Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Wintermelon43]

Is it safe to say that if Kirby struggles with Cloud, then by default he has a bad matchup with Shulk? Because, you know, Speed and Jump Monado Arts are things.

Not at all.

(Also don't forget monados are a thing for BOTH sides)

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I can totally buy Pikachu slightly beating Cloud. Everything about Pikachu just seems like he was designed to counter Cloud's tools. Fast burst mobility for getting in on a limit charging Cloud, extremely small hurtbox accentuates Cloud's blindspot issues, good frame data and close quarters combat, hands down THE best landing options in the whole game to avoid juggles, and of course, godly gimps.

Pika does have some issues in the matchup that prevent it from being any significant advantage and possibly make it slightly in Cloud's favor. A Cloud with limit online has to be played against EXTREMELY carefully when both players are at kill percent, and this is especially true if you have zero safe ways to kill. Whiff one usmash at the ledge at 60 and you're dead, Pikachu. Cloud has other positives in this matchup but I think that alone is enough to make it slightly in his favor.

It seems very likely that his matchup with Sheik plays out more or less the same way. Take some L's in the neutral, then laugh as your opponent tries to think of how they're going to kill you, while you glow blue and are carrying the fastest, safest, and most powerful stock ender in the game.

 

[meticulousboy]

Not at all.

(Also don't forget monados are a thing for BOTH sides)

Haha. I didn't forget. I was assuming a case in which Kirby couldn't opt to go for Inhale. But I can see it happening: only one read roll towards Kirby can get Shulk inhaled. I should know because what gets me most of my wins in 1 v 1s is reading rolls, even if they're not spammed for traveling.

 

[GeneralLedge]

"But entry barriers and fun and blah blah blah". No. That's a terrible argument. This isn't supposed to be easy. People want Cloud nerfed because they can't figure out how to deal with him. There is counterplay to him.

I'll risk assuming part of this is directed at me, although I'm sure it's in a general direction where I sort of just happen to be standing. But I'm a chucklehead with a keyboard so I'll assume to respond.

If a game is not fun, it is no longer a game, it is a job.

I don't expect a match to be easy, but I expect to be able to see a flaw and capitalize off of it. With many characters, these flaws are simple, and largely in regards to their player acting out a paint-by-numbers strategy. Many of these are easy to identify, but Cloud is still a mystery to me. I have not read or seen a cohesive particular in beating Cloud outside of "grab him if he misses the ledge with UpB". I have read and seen several oddities about which characters can win or go even, but not usually why or how in a general sense that could be applied to the characters that don't.

I don't care how many frames his jumpsquat is. I don't care whether or not he can autocancel a single move out of a shorthop or not. I do not have super-human reaction time. These are not methods of play I instinctively look for at my personal level of play, because they have never been key factors that I need to look for with other characters.

With a character like Mario, I know his movespeed isn't super fast, and I know his hitboxes are fairly compact, so I can guesstimate where I can stand to avoid getting hit, and react when they miss. At high level play a Mario should know I can make this guess, and bait my reaction to this 'miss' so they can work a step ahead. Losing in this way makes sense. I don't complain, because the player was smarter than me.

Cloud... lacks this cohesive. If he has limit, he moves much faster than a character like Mario, but his hitboxes are still huge, and still safe. Cloud doesn't need to ever use Limit outside of recovery in this fashion, if he so chooses. He doesn't "have it once", it's perpetual. Combining this with a move like his Nair, and it really doesn't matter whether he misspaces something or not, because he can decelerate and retreat to earn the distance between his sword as well as a few character lengths of safety to cover his own weakness. He doesn't have to worry about missing or my response therein, because I can't react.

In this way, you need to approach fast to prevent him from even the faintest opening to charge Limit Break. Which makes sense. What doesn't, however, is that he still charges it through simply taking damage. What also doesn't, is the Cloud player's ability to not just acknowledge that you will try to prevent him from charging Limit, but respond and prevent you from interrupting them on a whim. A projectile? Sorry, shielding out of Limit-charge doesn't cost any frames. My opponent's approaching? Eh, I'll just retreat with shorthop Nair.

