Bayonetta (SSB4)


 * Bayonetta Gets Wicked!

Bayonetta (, Bayonetta) is a character and newcomer in Super Smash Bros. 4, and is the seventh and final downloadable character. She was announced alongside during the Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U - Final Video Presentation on December 15th, 2015 and both were released on February 3rd, 2016. She is the sixth third-party character to be introduced in SSB4, following fellow SEGA character, Capcom's and , Bandai Namco's  and Square Enix's. According to Masahiro Sakurai, Bayonetta was added to the game as the winner of the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, being the highest-voted character in Europe, and among the top 5 in North America, making her the overall #1 pick worldwide among negotiable and realizable characters. It was later revealed on October 5th, 2021 in "" that Disney's Sora was the actual winner, but it has been implied that Sora's inclusion at the time was impractical for unspecified reasons. Her default appearance is based on her redesign for Bayonetta 2, but with slightly modified proportions, most notably in her height. Bayonetta's English voice actress, Hellena Taylor, and her Japanese voice actress, Atsuko Tanaka, both reprise their roles in Super Smash Bros. 4.

Bayonetta ranks 1st out of 54 on the tier list. Bayonetta's top placing is primarily due to her unrivaled combo game; almost all of her attacks can reliably combo into one another, leading to powerful 50/50 mixups at high percentages, and she even has zero-to-death potential. Furthermore, a majority of her best KO attacks can be easily comboed into, and she can also start combos by using Witch Time or Bat Within on opponents who make mistakes, giving her a safe approach; further bolstering her approach is a number of decent zoning options, such as Bullet Climax and her unique Bullet Arts. Bayonetta also boasts a long, safe recovery with both After Burner Kick and Witch Twist granting significant distance, directional flexibility, and enormous hitboxes, which is further supplemented with her ability to wall jump and wall cling. She herself is capable of edge-guarding many characters with her quick aerials, including several which can become sex kicks if held and a number of powerful grounded options as well, such as a large and powerful meteor smash in her down smash.

Although Bayonetta is widely considered to be the best character in Smash 4, she still has her weaknesses. Bayonetta's primary flaw is her poor frame data on the ground, with many of her grounded attacks coming out on frame 9 or later, as well as frequently having high cooldown lag, especially on her smash attacks. Some of her specials gain more landing lag the more she uses them in the air, making her landings relatively exploitable if her combos whiff. Because of their high lag, her attacks are unsafe on shield while also dealing minimal shield damage. Furthermore, despite her long recovery, Bayonetta is still considered a lightweight, and when considering her large hurtbox, she is easier to hit and KO than most other characters. Finally, players must exercise caution with her Witch Time, due to its poor effectiveness on multi-hitting moves, and its lowering efficiency if used too often. Her flaws are outshined by her overwhelming strengths, however, and thus, Bayonetta still remains at first place on the tier list.

Bayonetta has achieved excellent tournament results and representation, even after she received nerfs in 1.1.6, with winning  with her, along with players like  and  placing high in nationals such as  and  respectively, while  most notably achieved success from winning, ,  and. Additionally, took first place over  at, both while maining Bayonetta.

Attributes
Bayonetta, much like in her home series, is a combo-heavy fighter, with many multi-hitting attacks and chainable moves. Unlike, Bayonetta specializes in aerial combos, with her special moves being a main component in many of them. However, she shares a similar problem with Ryu in that her overall mobility is just average, with a slow walking speed, average dashing and below average air speed, but she has high air acceleration, jump force, falling speed (the ninth fastest), and gravity, attributes similar to most other combo-based characters. Similar to, she is also tall and light, which when combined with her fast falling speed and high gravity makes her a rather frail fighter overall.

