Bayonetta (SSBU)

Bayonetta (, Bayonetta) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, making her return from the previous game. She is the second fighter from Sega after. She was confirmed alongside the rest of the returning roster on June 12th, 2018 during E3 2018. Bayonetta is classified as Fighter #63, the last fighter number of the Super Smash Bros. 4 veterans and returning veterans overall.

Hellena Taylor and 's portrayals of Bayonetta from Smash 4 were repurposed for the English and Japanese versions of Ultimate respectively. Ultimate is the last game where Hellena Taylor voices Bayonetta in English, as Jennifer Hale is her current English voice actress in Bayonetta 3.

Bayonetta is currently ranked 45th out of 82 characters on the current tier list, placing her in B+ tier. This is a significant drop from her placement in Smash 4 where she was considered the best character in the game. Bayonetta's main strength centers around her unique, powerful combo game. Her special attacks, Witch Twist and After Burner Kick, allow her to reliably combo and inflict heavy damage on opponents, sometimes dragging them into the top or side blast zones, which can lead to early KOs. Witch Time and Bat Within allow her to easily punish opponents, granting her a rather strong advantage and disadvantage state. Moreover, she boasts a long, flexible, and mostly safe recovery, further enhanced by her ability to wall jump and cling, allowing her to punish opponents who even attempt to edgeguard or ledgetrap her with her quick aerials or special attacks. Finally, her edgeguarding abilities are phenomenal as well, with Bullet Arts, the large hitboxes on her special attacks and aerial attacks, as well as a powerful down smash attack being able to stun or completely stop opponents from recovering.

However, Bayonetta has many notable weaknesses. Her frame data on the ground is awful, with almost all of her attacks coming out on frame 9 or later, and they also have high ending lag. Her attacks deal little to no shield damage or pressure, making most of them rather unsafe on shield. Her special attacks plague her with more landing lag the more she uses them while in the air during a single combo and can render her immobile for up to 50 frames. This makes her vulnerable to a heavy punish if she is carelessly utilizing her special attacks. In addition, Bayonetta tends to struggle taking stocks at higher percents, as her best KO options are difficult to land clean hits with due to their poor frame data. On top of that, Bayonetta is a lightweight with a tall frame and hurtbox, which makes it easy to reverse any disadvantage state against her with combos or a potential KO. Finally, one of her best disadvantage reversal options, Witch Time, is burdened with a frame 8 activation window and 36 frames of cooldown lag, the most of any counter. This makes the counter rather useless where it is needed the most, such as in last stock-last hit situations.

The general consensus on Bayonetta was initially negative, with most players lamenting the overwhelming amount of nerfs she received in the transition to Ultimate. This lead many to regard her as a weak character. However, Bayonetta would go on to receive significant buffs from game updates that would help her results improve in the post-pandemic metagame, and lead to a reassessment of the character in the community. Thanks to the efforts of players such as and, she continues to see success in the current metagame, and continues to have a large playerbase.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: Bayonetta must then be defeated on the Umbra Clock Tower (the Ω form is used in World of Light).
 * Play VS. matches, with Bayonetta being the 43rd character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or any character in his unlock tree, being the 2nd character unlocked after.
 * Have Bayonetta join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
Bayonetta is a tall yet light character. She has a below average walking and air speed, average traction and dashing speed (with a decently fast initial dash), very fast air acceleration and fall speed, high gravity, and very high jumps – she has the 8th highest air jump, is tied with Sheik for the 7th highest ground jump, and tied with Zero Suit Samus for the 2nd highest short hop. These attributes give her somewhat poor endurance (especially vertically) and average mobility, but a considerable degree of agility in the air when combined with her movement-based aerial special moves.

Bayonetta's biggest strengths are her strong aerial combo game – with her tilt attacks, forward aerial, up aerial, neutral aerial and special moves being capable of starting or extending combos – and her excellent recovery, which allows her to reach the stage from the bottom blast zone while being difficult to edgeguard due to her recovery's flexibility. Her damage output per hit is somewhat low, but her extensive combo game makes up for this, as her combos can quickly and easily rack up damage.