It makes sense that Shiek and Pikachu could be potential counter-picks simply because their projectiles offer two things: An instantanious provoke, and a free-moving tool of approach. Cloud could still shield these, but vs Shiek it needs to be predictive, and vs Pikachu it needs to be careful. This fear is enough that Cloud can't control the terms to his fight, and can lose it.

Any other projectile user, though? Just shield. Keep charging limit. Samus is provoking you? Doesn't matter. Link's preparing some softbombs? Nope, doesn't matter, Just keep charging and humming a merry tune.

Characters whom I'd think might spark a reaction or invade Cloud's personal space are those that are fast, such as Sonic or Falcon or Mac. What about these three do they lack when it comes to invading Cloud's personal space? Range? Tools?

What cohesive bare-bones strategy, in a single word, beyond frames or screw-ups, is that which beats Cloud?


What does "Shiek" really mean?

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Great points from GeneralLedge . But something I've been thinking about regarding the limit mechanic:

Many consider it broken design because the character receives passive buffs. But what if, instead of thinking of Cloud as becoming a better character after taking some hits and getting some charge, we thought of him as a character who starts off handicapped, and only gains access to all of his tools once he can reach a certain point?

There's no right way to look at it, and obviously the latter perspective would make more sense if he wasn't also amazing without his limit charged, but it's just my observation of how language choices can affect how a mechanic is perceived.

 

[meticulousboy]

Great points from GeneralLedge . But something I've been thinking about regarding the limit mechanic:

Many consider it broken design because the character receives passive buffs. But what if, instead of thinking of Cloud as becoming a better character after taking some hits and getting some charge, we thought of him as a character who starts off handicapped, and only gains access to all of his tools once he can reach a certain point?

There's no right way to look at it, and obviously the latter perspective would make more sense if he wasn't also amazing without his limit charged, but it's just my observation of how language choices can affect how a mechanic is perceived.

Lucario is also similar in that fashion. He starts off at a handicap when rage and aura are absent. But look at how many kill options he has once his percent numbers start turning red and in the triple digits!

 

[GeneralLedge]

One kicker is, even if Limit were limited (ha) to just DownB as a method of charging it, it wouldn't make it any less obnoxious. However, it would provide a cohesive weakness, and Cloud's opponent would do everything in their power to stop him from charging -- a strategy simple enough it just might work.

 

[Das Koopa]

2GGT: Civil War confirmed. Team Ally v. Team ZeRo.

https://twitter.com/2GGaming/status/743531227253088256

 

[Wintermelon43]

2GGT: Civil War confirmed. Team Ally v. Team ZeRo.

https://twitter.com/2GGaming/status/743531227253088256

Is it just Ally vs. ZeRo or are players going to pick teams and make an entire crew battle?

Because if it's just Ally Vs. ZeRo, that's kinda lame since both of them will be at Ktar saga and probably each get to grand or winners finals.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Is it just Ally vs. ZeRo or are players going to pick teams and make an entire crew battle?

Because if it's just Ally Vs. ZeRo, that's kinda lame since both of them will be at Ktar saga and probably each get to grand or winners finals.

It's pretty clearly going to be a crew battle with them as captains.

 

[Das Koopa]

For real, the crew battle should be completely stacked with just the very top of players lol

Ally + ANTi + Abadango + Larry Lurr + Nairo
vs
ZeRo + Dabuz + VoiD + Mew2King + Mr. R

JUST DO IT

 

[TDK]

ZeRo's definitely going to want Dabuz to take out the Marios.