Bayonetta's greatest and most defining strength is her infamous punishment game, unarguably the best among the entire cast. One of its components is a special mechanic, Bullet Arts, where holding the attack/special button during many of her attacks extends the ending animation to allow her to shoot. Depending on how long the relevant button is held, Bayonetta will fire up to ten (with some exceptions) invisible bullets from each used gun that have long range (about half the length of Final Destination) and deal no hitstun (unless the opponent is at point blank range), as a way to rack up damage. Most of these bullets are shot in the direction that her attack faces her, while many shoot bullets in separate directions, such as her down tilt (forwards and backwards). With this in effect, Bayonetta has the potential to deal more than standard damage should her Bullet Arts connect. Tapping the attack button again during Bullet Arts transitions to the next move in her attack chain (if applicable), but she must do this before she twirls her guns to put them to rest (signifying the end of her combo). Bullets are also considered to be disjointed hitboxes attached to her, leaving them as unreflectable. With this ability, she has a very good damage racking game, and can camp to force opposing approaches by dealing chip damage at a distance, or simply hold down the attack button after a whiffed aerial attack to pelt opponents with minor damage, making a missed attack less of a detriment for her compared to other fighters, and granting her a good neutral game. Bayonetta also has a more traditional projectile variant in her neutral special, Bullet Climax; unlike Bullet Arts, it has visible bullets, but they cause hitstun, can be charged to increase their power, making them usable to edgeguard recovering opponents, and can be charge-canceled (though this doesn't store the charge).

However, the most notable point of Bayonetta's punishment game resides in her combo game. All of her moves possess very large range and up tilt, down tilt, up throw, forward aerial's first hit and Heel Slide serve as good combo starters; they all launch opponents into the air, where from there she can mix and match her attacks including, but not limited to, her aerial attacks (most notably multiple forward aerials), Witch Twist and After Burner Kick (which lets her perform the move again if it lands on an opponent), which can result in massive damage and can wall of pain or even zero-death opponents. This also gives her a good edge-guarding game, especially with a powerful back aerial, a neutral and up aerial that can frame-trap recovering opponents, and a meteor smash in down aerial that is incredibly powerful even at low percentages and surprisingly recoverable for a stall-then-fall.

Her down special, Witch Time, is also a staple on her moveset: it is a counterattack with very fast startup that, if landed, it slows down targets to 1/8 of their speed and leaves them extremely wide open to her combos or charged smash attacks (though the opponent takes a reduced damage multiplier of 1.2× for smash attacks, and it does not negate lingering hitboxes that can interrupt her attempt to counterattack). Using Witch Time wisely is crucial to victory, as it can decide the outcome of the opponent and even turn the tides of the match instantly if the opponent is careless. She also benefits from her unique safety net in Bat Within, which negates all knockback and reduces damage for attacks that would have hit her if her counter activates too late or during the starting frames of any of her dodging methods. The latter essentially gives Bayonetta a frame 1 air dodge and sidestep, and a frame 3 roll, breaking many combos that would otherwise be true on other characters regardless of their escape options. Furthermore, Bat Within enables Bayonetta to in a given (usually more favorable) position, enabling her to punish her attacker afterwards, although it often moves her too far to exploit her opponent's vulnerability.

In regards to the strength of her moveset, Bayonetta also has some notably potent and/or useful attacks that can help her close out stocks, even more so with the help of her Witch Time, which serves as the glue on her surplus punishment game. All of her smash attacks are powerful and useful, with forward smash having the biggest hitbox out of them, up smash being the fastest and strongest, and down smash being a meteor smash that serves as an extremely useful edgeguarding move. Her up aerial is her main aerial to KO out of her combos, as they often take the opponent to the upper blast line, where she can finish the combo off with the up aerial to net a relatively early KO. Back aerial, while having rather slow startup, is her most powerful and damaging aerial, has incredibly long range, and can be used to finish an opponent in a similar vein to her up aerial, through the use of a combo that carries the opponent to the lateral blast lines. Down aerial's notably high base knockback often KOs opponents at very low percentages if they are below or at the stage's height. Her forward throw is strong, though due to it launching opponents at a slightly high angle and being commonly used, it can often fail to KO, and thus it is one of her last resort KOing options. Witch Twist is also infamous for causing very early KOs due to the hits' high base knockback.

