Now that I have some juicy character data, especially from all the online data, it's time to take a look - this time, on the very obvious differences between online and offline play. If you take a look at the offline character page it's about what you expect in terms. But the online character page is this bizarre world where the best characters are... Richter, Bayonetta, and Snake!?
What?
Well, let's dive into it, and I hope you're prepared to see bar graphs - lots and lots of bar graphs. Additionally, if you want to see the raw data, I put them in big tables at the bottom.

This charts the +- in rank. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a post about how characters are ranked but essentially it's just based on winrate with some consideration for sample size.

And this charts the +- in winrate. Note that lower the better unlike the old graph (since a higher winrate is better, whereas a lower rank is better). Ignore Steve - he simply went from not having a winrate, to having one.
Just examing these figures in broad strokes, you can see that the big winners from the offline to online shift seem to be 1. projectile campers 2. heavies. But it's difficult to really get a picture with so many characters and so many numbers.
Next, let's examine the top 5 and the worst 5 sorted by rank delta.
The biggest losers
And here the biggest winners
While it seems crazy that demonstrably good characters like Joker, Lucina, Fox do so badly online in comparison, I think the biggest winners here are more interesting. Robin, Wii Fit, Mii Swordfighter - OK, sure. They have projectiles, people are bad at dodging projectiles online. But Dr. Mario? Terry? What?
But you can only learn so much looking at individual characters. To further examine what makes and breaks characters online, let's put them into groups and examine the difference across those groups.
groups = {
'Heavies': ['Bowser', 'Donkey Kong', 'King K. Rool', 'King Dedede', 'Incineroar', 'Ganondorf'],
'Swordies': ['Byleth', 'Chrom', 'Roy', 'Marth', 'Lucina', 'Shulk', 'Cloud', 'Corrin'],
'Bait and Punish': ['ZSS', 'Inkling', 'Palutena', 'Joker', 'Diddy Kong', 'Greninja'],
'Rushdown': ['Pikachu', 'Pichu', 'Fox', 'Captain Falcon', 'Sheik'],
'Projectile Zoners': ['Samus', 'Villager', 'Snake', 'R. O. B', 'Pac-Man',
'Richter', 'Simon', 'Young Link', 'Zelda',
'Olimar', 'Mega Man', 'Mii Gunner', 'Mii Sword', 'Robin', 'Ness'],
'Fighting Game': ['Ryu', 'Ken', 'Terry'],
'Specialty': ['Pac-Man', 'Duck Hunt', 'Olimar', 'Ryu', 'Ken', 'Terry', 'Bayonetta', 'Rosalina'],
'Sonic': ['Sonic'],
'Spacies': ['Fox', 'Wolf', 'Falco'],
'Mario': ['Mario', 'Luigi', 'Yoshi', 'Peach', 'Daisy'],
'Pokemon': ['Pichu', 'Pikachu', 'P. Trainer', 'Incineroar', 'Jigglypuff', 'Greninja']
}
The first groups I chose based on gameplay characteristics. For instance, although Rob and Snake are "heavy", they don't really play like Donkey Kong or King Dedede, who are more characterized by their slow speed and large hitboxes in addition to just character weight. By 'Specialty', I mean characters that function in quite a niche way that have a small playerbase - Pac-Man is a great example, as certainly a good character, but one that plays very weirdly and not too often. I want to see if the self-selection for dedication is a boon.
The second groups were more frivolous and really just for curiosity's sake.
And here are the results:

To some extent the general sentiment among the community that characters that rely on reactions and movement like Fox do poorly when your control is marred by large input buffers and the ever present lag seems to be justified, but it is noticeable that Swordies also do really badly. The meme of "mashing swordies" doesn't seem to be that effective, at least on average.
And of course, heavies and projectile characters do better.
I also think it's interesting that Fighting Game ends up being by far the highest average rank change. Higher than "specialty", higher than Projectiles. Hm.

These are the winrate delta's. Note that because of how it was processed a negative delta means an improvement to online and vice versa. You can see that heavies are actually the group that improve the most by winrate, they just have such low winrates offline that even with the improvement the rank differential is not as high as with other characters.
It's also interesting that "Mario" and "Pokemon" gain winrate percentage from the switch, although they evidently are outpaced by their peers, since they still lose ranking.