 

[Hero_2_All]

On the topic of Corrin, his platform coverage is absolutely insane. His FH uair covers the entire top platform of Battlefield, SH bair covers entire platforms and is of course really safe, even his utilt covers almost entire platforms (and with character hurtboxes taken into account, it virtually does cover the whole platform). Tipper usmash is like Sheik's where it matches the height of Battlefield platforms, FH side b will pin to the platform above, and with a back kick, Corrin will land on the ground on the opposite side of the stage with no lag, or on the opposite platform based on positioning. He also just has moves like fair and nair. A lot of Corrin players pressure platforms with neutral b, but honestly Corrin has better options.

Corrin is just a really solid character. Juggling/uair and kill throws means the character has no trouble netting kills, of course disjoints and range give Corrin a formidable neutral, which some people call his, "field of death," he can damage wrack well, etc. He has threatening moves like neutral b and counter that can swing matches, and other early kill options. For Corrin to be bad, really it would mean mobility would have to be a much bigger factor than anyone has realized up to this point, because it would have to balance out some very solid strengths.

Originally the thought was that Corrin's recovery would be exploitable, but it got to the point where people were saying it was nearly untouchable. Now Esam says that it is exploitable (I'm inclined to believe him), and will make a video about it. If it gets to the point where Corrin is heavily edge guardable, it could be troublesome for the character, but if his recovery remains somewhat challenging to deal with, no Smash players are going to go off stage and even try, since that's been the trend since release.

Currently Corrin has almost no results, and almost no mains. Somewhat brought up a point a while ago, that, at the time of Corrin's release, why would anyone drop their established main and spend time working on a new one? There would have to be an achievable end in sight, i.e. Bayonetta and Cloud, or Mewtwo ever since Abadango won Pound. With no established results, I think it's unlikely that we will see anything from Corrin anytime soon--and again, it's because almost none of the good players main him, which I don't think should be understated--it's actually very odd that the character's results are so frequently used against him when everyone here knows that he lacks representation.

To me, the observable evidence that Corrin is a good character is his moveset. He has an amazing moveset. As long as Corrin lacks any real representation, Corrin could receive almost no results for a very long time and I would still think Corrin is a good character.

I believe it was me who wrote a write up on Corrin's lack of rep due to established mains and what not. Corrin is very solid, and can be either or as bad or good as people say. The problem is her top solo reps are few, and don't travel much. In-fact really Corrin only has 2 really good reps, Cosmos and Ryuga. Ryuga has been Mia since his second place finish at landlocked (will return for Katar saga he says), and comos who is previously unknown up in comer just now breaking into top lvl play. The thing with Corrin though is it is really hard to judge her viability atm due to this lack of rep. What I will say is her move set like stated above from a pure theory perspective is not indicative of a low or even a mid tier. On to of that what few results we have gotten from these top two have all been good. The lowest placing between these two comes from cosmos with a 5th place placing (lost to Mr. E). Cosmos will be a Lowtier city, though I think he will struggle with the upper echelon due to being very new to national lvl play (especially vs the top Diddy and sheik players).

 

[Mr. Johan]

Many consider it broken design because the character receives passive buffs. But what if, instead of thinking of Cloud as becoming a better character after taking some hits and getting some charge, we thought of him as a character who starts off handicapped, and only gains access to all of his tools once he can reach a certain point?

That would require Cloud to be handicapped in the first place.

His Uair still autocancels and kills at 130 fresh. His Fsmash still beats spotdodges and kills at 90. His Usmash is still only +2 more frames vulnerable on block than his Utilt. Nair is still f5 and invalidates characters on its own. His vanilla Cross Slash is still frame 10 and makes SH approaches a joke.

And then he gets Limit after all that.

 

[Zelder]

Great points from GeneralLedge Many consider it broken design because the character receives passive buffs. But what if, instead of thinking of Cloud as becoming a better character after taking some hits and getting some charge, we thought of him as a character who starts off handicapped, and only gains access to all of his tools once he can reach a certain point?