Another of Bayonetta's strengths lies in her recovery, arguably the best and most flexible in the game; After Burner Kick gives her fair horizontal distance, although it can only be used once unless she hits an opponent with it. While Witch Twist comes up vertically short, she can re-use it after a midair jump. Her wall jump/cling also helps her recovery and can often leave the opponent on an unfavorable position. Lastly, Witch Twist has a special quirk where she can midair jump and immediately use the move up to three frames after, which restores her midair jump and lets her to jump up to four times, allowing for recovery mix-ups. Her punishment game and recovery complement the other well, as the immense range of her special attacks allows her to easily edge-guard break opponents, and edgeguard or KO them in return. Thus, like, Bayonetta is among the hardest characters to successfully edgeguard, with very few characters such as having options that can keep her away from the stage. Lastly, due to the aforementioned points above in her immense range, lingering hitboxes, excellent recovery and fast escape/reversal options in After Burner Kick, Witch Twist and Witch Time, Bayonetta has the best disadvantage state in the game, as she can immediately turn the tides on her opponent if they're careless.

Even with her set of strengths, Bayonetta has some weaknesses. Her tall frame and light weight makes her rather easy to combo and KO (though it is worth mentioning she technically has a frame 1 air dodge, making her harder to combo by characters without fast enough attacks or whose combo ability isn't perfectly linear). Her frame data is also quite polarized: while her aerial attacks have very low ending lag, many of her grounded attacks have notable start-up and ending lag, especially her smash attacks, making them unsafe on shield, and leaves her vulnerable to opponents that have better frame data than her while grounded, like or. Her smash attacks also do not terminate on hit, rendering them unable to hit any character with an active hitbox, while being unable to trade with most attacks if they make contact with her although this problem can easily be solved by hitting the opponent with a weak attack during Witch Time and then using her smash attack. Her position after performing After Burner Kick and/or Witch Twist can be exploitable, as the more of these moves she uses in the air, the longer landing lag she will receive at the end, leaving Bayonetta punishable if they are whiffed and if she is forced to land on the ground (though she can avoid this by landing with Bullet Climax or Witch Time).

Despite Bullet Arts granting her a relatively good neutral game, her approach is poor and linear, as her few options in dash attack, dash grab and Heel Slide are predictable. Despite her abundance of KOing options, if she can't end her opponent's stock early with her combos, she is reliant on Witch Time to land her smash attacks, spacing to land her back and up aerials, or on forward throw to KO the opponent if her level of rage is high enough. When it comes to escaping her combos, Bayonetta has a 2× SDI multiplier on Witch Twist and both versions of After Burner Kick, causing her combos to fail if the player doesn't read their opponent's DI and SDI, and lessening her zero-death combos' efficacy. Her rolls, sidestep, and air dodge all have noticeable ending lag (though her rolls end three frames earlier than 's), and the former two also have among the slowest start-ups out of all the characters in terms of invincibility (though Bat Within somewhat compensates for this). Witch Twist doesn't travel much vertical distance on its own, making her recovery short-ranged if she doesn't use her midair jump or has used it too late. Finally, she lacks custom specials, like the other DLC characters, though due to the huge utility her special moveset already has, it is less of a weakness to her.

Overall, Bayonetta's strengths noticeably outweigh her weaknesses. She can dish out large amounts of punishing damage in her combos once she reads the opponent and exploits their vulnerabilities, but must also be careful not to let her opponent take advantage of her own weaknesses, though due to the high range and priority her attacks have, doing so is a difficult task to begin with. Perhaps the only characters that she has problems against are those who can camp well against her, or have much a much better neutral game than she does, such as or  for the former point and  for the latter one, but outside of that, she can easily dominate and punish characters who cannot properly capitalize on her weaknesses. She has arguably the highest tournament representation among the entire roster, with top smashers including, , , , , , , , and many more using her with consistently strong results in regional and national tournaments. However, while Bayonetta was quickly considered the best character in the game upon release, opinions varied on how dominating she was in tournaments; while some regions went as far as to ban her from tournaments due to her overpowering potential, others claimed that Bayonetta's supposed potential did not yield the overwhelming success other characters had previously attained, such as Sheik and Diddy Kong. Update 1.1.6 ultimately nerfed a variety of Bayonetta's attributes; while not significantly crippled, her tournament representation and results both fell in response. Despite these nerfs, her excellent tournament results have led to her being widely seen as the best character in the game and one of the most competitively viable characters in the entire roster when her high learning curve is properly mastered to her fullest.

