Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Baby_Sneak]

i feel like people are not liking the game's balance state because of how one dimensional majority of the cast is and the method to balancing them. There is almost nobody that can do it all; no one can zone, Rushdown, play patient, go really aggro, or just play how you want to. There's a right and wrong way. Some people liked the brawl top tiers because they were so deep and were flooded with options. MK could literally do what he wanted and that was fun and while he wasn't fair to the rest of the cast, the oligarchy of brawl (MK, ICs, Olimar, Diddy, Snake, etc..) were pretty close-knitted and allowed enough variety within that small pool of rich characters.

I sure would love to be proven wrong and I want to see my ignorance, but idk; there's hardly anyone really "deep", just viable.

 

[Das Koopa]

I'm gonna be blunt and honest.

I've lurked on this thread for a while, watching opinions clash and leaving a snarky comment once in a while that may get one or five likes. We need to talk about the line between balance and fun. So here we go:

I don't like what most of the patches have done to the game in a competitive setting.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

I like fast and combo heavy characters, in Smash that usually equates to top/high-tier. This means you will be judged and sometimes even harassed for your character choice by a good chunk of other players, usually those that don't play these types of characters. I never cared about it, all i cared about was having fun and trying my best.

I recently found my 3DS and 1.5 year old copy of Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, the game had not been connected to the internet, it was in the same state as 1.0.3 of the game. For the heck of it, i decided to give it a go. It was the most fun i ever had with this game.

I started with Sheik, i was in for a ride. Needle Storm was so fast it could combo into Dash-Attack, Bouncing Fish could edge cancel, Bouncing Fish hit hard and B-Air made edgeguarding feel worth it. Rosalina had a ultra-fast Down-Smash and more range. Zero Suit Samus had her old N-Air, Boost Kick and faster Paralyzer. Diddy had a better F-Air and of course U-Air.
What these characters had in common, is that they made you feel powerful, and stacking them against each other felt like a battle between gods. It felt fun and excitng.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

Scroll back 1.5 years later, they're all a shadow of their past selves. They all feel underwhelming, homogenized and most importantly, less fun. Because they had to be the nerfed for the sake of characters that needed buffs. It should have been the other way around from the start.

They did, to a somewhat degree with bugfixes and characters like Ike and Mewtwo getting significantly better and other characters going from trash to respectable. The problem is that they haven't done enough.

Quircky things like Greninja's Hydro Pump, Pac-Man's 12% damage Hydrant, Bowser Flying Slam, Link's Bomb lag cancel and DACUS that had very little impact on the game's overall balance were also removed for the sake of "balance". It's most likely Namco's doing, considering Sakurai has stated several times he prefers "uniqueness" instead of balance.
The loss of Vertical Vectoring made Diddy much stronger, since it toned down vertical KO options like Hoo-Haa and improved survivability to the Smash 4 characters poor vertical endurance.

Bayonetta might be the last straw for me. She was overtuned yes, but the way they responded was a drastic decision that ended up taking away the fun factor because 70% of the "competitive" community whined on social media. I will still play her, but it will never be as fun anymore because of this.

We all know the unbalance of Melee, but that's what gives it it's charm and fun factor. Stupid stuff like Fox's shine, Marth's F-Smash, Sheik's F-Air and Falcon's Knee works because they are equally stupid.

I just don't see the fun in the game anymore. It might be time to fire up the GameCube once again.

Melee also has a significant amount of depth in spite of the fact it was unbalanced.

Meanwhile, Smash 4 would've suffered the same fate as Brawl had it never been patched, because things like pre-patch Diddy would've killed the game long-term. If it ended up being a grand total of 5-6 overpowered but """""""""fun""""""""" top tiers with no room for viability elsewhere it would've gotten old pretty fast considering this game doesn't have the movement or tech options Melee does.

 

[outfoxd]

Melee was like MVC2 too. Completely changed with all the emergent gameplay through exploiting the system.