She has a number of unique attributes, such as her Bullet Arts, which allows her to shoot from the guns on her hands and heels by keeping the attack button pressed down after most of her attacks. Because they are programmed as disjointed hitboxes, they are not classified as projectiles and thus cannot be reflected, making them a solid pressuring and peppering tool. She also possesses a special Fighter ability in Bat Within, which activates if struck during the earliest frames of her dodges or in the latest frames of her down special; this causes her to morph into a flock of bats, receive half damage without taking any knockback, and move in the direction inputted to initiate the dodge (for spot dodges she remains in place, and for neutral air dodges she moves downward). Because the ability can activate on frame 1 of a dodge input, Bayonetta effectively posesses the fastest combo-breaking defensive option out of the entire roster, allowing her to evade combos that would otherwise be unavoidable for nearly all others in the cast. Her up special has a large hitbox above and around her, is one of few in the game that don't cause helplessness upon use, can be used a second time following a double jump, and can be used to cancel her double jump and preserve it, allowing her a vertical recovery that surpasses many other fighters; combined with her side special, Bayonetta is nearly impossible to contest when returning to stage. Additionally, she can also wall cling and wall jump, giving her further movement options on certain stages.

Bayonetta's ground game is lackluster and reliant on her tilt attacks to help set up intricate combos. Her jab is slow, but her rapid jab finisher can KO at high percentages. Her dash attack has considerable startup for an attack of its kind (15 frames), but moves very quickly once initiated and can also serve as a situational KO move. Both her up tilt and her down tilt have small hitboxes, but they are very good combo tools: up tilt is useful for getting her opponents into the air and also combos from her Heel Slide or into her Witch Twist, up aerial, or back aerial depending on the percentage, with up tilt into back air being a semi-reliable kill confirm while her down tilt is a good out-of-shield option and has similar combo potential. Her forward tilt is her least useful tilt as it lacks follow-up options beyond very low percents, but it can provide mix-up options on shield depending on whether 1, 2 or all 3 strikes of the tilt combo and optional Bullets Arts timing stalls are used.

Bayonetta's smash attacks allow her to summon Madama Butterfly's limbs. They each have good knockback and range, but they also have low priority and noticeable lag, meaning that attempting to use one (even in Witch Time) can cause them to clank with other grounded moves and lead her to get punished, although Madama Butterfly's limbs have transcendent priority against aerial attacks. Her forward smash is her earliest KO option and one of her only attacks that can reliably kill before 100%, though it has a blind spot directly in front of Bayonetta. Her up smash covers the area directly in front of her and can KO from the upper blast line. Her down smash covers the same range as her up smash and is mainly useful for meteor smashing her opponents from the ledge, though it can also kill from the upper blast line at higher percentages.

Bayonetta's air game is potent as a result of her high jumps, flexible movement options, extremely quick aerial attacks that generally provide generous coverage, and ability to fight offstage while confidently being able to return due to her superb recovery potential. Her neutral aerial has great range (especially when extended with Bullet Arts, which covers a huge area around her), can lead to combos into forward aerial and After Burner Kick, and can be a KO option offstage or at very high percentages. Back aerial is one of her strongest KO options because of its sweetspot and is a good combo finisher, though it is one of the slower back aerials in the game (coming out at frame 11). Her forward aerial can edgeguard and, like her forward tilt, forms a three-hit combo of its own if pressed repeatedly; it can also be used as a combo starter or extender. Her up aerial is extremely fast, hits high above her in a circular arc, and serves as a useful juggling tool, though it has very low knockback. Her down aerial is a stall-then-fall move which is a risky landing option due to its high ending lag, though it has a strong landing hit which can be a useful KO option; the hitbox on the heel of her leg also possesses a modrately strong spiking hitbox, allowing for surprise KOs off the bottom blast line if used properly.