Update history
Most likely as a result of her dominance in competitive play, Bayonetta was noticeably nerfed in game updates. She was at first slightly nerfed in update 1.1.5: her up smash and forward smash are both slightly weaker, her down aerial has more ending lag, her Heel Slide has more ending lag, her Witch Twist deals less damage, and her infamous Witch Time has more ending lag, shorter duration, decays more with each use, and has a slower regeneration rate after usage. However, these changes did not reduce her effectiveness as she was still widely perceived as the best character in the game due to her immense strengths, while the effectiveness of other top tier characters, notably and, being toned down in the same patch further exacerbated her dominance.

However, update 1.1.6 significantly nerfed Bayonetta by directly worsening her combo game, with the effectiveness of her combo starters being weakened and her combos becoming easier to escape: her down tilt and forward aerial both have slightly more ending lag, while the former has less range and the latter has less knockback on the third hit, both versions of After Burner Kick and Witch Twist have doubled SDI multipliers that make it easier to escape her combos, upward ABK has increased knockback scaling that renders it worse for comboing at high percents, downward ABK's vertical launch angle is now a more horizontal launch angle that only combos into upward ABK at high percents, (turned from a low percent combo into a high percent combo) and Witch Twist has altered knockback values that limit its combo ability at higher percentages. Despite these changes, however, people have compared her to in that while she initially seemed to be far less powerful after her nerfs, her greatest strengths have remained intact and she is still considered to be the best character in the game.

 1.1.5

 1.1.6

Moveset

 * 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.

For a gallery of Bayonetta's hitboxes, see here.

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Bayonetta players (SSB4)


 * - One of the first Bayonetta players and is also one of the best Bayonetta players from Japan, ranking 44th on the PGR 100. He notably placed 4th at and 5th at.
 * - The best Bayonetta player in Japan, co-maining the character alongside since mid-2017 and ranking 13th on the PGR 100. He was the runner-up at  and  using mostly Bayonetta.
 * - The best Bayonetta player in the world during the first half of 2017 thanks to a string of strong major performances including 4th at and . Although his consistency became rather shaky, he still saw several notable placements, most notably 2nd at . Ranked 15th on the PGR 100
 * - The third-best Bayonetta player from Japan. Most notably won over, , and , and also won . Ranked 71st on the PGR 100.
 * - One of the best Bayonetta players in the United States in 2017, ranking as high as 37th on the PGR v4 and notably placing 2nd at, 7th at , and 9th at . He has since been banned.
 * - One of the best Bayonetta players in North America, notably winning . Ranked 20th on the PGR 100.
 * - One of the best Bayonetta players in North America, especially in 2018, where he saw several strong performances such as 2nd at and 3rd at both  and . Ranked 25th on the PGR 100. He is also considered the best Smash 4 player in the post-Ultimate metagame.
 * - The best player in the world in 2018 who used Bayonetta as a secondary during this time, using her in sets to win, , and.
 * - One of the first Bayonetta players, notably winning and placing 3rd at, and 7th at . Ranked 60th on the PGR 100.
 * - The best Bayonetta player of all time, ranking 6th on the PGR 100. Won several major tournaments including, , and . He was the first person to double-eliminate outside of Grand Finals, doing so at.
 * - Co-mained Bayonetta with Cloud and was considered the best Bayonetta player in the world by the end of the game's lifespan. Won several major tournaments including, , and . Ranked 7th on the PGR 100.
 * - One of the best Bayonetta players in the United States. Regularly places top 8 at events, including 2nd at, and has also placed 9th at  and . Ranked 55th on the PGR 100.
 * - Began competing seriously in 2018 but became one of the best Bayonetta players in Japan, playing Bayonetta alongside . Notably won and . Ranked 88th on the PGR 100.

Tier placement, history and tournament bans in various regions
Bayonetta was, along with, one of the only two characters to miss out on the first 4BR tier list, due to them being available two days after the tier list was released. Her initial perception on the community has been, however, positive since her release, albeit in a controversial way. Players pointed out her abundance of strengths, namely her extremely strong combo game with zero to death potential, her excellent recovery, a decent neutral game despite her average mobility, the strength of her moveset despite being a light character alongside guaranteed KO setups with Witch Time, and the ability to punish the opponent for trying to punish her due to the former move. Despite her strengths being slightly toned down in update 1.1.5, the nerfs to and  in the same patch further bolstered the controversy surrounding her. Players stated that she was too good in competitive play and compared her to Brawl's.

