Character Competitive Impressions

[Gunla]

Even with customs, I've tended to prefer Doc's normals, due to being used to them. Except Gust Sheet. That one is really good; it is an all-star example of a good custom.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Link, the one character with a high viability rate and yet no tournament results due to people mainly not maining him. He's very viable in this game, and I see no reason as to him being on any lower portion of the tier list; he is one of the higher tiered characters on the upper half (around at least top 20), and should deserve that spot rightfully so. He's one of those characters most people don't even explore well enough. I want to see someone like ZeRo, M2K, anyone pick up Link and use him well in tournaments. If Dabuz did well with Olimar (who is/was considered bottom tier), I bet you that if someone great can main Link, we can see how great he could possibly be.

Link is the one character people want to be good more than any other outside of Falcon. If he were legitimately a top 20 character he'd get tons of usage just because of the amount of fanboyism(and sometimes fangirlism) for this character. Just look at how many Falcons there were that entered APEX. Sure none of them were standout players but there are still tons of people lining up to main him because he's good again. There were tons of demo Link mains excited for him that dropped him once they saw that there are still many characters out there that are simply better than him. Link is not a bad character at all, he's just kind of meh, and not all that impressive.

 

[Chuva]

He doesn't have good OOS options (again without a bomb in hand). n-air is frame 6, which isn't bad, but has an awkward hitbox.

I believe UpB is 4 frames start-up, which is quite decent OOS given it's hitbox coverage, albeit risky because of the end lag.

 

[|RK|]

Look. This is a competitive game. We're playing to win here. If someone asks me to critique their play, and I can see that, fundamentally, they're fine, but their character is holding them back, I will tell them to choose a different character. I will discourage anyone who wants to WIN against a bad, or sub-par character. If they just want to get better in general, I'll leave character out of it. I started Pikachu in Melee, so I understand very well that fundamentals > character choice early on. No, the toxic thing (toxic is so overused by the way) is to recommend someone with good fundamentals, who is stuck at a level and can't get past, who also has a goal of winning, to stick with a poor choice of a character.

What do you mean easy route? Look, RK... You can take a hard path and MAYBE do well later on. Or you can take a worn, "easier" path and guarantee fundamentals are the thing that will let you down if you lose. It's not unique, but it's effective. If a character is actually good, and you want to prove us all wrong about what we view that character as, you can. I encourage it. Kick my *** with Swordsman and change my view. Until then, they lose one of the 3 required points for a character I'd play competitively:

A) Does it fit my style?
B) Can I do well with them?
C) Are they in the upper-half of the cast viability-wise?

Yeah. It is a competitive game. Which also means that, as I said, people will try to win in the way that's most valuable to them. You have your requirements and others have theirs. Representation and practice is what advances the metagame for a particular character, and your advice (if followed) will cause many good players to simply quit when they're stuck. That's one of the worst things you can do in terms of improving. You are again, free to hold your opinion. But you should not be surprised when people disagree with you on this topic.

today all streamers that never have played with customs before realized Dr Mario he is insane with customs, his playstyle is completely different from the usual smash4 flow chart.
and he is not the only one, expect competitive impressions to change A LOT if customs are allowed.

Ooh, link? I don't get to watch customs-on tournaments too often.

 

[Conda]

Maybe the best way to go about a 'tier list' for Smash 4 is to just have a top 15. If we want something worrth a darn and not a complete farce, limiting the scope of the tier list we expect to be 'official' is a good idea, so it could have some credibility as a display of current information.

Everything below top/high should be understood as simply 'below the top 15'. Actually being so exact about mid-tier orders in the list makes the whole list much too ambitious and, as a result, incorrect/pointless. Below the A tier, everything is guesswork and feelings-based guesstimations based on lack of info. And it'll be like that for years to come. Deciding on exact placements for the rest of the 36 characters would be silly and inaccurate for years and years.

The only thing that will ever be 'clear' to the competitive community is who the obviously-more-dominant characters are. Ranking them in order will be possible, like it is in Melee due to the smaller cast. But an organized 51-character tier list with ordering? No way that'll ever communicate anything of actual learned worth. So, for the sake of having a somewhat-legitimate list, it should only really cover the top echelon of characters.

Top 15, everyone else in the 'grey area'. Baddabing.

It doesn't matter if you're 30th out of 51or 40th out of 51 - we could argue for days over those meaningless tier positions. Having the rest of the cast in this 'grey area' that's un-ordered communicates a more real truth - those characters have not yet proved themselves to be at the Top 15. Differentiating between 'top of mid' and 'middle of mid' is an egregious waste of time, and useless info as it will never be accurate/correct.

That's a humble and correct way to go about things - it's an agnostic approach to the rest of the tier list.

The Top 15 is the area that receives the most thought and is based on the most data, so creating an official Top 15 list is actually feasible as a result. That data will be more self-evident and clear a lot sooner.

Top 15 could be changed to 20, depends on how many characters are clearly at the same level of high-tier viability.

