order dlc characters without knowing who they are.
Ah yes my main, i remember when Byleth wqs announced and i was the only one that celebrated!
As you can see, I am a Byleth fan. I don't main him in Smash, but I love watching the few Byleth mains make some noise. He is a viable character, as proven by Sparg0 and MKLeo. However, not many people give him a shot because of "too many swordies" even though he's super unique. If there was a show about SSBU, Byleth would be depressed from the hate
(Spoiler alert: he did become depressed in his game).
My favorite characters to play in Ultimate are Bayonetta and Jigglypuff as I kind of understand how to play the characters pretty well. Byleth is one character that I've been using a lot lately in friendlies and Im surprised no one in my local scene plays the character. Part of me wants to use Byleth as a secondary for matchups I can't do well with for Bayonetta
As someone who irrationally can't stand playing popular characters (mirror matches are lame, maximum character variety is king) allow me to say hurray! I love Byleth!
I play him video over
I don't really play in the competitive scene anymore, but I do play with friends a ton and all of them underestimate the fundamentals of the game so their positioning, use of tilts, shield, grab are not as developed as someone who played competitively so I choose Byleth as my main because he's cool as hell visually, his weapon master gimmick appeals to me in a fantasy fighting game, and I help my friends by teaching them how the game works. After every stock exchange I explain what I did and how I did it. No other character feels like mine in the game....except maybe Pirhana Plant. I love trolling parties with Plant's cheese.
Byleth can out punish the characters that I play, and I always feel "oh god there's a byleth". I have respect for the people who do main Byleth, He's fun to play from time to time, but not for me.
Also Vars can you please do a why nobody plays Terry? Cuz that is my primary main
Terry is the 2nd most used FGC character after Kazuya.
@@user-be3qc7re9o Do you see anyone other than Riddles use him? (I know he's everywhere online)
@@dolphee Aegis, AndresFN, Vendetta, Darkstalker, and Tsu just to name a few.
Even Jahzzo uses Terry from time to time.
@@user-be3qc7re9o aight I admit defeat
Because Fire Emblem
i love byleth. they’re the character that made me like the game tbh. i always find myself coming back to them no matter how long i go without using them
Dlc emblem is my favorite character he is my third most used just behind luigi he is damn fun to random nair and uptilts up air upb random combos i love all his moveset honestly, Byleth esta bien perro :v
I know a lot who play byleth but main someone else, The video should be called "why no one mains byleth"
I main Byleth and while I know Byleth has weaknesses, I've always just felt like it's just been mee being garbage at the game that's the problem 😭
Probably still the problem tbh
Dang Mii Swordfighter is so underrated
At least in my region's arenas, Byleth is one of the more common characters.