Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Megamang]

The sheer fact one would have to 'go back to the drawing board' on almost universal smash 4 mechanic (punish landings, since there is no lagless landing and most dairs suck, airdodging to the ground sucks, and you don't have access to shield so running PS can destroy you for using a spacing aerial to land) is all im saying its good for.

It isn't a super abusive, neutral dominance tool that people pine for/complain about. Ryu does not have any of those. He is a well rounded, powerful character.


But even if you don't use FA once an entire set, it sets the pace in a way. They can't smash your landing. They can't do a committal aerial offstage in a close game. If they are consistently shielding your landings and punishing, your mixups between his great aerials, landing FADC, and using the FA are enough to give people pause. Ryu is damn heavy. The thing that makes it so annoying is you are trying to deal with everything he has, and if you slap him while he is glowing black you might die at 50%, and at least you are gonna take a hefty amount of damage.

You already know this, so I guess im just saying obvious stuff at this point. I guess my idea was, you might be underestimating the power that FA holds over the enemy. As someone said, it limits your ability to challenge Ryu. And 20 frames aint **** when he as an option tree out of it. Yea, the best choice is to just go away and not challenge it... but that gives Ryu the ground you can't be giving him.


So characters with powerful multihit aerials can say "hey, I'll try and slap Ryu offstage when he burns his double jump" WITHOUT the caveat of 'He can armor this, land, and attack me, or just armor-punch me for bad spacing and the reward is HUGE, you can lose at 50%'.


So, multihits are important. You say its odd that people focus on it, but for people on the opposing end of Ryu, its a huge huge comfort factor. Your style does not use much FA at all, but the risk is always there. F1 armor my utilt? 8.5% for you, FA3 to death for me.


---

So, Dr.Light wear's a Ghi and Ryu's headband when he gives me my Dragon Punch. WHY DOES MINE HAVE LANDING LAG. Input shoryu for mega pls.

 

[TheBeggingBard ~~JoMo~~]

Ya'll have better stop arguing. This is pretty much how I see you all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNqKjtECbOc (<3 you all)

 

[BunbUn129]

I thought arguing was a natural part of discussion....but w/e.

There is a tendency for arguments to be productive and constructive when they are done in a civilized manner. This thread is civilized. Mostly.

 

[meleebrawler]

The sheer fact one would have to 'go back to the drawing board' on almost universal smash 4 mechanic (punish landings, since there is no lagless landing and most dairs suck, airdodging to the ground sucks, and you don't have access to shield so running PS can destroy you for using a spacing aerial to land) is all im saying its good for.

It isn't a super abusive, neutral dominance tool that people pine for/complain about. Ryu does not have any of those. He is a well rounded, powerful character.


But even if you don't use FA once an entire set, it sets the pace in a way. They can't smash your landing. They can't do a committal aerial offstage in a close game. If they are consistently shielding your landings and punishing, your mixups between his great aerials, landing FADC, and using the FA are enough to give people pause. Ryu is damn heavy. The thing that makes it so annoying is you are trying to deal with everything he has, and if you slap him while he is glowing black you might die at 50%, and at least you are gonna take a hefty amount of damage.

You already know this, so I guess im just saying obvious stuff at this point. I guess my idea was, you might be underestimating the power that FA holds over the enemy. As someone said, it limits your ability to challenge Ryu. And 20 frames aint **** when he as an option tree out of it. Yea, the best choice is to just go away and not challenge it... but that gives Ryu the ground you can't be giving him.


So characters with powerful multihit aerials can say "hey, I'll try and slap Ryu offstage when he burns his double jump" WITHOUT the caveat of 'He can armor this, land, and attack me, or just armor-punch me for bad spacing and the reward is HUGE, you can lose at 50%'.


So, multihits are important. You say its odd that people focus on it, but for people on the opposing end of Ryu, its a huge huge comfort factor. Your style does not use much FA at all, but the risk is always there. F1 armor my utilt? 8.5% for you, FA3 to death for me.