Starts handicapped, huh? New Cloud skin inbound!

i'm sorry

 

[Ninety]

If Limit Cloud was his own character, he'd certainly be the most broken character in Smash 4 by far. I think it's best not to consider him as starting off handicapped, as even if he didn't have Limit he'd be pretty good.

 

[san.]

all of the players I'm aware of that have gotten results

*regions may not be totally accurate

ESAM (Florida/Southern California)
NAKAT (Tristate)
Captain L (Pacific Northwest/British Columbia)
Z (Arizona/Southwest)
Hoenn (Midwest)
Nero (Michigan/Midwest)
PikaPika! (Canada?)
Shimitake (Japan)
Tachyon (Florida)
FuTure (NorCal/West Coast)
DM888 (New England)
Rideae (Florida)
NCJacobT (SoCal/WEst Coast)
Karoegu (Japan)
Zeke (Japan)
Axe

(Arizona always wins baby)

NAKAT uses lots of characters though so I dunno if he still uses Pikachu.

PikaPika! is upstate NY.

 

[Sleek Media]

Can we firm up a response to this? People constantly say Rosa is the gatekeeper of the game- yet I'm not buying it. The character has remained fairly underplayed throughout her tournament life and IMO rode on a lack of experience against puppet characters of her type. Maybe it's just the lack of seeing Dabuz and Rayquaza at more events but I don't see her holding many characters back.

Yeah count me in for this one. I don't get the Rosa hype at all. She's strong with Luma, of course, but how hard is it to poke Luma and attack it on spawn? Rosa has very clear counterplay, which is more than I can say for the other top tiers. I still encounter players, good tournament players, who don't understand the basics of when Luma can and cannot act. People just refuse to learn anything about her, and I think she gets a lot of mileage out of it.

 

[HeavyLobster]

To me, the observable evidence that Corrin is a good character is his moveset. He has an amazing moveset. As long as Corrin lacks any real representation, Corrin could receive almost no results for a very long time and I would still think Corrin is a good character.

An amazing moveset combined with poor mobility does not guarantee a good character. See . I do think Corrin overall is a good character but not a great one.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Like what does "high-level" mean? To me that means above 80th percentile or so. (Which for context would include everyone here, easily.) But someone else might say "high-level" referring only to the top 20 or so players in the world, the top 0.001% of regular smash players.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, really, but really? I certainly don't consider myself 80th percentile, but maybe I'm underselling myself.

 

[bc1910]

@Thinkaman I am utterly bewildered as to why you'd think this thread would include a great deal (assimilated from your "everyone here" comment) of posters in the 80th percentile of Sm4sh skill? We have no clear absolute way to test this but I would bet my life savings that 80% of the posters here don't even scratch high level. I am extremely keen to hear your reasoning.

For what it's worth, I agree that high level represents the 80th percentile. Top level for me is around the 95th to 100th percentile.

EDIT: If you're talking about the entire ~4 million strong Sm4sh playerbase then I'd agree with you. In fact, everyone here would probably be in the top 1%. But I don't think that's what you meant and it's kind of a cop-out.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I appreciate the vote of confidence, really, but really? I certainly don't consider myself 80th percentile, but maybe I'm underselling myself.

For reference, anyone who regularly plays 1v1 with items off is probably in the top 50% of the total Smash playerbase. You see the dregs of FG, the mindless roll spammers? Those guys are average. Anyone who regularly goes to offline Smash tourneys is going to pretty quickly reach the 80th percentile.

 

[Trifroze]

High level is generally when you stop struggling with character vs character along with all kinds of executional stuff, and become able to start focusing your attention on player vs player.

 

[LancerStaff]

I appreciate the vote of confidence, really, but really? I certainly don't consider myself 80th percentile, but maybe I'm underselling myself.

Comparing Brawl's sales to Smashboards' member count put us at less then 1% last I checked, so yeah. You're probably better then the majority of Smashers by the virtue of coming here regularly.

