Bayonetta (SSB4): Difference between revisions

Bayonetta, much like in her home series, is a combo-heavy fighter, with many multi-hitting attacks and chainable moves. Unlike {{SSB4|Ryu}}, Bayonetta specializes in aerial combos that consist of fewer hits, 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 [[walk]]ing speed, average [[dash]]ing, below average [[air speed]], but she has high [[air acceleration]], [[jump]] force, [[falling speed]] (the ninth fastest), and [[gravity]], attributes similar most other combo-based characters. Similar to {{SSB4|Sheik}}, 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 with no hitstun (unless the opponent is at a point blank position), and have long range (about the size of half of Final Destination) as a way to rack up damage. Most of these bullets are arced in the direction that her attack faces her, while many shoot bullets in separate directions, such as her down tilt (forward 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 and can be charged to increase their power, making them usable to edgeguard recovering opponents.

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 aerials, such as aerial attacks (most notably multiple forward aerials), [[Witch Twist]], and [[After Burner Kick]], 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 attack]]s (though the opponent takes a reduced damage multiplier of x1.2 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 {{b|teleport|disambiguation}} in a given (usually more favorable) position, enabling her to punish her attacker afterwards if used wisely, although it often moves her too far to exploit her opponent's vulnerability.

In regards to the potency of her moveset, Bayonetta has some notably strong and/or useful attacks that can help her close out stocks once the opponent is at high damage, 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 slow startup, is her most powerful and damaging one and has 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. To complement her punishment game, her recovery is among the most flexible in the game, as After Burner Kick gives her fair horizontal distance, and 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. She can also use Witch Twist, double jump, Witch Twist again up to three frames after, and restore her double jump, allowing her to mix-up her recovery. Her punish game also complements her recovery, as the immense range of her special attacks allows her to easily [[edge-guard break]] opponents, and edgeguard or even KO them in return. Thus, like Sheik, Bayonetta is among the hardest characters to successfully edgeguard, with very few characters such as {{SSB4|Palutena}} having options that can keep her away from the stage.

Even with her set of strengths, Bayonetta has some weaknesses that are quite exploitable. 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 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 {{SSB4|Pikachu}} or {{SSB4|Little Mac}}. Her smash attacks also [[Priority#Objects that do not terminate on hit|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 in the air 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. Despite Bullet Arts granting her a relatively good neutral game, her approach is fairly poor, as her few options in dash attack, dash grab and Heel Slide are predictable. Despite her abundance of KOing options, she is reliant on Witch Time to land her smash attacks, spacing to land her aerials, on forward throw to KO the opponent if her level of [[rage]] is high, and her combos to carry the opponent to the blast lines and KO them with an aerial attack. When it comes to escape her combos, Bayonetta has a 2.0× SDI multiplier on her multi-hit/combo moves, causing her combos to fail if the player doesn't read their opponent's DI and SDI, and this causes her zero-death combos to get [[stale]]. Her rolls, sidestep, and air dodge all have noticeable ending lag (though her rolls end three frames earlier than {{SSB4|Samus}}'s), and the former two also have among the slowest start-ups out of all the characters in terms of invincibility. Witch Twist doesn't travel much vertical distance on its own, making her recovery short-ranged if she doesn't use or has already used her second jump or her After Burner Kick. 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 {{SSB4|Rosalina & Luma}} or {{SSB4|Diddy Kong}} for the former point and {{SSB4|Sheik}} 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 smashers including {{Sm|Salem}}, {{Sm|Mistake}}, {{Sm|CaptainZack}}, {{Sm|Abadango}}, {{Sm|Lima}}, {{Sm|JK}}, {{Sm|tyroy}}, and {{Sm|9B}} having used 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, putting her more in line with the rest of the cast; 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.