 

[ReroRero]

I can spin that argument right back and say that if the balance patches did not happen, and pre-patch Diddy, pre-patch Sheik, pre-patch Sonic, and pre-patch Bayonetta were all set in stone with no changes until Smash 5, then the Sm4sh meta would inevitably transform into a meta with these four gods as the focal point, with a few high-tier heroes that nonetheless carried one of those four as a secondary ala Plup or Armada.

The meta would still be "homogenized", in a sense. It would just homogenize around an effective VIP club, instead of the block party we have now, with Puff, Miis, Jr. and DDD peering out from the windows on the other side of the street.

*Has flashback of 1.0 Ike*

Don't say things so harsh man

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Melee also has a significant amount of depth in spite of the fact it was unbalanced.

Meanwhile, Smash 4 would've suffered the same fate as Brawl had it never been patched, because things like pre-patch Diddy would've killed the game long-term. If it ended up being a grand total of 5-6 overpowered but """""""""fun""""""""" top tiers with no room for viability elsewhere it would've gotten old pretty fast considering this game doesn't have the movement or tech options Melee does.

Brawl also died because of tripping, hit stun canceling, repititive planking, huge orientation to defensive play, easy infinities in a non tag-team fighting game, and other stupid dumb mechanics stuff.

 

[FallofBrawl]

If Melee did not have the movement options it has, even with the borked top tiers, it would've been dead long ago.

The 'fun' in Melee doesn't come from Fox landing an u-smash and killing at 70, the fun comes from how you utilized your options to get to that point (true for all fighting games).

And in a game like smash 4, where there are significantly less (but differing) options than Melee, character viability/character specific options, and multiple match-ups/playstyles is what makes the game fun for me.

 

[Das Koopa]

Brawl also died because of tripping, hit stun canceling, repititive planking, huge orientation to defensive play, easy infinities in a non tag-team fighting game, and other stupid dumb mechanics stuff.

Yes, but I can't see Smash 4 having an effective future when in order to win you must play with a cast likely even less diverse than Melee's with even half of the engine depth or speed, featuring things like Bayonetta (who would've only gotten worse with time) and full-power Rosalina or Sonic slowing the game to absolute crawl.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Yes, but I can't see Smash 4 having an effective future when in order to win you must play with a cast likely even less diverse than Melee's with even half of the engine depth or speed, featuring things like Bayonetta (who would've only gotten worse with time) and full-power Rosalina or Sonic slowing the game to absolute crawl.

You would've been playing diddy Kong, sheik, ZSS, or whatever top tier.

You would've been fine. And Bayo probably wouldn't last against full-screen needles sheik, or kill confirm at 60% Uair = shine diddy Kong.

 

[Jehtt]

It's not true in a game with a rage mechanic that losing neutral means you're losing the match-up. If your opponents advantage is poor (and sheik's is) and their kill options are limited, then neutral victories might not mean much on their own, and if your disadvantage state is solid (Mewtwo's is) and you have a lot of kill power, you're actually at the advantage when you're high rage even if they're at much lower percents.

The value of winning neutral scales with the strength of your advantage state AND as % increase, the quality of your kill confirms, if you lose many times but your opponent is getting more and more able to bop you each time while you still struggle for kills off of your victories in neutral, you're not in a better position.

I find this statement quite... troubling. Sheik exploits disadvantaged opponents very hard. Nevermind the fact that she can get 30+ damage conversions at low percents, she has top notch edge guarding and plenty of kill setups (which I'm sure work quite well on M2 due to his low weight). Bouncing Fish alone makes being in a bad spot against her scary. Mewtwo isn't exactly easy to edge guard but having an awkward double jump and teleport recovery (which isn't terribly difficult to 2 frame) don't make it "impossible." Even when he does find his way to the ledge, he still has to get back on the stage which Sheik makes quite difficult. I can't imagine M2's large frame helps him in this scenario.

