Character Competitive Impressions

[Smog Frog]

i'm curious as to how lizardon goes even with rosetta. @#HBC | Bunzy

 

[HeroMystic]

I'm gonna have to agree with others who say Ike deserves more credit than what he has been giving. Ike is good in this game. He doesn't have the absurd kill power he did in Brawl, but he is statistically much faster and safer thanks to his auto-cancel aerials and D-tilt being amazing. That absurd kill power also returns when Ike has rage.

Ike is probably the best swordsman in the game, his only contestant being Link with the jab-to-death combo now in play.

 

[Chuva]

Rosalina's Matchups
Clear advantage: (everyone else probably)

Greninja

Having quite a bit of experience against this one (sparring with one of the better players in my local scene, who mains Greninja) and labbing this MU a lot because of it, I must disagree with Rosa having a clear advantage for reasons similar why she is not beating Pikachu.

Rosalina has more effective range but she is very susceptible to Greninja's good spacing moves (FAir and BAir) which are not hard to hit due to her tall hurtbox, furthermore she has a blind spot against those moves unless you're going for a risky anti-air FAir or Starbits, both easily punished because of Greninja's speed. NAir is a good option but Greninja has the mobility to be patient around it. Greninja's properly spaced FAir is also safe on shield (almost sure it is) and can potentially kill Luma on hit.

Fully charged Shurikens are easily GP'd with proper spacing but any other Shuriken mixup is a considerable risk and your best option is powershielding because Greninja's ground speed can catch up with most of your options. Once Greninja manages to get in Rosa it can be very hard to shake him off with his mobiity specs and his mid-range mixups, specially dash-grab (people are underrating that move, probably one of the best dash-grabs in the game).

Due to Rosalina's hurtbox, Greninja has better access to his combos and kill-setups coming from NAir since it's a lot easier to connect on her (However, his NAir -> FAir and NAir -> USmash follow-ups are more % specific because of Rosa's floatiness) which is quite a big deal for a very lightweight character like Rosa. Greninja's overall kill power is also very threatening, one sweet-spotted USmash can kill ridiculously early and is not that impossible to land due to the below:

Once at disadavantage, Rosalina is juggle material for Greninja due her floatiness and his aerial mobility. Frog's UAir will cleanly beat most of her options due to frame advantage (including DAir unless you use it preemptively, which is risky due to baits). Air-dodge too much and you're risking getting hit by his FAir because of it's delayed start-up covering most of the air-dodge active frames. Greninja can react to most of her landing options accordingly, with his ground speed and the abovementioned strong dash grab, which Rosalina has little answer against (best option being Dtilt). Offstage she is prone to hydropump and BAir stage spike due to her hitboxless, predictable recovery.

On the plus side for Rosa, she can wall him effectively on the ground at Starbits' range (Jab, Ftilt, Dtilt, NAir and Starbits being her best friends), FSmash (Luma hitbox) can mess a lot of Greninja's optimal spacing and he doesn't have many truly oppressive ways of killing Luma easily other then Jab3 (usually Luma dies due to HP, not offstage KO). Greninja is also prone to Rosa's juggling and edgeguard just like 90% of the cast. I'd go into more details but I'm not interested in making this a bigger wall of text than it already is.

If anything it's probably an even matchup.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Ike and Pikachu are on the same boat of people know they're good, but pretty much nobody plays as them or nobody knows who plays as them. I don't know why, though. I mean, there's bound to be Ike and Pikachu players in this entire world. Well, there's Ryuga, San, Ryo, and Blitz? for Ike, ESAM for Pikachu, and aSMa? - is that how you spell it? - for Greninja.

Along side all of this and what others have been saying: part of the reason for lack of results is APEX's rules. San mentioned both weather + the crappy rules as reasons why he didn't go. Ryo I don't think went either, certainly haven't heard anything from the other two. It also seems that in general the tournaments they go to don't get much mention at all because they don't have streams. The Xanadu effect in a way, except its working against a character instead of for it.