---

So, Dr.Light wear's a Ghi and Ryu's headband when he gives me my Dragon Punch. WHY DOES MINE HAVE LANDING LAG. Input shoryu for mega pls.

Congrats, you just described every counter in existence.

Though I'm a bit confused at the "try to slap Ryu offstage after double jump" bit. Does that imply a grounded move? Because the reward for landing Focus Attack in the air is generally much less than on the ground. Also, everyone's kind of glossing over that it loses to grabs too. Just wanna throw that out there as a reminder since grabs are used to catch landings too.

Mega Upper is worse than Shoryuken to discourage people from running counter to his zoner design. How many people who've played The Power Fighters and know of it even try to use it seriously when he has all those other, much safer projectiles?

 

[Nobie]

As mentioned, Mewtwo Nair is bad on defense. It's main use from what I've seen is to open people up after you've gotten them overly cautious and on the defensive.

A lot of Mewtwo's old fear of good frame data characters was from having less mobility. And even now that it's fast as hell you still have to worry when a character actually gets in your face, even Kirby.

 

[TheBeggingBard ~~JoMo~~]

So I have a question for you all on the Subject of Bowser Jr. Would you say that with many of the low tiers (look at Tweek's Bowser Jr..'s) are mostly undiscovered?

Edit: Also one of the best commentators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5EVKUWxXYc

 

[meticulousboy]

So I have a question for you all on the Subject of Bowser Jr. Would you say that with many of the low tiers (look at Tweek's Bowser Jr..'s) are mostly undiscovered?

Edit: Also one of the best commentators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5EVKUWxXYc

Yes. I was told that his repertoire is not up there.

 

[Megamang]

Congrats, you just described every counter in existence.

Though I'm a bit confused at the "try to slap Ryu offstage after double jump" bit. Does that imply a grounded move? Because the reward for landing Focus Attack in the air is generally much less than on the ground. Also, everyone's kind of glossing over that it loses to grabs too. Just wanna throw that out there as a reminder since grabs are used to catch landings too.

Mega Upper is worse than Shoryuken to discourage people from running counter to his zoner design. How many people who've played The Power Fighters and know of it even try to use it seriously when he has all those other, much safer projectiles?

If I do non-smash/very powerful attack, the damage from a counter is paltry. FA, especially 2 grounded is almost always more dangerous than a counter hit, unless you are throwing out some absurdly powerful hitboxes in neutral AND get read hard.

I will admit the reward is much less and it is harder to land in a2a situations.


---

I was kidding, Megaman would be stupid with TRSK

 

[Emblem Lord]

Hey I got a question.

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

 

[xIvan321]

@Illuminose I definitely have feed back

Mega Man: Cloud(+), Sheik(-), Diddy(+) Rosa (0), Sonic(++) Fox(0), Mario(-), Mewtwo(0), Ryu(+), Mega Man(0), ZSS(0), Pikachu(0), MK(0), Villager(+)

Its just IMO, but of course I'll be glad to explain some of the more controversial ones:

Mario MU isn't that terrible, not while projectiles are still very viable and naturally being able to outrange him. Of course the thing that makes it hard is how much momentum Mario has in the air. This is as brief I can put it. Mega Man can still get his signature up tilt punish every now and then, which keeps it from being the worst of his worst.

Cloud MU is definitely a winning one for us at least slightly. With Cloud's poor aerial acceleration pre-limit he can have a difficult time landing, which means Mega Man being capable of juggling such a character is quite phenomenal. Mega Man in this MU outplays him at Cloud's own best stages. After he has limit his stat buffs he becomes pretty slippery, and also a tad tricky to handle, however we have tools at our own disposal that slow down the growth of the status such as crash bomber, a projectile with less cool down than his neutral b (its deceptively fast) which also does not interact with shields, allowing Mega Man to likely stick one at his opponent or bait player into offense, and get the up tilt punish from Mega Man. Mega Man also has a full on glide toss known as DITCIT which can be helpful in the MU to have Cloud spend more time in shield than charging limit.