I'm more curious about how these character's tools interact, now necessarily what their gameplans are. For example, is bouncing fish a good answer to shadow ball if Sheik gets a read? Is M2's d-tilt very useful in this MU or can Sheik consistently use fair and such to get around it? How well does M2 exploit Sheik in disadvantage (I.E. can he effectively chase Bouncing Fish)? What is M2's best response to Needles? Those are the kinds of things that, to me, define a matchup. Not whether a stray hit can kill at high percents.

 

[ligersandtigons]

what time does GOML smash 4 start?

 

[OFY]

what time does GOML smash 4 start?

Event page just says 5 PM EST as a placeholder, the actually schedule is TBA

 

[-Lavos-]

probably loses to , and // are arguably even. But that's it AFAIK.
might lose to / and has evenish matchups with strong midrange zoners.

These two characters are the only ones I'm comfortable calling "top tier" at this point; the others () have too many weaknesses and/or spotty matchups to make the cut. However, they might not be worthy of the "S" label, as IMO they don't quite have the centralizing power that they used to.

i'd like for someone more knowledgable than me to expand on this post. who are the most notable checks for the top tier meta threats? (i'd add and potentially to the list aswell tbh)

 

[juddy96]

They actually kept ZeRo in Zinoto's exact seed (to not f**k with the schedule because some are in multiple events and can't be moved)

Nairo vs. M2K
Larry vs. ZeRo
Ally vs. Leo
Mr. R vs. ANTi

 

[Quantumpen]

I find this statement quite... troubling. Sheik exploits disadvantaged opponents very hard. Nevermind the fact that she can get 30+ damage conversions at low percents, she has top notch edge guarding and plenty of kill setups (which I'm sure work quite well on M2 due to his low weight). Bouncing Fish alone makes being in a bad spot against her scary. Mewtwo isn't exactly easy to edge guard but having an awkward double jump and teleport recovery (which isn't terribly difficult to 2 frame) don't make it "impossible." Even when he does find his way to the ledge, he still has to get back on the stage which Sheik makes quite difficult. I can't imagine M2's large frame helps him in this scenario.

I'm more curious about how these character's tools interact, now necessarily what their gameplans are. For example, is bouncing fish a good answer to shadow ball if Sheik gets a read? Is M2's d-tilt very useful in this MU or can Sheik consistently use fair and such to get around it? How well does M2 exploit Sheik in disadvantage (I.E. can he effectively chase Bouncing Fish)? What is M2's best response to Needles? Those are the kinds of things that, to me, define a matchup. Not whether a stray hit can kill at high percents.

She really doesn't have "plenty of kill set-ups" any more-- no guaranteed or 50/50 set-ups at kill percents (which mewtwo has, btw from moves that are excellent neutral tools), she needs BF punishes on reads or edge-guarding shenanigans. She does get great combos at low percent, which means the value of her winning neutral decays as the match goes on once her long combo strings don't work, precisely because most of her kills come from edge-guarding.

Mewtwo is very hard to edge-guard, he has a relatively non-linear recovery and awkward aerial movement -- not to mention a fast fair which challenges and beats most of Sheik's aerial options (making her advantage state risky when she starts losing her true combos due to high %). Furthermore while sheik has no trouble winning in neutral past combo percents, she rarely gets a kill off of it, and she has to constantly respect the threat of fair, u-throw, nair confirms, or an up-smash which start killing at crazy early percents if Mewtwo has appreciable rage.

To your specific questions:

Mewtwo's best response to needle camping is to just outrange sheik and force an approach with shadow-ball, since shadow-ball has longer range and Mewtwo gets tons of frame-traps/mix-ups off of a weak SB hit. Bouncyfish can punish shadowball at a specific range, miss the range and you're dead to an up-smash. Sheik can't use fair with abandon because Mewtwo's fair outranges it and kills at medium percents (part of my point) and does damage equal to three of hers (plus he gets combos out of it at low %'s), and d-tilt out ranges all her options in neutral and confirms into pretty sick combo strings.