But back onto the "why do Shotos + Terry do so much better" train, one explanation is simply that those are hard to play characters which self select for hardcore players, who thrive in the much larger pool of casuals that online play enables. For that, let's examine the average elo by group:
(These are the deltas with 1300, the baseline Elo - i.e a bar that shows 100 means the average elo is 1400)
But you see, that's not actually true, or at least it's not the complete picture. The Fighters are actually middle of the pack with a +100, Specialty is +25 Elo higher, but has a far worse average rank and winrate change. Projectile Zoners is actually near the top, to my surprise as well. I would note that using Elo for this purpose means an amplified signal, because good character -> more win -> higher player elo for mains. But in a comparative setting I think it's still valid to look at it.
So is there something inherent in Ryu, Ken, and Terry that makes them perform better online? Seems like it.
In conclusion, from this it seems that a few archetypes of characters get significantly better online.
-
Projectile Campers - Dodge projectile hard lag
-
Heavies - Worse players + easier to make mistakes with lag
-
Specialty characters - self selecting for good players + no matchup experience for most players
-
Shotos + Terry - somewhat related to above, but also some other intangibles.
Have any thoughts? Email them to me at stu2b@statsmash.io or on twitter as @stu2b50.
Raw Data
Name | Offline Winrate | Offline Rank | Offline Pickrate | Offline Wilson | Online Winrate | Online Rank | Online Pickrate | Online Wilson | Winrate Delta | Rank Delta | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2 | Joker | 0.579787 | 2 | 0.074455 | 0.264164 | 0.409696 | 80 | 0.058729 | 0.201721 | 0.170092 | -78 |
7 | Lucina | 0.517094 | 7 | 0.061782 | 0.231524 | 0.407487 | 81 | 0.035499 | 0.199737 | 0.109607 | -74 |
4 | Fox | 0.551148 | 4 | 0.063234 | 0.248219 | 0.436169 | 74 | 0.016821 | 0.212133 | 0.114979 | -70 |
1 | Wario | 0.595556 | 1 | 0.059406 | 0.268813 | 0.468966 | 62 | 0.013935 | 0.227775 | 0.126589 | -61 |
14 | Roy | 0.501044 | 14 | 0.063234 | 0.224116 | 0.431755 | 75 | 0.027318 | 0.211215 | 0.069289 | -61 |
Name | Offline Winrate | Offline Rank | Offline Pickrate | Offline Wilson | Online Winrate | Online Rank | Online Pickrate | Online Wilson | Winrate Delta | Rank Delta | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
65 | Robin | 0.338983 | 65 | 0.007789 | 0.112482 | 0.558398 | 11 | 0.017845 | 0.272903 | -0.219415 | 54 |
75 | Mii Sword | 0.300000 | 75 | 0.001320 | 0.052368 | 0.529458 | 22 | 0.009451 | 0.256250 | -0.229458 | 53 |
72 | Dr. Mario | 0.300000 | 72 | 0.002640 | 0.070611 | 0.528340 | 21 | 0.013851 | 0.257158 | -0.228340 | 51 |
59 | Wii Fit Trainer | 0.372093 | 59 | 0.011353 | 0.134980 | 0.559483 | 9 | 0.022684 | 0.274149 | -0.187390 | 50 |
73 | Terry | 0.333333 | 73 | 0.001584 | 0.066786 | 0.519821 | 24 | 0.028653 | 0.255049 | -0.186488 | 49 |
Name | Average Rank Delta | Average Winrate Delta | |
---|---|---|---|
8 | Spacies | -55.333333 | 0.074516 |