It does bring me to Cloud's interaction or answer to shields versus Mega Man's response to Cloud's aggression. Most of Cloud's moves get punished by a drop shield up tilt. I'm not far on taking note that Cloud has an answer for ranged characters being limit neutral b, however in Mega Man's case, it doesn't apply to him too much other than possibly vanilla metal blades and tossed leaf shield, since Mega Man is a mid-ranger and often is capable if long range if he's a tad careful at least. Lastly, when it comes to edge guarding Mega Man can sit with leaf shield and nearly all the time catch Cloud before the 2 frame with limit and when he doesn't he can down air Cloud. I've always thought this was a positive MU for Mega Man long before any tournament results came in.

Fox I think is a misinterpreted MU which I personally think is a positive but with all fairness will write it as an equal one. When Mega Man has the lead, he doesn't ever need to approach. He can duck under lasers, and any known problems Fox has rear their ugly heads from that point on and he gets punished hard for it. (Easy to juggle, edge guard, and shield problems can emerge.) For Fox, this is definitely annoying when its held onto, and in reverse Mega Man potentially takes some extra credit from lasers. Fortunately for Fox, he's got a lot of speed in both ground momentum and frame data. Fox also has a grab release on Mega Man, so if Mega Man mashes out of a grab, he's toast. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often as long as Mega Man spaces and its not like one throw will kill Mega Man or something. A lot of Mega Man players have a lot of trouble with the MU, but honestly I haven't suffered too much from it.

Rosalina and Luma, is equal. This one is gonna be hard to shorten but I believe the meta has evolved to the point where its so much as a disadvantage on stage anymore. Both characters have answers to their kits and for one instance Mega Man can glide toss as an answer to down b, or how both characters can easily edge guard each other, but in Mega Man's case especially its true when he's used up his jump first. We both need to think about what we do twice in this MU.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Mewtwo has one of the best anti-juggle game, side b, dair, fair, airdodges, shadowball recoil.

Combo breaking is where he kinda struggles at though.

Hey I got a question.

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

You know how tiers work around here, it's basically a revolving door with whoever does well or bad in tourneys. It's not about their MU spread at all.

 

[meticulousboy]

Hell. I see fewer Bowser Junior players than I see Lucario players. We need more people playing these characters so the meta can develop better.

 

[Djent]

Hey I got a question.

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

My impression is that has a strong advantage state with somewhat poor neutral and disadvantage. If that perception is correct, then it's hard to argue against his inclusion in low tier, because that's not a tournament-winning recipe. On top of that, his mains seem to be abandoning him or falling off (with the exception of Hatsuyuki, who did crack top 16 at the most recent Sumabato beating some decent people). There may have been a time when he was better, but other characters have developed at a faster rate and received more relevant buffs than he has.

EDIT: Apparently ViceGrip is still doing well too. That's definitely good for the character.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Hey I got a question.

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

Since a majority of the cast turned out to be better than him.

 

[Rizen]

How is 's MU spread?

 

[Phan7om]

So I have a question for you all on the Subject of Bowser Jr. Would you say that with many of the low tiers (look at Tweek's Bowser Jr..'s) are mostly undiscovered?

Almost all of the characters are mostly undiscovered.

 

[Quantumpen]

A quick counterpoint to all of this, even though M2 can get away from a dis-advantaged state pretty well, he isn't particularly threatening when disadvantaged or retreating.

A frame 7 move isn't a great get-of-me, especially when it has a hitbox that will get beat by anything and usually trade for 1% at best. His F-Air is really his most threatening disadvantage tool, but even with that they have to be at a certain positioning near him. Generally M2 needs to escape first, and then he becomes a threat. Once an opponent is in on him they don't have much to fear until he finds an opportunity to escape.

Nair actually has a slightly disjointed hitbox and catches a lot of pokes, provided you DI away from the opponent and drag your opponent with you, and it has high reward , you get combos out of it all percents. You can catch a sheik fair in it, for instance.