 

[williamsga555]

Honestly he might not be too off in that figure. Consider what it means to even have an account in the first place, and then go one step beyond to frequent a competitive-oriented board.

I know, literally anyone can do both of those, but realistically there aren't many that would bother without actually applying themselves to the game. When you consider the actual number of players who have ever attended an even remotely serious tournament, the 80th percentile covers a pretty large area.

It's easy to undersell yourself when we're constantly exposed to discussions about the absolute best players in the world on an almost daily basis.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Never mind.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Back on Cloud? Should he get nerfs, I don't want them to be the degree of Shiek's or Bayo's because Cloud is hardly the terror that they were. I honestly think that we've lowered the ceiling enough in this game and that there are only a handful of janky things left in this game: Cloud's uair, limit cross slash, Rosa's early kills, arguably Ryu's true Shuroyuken, and that's largely it. Should Cloud get steamrolled, next is line is Rosa and then Ryu but both of these characters are already weighed down by their learning curves to begin with so any heavy nerfs would be largely unreasonable. As things stand right now, I'm largely satisfied with how the top/high tiers are. Characters like Mario, Fox, ZSS, and Sheik are "solid" and I think they're largely fair. Cloud and Rosa are only a little bit outside this zone and aren't heads above everyone else like prepatch Sheik and Diddy were.

Should patches continue (and with three Amiibo remaining, they probably will), I hope more focus is put on raising the floor instead. Help make more low/bottom tiers more functional and give mid tiers more options. I think this game is a pretty good spot right now with more than two dozen characters being arguably viable and very few characters being completely dismissed competitively. Even with the way things are now, this is the most balanced that Smash Bros has ever been. Could it be better? Sure but I don't see characters like Cloud, Rosa, or Ryu developing into metagame dominating monsters anytime soon. Like I said before, I think Rosa and Ryu are basically more viable versions of characters like Peach, Lucario, and Pikachu. Cloud's perceived as a threat because he is so pick up and play but you can't really BS Rosa or Ryu without getting smeared. This said, I feel like any adjustments made to the top tiers should be minor at best and much more focus should go to bettering more wonky characters.

 

[Yonder]

Forgive me if I am blind, but isn't Apex tomorrow, a 300 person tourney? Who is going? Who is favored to win?


https://smash.gg/tournament/apex-2016

Seems kind of quiet in regards to it.

 

[Mario766]

Forgive me if I am blind, but isn't Apex tomorrow, a 600 person tourney? Who is going? Who is favored to win?


https://smash.gg/tournament/apex-2016

Seems kind of quiet in regards to it.

Because it's APEX, and no one cares about it because LTC is the same time and has more people going.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Which top players are going to be at Apex? I heard a lot aren't going. Apex's lackluster reputation doesn't help + another big tournament is happening at the same time.

Very poor scheduling by the Apex staff, they must have known another tournament was happening. Why not choose a weekend where nothing else was going on?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Because it's APEX, and no one cares about it because LTC is the same time and has more people going.

That's kind of sad. I remember when it used to be THE home for smash. APEX 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013, 2014, and 2015 has so much smash history attached to it. I Remember watching Nairo vs Otori and being in awe of the different game they were playing vs me and just learning all the amazing tech and how it was the USA vs Japan rivalry because of Japan's previous win in 2010. That stuff was so crazy.

Sad to see it so low on numbers.

 

[Mario766]

Japan, Dabuz, Void and M2K are going to APEX.

Everyone else is going to LTC.

 

[meticulousboy]

It was obvious that no one thought it through when scheduling the date of the tournament. It obviously conflicts with another major one.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

That's kind of sad. I remember when it used to be THE home for smash. APEX 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013, 2014, and 2015 has so much smash history attached to it. I Remember watching Nairo vs Otori and being in awe of the different game they were playing vs me and just learning all the amazing tech and how it was the USA vs Japan rivalry because of Japan's previous win in 2010. That stuff was so crazy.