3 | Rushdown | -42.500000 | 0.042337 |
1 | Swordies | -34.875000 | 0.037500 |
10 | Pokemon | -26.333333 | -0.018581 |
2 | Bait and Punish | -26.000000 | 0.014186 |
9 | Mario | -12.200000 | -0.018971 |
7 | Sonic | 8.000000 | -0.047939 |
6 | Specialty | 17.000000 | -0.072839 |
4 | Projectile Zoners | 22.500000 | -0.091789 |
0 | Heavies | 25.000000 | -0.204253 |
5 | Fighting Game | 39.666667 | -0.140603 |
Name | Offline Winrate | Offline Rank | Offline Pickrate | Offline Wilson | Online Winrate | Online Rank | Online Pickrate | Online Wilson | Winrate Delta | Rank Delta | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | Steve | 0.000000 | 81 | 0.000396 | 0.000000 | 0.524596 | 36 | 0.005622 | 0.251374 | -0.524596 | 45 |
79 | Donkey Kong | 0.161290 | 79 | 0.004092 | 0.034938 | 0.512243 | 35 | 0.036761 | 0.251847 | -0.350953 | 44 |
77 | King K. Rool | 0.185185 | 77 | 0.003564 | 0.040201 | 0.489036 | 50 | 0.026999 | 0.239613 | -0.303850 | 27 |
78 | Kirby | 0.190476 | 78 | 0.002772 | 0.037662 | 0.461695 | 65 | 0.019139 | 0.225147 | -0.271219 | 13 |
75 | Mii Sword | 0.300000 | 75 | 0.001320 | 0.052368 | 0.529458 | 22 | 0.009451 | 0.256250 | -0.229458 | 53 |
72 | Dr. Mario | 0.300000 | 72 | 0.002640 | 0.070611 | 0.528340 | 21 | 0.013851 | 0.257158 | -0.228340 | 51 |
74 | Little Mac | 0.263158 | 74 | 0.002508 | 0.057538 | 0.491145 | 49 | 0.020330 | 0.239918 | -0.227987 | 25 |
65 | Robin | 0.338983 | 65 | 0.007789 | 0.112482 | 0.558398 | 11 | 0.017845 | 0.272903 | -0.219415 | 54 |
70 | Incineroar | 0.272727 | 70 | 0.005809 | 0.079759 | 0.480351 | 57 | 0.013319 | 0.233257 | -0.207624 | 13 |
59 | Wii Fit Trainer | 0.372093 | 59 | 0.011353 | 0.134980 | 0.559483 | 9 | 0.022684 | 0.274149 | -0.187390 | 50 |
73 | Terry | 0.333333 | 73 | 0.001584 | 0.066786 | 0.519821 | 24 | 0.028653 | 0.255049 | -0.186488 | 49 |
67 | Banjo | 0.333333 | 67 | 0.004356 | 0.095695 | 0.508352 | 37 | 0.028554 | 0.249342 | -0.175019 | 30 |
71 | Ganondorf | 0.318182 | 71 | 0.002904 | 0.079266 | 0.480622 | 54 | 0.028398 | 0.235557 | -0.162440 | 17 |
58 | Zelda | 0.400000 | 58 | 0.008581 | 0.140299 | 0.548076 | 14 | 0.031984 | 0.269355 | -0.148076 | 44 |
62 | Ryu | 0.411765 | 62 | 0.004488 | 0.126794 | 0.558572 | 15 | 0.006290 | 0.268732 | -0.146807 | 47 |
76 | Mii Brawler | 0.333333 | 76 | 0.000792 | 0.046964 | 0.464031 | 66 | 0.006759 | 0.222464 | -0.130697 | 10 |
69 | Mewtwo | 0.307692 | 69 | 0.003432 | 0.080076 | 0.436348 | 76 | 0.008864 | 0.210006 | -0.128656 | -7 |
55 | Dark Samus | 0.402597 | 55 | 0.010165 | 0.145593 | 0.524973 | 26 | 0.010330 | 0.254396 | -0.122376 | 29 |
50 | Bayonetta | 0.465116 | 50 | 0.005677 | 0.155890 | 0.579643 | 2 | 0.019529 | 0.283730 | -0.114526 | 48 |
45 | Yoshi | 0.403587 | 45 | 0.029439 | 0.167165 | 0.514479 | 31 | 0.045184 | 0.253376 | -0.110892 | 14 |
52 | Link | 0.389706 | 52 | 0.017954 | 0.152167 | 0.497426 | 45 | 0.032088 | 0.244185 | -0.107720 | 7 |
56 | Simon | 0.466667 | 56 | 0.003960 | 0.144394 | 0.573903 | 8 | 0.004608 | 0.274539 | -0.107236 | 48 |
53 | Bowser | 0.382550 | 53 | 0.019670 | 0.150660 | 0.487654 | 48 | 0.056750 | 0.240440 | -0.105104 | 5 |