I agree though, Mewtwo becomes most threatening after he's escaped, but he's pretty good at doing so. Retreating fair/OOS nair and phasing mix-ups work very well.

Don't discount nair as a defensive option, just because it's frame 7. That's really not that slow, it's good for punishing meaty hits out of shield.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Bowser Jr. does well vs Diddy, but no one's ready to hear that

 

[UberMadman]

Hey I got a question.

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

Since Tweek dropped him and all of the records of his winnings were purged, deleted, and burned so no one can see his accomplishments. Also, anyone saying that Vicegrip has won sets against VoiD, K9, and Tyrant has an invitation from the emperor to Lake Laogai.

 

[Kofu]

Since Tweek dropped him and all of the records of his winnings were purged, deleted, and burned so no one can see his accomplishments. Also, anyone saying that Vicegrip has won sets against VoiD, K9, and Tyrant has an invitation from the emperor to Lake Laogai.

*Earth King

Anyway when I first tried out Bowser Jr. I was really impressed by his moves. On paper his kit seems very good and his moves seem excellent for their type overall. However he has some pretty notable problems. His grounded mobility is terrible without Clown Kart Dash which really hinders his footsies. His grab is mediocre, and he lacks a good "get-off-me" move. His recovery is also susceptible to some really lame gimps because of how the mechanics of Clown Kart respawning work. He can also struggle to seal stocks against wary opponents.

I think he still has potential but he's got enough problems to hold him back. Making jab link better would be a huge buff by itself.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

*Earth King

Anyway when I first tried out Bowser Jr. I was really impressed by his moves. On paper his kit seems very good and his moves seem excellent for their type overall. However he has some pretty notable problems. His grounded mobility is terrible without Clown Kart Dash which really hinders his footsies. His grab is mediocre, and he lacks a good "get-off-me" move. His recovery is also susceptible to some really lame gimps because of how the mechanics of Clown Kart respawning work. He can also struggle to seal stocks against wary opponents.

I think he still has potential but he's got enough problems to hold him back. Making jab link better would be a huge buff by itself.

And a huuuuge buff to cannonball and some decrease in lag in some of his moves. Some things just don't feel right at all.

And cannonball is complete garbage

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Its worth mentioning that bowser jr upair is one of the best juggling tools in the game.

 

[Xandercosm]

It may depend on his definition of "solo-viability".

Viability means different things to different people. For the most conservative definitions, it would only refer to characters that have demonstrably shown to be able to or come sufficiently close to taking tournaments at a major. If we were to judge Melee's viability by this standard, you would have , , , , , and as the six viable characters.

On the other hand, if you define viability more liberally to apply to getting into top 8s, then characters such as , , , , , and enter the picture ( is trash and is hard to pin in today's meta since nobody uses him, though some insist he's superior to Luigi). This could be a workable definition of viability if your definition means the ability to get paid adequately. Since money is an incentive, getting 4th with may make you feel comfortable in calling your character competitively viable if money is a big incentive for you as a player.

"Solo-viability", in my opinion, is an extremely tricky term. Most characters go down even slightly with at least one character, and there's no shortage of players who may just not play well against certain characters. Variables like this and sometimes bizarre brackets give us a universe where can win a major solo but hasn't done so yet, which makes you question if the term is even relevant when we know Sheik is an astoundingly, stupidly good character. The more characters, the higher likelihood that you'll need a secondary to compete.

Even in Melee, most top players dual main/secondary. Leffen and Hbox are exceptions, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the best and one of the best s in the world is ranked #1 right now when both of those characters ran together have the best statistical matchup chart in the game. It should make Smash 4 players reflect on the idea of finding the most beneficial and workable dual-main strategy, even if you aren't going with the "Best". I think that'll involve more than seekret pocket Cloud, personally.