Bayonetta was eventually nerfed in update 1.1.6 and her perception and tournament results declined as a result. Even so, while her perception suddenly dropped in the eyes of many smashers, it gradually became positive again due to her players adopting a newer, more creative playstyle, similar to after update 1.0.8. While her results were initially not as amazing as before, her strong tournament representation and results culminated in her being placed at 11th place on the second 4BR tier list. Bayonetta's representation and results would grow as time passed, in particular due to, , and 's strong results within their regions, with the former two also making it to top eight at two major tournaments. As a result of this, she moved to 1st on the third tier list (in another similarity to Diddy Kong with the previous tier list); this tier rise is the second largest between the second and third tier lists, with people stating that while the nerfs did make a difference in how simple it was to pick her up, they did not hold her back from being one of the best characters in the game.

At first, opinions on Bayonetta's placing on the tier list were mixed, as some people were in favor of her taking the top spot, whereas others believed that her dominance was not as high as other characters like Diddy Kong and Sheik. However, following Salem's victories at supermajors and, most people agreed that she was the best character in the game, which, combined with Bayonetta's more consistent results, allowed her to hold the 1st placing on the fourth and final tier list.

By the end of the game's main competitive lifespan, Bayonetta's first place status was unchallenged, as numerous top players including and  began using her. Most major tournaments in 2018 had at least two to three Bayonetta players in the top eight, and by the end of the PGR v5 season, there were five players ranked with Bayonetta in the top ten, the most out of all the characters in the game. Her dominance in the metagame gave way to hate from the Smash community, with a good portion of the community stating that they do not enjoy playing against the character because of her perceived brokenness.

Banned

 * 🇺🇸 USA Raid Weekly in Chicago, Illinois has confirmed Bayonetta's ban

Banned (lifted after update 1.1.6)

 * 🇺🇸 USA St. Louis, Missouri had confirmed Bayonetta's ban
 * 🇺🇸 USA Tampa, Florida had confirmed Bayonetta's ban

Ban considered

 * 🇪🇸 Spain Spain had considered a ban on Bayonetta

Certain regions banned or considered banning Bayonetta from their tournaments, believing that, unlike before update 1.1.5, she was very simple to play as. Following the tremendous number of nerfs she received in update 1.1.6, however, these regions lifted their ban.

Alternate costumes
Bayonetta's default outfit is based on her appearance in Bayonetta 2 and is equipped with [[Media:Love is Blue - Bayo2.png|Love is Blue]]. She has an alternate outfit based on her appearance in the original Bayonetta, known as "A Witch With No Memories", and is equipped with [[Media:Scarborough Fair - Bayo1.png|Scarborough Fair]]. Depending on the costume, various visual effects will be one of two colors (which directly correlates to the aesthetic theme of both Bayonetta games): Blue for Bayonetta 2 and red for Bayonetta. One of Bayonetta's alternate outfit color schemes is based on Jeanne, her childhood friend and friendly rival. While using Jeanne's color scheme, Bayonetta's Smash attacks as well as her final smash will have the hair surrounding Madama Butterfly's limbs and Gomorrah colored white.

Her appearance while doing Wicked Weaves (summoning Madama Butterfly in her smash attacks and summoning Gomorrah in Infernal Climax) is less revealing than in the Bayonetta games, as she retains most of her clothing while performing them.

In the Japanese version of the game, Bayonetta is voiced in Japanese by Atsuko Tanaka while wearing her Bayonetta 2 outfit and in English by Hellena Taylor while wearing her original outfit, making her the the only character who speaks a different language depending on the costume. This references the fact that Bayonetta did not have Japanese voice acting in its initial release; Japanese dubbing was introduced for the Wii U version after Hideki Kamiya was impressed with the Japanese voice-acting done for the animated movie: Bayonetta: Bloody Fate.