You're missing the point here, it's not "whether or not a stray hit can kill at high %'s" It's whether at high percents, single, reliable neutral victories start leading to kills when Sheik is at low %'s -- which is very different. Sheik trades with fair, she's dead. Mewtwo doesn't have a bad neutral she can exploit, d-tilt and fair are powerful zoning tools which both lead to kill confirms and the more she damages him the better his neutral victories become and the worse hers do. Nair is more or less safe to throw out with proper DI and leads to kills, grabs lead to kills. We're not talking about a character like bowser needing to land a forward smash, the moves Mewtwo can kill with are good options in neutral or punishes to her only decent kill options at thase %'s and therefore Sheik really has to start playing carefully even if she's been winning the majority of neutral exchanges earlier on in the match, the threat Mewtwo poses later on controls her.

Watch Aba vs. K9, Aba vs. Mr. R's reset set, you can literally see what I'm talking about as the games progress. Mr. R just can't freaking do anything if Aba has lived to 100% except run around and try to camp late game and fish for a read because he is too afraid of trading with a fair, getting bopped by a nair punish into up-smash, getting killed by a throw, etc.

 

[ARISTOS]

You can definitely have fun and imbalanced games- Melee, Third Strike, MVC2, FIFA are all examples of games in which the cast isn't balanced but you still have a fun meta. Ideally, fun should come from the options of the game itself, rather than the characters available that make it up. If pre-patch Diddy is the only thing "fun" to you about Smash 4, then it's more likely you just enjoyed winning tbh. And that's fine, but I think it would have been unlikely that that person would stick around anyways.

I can agree that for me the overall power level feels a bit.. low. I would have balanced the game at a bit higher one. However, I don't agree the homogenization has occurred: is still a wall. is still an aerial powerhouse. is still a low damage rushdown character. is still explosive. They've been tuned down, but their essence remains the same. Overly powerful tools are fun to play with but in this day and age it is unlikely that such tools will get to stay, in any game.

I think we're in an interesting place at the moment. There are about 25-30 characters who can do things at a high level- there's a strong diversity in playstyles available to play as you want.

EDIT: Panda released the second part of the top 50 players list:

40. Falln
39. Xzax
38. Angel Cortes
37. Ito
36. Mr. Con Con
35. False
34. NAKAT
33. Earth
32. Nietono
31. Static Manny

Earth and Nietono had the highest X-factor with +11 and +9, respectively

 

[Trunks159]

what time does GOML smash 4 start?

Here's the GOML schedule:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W6cff0pdsVUKM8ysl6Afh2yNtzc5pGO4xsSViIPwhpE/edit#gid=0

 

[TheGoodGuava]

probably loses to , and // are arguably even. But that's it AFAIK.
might lose to / and has evenish matchups with strong midrange zoners.

These two characters are the only ones I'm comfortable calling "top tier" at this point; the others () have too many weaknesses and/or spotty matchups to make the cut. However, they might not be worthy of the "S" label, as IMO they don't quite have the centralizing power that they used to.

I would add Ryu to the list of characters Sheik probably loses too, there was talk of him beating her even before 1.1.5 and now its almost certain
Trela vs Void was just a top level example of how the matchup should go

 

[FallofBrawl]

dtilt to up air, ftilt to up air, nair to bouncing fish, angled needles to bouncing fish, those are guaranteed

f throw to bouncing fish, bthrow to bouncing fish, fair to bouncing fish, fast fall up air to dsmash, weak bair to usmash, ftilt to vanish, dtilt to vanish, those are some of her mixup conversions

And with a stage list consisting of smashville, t&c, and dreamland, she won't find it tough to kill as you say

Just because she has no guaranteed kills out of grab, doesn't mean she can't kill

 

[Quantumpen]

dtilt to up air, ftilt to up air, nair to bouncing fish, angled needles to bouncing fish, those are guaranteed

f throw to bouncing fish, bthrow to bouncing fish, fair to bouncing fish, fast fall up air to dsmash, weak bair to usmash, ftilt to vanish, dtilt to vanish, those are some of her mixup conversion
And with a stage list consisting of smashville, t&c, and dreamland, she won't find it tough to kill as you say

Just because she has no guaranteed kills out of grab, doesn't mean she can't kill

Most of those throw mix-ups are not actual mix-ups anymore, you can just DI/jump away at kill percents.