22 | Snake | 0.473364 | 22 | 0.086733 | 0.214488 | 0.573320 | 3 | 0.048361 | 0.282793 | -0.099956 | 19 |
43 | Pac-Man | 0.454545 | 43 | 0.013069 | 0.174416 | 0.553466 | 12 | 0.029905 | 0.271875 | -0.098921 | 31 |
33 | Richter | 0.490196 | 33 | 0.013465 | 0.191140 | 0.587403 | 1 | 0.011934 | 0.285892 | -0.097207 | 32 |
64 | King Dedede | 0.428571 | 64 | 0.002772 | 0.117057 | 0.524119 | 20 | 0.028818 | 0.257198 | -0.095548 | 44 |
80 | Byleth | 0.333333 | 80 | 0.000396 | 0.030053 | 0.426172 | 79 | 0.014694 | 0.206778 | -0.092838 | 1 |
41 | Bowser Jr. | 0.462963 | 41 | 0.014257 | 0.180221 | 0.555333 | 13 | 0.015731 | 0.270975 | -0.092370 | 28 |
60 | Piranha Plant | 0.384615 | 60 | 0.006865 | 0.128080 | 0.473976 | 59 | 0.018435 | 0.231126 | -0.089360 | 1 |
30 | Ken | 0.486486 | 30 | 0.019538 | 0.197858 | 0.575000 | 7 | 0.015516 | 0.280689 | -0.088514 | 23 |
44 | Diddy Kong | 0.432624 | 44 | 0.018614 | 0.172241 | 0.519625 | 32 | 0.014848 | 0.253076 | -0.087001 | 12 |
51 | Villager | 0.438596 | 51 | 0.007525 | 0.153183 | 0.524904 | 25 | 0.010583 | 0.254458 | -0.086307 | 26 |
61 | Ridley | 0.400000 | 61 | 0.005281 | 0.127027 | 0.482353 | 56 | 0.014514 | 0.234536 | -0.082353 | 5 |
40 | Young Link | 0.432314 | 40 | 0.030231 | 0.180903 | 0.505449 | 40 | 0.029633 | 0.247988 | -0.073135 | 0 |
54 | Mii Gunner | 0.481481 | 54 | 0.003564 | 0.146442 | 0.550232 | 17 | 0.009182 | 0.266405 | -0.068751 | 37 |
10 | R. O. B. | 0.504950 | 10 | 0.066667 | 0.226655 | 0.573065 | 4 | 0.049419 | 0.282708 | -0.068114 | 6 |
48 | Toon Link | 0.447368 | 48 | 0.010033 | 0.164716 | 0.508677 | 39 | 0.018608 | 0.248358 | -0.061309 | 9 |
13 | Sonic | 0.523013 | 13 | 0.031551 | 0.224123 | 0.570952 | 5 | 0.037799 | 0.281110 | -0.047939 | 8 |
20 | Mega Man | 0.498403 | 20 | 0.041320 | 0.216915 | 0.544689 | 16 | 0.020267 | 0.266481 | -0.046286 | 4 |
46 | Daisy | 0.441860 | 46 | 0.011353 | 0.165403 | 0.478348 | 63 | 0.004629 | 0.227539 | -0.036488 | -17 |
28 | Ike | 0.500000 | 28 | 0.015578 | 0.199056 | 0.536387 | 18 | 0.031242 | 0.263488 | -0.036387 | 10 |
29 | Pichu | 0.465909 | 29 | 0.034851 | 0.198906 | 0.494396 | 47 | 0.015069 | 0.240623 | -0.028487 | -18 |
49 | Hero | 0.458333 | 49 | 0.006337 | 0.156488 | 0.485037 | 52 | 0.022079 | 0.237114 | -0.026704 | -3 |
35 | Meta Knight | 0.484848 | 35 | 0.013069 | 0.188001 | 0.508335 | 43 | 0.007682 | 0.244904 | -0.023487 | -8 |
57 | Lucario | 0.439024 | 57 | 0.005413 | 0.143607 | 0.462077 | 67 | 0.008222 | 0.222379 | -0.023052 | -10 |
19 | Palutena | 0.490722 | 19 | 0.064026 | 0.219321 | 0.512162 | 34 | 0.062036 | 0.252786 | -0.021440 | -15 |
23 | Luigi | 0.534653 | 23 | 0.013333 | 0.211054 | 0.555400 | 10 | 0.038343 | 0.273402 | -0.020746 | 13 |
63 | Pit | 0.444444 | 63 | 0.002376 | 0.117162 | 0.457484 | 70 | 0.005282 | 0.218015 | -0.013040 | -7 |
6 | Olimar | 0.535181 | 6 | 0.061914 | 0.240249 | 0.547239 | 19 | 0.006620 | 0.263398 | -0.012057 | -13 |
24 | Samus | 0.510949 | 24 | 0.018086 | 0.207461 | 0.520610 | 23 | 0.027736 | 0.255361 | -0.009661 | 1 |
34 | Cloud | 0.473684 | 34 | 0.017558 | 0.189723 | 0.481377 | 51 | 0.059399 | 0.237392 | -0.007693 | -17 |