Trivia

 * Bayonetta and Cloud are the only characters to change weapons as part of their alternate costumes. In Bayonetta's case, her A Witch With No Memories costume has her using the Scarborough Fair, rather than Love Is Blue. They are also the only characters in SSB4 who pose differently in their artwork when wearing alternate costumes that change their outfits.
 * Her pose in her artwork for her "A Witch With No Memories" costume is based on her artwork for her appearance in Anarchy Reigns.
 * If a battle ends while Bayonetta is speaking through a taunt, it can still be heard, even over the announcer. This also happens with.
 * If she grabs a or Golden Hammer with her forward aerial and stops the attack in midair without performing all three hits, the hammer's music will not play.


 * Some of Bayonetta's animations outside of her attacks reference the Bayonetta series:
 * When Bayonetta jumps, she leaves behind a blue Umbra Witch symbol, and emits a magenta Umbra Witch symbol and when she lands. However, she does not emit the symbol during her double jump.
 * Her on-screen appearance is a reference to when she enters Purgatorio, as she appears within the realm via the Umbra Witches' symbol.
 * Her crouch is a reference to the Break Dance technique, where she strikes a similar pose at the end of the attack.
 * Her ability to wall cling references the Witch Walk ability usable by Umbra Witches during a full moon.
 * When she plucks, she will uproot the item with a kick and then grab it in midair, much like how she picks up weapons from the ground. She also transitions through this animation slower than every other character in SSB4.
 * Her sidestep's animation is based off her Love is Blue weapon taunt from Bayonetta 2.
 * The pose Bayonetta assumes when having her attacks interrupted with another attack is based off her Kafka weapon taunt from Bayonetta 2.
 * She has a special idle pose once she stops any ground attack, which returns to her standard idle pose after a few seconds pass. This is based on her attack pose from her home franchise. Her arms down position is used when traversing open areas with no enemies, while holding her arms up with her guns, and placing one foot on its toe, is the pose she takes when enemies are near by. Players performing attack animations in her home series without enemies near by will have her take her attack pose for a few seconds, before reverting into her idle pose.
 * After using an Assist Trophy or the Special Flag, Bayonetta will blow a kiss. This could be a reference to the Infernal Kiss ability, which enables her to break down divine barriers, or her target lock-on animation.
 * When damaged, roses appear around her body where starburst-shaped effects would normally appear. This references how, in the Bayonetta series, those who are damaged and have blood drawn will have it turn into something different before being blown away. In Bayonetta's case, rose petals fly off of where she would normally bleed, which makes her and in Ultimate the only characters in the Super Smash Bros. series to reference external bleeding.
 * Bayonetta is the only newcomer in SSB4 to have one voice clip when being KO'd via blast lines.
 * Bayonetta,, and are the only three characters in SSB4 with unique sound effects for charging their smash attacks.
 * Bayonetta possesses unique technical data:
 * She is the first character in the Super Smash Bros. series to have a smash attack that is a meteor smash that works on aerial targets, and is not part of an automatic combo that negates the downward knockback.
 * She is one of two characters that can affect opponents who have invincibility frames, such as those from the Super Star item or from dismounting a revival platform, thanks to Witch Time. The other is in Brawl, with Negative Zone, but unlike Witch Time, Negative Zone can also dismount opponents from a revival platform.
 * Bayonetta and are the only characters whose neutral attacks require multiple button presses in order to be fully performed. In Bayonetta's case, merely holding the attack button triggers her Bullet Arts.
 * Although difficult to hear, Bayonetta's guns will emit their respective firing sound effects. Her default costume uses Love is Blue's firing sound effect from Bayonetta 2, whereas her "A Witch With No Memories" costume uses Scarborough Fair's firing sound effect from Bayonetta.
 * Bayonetta, Ryu, Cloud,, and 's voice clips are in much lower quality than the rest of the cast in.
 * In an interview with Masahiro Sakurai, he stated that including Bayonetta in the game was not an easy task. He had problems coming up with a unique moveset for her in the game, so he opted to bring in her attacks directly from Bayonetta 2, which explains why she is a combo-based fighter instead having the standard one or two-hit attacks most characters have. He also stated that he initially had trouble balancing Bayonetta's sexual nature to fit the games' age rating in Japan, as even the slightest sexual exposure would have boosted the games' family rating to a more mature one.
 * Bayonetta is the only character to speak when performing a spot dodge, where she might say "Dreadful."