Heck as far as the Ike boards know, only one Ike main went to APEX, and he failed to get out of pools because he thought he needed to use Sonic one game and lost. Even then, he reported the people he played were surprised by how good Ike looked and I had similar stuff happen in the small tournament I won. People think "Brawl Ike - Brawl killing power" when he's actually pretty different.

Ike's good. Bottom of high tier. He's fast when he wants to be fast, has an above average comboing game (including combos at kill %s) and is still by far one of the strongest characters in the game. He's just no longer an out of control semi truck racing down a hill in terms of KOing power.

 

[Ffamran]

Along side all of this and what others have been saying: part of the reason for lack of results is APEX's rules. San mentioned both weather + the crappy rules as reasons why he didn't go. Ryo I don't think went either, certainly haven't heard anything from the other two. It also seems that in general the tournaments they go to don't get much mention at all because they don't have streams. The Xanadu effect in a way, except its working against a character instead of for it.

Heck as far as the Ike boards know, only one Ike main went to APEX, and he failed to get out of pools because he thought he needed to use Sonic one game and lost. Even then, he reported the people he played were surprised by how good Ike looked and I had similar stuff happen in the small tournament I won. People think "Brawl Ike - Brawl killing power" when he's actually pretty different.

Ike's good. Bottom of high tier. He's fast when he wants to be fast, has an above average comboing game (including combos at kill %s) and is still by far one of the strongest characters in the game. He's just no longer an out of control semi truck racing down a hill in terms of KOing power.

Funny how the same thing happened to a user on the Falco boards who went to a tournament where people like Nairo and NAKAT were attending about a week or two ago. He said there were a fairly good number of Falcos there and people were surprised about his Falco. I don't think his matches were recorded at all. I think there are some matches that just don't get recorded because nobody knows either player which sucks since some unknowns could have amazing things to show us.

 

[Coffee™]

On the plus side for Rosa, she can wall him effectively on the ground at Starbits' range (Jab, Ftilt, Dtilt, NAir and Starbits being her best friends), FSmash (Luma hitbox) can mess a lot of Greninja's optimal spacing and he doesn't have many truly oppressive ways of killing Luma easily other then Jab3 (usually Luma dies due to HP, not offstage KO)

His Dash Attack actually knocks Luma away every time. Makes it pretty easy to get it offstage if it isn't near Rosa.

 

[Kofu]

Just chiming in on Ike in that a lot of what makes him mobile is his air speed; he just makes the top third of the cast. That combined with his massive range on aerials makes his spacing game pretty intimidating. I've actually been thinking about picking him up because of the ways he can wall people out.

 

[Radical Larry]

Just chiming in on Ike in that a lot of what makes him mobile is his air speed; he just makes the top third of the cast. That combined with his massive range on aerials makes his spacing game pretty intimidating. I've actually been thinking about picking him up because of the ways he can wall people out.

Even with the massive range on aerials, some are still hard to hit with due to their average to below average speed (N-air and B-air are easier to hit with than others, and D-air is not recommended on stage), and opponents tend to get reads on B-air when they see Ike turning and will shield. Most of his aerials are a bit unsafe on block, remember, even with their buff on speed (on some). This is especially the case to his SH Aerials if he isn't behind the opponent.

In terms of aerial mobility, he is somewhat decent, but when it comes to it, he's still slow (that's my perception anyways). On the ground, he's still good, but his dash is so laggy at the end. This is just my perception from a few playtests on him.

Now, I might pick him up and see how good he can really be, and I'll see from there as well.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Olimar got whipped out as a counter pick. eh.

Disagree, you way overrate my character.

Loses to Diddy hard.

Fox, Sonic, Falcon, Pika, Peach, Olimar, Sheik slightly

Even with ZSS, Yoshi, Luigi, Shulk, TL, Bowser, Charizard, Marth, Lucario

Slight advantage to solid advantage on everyone else


As a side note, made a tier list today, thoughts?

Spoiler

I would reasses Ike, jr and Paletuna. Mac has presented himself as too map dependant to far to be consistently viable so I agree,

Despite losing aerolink vs Abadango especially near the end as aero began adjusting showed her credibility.

There is more I wish to say but outside of those 3 characters it feels like nitpicking given the lack of results some have.