38 | Ice Climbers | 0.509434 | 38 | 0.006997 | 0.181363 | 0.514076 | 38 | 0.009625 | 0.248719 | -0.004642 | 0 |
16 | Greninja | 0.502336 | 16 | 0.056502 | 0.223270 | 0.506299 | 41 | 0.023868 | 0.247872 | -0.003962 | -25 |
17 | Inkling | 0.497727 | 17 | 0.058086 | 0.221430 | 0.497305 | 42 | 0.047868 | 0.244941 | 0.000422 | -25 |
37 | Isabelle | 0.509434 | 37 | 0.006997 | 0.181363 | 0.503186 | 44 | 0.013109 | 0.244505 | 0.006248 | -7 |
12 | Game\'n\'Watch | 0.522822 | 12 | 0.031815 | 0.224179 | 0.515183 | 33 | 0.032456 | 0.253035 | 0.007639 | -21 |
15 | P. Trainer | 0.500000 | 15 | 0.063630 | 0.223694 | 0.492253 | 46 | 0.049954 | 0.242506 | 0.007747 | -31 |
27 | Shulk | 0.493750 | 27 | 0.021122 | 0.202818 | 0.485424 | 53 | 0.017890 | 0.236712 | 0.008326 | -26 |
8 | Ness | 0.524927 | 8 | 0.045017 | 0.230839 | 0.513512 | 29 | 0.060438 | 0.253415 | 0.011415 | -21 |
39 | Lucas | 0.492537 | 39 | 0.008845 | 0.181068 | 0.480435 | 55 | 0.027463 | 0.235384 | 0.012102 | -16 |
36 | C. Falcon | 0.462069 | 36 | 0.019142 | 0.186229 | 0.447945 | 69 | 0.027686 | 0.219278 | 0.014124 | -33 |
21 | Wolf | 0.478827 | 21 | 0.081056 | 0.216382 | 0.462954 | 61 | 0.054683 | 0.228089 | 0.015874 | -40 |
5 | ZSS | 0.543902 | 5 | 0.054125 | 0.242611 | 0.516895 | 30 | 0.026255 | 0.253379 | 0.027007 | -25 |
47 | Sheik | 0.465517 | 47 | 0.007657 | 0.165181 | 0.435072 | 78 | 0.006403 | 0.207960 | 0.030445 | -31 |
32 | Rosalina | 0.484127 | 32 | 0.016634 | 0.193307 | 0.452354 | 71 | 0.004928 | 0.215125 | 0.031773 | -39 |
18 | Duck Hunt | 0.557895 | 18 | 0.012541 | 0.220040 | 0.525069 | 28 | 0.009402 | 0.254058 | 0.032826 | -10 |
11 | Mario | 0.506912 | 11 | 0.057294 | 0.225648 | 0.470600 | 58 | 0.038066 | 0.231220 | 0.036313 | -47 |
3 | Peach | 0.559275 | 3 | 0.094653 | 0.257019 | 0.522319 | 27 | 0.014761 | 0.254391 | 0.036956 | -24 |
25 | Chrom | 0.490566 | 25 | 0.027987 | 0.206736 | 0.452545 | 68 | 0.016954 | 0.220263 | 0.038021 | -43 |
66 | Corrin | 0.461538 | 66 | 0.001716 | 0.110337 | 0.409460 | 83 | 0.009143 | 0.196878 | 0.052078 | -17 |
9 | Pikachu | 0.518310 | 9 | 0.046865 | 0.228281 | 0.465900 | 60 | 0.031459 | 0.228480 | 0.052410 | -51 |
68 | Dark Pit | 0.500000 | 68 | 0.000792 | 0.088940 | 0.440433 | 72 | 0.009612 | 0.212340 | 0.059567 | -4 |
31 | Jigglypuff | 0.495726 | 31 | 0.015446 | 0.196911 | 0.427297 | 77 | 0.031821 | 0.209342 | 0.068430 | -46 |
14 | Roy | 0.501044 | 14 | 0.063234 | 0.224116 | 0.431755 | 75 | 0.027318 | 0.211215 | 0.069289 | -61 |
26 | Falco | 0.503759 | 26 | 0.017558 | 0.203497 | 0.411063 | 82 | 0.014159 | 0.199194 | 0.092696 | -56 |
7 | Lucina | 0.517094 | 7 | 0.061782 | 0.231524 | 0.407487 | 81 | 0.035499 | 0.199737 | 0.109607 | -74 |
4 | Fox | 0.551148 | 4 | 0.063234 | 0.248219 | 0.436169 | 74 | 0.016821 | 0.212133 | 0.114979 | -70 |
42 | Marth | 0.525000 | 42 | 0.005281 | 0.178573 | 0.401791 | 84 | 0.009742 | 0.193341 | 0.123209 | -42 |
1 | Wario | 0.595556 | 1 | 0.059406 | 0.268813 | 0.468966 | 62 | 0.013935 | 0.227775 | 0.126589 | -61 |
2 | Joker | 0.579787 | 2 | 0.074455 | 0.264164 | 0.409696 | 80 | 0.058729 | 0.201721 | 0.170092 | -78 |