So by a conservative idea of solo viable characters in Smash 4 (only ones that have won a major solo), there would be very few solo viable characters. I just don't really see why you would limit solo viable to such a small number of characters.

The Smash 4 community may someday evolve into the conservative rights, who believe that character viability is survival of the fittest and the liberal lefts who think that we should be more inclusive. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders will have a lot to say about this...

 

[C0rvus]

At least his neutral b animation cancels when you grab the ledge, so it has edgeguarding applications. It would require a total overhaul to be useful in neutral.
I think buffs he would appreciate most would be reduced lag from deploying a MechaKoopa, a better jab and grab, and throws that do something more.
As it stands, I see no real reason to not put him among the likes of Link and Charizard, as characters who have non marginal weaknesses but pretty underwhelming strengths, and lack of results in a relative sense. There are Bowser Jr players putting in work, but the character just seems undertuned, I don't want considering him a poor character to come off as a slight to his players.

 

[Djent]

Also, anyone saying that Vicegrip has won sets against VoiD, K9, and Tyrant has an invitation from the emperor to Lake Laogai.

Hmm, so he does. The Tyrant win was in 1.1.2 even:

 

[DblCrest]

I thought Bowser Jr's issue resembled something that @Pacman9 said about Pacman at high level maybe a few months back. When you're aware of their tricks and traps and how to deal with them they seem to really drop at high level.

Something like that...

 

[Baby_Sneak]

At least his neutral b animation cancels when you grab the ledge, so it has edgeguarding applications. It would require a total overhaul to be useful in neutral.
I think buffs he would appreciate most would be reduced lag from deploying a MechaKoopa, a better jab and grab, and throws that do something more.
As it stands, I see no real reason to not put him among the likes of Link and Charizard, as characters who have non marginal weaknesses but pretty underwhelming strengths, and lack of results in a relative sense. There are Bowser Jr players putting in work, but the character just seems undertuned, I don't want considering him a poor character to come off as a slight to his players.

not to come off as mean, but that's just reality; people just has to realize their character is a mess and needs help. The same way it has been on the other side of the coin.

 

[Vult Redux]

Bowser Jr. does well vs Diddy, but no one's ready to hear that

if we're being generous Jr. wins vs. Ganon, DDD, DK, and Bowser. DK and Bowser are probably actually even.

if "does well vs" means Diddy is the least bad of the top tier mus... you might be right. it's not a positive mu though.

 

[UberMadman]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the least bad of Jr.'s top tier matchups is Ryu. Mechakoopa is annoying to a character who threatens his opponent by walking around a lot and has very committal jump arcs, and of course Ryu is easy to juggle, though one must be wary of Focus Attack. On top of that, Bowser Jr. can dissuade approach with sh fair and bair because Ryu is tall and I'm pretty sure he is on the list of characters who can get sweetspotted by the moves without Jr. having to give up his autocancel window. Fair can also be fastfallen for a second, landing hitbox to break Focus. Not saying the matchup is in Jr.'s favor or even necessarily 50-50, but I feel it's manageable unless Ryu manages to constantly win neutral.

 

[Emblem Lord]

So wait....

Ryu is top tier now?

Yo why the **** aren't you people sending me these memos?

 

[meticulousboy]

At least his neutral b animation cancels when you grab the ledge, so it has edgeguarding applications. It would require a total overhaul to be useful in neutral.
I think buffs he would appreciate most would be reduced lag from deploying a MechaKoopa, a better jab and grab, and throws that do something more.
As it stands, I see no real reason to not put him among the likes of Link and Charizard, as characters who have non marginal weaknesses but pretty underwhelming strengths, and lack of results in a relative sense. There are Bowser Jr players putting in work, but the character just seems undertuned, I don't want considering him a poor character to come off as a slight to his players.

The only other buff I can think of is extending the range on up tilt, which would increase its anti-air properties.

 

[Samuelwisebaggins]

Since when is Bowser Jr. low tier?

Ryu is top tier now?

You seem a little behind.