 

[Luigisama]

IIRC he actually used Mac to beat Amsa in the last round he won, securing top 8.

6WX's killer Sonic beat both his DHD and Little Mac, though.

Actually game 2 he won as mac and won game 3 as duck hunt.

 

[Nobie]

I can see Little Mac thriving as a pocket character or a secondary who thrives specifically because tournaments tend to use a stage-striking and counterpick system. If two players are choosing their stages based on the others' main character and are unaware of or perhaps even over-confident concerning the opponent's Little Mac, then he can likely turn the tide.

He has some bad matches, and he obviously has some bad stages, but a well-timed Little Mac in the middle of a tournament set might just be what clinches a match.

 

[deepseadiva]

The disparity between Marth and Lucina doesn't make sense.

She can be worse, but incomparably worse?

>_>

 

[warionumbah2]

They are both pretty bad so it doesn't really matter tbh. Robin and Ike are the better fire emblem characters.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I dunno. I think Marth may have some juice.

 

[Luigisama]

I think Marth is still good and the reprensation of him that I saw at apex was Mr.E

 

[~ Gheb ~]

They are both pretty bad so it doesn't really matter tbh. Robin and Ike are the better fire emblem characters.

I dunno. Robin is pretty bad.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The disparity between Marth and Lucina doesn't make sense.

She can be worse, but incomparably worse?

>_>

If they buffed her damage slightly on neutrals it would add more to her.

But in the end, tippers are still pretty damn good.

 

[Terotrous]

should we be trying 2 ban diddy?

I am of the opinion that if the game matured enough, say, 10 years from now, Diddy would win almost everything and an O.Sagat-style soft ban would likely be needed for the meta to remain interesting. However, I am quite hopeful that he will be patched before that happens.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I dunno. Robin is pretty bad.

I need to put more time into Robin. At the moment I feel he has more blindspots than Stevie Wonder. He should really be faster.

 

[Antonykun]

I dunno. Robin is pretty bad.

Again with the zero explanation claims Gheb.

 

[Kofu]

From what I understand, the differences between Marth and Lucina are reward and safety. Lucina is decidedly average in most areas. Her range might be slightly better than most but aside from that, not much about her stands out. She and Marth are both clearly based on fundamentals, with only one of their moves (Shield Breaker) having a special property. Marth gets far better reward for playing optimally than Lucina does. Properly utilizing his sweetspots and sourspots lets him get far better damage from combos that Lucina can (yes, sourspots are occasionally beneficial) and he kills earlier with tippers. He's also safer on shield anyway you look at it thanks to hitlag modifiers. Sure, Lucina's more consistent in executing her gameplan especially at mid levels of play, but Marth does better when the player can space and get mileage out of his tippers.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Time For The Results Of The Official /r/smashbros Monthly Voted Tier List!​

It's that time of the month again where I set up a poll to get how the general public is feeling about characters and track these feelings over time. With Apex just ending it seemed like an extra special time to do this. We changed up how the vote worked this month and allowed players to rank each character 1-10, 1 being the worst, and 10 being the best also allowing the option for them not to answer if they didn't know about the character. We're taking those with the highest averages and placing them first going down till we hit the lowest. We also asked for which characters people feel have the most potential, and those they feel are the most overrated and will list the top 3 in both categories.

Since last month's list was obviously VERY iffy, I wont be doing the usual where I compare how the characters went up and down as it'd be kinda pointless. If this new voting method looks more successful, we can do that again come next month.

HERE IS THE TIER LIST!

For those curious in why I split people where, I did try to make different tiers when there were what looked to be significant number differences. The people in B+, B, and B- where all close but JUST far enough away I couldn't justify keeping them all in the exact same same tier. I see some issues in this list too, but it is by far the best list /r/smashbros has probably put out to date. I think the new voting method did the trick!

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

Everyone and their mothers overrates Marth in the Marth vs. Lucina debate. The difference between them is extremely negligable and doesn't really matter even at high-level play. Lucina can take some opportunities Marth can't like throwing out a free forward smash for a punish opportunity+stock without needing to tip, or gimping opponents more easily. You also have to give your opponent credit, they're going to be using their movement and gameplan to space in/away from your tipper if they're such a "high level" player. You have to respect Lucina's whole sword, Marth's sourspot is good in some respects but not when you can't land a tipper when your opponent is going in the 140+ range.