She has very useful special moves that are essential for her uniquely air-based combo and pressure game. Her neutral special Bullet Climax fires projectiles at a slightly upward angle and is useful for KOing higher-percentage opponents at the left and right blast lines when fully charged. Both variations of her side special, Heel Slide and After Burner Kick are reliable combo starters, while the latter is also a good combo extender and horizontal recovery option. After Burner Kick can be used either to ascend slightly or descend steeply, depending on the input used. Her up special Witch Twist is her best out-of-shield option and is a great tool for starting and extending combos and dragging the opponent to the upper blast line. Though it gains little vertical distance in isolation, it can be performed twice with Bayonetta's double jump, and she can also jump cancel her second jump to grant her extra vertical distance, giving her outstanding vertical and horizontal recovery potential. Her down special counter Witch Time has a short duration and high ending lag, but it slows down time for a brief period if it activates. If Bayonetta gets hit in a specific time frame when dodging or in the later frames of Witch Time, she will activate her Bat Within. This turns her into bats and moves her to a (usually) more favorable stage position, and she will take half of the attack's damage output and no knockback.

Bayonetta's aerial prowess, set of special moves, and fighter abilities grant her a strong disadvantage state, as she can avoid pressure using her dizzyingly fast air acceleration to weave back and forth, use her very high double jump to escape fighters who can't chase her, punish approaches with After Burrner Kick or Witch Twist, create strong reversals with Witch Time, or dodge otherwise fatal attacks with Bat Within. Her very fast aerial attacks complement her ability to keep opponents guessing where she will travel and whether she will pick an offensive or defensive option.

Her grab and throw game has some utility, though to a lesser extent than the rest of her moveset. While up throw and down throw lack true follow-up potential outside of reads and mix-ups, the latter serves as a KO option at very high percentages. Additionally, while forward throw and back throw are purely positional throws, the former is her strongest kill throw, though its kill potential can easily be mitigated with proper DI.

To counter her many unique strengths and playstyle, Bayonetta has very noticeable flaws. Most notably, while she can quickly rack up damage with her combos, she has very few reliable KO options until around 150%, with her only real kill options before this being her smash attacks, back air, and down air. Even then, these options are relatively mediocre; Bayonetta's smash attacks are slow, often get cancelled out by other moves and have spots with no hitbox; her back air has slow start-up and a relatively small sweetspot hitbox; and her down air is a laggy move that only KOs if it hits the opponent with certain hitboxes or while they're grounded. Even at percentages higher than 150%, her KO options are unreliable, extremely punishable if whiffed or only KO at very high percentages, for example her forward throw and dash attack. Thus to mitigate her raw kill potential, many players aim to earn stocks through successful edgeguards using her fearsome aerial prowess, or more situationally through the use of hard reads using Witch Time.

Furthermore, Bayonetta has very poor frame data on the ground, with all of her standard grounded moves coming out at frame 7 or slower while also being unsafe on shield. This makes Bayonetta's approach among the worst in the entire cast, effectively forcing her to play a very defensive, bait-and-punish style which the opponent can counter by simply shielding or not approaching her. In addition, the fact that Bayonetta is a tall character with a fast fall speed and light weight means she is more easily comboed and more susceptible to being KO'd – especially when stuffed out by sufficiently strong anti-airs. Though Bat Within can somewhat alleviate the former problem, the issues compound to give her poor survivability.

Her passive abilities also have issues. While Bat Within has utility in the context of on-stage disadvantage, it is essentially a worse spot dodge on the ground, as Bayonetta will still take half of the dodged attack's damage if it is triggered. In the air, Bat Within has other issues: the fact that it only sends her down when triggered in the air means that it can cause SDs while she is offstage, and to balance the fact that Bat Within is so fast, the distance Bayonetta covers when actually air dodging is minimal.

Bayonetta is subject to several other weaknesses: unlike most other fighters, her Smash attacks can only be held for 60 frames instead of 120 (Mega Man, Ness, Olimar, and Villager also share this weakness); her Witch Time becomes less effective with every use, even when it isn't triggered by an attack; and Bayonetta's combos themselves, while arguably her strongest asset, are still ineffective against good SDI. Additionally, Bayonetta suffers from having potentially some of the highest landing lag in the game, as her landing lag increases based on how many specials she has used in the air. As a result, she can be immobile upon landing for up to 50 frames. Though she has ways to get around this - for example, using Witch Time to cancel her landing lag, landing with an aerial to force the opponent away, or retreating to a ledge – these are ultimately situational, and a whiffed combo can lead to a big punish.

