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, 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 only passable with a slow [[walking]] speed, average [[dash]]ing and below average [[air speed]], but she has high [[air acceleration]], [[jump]] force, [[falling speed]] (the ninth fastest), and [[gravity]], attributes unlike 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.

She has 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 five (with some exceptions) invisible bullets from each used gun with no hitstun and medium range 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). With this ability, she has a very good damage racking game, and because her Bullet Arts have moderate range (about the size of half of Final Destination), she can force 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. Bayonetta also has a more traditional projectile variant in her neutral special [[Bullet Climax]], which unlike Bullet Arts, has visible bullets that cause hitstun and can be used to edgeguard recovering opponents.

As aforementioned, Bayonetta's strengths are in her combos, with up tilt, down tilt, up throw, and [[Heel Slide]] being good starters. These all launch opponents into the air, where from there she can mix and match her aerials, such as multiple forward airs, [[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 air, a neutral and up air that can frame-trap recovering opponents, and a [[meteor smash]] in down air that is surprisingly powerful and recoverable for a [[stall-then-fall]]. Her flexible recovery is among the best 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. She can also use Witch Twist, double jump, Witch Twist again one frame after, and use her double jump ''again'' as a mix-up to her somewhat linear recovery, although this difficult to execute due to the frame precision needed. Using her [[Witch Time]] counterattack wisely is also crucial to victory, as the slowdown renders targets wide open to her combos or to one of her powerful smash attacks. 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, such as {{SSB4|Charizard}}'s down throw to forward aerial. Furthermore, Bat Within enables Bayonetta to teleport in a given (usually more favorable) position, enabling her to punish her attacker.

However, Bayonetta has weaknesses that are quite exploitable. Being tall and light 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). She 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 relatively unsafe on shield (sans up and down tilt, which have low range) and leaves her vulnerable to opponents that have better frame data than her while grounded, like {{SSB4|Pikachu}}. Her smash attacks also have low [[priority]], 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. Her position after performing her up special, or side special in the air can be exploitable too, as the more of these moves she uses in the air, the longer [[landing lag]] she will receive at the end, leaving Bayonetta [[punish]]able if they are whiffed and if she is forced to land on the ground. Her neutral game is also poor, as her few approach options are easily telegraphed. Her KOing options are lacking outside of back and down aerials, zero-death combos and smashes and her zero-deaths usually getting [[stale]]d and escapable if the opponent uses [[DI]] and smash DI effectively. About escaping her combos, Bayonetta has a 2.0× SDI multiplier on her multihit/combo moves, causing her combos to fail at any percent if the player doesn't read their opponent's SDI. Her smashes are somewhat slow to land and are easy to cancel out due to their low priority, enforcing the use of Witch Time or her forward throw (which does not kill until very high percents) to score KOs. In addition, Witch Time can be a double-edged sword as it does not negate lingering hitboxes that can interrupt her attempt to counterattack. 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. Furthermore, despite functioning like a counterattack, Bat Within sometimes moves Bayonetta too far to exploit her opponent's vulnerability, enforcing strict timing for Witch Time and her dodges or to use the move for other purposes. As stated earlier, Witch Twist doesn't travel much vertical distance on its own, making her recovery only marginally better with {{SSB4|Little Mac}}'s if she doesn't utilize her second jump or her After Burner Kick. She also suffers against characters that can camp and zone well against her such as {{SSB4|Villager}} or {{SSB4|R.O.B.}} as they give her little room to act against them due to not possessing a reliable projectile to defend against them, and they can capitalize on a misused Witch Time to punish her if she tries to use it against a stray projectile. Finally, she lacks customs specials, like the other DLC characters, though due to the utility her special moveset has, it is more of a nuisance 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 her opponents and exploits their vulnerabilities, but must also be careful not to let her foe take advantage of her own weaknesses, though due to the surprisingly high range and priority her attacks have (with the exception being her smash attacks for the latter), doing so is a somewhat difficult task to begin with. Perhaps the only characters that she has problems against are those who can camp well against her, such as {{SSB4|Rosalina & Luma}} (due to their puppet-fighter playstyle), but outside of that, she can easily dominate and punish characters who cannot properly capitalize on her weaknesses.  

Bayonetta commands a large playerbase, with smashers including {{Sm|9B}}, {{Sm|Pink Fresh}}, {{Sm|Salem}}, {{Sm|Saj}} and {{Sm|Wonf}} having used her with consistently strong results in regional and national tournaments. However, while Bayonetta was considered one of the best characters in the game upon release, opinions varied on how dominating she was in tournaments; while some regions had gone 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 {{SSB4|Sheik}} and {{SSB4|Diddy Kong}}. Version [[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, she is still widely seen as a very strong character, with top player {{Sm|Mr. R}} ranking her as no. 3 in his personal tier list. Ultimately, she is now considered the best character in the game.