 

[Iron Kraken]

Disagree, you way overrate my character.

Loses to Diddy hard.

Fox, Sonic, Falcon, Pika, Peach, Olimar, Sheik slightly

Even with ZSS, Yoshi, Luigi, Shulk, TL, Bowser, Charizard, Marth, Lucario

Slight advantage to solid advantage on everyone else


As a side note, made a tier list today, thoughts?

Spoiler

First of all congrats on 2nd at Apex, my Rosalina sensei! Sorry about all the unfair hate you got from people who don't understand that playing defensively against Pac Man / Sonic was the right decision on your part, when winning is name of the game.

I agree with you that Rosa loses to Diddy hard.

I also agree with you slightly to Sheik, Pikachu, and Olimar.

However, saying that Rosalina loses slightly to Falcon and Fox does not match my own experience. Now I am not nearly as experienced as you are, but the relatively limited experience I have includes games against DKwill's / Max Ketchum's Falcon, Larry Lurr's Fox, and lots of other respectable online players.

I feel like Rosalina can handle Falcon's / Fox's speed. It's true that she can get juggled and that her lack of a good get-out-my-face aerial can hurt her, but at the same time Luma can still do Luma things at times and transform defensive situations into offensive ones with a swift hit Nair or Dair during its return to Rosa.

Because both Falcon and Fox are fast fallers, Rosa's rapid jab hits them really hard, and her throw follow ups work really well. Rosa can gimp both of them really well (although Rosa has to be careful not to be gimped by Falcon as well).

Mainly I feel that what Falcon and Fox have in speed, Rosa makes up for in the match up with range.

I'm not really sure what else to say, I know you're aware of everything I just said, but overall I have never felt that Rosa loses to Falcon and Fox, in fact I feel Rosa has a slight advantage in the match ups.

Could you elaborate as to why you feel otherwise?

I find it interesting that you would say Rosalina has a disadvantageous match up against Sonic, considering that you seem to consistently beat 6WX, who seems to be the best Sonic going right now. But at the same time I get where you're coming from, having a lot of experience with the match up myself... Rosa has to play almost flawlessly, because if she makes one bad move like throwing out an attack that doesn't connect, Sonic is going to punish her really hard. And Rosalina really can't catch up with Sonic just running around the stage, so she basically is forced to play defensively, and Sonic completely controls the pace of the match. Havng said that, I feel like Rosa is one of the few characters who has what it takes to handle Sonic from a defensive position, because of her lingering hit boxes and long range.

Peach I find very interesting. I have almost no experience against top-level Peach players, so I really can't comment on this. I've played decent Peaches and have never found the match up a problem. Could you elaborate on what you think makes the match up tough for Rosa?

---

Nice tier list. But I do feel like you're slightly underrating your own character. After many posts in this thread, this is my first crack at a tier list...

S:
A+:
A:
A-:

Extremely Viable:


Viable:
Every other character. I'm not writing anyone this early.

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

First of all congrats on 2nd at Apex, my Rosalina sensei! Sorry about all the unfair hate you got from people who don't understand that playing campy against Pac Man / Sonic was the right decision on your part, when winning the is name of the game.

I agree with you that Rosa loses to Diddy hard.

I also agree with you slightly to Sheik, Pikachu, and Olimar.

However, saying that Rosalina loses slightly to Falcon and Fox does not match my own experience. Now I am not nearly as experienced as you are, but the relatively limited experience I have includes games against DKwill's / Max Ketchum's Falcon, Larry Lurr's Fox, and lots of other respectable online players.

I feel like Rosalina can handle Falcon's / Fox's speed. It's true that she can get juggled and that her lack of a good get-out-my-face aerial can hurt her, but at the same time Luma can still do Luma things at times and transform defensive situations into offensive ones with a swift hit Nair or Dair during its return to Rosa.

Because both Falcon and Fox are fast fallers, Rosa's rapid jab hits them really hard, and her throw follow ups work really well. Rosa can gimp both of them really well (although Rosa has to be careful not to be gimped by Falcon as well).