She still gets those tilt confirms, though tbh they're not that strong since the combos only work at specific percents and you can kinda just hold shield against her late game and give her quite a bit of trouble landing those. Most of her kills come from edge-guards and BF reads, this has been true for the last two months of top-level Sheik play. It's routine to see people in bracket living to 150% + against Mr. R or VoiD. When they get their kills it's usually some read smart BF/needle edge-play.

 

[Gawain]

i feel like people are not liking the game's balance state because of how one dimensional majority of the cast is and the method to balancing them. There is almost nobody that can do it all; no one can zone, Rushdown, play patient, go really aggro, or just play how you want to. There's a right and wrong way. Some people liked the brawl top tiers because they were so deep and were flooded with options. MK could literally do what he wanted and that was fun and while he wasn't fair to the rest of the cast, the oligarchy of brawl (MK, ICs, Olimar, Diddy, Snake, etc..) were pretty close-knitted and allowed enough variety within that small pool of rich characters.

I sure would love to be proven wrong and I want to see my ignorance, but idk; there's hardly anyone really "deep", just viable.

Actually this is a great post, and I hadn't thought of it this way. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it and honestly it exposes the things i dislike about this game that I wasn't quite able to put my finger on.

I agree entirely. When you think about a character in this game, you always hear the same things. "Rosalina is great at camping" etc. But when you hear UNIB players talking about Gordeau its like "oh he's got all this range on slower moves and he has great mixups, but he has no meterless defense choices... but with meter he's got the best reversal in the game". It's not like there's one dimensional stuff like Falcon who can play this amazing bait game and has great combos but has literally nothing on defense. If you notice, the best characters in this game have either overwhelming one dimensional strengths(Rosa) OR they are strong in both fields (Ryu, Sheik). Meanwhile everyone below top 15 is pigeonholed into having okay strengths in one area and atrocious weaknesses in another.

It's certainly an interesting point to bring up, and it would seem to match the methodology of the balance patches.

 

[KamikazePotato]

Iinstead of the block party we have now, with Puff, Miis, Jr. and DDD peering out from the windows on the other side of the street.

Original comic written and drawn by Katie Tiedrich of Awkward Zombie.

(In the time it took me to make this, there's probably been 30 new posts, but hey)

 

[Trifroze]

Compared to 1.1.3, current Sheik has to work harder for kills with a weaker neutral while she dies around 4-6% earlier depending on the power of the move.

The character can't trade or make mistakes such as dropping edgeguards, and after low to mid percents, her advantage isn't all that great against characters who recover and land for relatively free (though otherwise it's great due to the sheer option coverage she possesses).

I think the view that sees Sheik losing no matchups is an unrealistic one and doesn't accept the fact that no matter how good a player is mistakes will happen, and no matter how badly the opponent loses neutral they can win it at any point with a series of two or three guesses whether the Sheik makes a mistake or not.

Even if Sheik somehow had no losing matchups, I suspect many of her top/high tier matchups would be close enough to make bracket runs tough and just as likely to end in 2 losses as any other top/high tier.

 

[Knife8193]

Does anyone know which patch GOML is running?

 

[Cereal Bawks]

They said they'd run patch 1.1.6 if it released before the tournament, which it did. So I'm assuming they're running 1.1.6.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

The only characters I can think of that are diverse are mewtwo (shadowball and pokes for zoning, patient play; Fair, Nair, speed, Down B for Rushdown), Sheik (needles, Nair, great OOS, speed for zoning; fair, grab setups, bouncing fish setups, vanish edge guarding, Uair juggles for Rushdown), and diddy (buttons are ridiculous, but he also as banana and popgun for zoning).