Overall, Bayonetta is seen as a character with a high skill cap because of her extensive and complex combo game, her high-risk playstyle, and her unique abilities and techniques. She is a flexible, air-based, combo-oriented character who is good at quickly racking up damage and applying pressure to opponents, but her lack of reliable KO options means she can struggle in securing the stock (an issue which is exacerbated by her being prone to combos and kill setups herself).

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4
Bayonetta was unanimously considered to be the best character in Smash 4 due to her many extreme advantages, including her ability to KO opponents at virtually any percentage with successful ladder combos, the best disadvantage-breaking move in the game with Witch Time, great KO potential outside of her ladder combos, and an excellent recovery. Even after having received significant nerfs in game updates, her advantages remained intact. This often caused players to label her as "broken", and many matches involving her became controversial. This included the Ultimate tournament Super Smash Bros. Invitational 2018, where top professional player pulled off 2 ladder KOs in front of Masahiro Sakurai using Bayonetta. Due to these factors, Bayonetta has been drastically nerfed from her appearance in Smash 4.

Bayonetta's already poor frame data, her major weakness in Smash 4, has been nerfed further from the previous game. Her most reliable combo starters have been weakened, with her up tilt, down tilt, and forward aerial all having more ending lag; the latter was affected the most significantly, no longer allowing for any follow-ups other than the next hits of the move unless Bayonetta lands with them. Witch Twist also has more startup and grants less distance, reducing its effectiveness as a combo starter, out of shield option, follow-up from other moves, and recovery option. Adding to this, all of Bayonetta's special moves have received drastic nerfs that make them more risky and punishable: Bullet Climax's charge takes longer to cancel and can no longer be held indefinitely, Heel Slide and After Burner Kick's followup hits can no longer be used if they hit a shield, Witch Twist is slower and can no longer grab ledges. Finally, Witch Time slows down opponents for much shorter amounts of time except at very high percentages, alongside having noticeably more startup and ending lag. As a result, it went from the uncontested best counter in Smash 4 to arguably one of the least useful counters in Ultimate until high percentages.

Her KO ability has been weakened as well. Neutral, up and down aerials deal lower knockback (most significantly the former two, which no longer KO under 200% onstage), her back aerial has less range and a smaller hitbox (most notably the sweetspot), and her smash attacks only get half as much of an increase in power when charged. This is exacerbated by Witch Time's decreased slowdown duration, hindering its ability to lead into safe KOs, and due to the severe nerfs to her up aerial, she can no longer KO with ladder combos unless they are initiated very close to the top blast line, and even then very high percents are often needed to reliably earn a KO. As a result, Bayonetta now has a significantly more defined main weakness, which is her lack of KO ability at higher percentages due to a lack of reliable options for KOing outside of back air. Although some of her moves have received more knockback in return, such as her neutral attack's finisher and dash attack, most of them still have below average knockback, and fail to compensate for her much more severely hindered finishers. This is also pronounced further by the decreased damage some of her moves deal, which slightly hinders her combo game further. Conversely, her own survivability has been worsened, as her already low weight has been decreased further, and her recovery is less effective due to Witch Twist's shorter distance, slower ledge grab, and smaller hitboxes.

Finally, Bayonetta's special recovery frames have been significantly extended. While previously varied configurations of her special moves gave Bayonetta determinate amounts of landing lag regardless of how they were performed, the landing lag suffered by each combination is more varied and, in most cases, increased. Furthermore, Bayonetta's infamous ability to cancel higher amounts of landing lag with her down aerial was also removed, and landing with the move can instead cause, on most combinations, to further increase the landing lag she receives from performing certain combinations (interestingly enough, her ability to bypass landing lag with Witch Time remains, though this is largely irrelevant due to the move's increased duration). As a result of these changes, Bayonetta now suffers the highest amount of landing lag among the cast, and this also increases her vulnerability if opponents are able to fall out of her combos, allowing them to land a harder punish option on her more easily.