Mainly I feel that what Falcon and Fox have in speed, Rosa makes up for in the match up with range.

I'm not really sure what else to say, I know you're aware of everything I just said, but overall I have never felt that Rosa loses to Falcon and Fox, in fact I feel Rosa has a slight advantage in the match ups.

Could you elaborate as to why you feel otherwise?

I find it interesting that you would say Rosalina has a disadvantageous match up against Sonic, considering that you seem to consistently beat 6WX, who seems to be the best Sonic going right now. But at the same time I get where you're coming from, having a lot of experience with the match up myself... Rosa has to play almost flawlessly, because if she makes one bad move like throwing out an attack that doesn't connect, Sonic is going to punish her really hard. And Rosalina really can't catch up with Sonic just running around the stage, so she basically is forced to play defensively, and Sonic completely controls the pace of the match. Havng said that, I feel like Rosa is one of the few characters who has what it takes to handle Sonic from a defensive position, because of her lingering hit boxes and long range.

Peach I find very interesting. I have almost no experience against top-level Peach players, so I really can't comment on this. I've played decent Peaches and have never found the match up a problem. Could you elaborate on what you think makes the match up tough for Rosa?

---

Nice tier list. But I do feel like you're slightly underrating your own character. After many posts in this thread, this is my first crack at a tier list...

S:
A+:
A:
A-:

Extremely Viable:


Viable:
Pretty much every character. I'm not writing anyone off just yet.

How is Ike not in "Extremely Viable" when Pit/Dark Pit, Shulk, and Booser are in there?

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

*snip*

Maaaaan people are really sleeping on Wario, Mii Gunner and Mii Fighter. Ike and DK could also move up a bit. Maybe swap ZSS with Sonic. Other than that list looks mostly solid.

EDIT: Forgot about limited Mii Customs because lol...they have to be limited for some dumb reason >_>

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

There's also the case of people seeing none of the prominent Ikes at Apex 2015 simply because they couldn't go this year. They placed pretty well in Brawl days and caused upsets, so in a game where many consider Ike upper-mid, high, etc. due to a better Ike and in-game environment for Ike, I know Ryo and San would have kicked some serious ass if they went, I know at least one or both would likely make top 8.

 

[Iron Kraken]

How is Ike not in "Extremely Viable" when Pit/Dark Pit, Shulk, and Booser are in there?

Only reason I didn't call Ike "extremely viable" (a silly classification on my part, admittedly) is because I personally haven't experienced / seen Ikes that would make me think he's one of the better characters in the game. However, I am sure there are players and videos of these players that would appear to indicate otherwise. My tier list is heavily influenced by my own experiences... so yes it is no where close to perfect. In fact, I am sure it's extremely flawed. Still, it was the best I could do for now.

 

[Runic_SSB]

snippity doo da

If I didn't know better, I'd say Brawler is -4 against Puff, because he's getting slept on harder than Rip Van Winkle's mattress.

 

[Conda]

I haven't spent a ton of time playing him, but my impression is that he definitely has weaknesses and he's not very good. He lost his ability to safely control space with aerials, ledge traps are worse, his shield pressure is worse(good players shouldn't get hit by shield breaker), his aerial nerfs also make it harder to land safely, and he still has the same weaknesses he did previously.

On the other hand it is easier I think to get tippers in this game because movement was toned down and also made more linear, there's less opponents can do to throw off your spacing. I think Marth is just a really average character in this game, he has some things that allow him to win if he outplays his opponent enough but it's the more difficult path for sure

For previous Marth players, what is the new character that 'beats him out' and 'replaces him' as a fast precision-based spacing character? Shulk's attacks are too slow to allow for a true 'Marth' gameplay experience, as is Pit. Who fits the bill better than Marth? I'm curious because I enjoy his playstyle but yeah - he's very lackluster. Wish he had a normal jab this time at the very least.

 

[FullMoon]

I can't help but find it funny that Greninja is always just out of Top 15 in those tier lists. I don't really have a problem with it, I just find it amusing.