HM to ROB since he has grab combos and kill confirms, but also has laser, gyro, and decent frame data and buttons for well-rounded play. He just gets blown up really really badly if you start messing up

 

[Trunks159]

Original comic written and drawn by Katie Tiedrich of Awkward Zombie.

(In the time it took me to make this, there's probably been 30 new posts, but hey)

Lol this made my day.
And to make relevant conversation:
Most overrated Top Tier:
Seriously, some people think he's a candidate for #1...

 

[ARISTOS]

The only characters I can think of that are diverse are mewtwo (shadowball and pokes for zoning, patient play; Fair, Nair, speed, Down B for Rushdown), Sheik (needles, Nair, great OOS, speed for zoning; fair, grab setups, bouncing fish setups, vanish edge guarding, Uair juggles for Rushdown), and diddy (buttons are ridiculous, but he also as banana and popgun for zoning).

HM to ROB since he has grab combos and kill confirms, but also has laser, gyro, and decent frame data and buttons for well-rounded play. He just gets blown up really really badly if you start messing up

Nah.

Go watch the difference between Dabuz and Rayquaza's
Go watch the difference between SlayerZ and Umeki's
Look at the difference between Fatality and Tearbear's

There is room for a diversity in playstyle-such is Smash's nature. Yes, not every character can't fit into a multitude of roles, but there is way more than one way to play characters.

 

[HeavyLobster]

How is Sheik homogenized? No other character has her neutral and frame data. She has weaknesses to balance out her strengths. Zero Suit's not really homogenized either. Generally the changes the balance team has made have done a pretty good job of not homogenizing the cast. There isn't really a character who can do everything well, but there's nothing wrong with that. Character weaknesses are a necessity for balance.

 

[Quantumpen]

I think Sheik's the most overrated character (Cloud's a close second), but people seem to universally think she dominates the cast -- and it's not true. It hasn't been true since the patch. She's now a fantastic character with a coherent design able to apply pressure like no one's business and rack up %, but with clear and exploitable flaws in her mediocre range, low knockback, limited kill options, and light weight. There is so much sheik counter-play that most of her match-ups against good characters are even or slight advantage at best, and several characters beat her.

 

[Trifroze]

Game is apparently too balanced now so gotta look back to Melee and Brawl in a romanticized fashion for what a real fighting game balance should be like.

also gotta love that rushdown snake from brawl

 

[blackghost]

I think the view that sees Sheik losing no matchups is an unrealistic one and doesn't accept the fact that no matter how good a player is mistakes will happen, and no matter how badly the opponent loses neutral they can win it at any point with a series of two or three guesses whether the Sheik makes a mistake or not.

Even if Sheik somehow had no losing matchups, I suspect many of her top/high tier matchups would be close enough to make bracket runs tough and just as likely to end in 2 losses as any other top/high tier.

Matchups dont ever factor in players making mistakes or not. neither do tier lists. shiek is (unless completly outclassed in skill or lacks matchup knowledge) always in control of a games pace. a top level shiek almost never loses neutral control. frame data and speed wise most character cant do anything to her. only characters with frame data on that level are diddy, (Zss?) lil mac and ryu. ryu is the sleeping giant for sure.
the real high tiers in this game the ones winning all have elite frame data or are rosalina who still control neutral as few others can

 

[Quantumpen]

Matchups dont ever factor in players making mistakes or not. neither do tier lists. shiek is (unless completly outclassed in skill or lacks matchup knowledge) always in control of a games pace. a top level shiek almost never loses neutral control. what series of guess wins neutral against a shiek? frame dta and speed wise most character cant do anything to her. only characters with frame data on that level are lil mac and ryu. ryu is the sleeping giant for sure.

Nonsense, punish viability, neutral safety and how hard you can punish someone for a mistake are the things that makes a character strong or a match-up tilted. These things are literally measures of how bad your mistakes have to be and how much they hurt you. Without mistakes there is no game, you can program a computer to play all but the most lop-sided match-ups and just not get hit -- human error is the only thing that makes a fighting game an actual game.