In spite of this, Bayonetta has also received a few noteworthy buffs. All of her dodges have been sped up relative to the rest of the cast, no longer being among the slowest in the game, while still having the ability to trigger Bat Within during their startup. Downwards After Burner Kick is a reliable combo starter due to launching grounded opponents at a higher, more suitable angle for followups, and Witch Twist is harder to SDI out of due to the lower hitlag on each hit. Witch Time can slow down opponents from much farther distances upon a successful counterattack, and has a longer counter window. Although grabs have been overall nerfed across the cast, all of Bayonetta's grabs have slightly increased range, which combined with her throws not losing their utility, improves her grab game despite their higher ending lag. Her dash attack has increased knockback and range, and reduced ending lag, improving the move as a burst or KO option. Her neutral attack finisher has drastically increased knockback, to the point where it is one of the strongest in the game, and the strongest jab for lightweight. Most notably, her most inconsistent moves have been notably buffed. Both hits of her up tilt will always connect due to the first hit using set knockback, her smash attacks now have transcendent priority on aerial opponents, most notably addressing the low priority of the moves, Witch Twist has a lower SDI multiplier, and her Witch Time has a larger slowdown scaling, noticeably increasing its slowdown duration at high percentages when the move is stale.

The universal changes to game mechanics are overall mixed for Bayonetta. The ability to dash cancel into any move improves her grounded game, though this is somewhat counterbalanced by their somewhat slow startup and her notable grounded moves losing some of their combo utility. The streamlined jumpsquats and reductions to landing lag are mostly detrimental to her; they slightly benefit Bayonetta's combo game as long as her aerials are not extended with Bullet Arts, but unlike most other characters, Bayonetta suffers higher landing lag when she lands with aerials extended with Bullet Arts. This, combined with other characters gaining either safer aerials, improved combo routes from them, or lower landing lag, has allowed them to more easily keep up with Bayonetta. On the other hand, the changes to air dodge mechanics have benefitted her overall; although Bayonetta has the third shortest distance of any directional air dodge (tied with Steve), this nevertheless allows her to slightly extend her recovery provided she is not able to reach the edge on time, and the increased lag on all kinds of air dodges has further improved her edgeguarding ability, despite her worse aerial game. However, none of the universal changes or her direct buffs are able to properly compensate for the comparatively much larger impact her abundance of nerfs has brought up.

Overall, Bayonetta's biggest strengths from Smash 4 that were deemed "overpowered" by some have all been severely toned down or even removed altogether. However, she still retains several of her other strengths from the previous game, most notably her strong combo and edgeguarding ability.

Update history
Bayonetta received a mix of buffs and nerfs in game updates, but was significantly buffed overall. Before 3.1.0, she received few and relatively minor changes to her moveset, making Bullet Climax less effective on shield much like most other projectiles, but allowing Bayonetta to grab ledges easier after neutral aerial, while removing Stun Jacket, which used to affect her Bullet Arts more notably than most other characters.

Update 3.1.0 gave Bayonetta a much larger amount of buffs, particularly Witch Time having more counter frames and intangibility frames alongside swifter regeneration, which makes it more reliable even through multiple uses. This greatly improved Witch Time's usability as a counter, with its incarnation in the base game having arguably the worst frame data for a counter and no guarantee for a reward when landing it. Witch Twist and After Burner Kick both have less landing lag, making Bayonetta less punishable after performing combos and opening new opportunities for applying pressure. Her dash attack's clean hit deals more knockback, making it a semi-reliable kill option on lighter characters. Neutral attack gained a slightly longer-lasting hitbox on the first hit and also received greater knockback for its final blow after the rapid jab. Her down smash also received a longer lasting hitbox on the second hit.

3.1.0's buffs allow Bayonetta to KO with a couple more moves at higher percents. The update also improved her up tilt by allowing it to connect more reliably even at very high percents, which was previously notorious for being inconsistent. Most notably, Witch Time was further improved by increasing its counter window while making Bat Within activate later during the counter if she is hit, reducing its ending lag.

In addition to the shield size buff from the 7.0.0 patch, Bayonetta also received noteworthy buffs from the 8.0.0 patch; forward smash has more base knockback and received a longer-lasting hitbox, making the move a more reliable KO option. Her forward tilt's lowered endlag allows the third hit to start true combos at low percents, and up tilt's hitboxes were further improved, now using set knockback on the first hit to make sure it always connects reliably on grounded opponents at higher percentages. Witch Twist now has a lower SDI multiplier that makes her combos harder to fall out of, and Heel Slide has less endlag, which improves its combo potential.