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

Some Ike goodness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=VKujI0urZro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrUZLFQoNe8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6TIb7WEA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJJd-JfI7_U

San has nothing on his channel for Smash 4 matches, just his oldschool Brawlike which is still worth watching.

 

[David Viran]

For previous Marth players, what is the new character that 'beats him out' and 'replaces him' as a fast precision-based spacing character? Shulk's attacks are too slow to allow for a true 'Marth' gameplay experience, as is Pit. Who fits the bill better than Marth? I'm curious because I enjoy his playstyle but yeah - he's very lackluster. Wish he had a normal jab this time at the very least.

That's easy zss.

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

That's easy zss.

No.

 

[Shaya]

EHh.
Alright.
Here we go.

Lucina is bad, as is Marth. They lose to the same smart shielding strategy bad enough that they're practically unviable.
But for every moment Marth is an advantage, he's drastically better than Lucina in the same scenario.
The only exception is forward smash. And you'd be a fool to think Marth's fsmash is so much worse.

"high level" player
You may have noticed by now, but players tend to not be on top of each other the entire time, ever. There is always horizontal and vertical space between players, otherwise the scenario is not 'neutral'. As long as the opponent isn't teleporting, there is no path the opponent nor the swordsmen will take that won't align with max spacing. Timing is pivotal. If you're going to make comments about high level play then you don't do so by assuming either player doesn't know how to space/play the game.

"gimping opponents more easily"
How? Please don't bother even answering this, next time just don't talk out of your ass.

"respect lucina's whole sword... opponent in the 140 range"
No, you don't respect Lucina's whole sword, you respect forward smash and nothing else. The problem is, that it's Lucina's only kill option that matters. I'm honestly not sure what Lucina is killing with at 140% other than two of her smash attacks, and it's this limit which I see imposing on Lucina the most out of anything else (i.e. her advantage is just that drastically weaker), it's not Marth struggling to find a kill before 150%, it's Lucina, 9 times out of 10 (hundreds/thousands of games with both characters thus far).

Now... the other thing is...
Sour spots.
Lucina not having them is going to drastically hurt her in the long run.
Sakurai angles are extremely important to combo games, for every character. As time progresses, players will be confident in knowing how their hit confirms will work and how to capitalise on their hitconfirms significantly faster than they do now.
Marth and Lucina are SakuraiAngles the character. As I develop the Falchion, it's obvious to me that I can get fair (bair, or certain ff nairs) to fsmash on Marth for a lot longer than Lucina can. She genuinely doesn't have a sakurai-angle move that will force a ground hit at kill percent for her smash attacks. Marth's sourspots in general will be able to combo into a second move (especially in the air without needing to land), often a tipper due to GEOMETRY; sour spot fair->tipper fair at the ledge gets me clean kills and properly strings, sour spot fair->rar bair can work too on stage and kill like 20-30% earlier.
This is enough for me to want to love Marth, but it still isn't enough. His capabilities in neutral/disadvantage are so below average (for his weight) that even with the beautiful intricacies of his moveset (that Lucina doesn't have) it just isn't worth it.

Oh and ZSS is definitely the Marth replacement in this game

 

[Vengeance_NS]

so i just saw the community voted tier list. do people really think wario is bottom 10? after apex i havent changed my mind on him 1 bit i still think hes top 15 just under played. all his bad MUs are very winniable. what am i missing here?

 

[FullMoon]

so i just saw the community voted tier list. do people really think wario is bottom 10? after apex i havent changed my mind on him 1 bit i still think hes top 15 just under played. all his bad MUs are very winniable. what am i missing here?

Well I think most characters on B tier and up have very winnable bad MUs as well, so...

Really, I don't think there are many, if any, unwinnable MUs for anyone.

 

[thehard]

Pac's fruit clanks with Samus' charge shot, hooray

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah, Wario is underrated on almost all tier lists except the japanese one. No way DDD, Marth or Robin are better than him.

 

[Runic_SSB]

No, you don't respect Lucina's whole sword, you respect forward smash and nothing else. The problem is, that it's Lucina's only kill option that matters.

I might be biased from Brawl, but doesn't not having a sourspot make her up smash more usable than Marth's?