Bayonetta (SSBU): Difference between revisions

Bayonetta is currently ranked 26th out of 82 characters on the current tier list, placing her in A- tier. This is a big drop from her placement in ''Smash 4'' where she was considered to be the best character in the game. Bayonetta's main strength is 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 with aerial follow-ups such as up aerial, forward aerial, or neutral aerial. Bayonetta especially excels at quickly chipping damage away from her opponents and sneakily KOing them with her powerful special attacks. All of her tilt attacks confirm into multiple follow-ups at early percentages, giving her one of the best damage racking games of any character. Furthermore, despite her combos being susceptible to SDI, the large hitboxes on most of her aerials or special attacks, as well as their effective hitstun make it easy for her to overcome it. She also possesses [[Bullet Arts]], an extension on any of her attacks which enable her to shoot from her hand or foot guns. [[Bullet Climax]] is a solid neutral special, as its high damage output and hitstun make it easy for her to rack-up damage offstage and edgeguard. With its fast charge and cancellation, Bayonetta can perform several mixups and even KO her opponents via a combo extension into fully charged Bullet Climax, on-stage or offstage. Furthermore, Bayonetta possesses a plethora of defensive options, the most effective being [[Witch Time]] and [[Bat Within]]. A successful activation of Witch Time at low percents can open an opportunity for a combo, while an activation at high percents can often confirm into a KO, with all of her smash attacks having very high knockback. Bat Within, a frame 1 airdodge, allows her to burst into a flock of bats and move away into the direction that her player chooses, sometimes allowing her to reverse disadvantage and punish her opponent. It is often used to escape semi-true combos, juggles, and even kill confirms. Her special attacks also give her a long, flexible, and mostly safe recovery, further enhanced by her ability to wall jump and cling. Her edgeguarding abilities are phenomenal as well, with a powerful meteor-attack in down smash being able to KO opponents at the ledge, as well as her flexible aerial game providing her with an aggressive offstage game.

However, Bayonetta has many notable weaknesses. Her frame data is below-average, with almost all of her attacks coming out on frame 9 or later, and most of them also have high ending lag. On top of that, her attacks deal rather low shield damage or pressure, making them unsafe on shield. She also has a rather poor ground game, which is essential for her to start her combos. She often has to rely on [[Heel Slide]], up tilt, or down tilt, all of which are unsafe on shield and mostly require precision and carelessness from the opponent during neutral to be able to land. Since her special attacks are the centerpiece of her combo game, they can sometimes give her a self-inflicted disadvantage state. They 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. Witch Time, despite being useful to confirm into combos or KOs, is burdened with 8 frames of startup and 67 frames of ending lag, the most of any counter. This makes it rather difficult to activate and riskier to use out of disadvantage. Players need to utilize the counter wisely, because on top of having awful frame data, it starts to decay after consecutive use, making it unreliable for an extended period of time, and also rather useless when it is needed most. Furthermore, despite having powerful combo confirms and KO options, Bayonetta sometimes struggles taking stocks at higher percents, as her best KO options, particularly back-air, jab, and her smash attacks, are difficult to land clean hits with due to their poor frame data. Bayonetta has to rely on mixups, reads and edgeguards most of the time to take stocks. Finally, despite her amazing defensive options, Bayonetta is a lightweight with a tall frame and hurtbox, and coupled with her risky ground and special attacks, it makes her relatively easier to punish, combo and KO than most other characters.  

The general consensus on Bayonetta was negative during the early metagame, with most players lamenting the overwhelming amount of nerfs she received in the transition to ''Ultimate''. However, Bayonetta would go on to receive significant buffs from game updates that would help her tournament results improve, particularly during the pandemic and post-pandemic metagame. In turn, these results would also greatly improve her perception in the community. Thanks to the efforts of players such as {{Sm|Lima}}, {{Sm|Bloom4Eva}} and {{Sm|TamaPDaifuku}}, she continues to see success in the current metagame, and continues to have a large playerbase.