Patch 12.0.0 would buff Bayonetta one last time with a few small but helpful buffs. Her rapid jab was buffed once more to deal more knockback and launch opponents at a more horizontal angle, becoming one of the strongest jabs in the game in terms of knockback and giving Bayonetta a new KO option at higher percentages, down smash was made 3 frames faster and is now slightly easier to spike offstage opponents with the move, and Witch Time received less slowdown duration penalty when used against projectiles, making her less susceptible to being zoned by them.

Overall, Bayonetta fares much better than she did when Ultimate launched and is now generally considered to be a solid upper mid-tier character at least. However, she is still significantly weaker than her Smash 4 iteration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moveset
For a gallery of Bayonetta's hitboxes, see here.
 * Bayonetta can extend and/or alter all standing normals, aerials, Side Special and Up Special by holding the button, resulting in thin, no-knockback hitboxes outstretching from wherever her pistols are pointing. See Bullet Arts.
 * When a sidestep, roll, or airdodge (neutral or directional) is inputed, if Bayonetta is hit by an attack before her intangibility window, she will transform into a flock of bats and negate all knockback from said attack, while taking a fraction of the damage. See Bat Within.
 * If Bat Within is activated from a roll or directional airdodge, the bats will travel to whatever direction the dodge was initially inputed to go. Neutral airdodges travel downward and spot dodges do not cause any positional influence.
 * Bayonetta receives various amounts of landing lag depending on the amount of aerials and special moves she performs in midair before landing. For more info, see Bayonetta Recovery Frames.
 * Bayonetta can wall jump and wall cling.

On-screen appearance

 * Emerges from her Bat Within form while surrounded by the Umbra Witches' symbol, then proceeds to wield her guns.

Taunts

 * Up taunt: Twirls around, then strikes a pose with both arms over her head, saying, "If you need to learn how to talk to a lady, ask your mum." (, If you can't handle a lady, ask your mum.) This taunt has been significantly shortened from the last game, although it can still be canceled. It is based on her long taunt from Bayonetta 2.
 * Side taunt: Gracefully spins around, then points both guns directly in front of herself, saying, "New 'do, dead you." (, You move, you die.) The quote comes from her short taunt while wielding Salamandra in Bayonetta 2.
 * Down taunt: Strikes a pose while flourishing her guns before looking away and then looking forward, while her glasses briefly emit a light purple glint upon concluding. Significantly shortened from the last game, although it can still be canceled. Based on the dance she performs prior to fighting the first Joy she encounters in Bayonetta.

Idle poses

 * Waves one of her guns in an inviting motion, while resting the other on her hip.
 * Holds her left gun in front of herself, and her right gun upward beside her head. This idle pose only occurs once she ends any ground attack, and reverts to her standard idle animation after a few seconds. Based on her "in combat" pose in both Bayonetta games.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses
All of Bayonetta's victory quotes are based on taunts from Bayonetta 2 while wielding various weapons; the associated weapon for each is listed in parentheses. Each pose also features a brief light purple glint emitted from her glasses at the end of the pose.


 * Left: Dances and says "Miss me, baby?" (Chernobog; "", I'm right here.). The dance is similar to her down taunt, with a slightly different ending pose.
 * Up: Performs the Break Dance move then strikes a pose, saying "Dreadful." (gun-type weapons or Rodin; "", Boring.) or "Don't make me beg." (Takemikazuchi; "", Don't be shy.). The ending pose is similar to her crouch.
 * Right: Faces her back to the screen while holding her guns up beside her face. Afterwards, she pirouettes like a ballerina, then aims her guns to the right with a pose, saying "That all you got?" (Alruna; "", Show me your full power.) or "You're making it easy." (Rakshasa; "", Too easy.).