 

[FeelMeUp]

@Illuminose I definitely have feed back

Mega Man: Pikachu(0)

Would like an explanation.
Both results and theory say that MM gets slapped by Pikachu.

 

[Nobie]

@Dabuz implied this in his old general matchup viability tier list, but the idea of "solo-viable" doesn't mean a character is necessarily better than those underneath them.

Case in point for his chart, Mewtwo is considered solo viable for having little to no really bad matchups, but doesn't have any especially powerful matchups where Mewtwo wins easily. A character like that has an arguably easier time going the distance, but can never be comfortable knowing that a matchup should be a cake walk.

One way I've been thinking about the balance of Smash 4 is in terms of damage tradeoff. A lot of the characters, even the low tiers, can play their games to a certain extent, it's just that eventually the better character outpaces them in terms of damage and KOs. While this might seem daunting, it means that the worse character's game plan can work, they just need to win exchanges a few more times (easier said than done, of course). Contrast this with Melee Fox or Brawl Meta Knight where "outpacing" would be a euphemism for "destroyed without any chance of retaliation."

 

[Thinkaman]

I thought Bowser Jr's issue resembled something that @Pacman9 said about Pacman at high level maybe a few months back. When you're aware of their tricks and traps and how to deal with them they seem to really drop at high level.

This.

What I just watched was not a video of a Bowser Jr. beating Tyrant's MK, but a video of Tyrant's MK losing to a Bowser Jr.

So wait....

Ryu is top tier now?

Yo why the **** aren't you people sending me these memos?

Ryu isn't top tier, sorry guys.

What I said was that Ryu's evolution has the potential to be the most disruptive event in the future of Smash 4, because he is understood so poorly by so many.

 

[ARISTOS]

Hmm, so he does. The Tyrant win was in 1.1.2 even:

Tyrant didn't know the MU and got bopped. Once double F-smash was a thing you knew it was done

 

[Shady Shaymin]

How does do vs ? I would think it's even but I've never seen this matchup played at top level.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I don't understand the line that people are walking when they say X character isn't top tier. Feeling compelled to ask, I want to know what is top tier to people? In a game like this with 58 characters, I view the game as top tier being the top 20%. For clarification how I view it:
Top tier: 12 characters
High tier: 12 characters
Mid tier: 11 characters
Low Tier: 11 characters
Bottom tier: 12 characters.
There isn't one set in stone placement I have for characters as I have no desire for that.

You ask, why so vague with that placement? Well, I'm just copying a 5 tier structure that academic grading has in many western countries (A, B, C, D, F), and using Smog on 5 tier with OU, UU, RU, NU, PU.

Back to the task at hand, I dunno if I could properly place what numerical value Ryu would be, but I cannot bring myself to believing that there are 12 characters better than him and thus placing him in high tier.



In other words I can't see him being anything less than a top tier in my system. Now for if you have a different way of grading what is top tier (like saying Ryu isn't top 9 or something or whatever), then by all means, say and believe so. I will hold my beliefs that he is top tier and that should suffice until otherwise.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Mewtwo vs Rosa

One of the 3-4 characters that can get hit by M2 rising fair, Rosa can't edgegguard him that well, Mew2 has a lot of moves to swat Luma, his tilt game makes him poke from a safe distance, Luma accidentally extends big hitboxes and makes it dangerous for her puppeteer, Mew2 can bait gravitation pretty well with small shadow balls, Rosa's juggles don't work that well because of tools mew2 has to avoid them.

It's even to slight advantage Mew2 IMO.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Top tier pre DLC was about 1-12 for me but I think it's safer to do 1-15 now.
It's better to just correctly outline the exact numbers you need or be more vague for whatever suits the discussion.
For example, saying "Ryu is definitely top tier" which everyone agrees with is a lot less specific and can be worse than saying your real opinion of "Ryu is top 2 in the game."
However, after top 10-20 the numbers don't really matter as much and it's safer to just say "X character is high/mid/low" or whatever rather than "33rd in the game."