Sad to see it so low on numbers.

Yeah it produced some of the best Smash sets and rivalries of all time no doubt.

But it was also notorious for being very disorganized and running late. The tournament finishing at 3AM was considered normal with plenty of sets people wanting to see being finished offstream.

To use your example I remember during Apex 2012 Brawl singles wasn't even streamed later until top 8 because Melee ran late that year.

Back on Cloud? Should he get nerfs, I don't want them to be the degree of Shiek's or Bayo's because Cloud is hardly the terror that they were. I honestly think that we've lowered the ceiling enough in this game and that there are only a handful of janky things left in this game: Cloud's uair, limit cross slash, Rosa's early kills, arguably Ryu's true Shuroyuken, and that's largely it. Should Cloud get steamrolled, next is line is Rosa and then Ryu but both of these characters are already weighed down by their learning curves to begin with so any heavy nerfs would be largely unreasonable. As things stand right now, I'm largely satisfied with how the top/high tiers are. Characters like Mario, Fox, ZSS, and Sheik are "solid" and I think they're largely fair. Cloud and Rosa are only a little bit outside this zone and aren't heads above everyone else like prepatch Sheik and Diddy were.

Should patches continue (and with three Amiibo remaining, they probably will), I hope more focus is put on raising the floor instead. Help make more low/bottom tiers more functional and give mid tiers more options. I think this game is a pretty good spot right now with more than two dozen characters being arguably viable and very few characters being completely dismissed competitively. Even with the way things are now, this is the most balanced that Smash Bros has ever been. Could it be better? Sure but I don't see characters like Cloud, Rosa, or Ryu developing into metagame dominating monsters anytime soon. Like I said before, I think Rosa and Ryu are basically more viable versions of characters like Peach, Lucario, and Pikachu. Cloud's perceived as a threat because he is so pick up and play but you can't really BS Rosa or Ryu without getting smeared. This said, I feel like any adjustments made to the top tiers should be minor at best and much more focus should go to bettering more wonky characters.

I agree with most of what you said but what early kill setups does Rosalina have? She can kill early off the top with rage uairs but that's very situational and tons of characters can do this, it's hardly a Rosa exclusive.

 

[TDK]

I agree with most of what you said but what early kill setups does Rosalina have? She can kill early off the top with rage uairs but that's very situational and tons of characters can do this, it's hardly a Rosa exclusive.

Grab Release -> Luma Upsmash.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Grab Release -> Luma Upsmash.

That only works if:

1. Luma is desynced and facing the right way (can manipulate this but need time and space).
2. If the character is short (as you need an air release). Won't work on tall characters unless they mash afaik.

And that hardly kills early. Unless your definition of an early kill is 110.

 

[LancerStaff]

Should patches continue (and with three Amiibo remaining, they probably will)

Little off topic but there's already data for them, if you were thinking they needed to be patched in. Came with the characters. Even Duck Hunt, who came out recently, had data back on day one.

 

[TDK]

That only works if:

1. Luma is desynced and facing the right way (can manipulate this but need time and space).
2. If the character is short (as you need an air release). Won't work on tall characters unless they mash afaik.

And that hardly kills early. Unless your definition of an early kill is 110.

That's earlier than most of the cast outside of a hard read.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Japan, Dabuz, Void and M2K are going to APEX.

Everyone else is going to LTC.

i thought ESAM was going to apex too?

 

[C0rvus]

Apex and KTAR events always run late in my experience. Don't wanna say NJ's TOs need some work but I'm also not NOT saying that. Unfortunate scheduling for Apex this year. Hopefully they get a better slot for next year or something, it'd be a shame if NJ lost 2 major events (though I think we have yet to really see the last of KTAR). We're already slipping below New York's scene lol.

Also, if I'm considered a high level player, that's incredibly disappointing. I certainly don't feel like one, and my play hardly seems to reflect my expectations of one.