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Bayonetta players (SSBU)


 * - The best Bayonetta player of all-time and one of the best players in Europe in the post-online metagame. He is currently the only Bayonetta player to win a major, doing so at.
 * - The second-best Bayonetta player in the United States. His best placement to date is 7th at the major, and he has also regularly placed top 64 at majors including 33rd at and 49th at , the latter in which he upset.
 * - The second-best Bayonetta player in the world. Although he has been playing Bayonetta since the early metagame, his best results came about in the post-online metagame, notably placing 3rd at the major and 5th at the supermajor.
 * - The best Bayonetta player in Japan. He has wins over several of Japan's best players, including, , and . He has also placed highly at several events, including 2nd at and 17th at both the major  and the supermajor.

Tier placement and history
Due to her nerfs from the previous game, Bayonetta saw minimal tournament results during the early metagame; she was considered to be a "high-risk, low-reward" character as she had to work significantly harder to win neutral, rack up damage, and close out stocks than a vast majority of the cast. Bayonetta performing drastically worse than her Smash 4 iteration led many to think of her as by far the most nerfed character in the transition to Ultimate. Although was able to see some good results while using Bayonetta as a co-main, they were mostly eclipsed by his results with  and, and most top players considered her to be a lower mid-tier or low-tier character at best, with some players considering her to be one of the worst characters in the game. Her results continued to struggle, especially following CaptainZack's ban.

However, Bayonetta would receive many buffs that made her strongest options more consistent in updates and  which would eventually lead to a positive shift in players' perceptions of Bayonetta. With Bayonetta players adapting remarkably to the changing meta and with patches having lended Bayonetta significant buffs, a slow but notable increase in her representation would emerge: during the COVID-19 pandemic, used her to place highly at major online tournaments. In more recent times following the return of offline competitive play, Bayonetta continued to see impressive results thanks to players such as Bloom4Eva and. This has led to an exceptional shift in Bayonetta's perception, with most players now considering her to be an upper mid-tier or even a high-tier character. Overall, while Bayonetta is still widely considered to be a shell of her Smash 4 self, she is also considered to be substantially stronger than how she was in the early metagame, and as such is ranked 45th on the current tier list as an upper-mid tier.

: The Requiem of Fallen Wings
All of Bayonetta's opponents have wings, in reference to her battles against angels and specific fights from Bayonetta. The final battle is against a giant.

Note: When fighting Charizard, its is absent. Additionally, every stage plays a track from the universe, no matter what universe the stage originates from.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Bayonetta has  accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light
Bayonetta was among the fighters summoned to the cliffside to fight against the army of Master Hands.

During the opening cutscene, Bayonetta was present on the cliffside when Galeem unleashed his beams of light. Bayonetta dodged a beam of light, activating her Bat Within, but she was then vaporized immediately after she reformed her body, and later placed under Galeem's imprisonment alongside the rest of the fighters, excluding.

Bayonetta was one of the many fighters that fell under Dharkon's control upon Galeem's first defeat, and the last fighter to be found to be imprisoned by him. In, she is called by Dharkon as part of his reinforcements after is awakened and  is beaten. She is a necessary unlock to achieve the true ending, as awakening her leads to a battle with Crazy Hand that frees him from Dharkon's control (both of whom's defeats greatly shifts the balance of power in Galeem's favor).

Spirits
Bayonetta's Bayonetta 2 fighter spirit can be obtained by completing. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 Gold, but only after Bayonetta has been unlocked. Unlocking Bayonetta in World of Light allows the player to preview the first spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. Her alternate outfit from the first Bayonetta has a fighter spirit of its own, available through the shop. Each fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces them with their artwork in Ultimate.

Additionally, her younger form, Cereza, appears as a support spirit.

Alternate costumes
Just as in Smash 4, Bayonetta's voice is dependent on her costume when the language is set to Japanese, Chinese, or Korean: her Bayonetta 2 outfit has her speaking in Japanese, while her original Bayonetta outfit retains her English voice. This is a reference to how the first Bayonetta game originally only had English audio even in Japan, not receiving a Japanese dub until the Wii U port.