 

[sedrf]

Sheik still doesn't really have bad mus just a couple of eveninsh mus.
She just can't 50/50 spam anymore

 

[ZSaberLink]

@Emblem Lord Oh man, you're going to hate Zero's latest video. He's talking about Ryu being underrated/overlooked and then has a clip of Trela talking in an interview wondering how Ryu hasn't been touched at all despite how crazy true Shoryu can be among other things (talks about it killing at 50% every once in a while and being like wtf?).

Also saying, I know you didn't like when I and other people thought True Shoryu was probably overtuned (mostly just in terms of kill power), but now you can add Trela himself and Zero to the mix.

Limit Cross-Slash doesn't kill quite as early at all and people still crib about it like crazy and yet True Shoryu is fine? Just saying ... I admit I'm a bit afraid of Nintendo panic patching characters (like Link and possibly Bayo now) so if we're done with patches I'm perfectly fine with it.

 

[Quantumpen]

Nah, she goes even with like half the strong characters and has some tough match-ups.

She is not up on that pedestal anymore, this belief is a historical relic which persists only because Mr. R/VoiD are crazy good, the character wasn't gutted (just balanced) so none of her S-tier mains dropped her, and the meta hasn't adjusted around this new Sheik fully -- though it's definitely started to do so.

 

[Trifroze]

Matchups dont ever factor in players making mistakes or not. neither do tier lists. shiek is (unless completly outclassed in skill or lacks matchup knowledge) always in control of a games pace. a top level shiek almost never loses neutral control. what series of guess wins neutral against a shiek? frame dta and speed wise most character cant do anything to her. only characters with frame data on that level are lil mac and ryu. ryu is the sleeping giant for sure.

Player skill doesn't factor in into matchups or tier lists.

Mistakes (i.e. not capitalizing on something optimally because as a player you had 10 other things on your mind at the time), and getting read in particular are the reality of fighting games and something to be expected, so a character's capability to handle mistakes and being read factors in to their consistency and thus their matchups.

A series of guesses that wins neutral vs Sheik is getting within dash range (effectively inside their space where they can't react to your options), reading Sheik's next defensive or offensive option with an appropriate offensive or defensive option, and then starting your thing from that. It's that simple.

The only thing that differentiates Sheik from others in neutral is that she can do this more safely and cover more options with a single action, but nothing is ever absolutely safe if you read it. Frame data also makes no considerable difference in this scenario, since if something is unreactable it's unreactable. All that faster startup does for example is make it more likely for you to connect your action on the opponent without them inputting something else in the meantime or 15-20 frames prior, because we live roughly 10 frames in the past due to reaction times + ~7 frames of native game lag.

The game is a bunch of probabilities against other probabilities and a character's capability to handle bad outcomes is as vital as their capability to influence good outcomes.

 

[Ninety]

They actually kept ZeRo in Zinoto's exact seed (to not f**k with the schedule because some are in multiple events and can't be moved)

Nairo vs. M2K
Larry vs. ZeRo
Ally vs. Leo
Mr. R vs. ANTi

RIP Larry lol

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Umebura 23 is starting sometime soon, I believe. Official starting should be about 3 hours from now but idk when the actual stream starts.

Edit: On shigamings twitch channel.

 

[sedrf]

So would you play new like

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Nah.

Go watch the difference between Dabuz and Rayquaza's
Go watch the difference between SlayerZ and Umeki's
Look at the difference between Fatality and Tearbear's

There is room for a diversity in playstyle-such is Smash's nature. Yes, not every character can't fit into a multitude of roles, but there is way more than one way to play characters.

Peach and rosa got some diversity because they're also complex characters, but falcon is absolutely one dimensional. Just watched tearbear vs void and fatality vs scatt/ZeRo (have to keep it consistent as possible, but SSC is outdated unfortunately), and they both were super patient, baity players that had to be what they are because of falcon. Falcon is super polarizing anyway, so it's even more evident too.