The Wii Fit Trainer's reign of terror in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate may finally be over. The newest patch for the game, ver. 11.0.1, offers a single update to Smash, increasing Wii Fit Trainer's cool down period after their special Header move. This comes after an accidental buff from Nintendo that made the Wii Fit Trainer more difficult to manage.
In the previous update for the game, ver. 11.0.0, the Wii Fit Trainer received an improvement to their gameplay that wasn't outlined or explained in the official changelog, which is commonly referred to as a "shadow buff" by the Smash community. The update was meant to fix a longstanding bug with the Wii Fit Trainer's Header special, but instead, it actually reduced the amount of time between the attack's animation ending and the player being able to perform a follow-up action.
This accidental reduction in cool downtime, which was more than half the amount of time it initially took to cool down, gave the move much more utility. Initially, the move is meant to take nine frames for recovery after being used. However, that was reduced to four by the patch, which is a huge difference. Many players could combine the move with the character's Deep Breathing special to increase falling speed. As such, Header became incredibly difficult to counter or attack after because the user was able to recover so quickly after using it. It even allowed for many players to create unique and awesome combo routes that allowed the Trainer to stun lock and KO opponents easily.
Of course, those who utilized Wii Fit Trainer in the game loved this accidental buff, while those who didn't hated it. Though, the short-lived buff didn't seem to have any major effect on any professional tournament results or improve the character's standings in various power rankings. Of course, Wii Fit Trainer is a fairly decent competitor without the buff, but it was fun to see them take on some high-challenging competitors like Sephiroth and his wild amount of damage-dealing.
Alas, it was not meant to be for the Wii Fit Trainer, who is now nerfed back to a less-than-God-like status. But at least they tasted what it was like to be on top, if only for a brief time.
Source: YouTube