Trivia

 * On the "No Contest" screen, Bayonetta's model is significantly taller than it is during normal gameplay. No other character model seems to grow on this screen; however, bigger characters like shrink.
 * Bayonetta's official artwork strongly resembles her official artwork for Bayonetta 2, albeit with her arms pointed outwards rather than inwards.
 * Likewise, Bayonetta's official artwork based on the first game resembles her official artwork for Bayonetta, only mirrored.
 * An interview with Masahiro Sakurai revealed that Bayonetta and were under consideration to survive Galeem's attack in the World of Light opening. They were turned down in favor of, due to both fighters being very complex characters to use for beginners and that other characters of their series were also turned into spirits, stating that Bayonetta could not escape to Purgatorio as Galeem's attack reached there and her enemies were turned into spirits.
 * Both Palutena and Bayonetta are on the Final Battle map, appearing as the last of all fighters. This implies that Galeem (and eventually Dharkon) knew how big of a threat Palutena and Bayonetta were (Palutena being a Goddess and Bayonetta's slaughter of two gods) to his plans, so he kept them as a last resort.
 * While Palutena is designed to always be one of the final characters unlocked, outside of World of Light, Bayonetta can be unlocked very early, potentially as the second character to be unlocked (by clearing Classic Mode with Mario, Sonic, and/or any DLC character twice).
 * Bayonetta is the only third-party character and the only sole fighter from a franchise unlocked in the Final Battle realm in World of Light.
 * Unlike in Smash 4, Bayonetta has two separate menus for her Sound Test voice clips in all versions of the game, one for her Bayonetta 2 design and one for her Bayonetta design, despite both versions of Bayonetta using the same voice clips in western versions. This is because the Japanese version has separate voice clips for her in Japanese and English.
 * The Bayonetta 2 design is missing four voice clips in total when the language is not set to Japanese, three being Japanese (when the language is set to Chinese or Korean), and one being English. All of the missing voice clips are those without a corresponding voice clip in the other language.
 * Bayonetta's Fighter Spirit for her default costume reuses her artwork from Bayonetta 2, where it depicts the back of her legs uncovered rather than wearing silver leggings. This is probably an oversight, as the Spirits for Camilla from Fire Emblem Fates and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had modified artwork to be less provocative.
 * This oversight appears to be shared with the Fighter Spirits for and female, who likewise use unaltered artwork from their games of origin, but have had censorship applied to them in their playable forms.
 * The artwork used for Bayonetta's Fighter Spirit depicting her Bayonetta design is not originally from the Bayonetta series. Instead, it's from .
 * Since Bayonetta's Bullet Arts behave as disjointed hitboxes rather than projectiles, Spirits that affect physical attack power can affect her Bullet Arts Extensions.
 * Bayonetta and the s are the only characters in Ultimate whose portraits do not extend out of their battle UI. However, in Bayonetta's case, this only applies to her Bayonetta design.
 * When Bayonetta spot dodges, there is a chance that she will say "Dreadful", with the pose and phrase referencing her short taunt while having equipped a gun-type weapon in Bayonetta 2.
 * This makes her one of two characters, the other being Terry, to play a voice sound clip during any type of ground dodge.
 * Bayonetta is the third-party character with the most encounters in Classic Mode, appearing in ten routes.
 * Technically speaking, Bayonetta is the only character in Ultimate with a Final Smash that is activated without a unique damage-dealing hitbox, as the cutscene instantly triggers after a requisite is met during a damageless screen-wide slowdown.
 * Bayonetta can be unlocked by clearing Classic Mode with, likely referencing the original release of Bayonetta being published by Sega. Additionally, as has no assigned character unlock column, he uses 's unlock column, technically making all three Sega characters share the same unlock column.
 * The patch notes for version indicates Bayonetta's rapid jab finisher gained transcendent priority; however, this is false, as the script as early as  was coded as such.
 * Prior to version, the animation for Bayonetta's left-inputted victory pose was a bit different in the Japanese version of the game as she did not turn her head at the end of the animation. This seems to have been a glitch and was fixed in the 10.1.0 update.
 * There is an inconsistency in Bayonetta's smash attack animations where the weaves retain the blue and silver pendants even if Bayonetta is in her Bayonetta design where the weaves should have red and gold pendants.
 * Despite this, her Bat Within ability actually uses two different models, with its corresponding colors depending on the costume used.
 * In English, Bayonetta is the only character in the game that can speak 3 languages in a match. That being English, Japanese when using forward throw, and Enochian when performing her final smash.