 

[Pyr]

Yeah. It is a competitive game. Which also means that, as I said, people will try to win in the way that's most valuable to them. You have your requirements and others have theirs. Representation and practice is what advances the metagame for a particular character, and your advice (if followed) will cause many good players to simply quit when they're stuck. That's one of the worst things you can do in terms of improving. You are again, free to hold your opinion. But you should not be surprised when people disagree with you on this topic.


Ooh, link? I don't get to watch customs-on tournaments too often.

I'm not surprised at all. I will try to show my view to those that disagree to better allow them to see it.

And ya, link? Really hoping to the the ol' one two used. (See http://www.ssbwiki.com/Super_Jump_Punch#Mario.2FDr._Mario for a general description)

 

[A2ZOMG]

I know no one else is going to respond to this because they don't take you seriously, but I believe in educating people and having discussions so that we can all arrive at the truth. For the sake of that, I'm going to respond seriously. These are the reasons why I don't think that Link is good:

• He doesn't have a good close-range game. All of his specials have lag in close range except bombs that are already plucked and in hand. Jab is frame 7
• He doesn't have good OOS options (again without a bomb in hand). n-air is frame 6, which isn't bad, but has an awkward hitbox.
• His grab is mediocre, due to being a tether, which makes both of the above problems even worse.
• His recovery is abusable, as it has always been, though tethering helps a bit here
• He gets combo'd a bunch. Fastfaller + heavy weight = gets destroyed. n-air is pretty good for combo breaks and landing as far as swordsmen go though: most of their n-airs suck, but Link's is alright.
• His dash is more like a smash attack, and he's slow on top of that, so midrange isn't easy for him (there's a sweetspot between midrange and close range where Link is good, that's at the tip of his jab length--he's also good at long range).

What makes you think that Link is good? He seems thoroughly average to me, maybe even below average.

As I've said before, if Link actually had good throws, a lot of his most serious problems would barely matter, minus his recovery.

Link's grab is honestly a good tool in neutral, and is able to cover a lot of options very viably. The problem as I've stated before is his throws are just the worst in the game...so he only gets minor chip damage from throws, unless you D-throw Fox at 0 and combo into Jab basically. Then there's his really situational Bomb combo setups which can be decently rewarding, but more or less hinge on your opponent walking into them in most cases.

Link's really slow DA combined with his terrible grab reward means shielding against him in midrange is extremely safe and leaves him with limited options. He can limit approach options with his projectiles and range, but he's not scary in midrange at all. Ganondorf for that matter beats Link precisely because he actually has a good midrange, and can capitalize on Link's vulnerability to juggles and edgeguards with brutal efficiency after beating Link in midrange.

Now if Link had Ike's throws? I would argue this character for top 15 easy. Even just getting Ike's Forward and Back throws would be a MASSIVE buff for Link and increase his viability very noticeably because then he would actually have scary offstage conversion (Link's aerials are great, but his throws give him awful positional advantage that he can't really use).

 

[Balgorxz]

Even with customs, I've tended to prefer Doc's normals, due to being used to them. Except Gust Sheet. That one is really good; it is an all-star example of a good custom.

shocking cape bruh?
with the cape you won't need to do smash attacks anymore its faster than smash attacks and can be used on the air

 

[Saturn_]

I think tier lists are useful because they help the community understand the ebb and flow of the game. Even the most uniformed, casual players at Apex showed up with their Diddy technology ready to go, and many probably understood their matchup with Diddy Kong better than any other character. Placing a character at the top of a tier list helps combat that character's dominance.

 

[NairWizard]

Link's grab is honestly a good tool in neutral, and is able to cover a lot of options very viably. The problem as I've stated before is his throws are just the worst in the game....

This is only part of the picture. Link could have the worst throws in the game and still have a fine grab if his grab weren't a tether. Similarly, he could have an even laggier tether and still have a fine grab if his throws were amazing for setups and damage.

Options in neutral are all about risk vs. reward. Tether grabs are more punishable than other grabs, so that drives the risk of using them up; if the reward for landing a grab isn't proportionate to the risk (as it is in, say, ZSS' case because you can get up-air strings into up-b KOs), it becomes less viable to just throw out grabs during neutral footsies.

Basically, if an option involves a risk of taking 15% damage to the face, it had better offer a reward of 20%* on the opponent's face in order to be worthwhile

*numbers vary depending on weight and other factors

 

[Gunla]

shocking cape bruh?
with the cape you won't need to do smash attacks anymore its faster than smash attacks and can be used on the air

I actually like to keep the windbox, hence Gust.

Shocking Cape is nice, but I prefer having Gust Sheet, as the pushback really is helpful for how I play Doc. Though I get where you are coming from with Shocking.

 

[RBreadsticks]

No

no no
In Pokemon there so few viable mons and even then people spam the easy to win with despite there being other options.
Also I rather not have to say Villager is low tier because so few pro players pick her

That's my point why do you care what "tier" your character is in. If it's based purely off usage stats it will also show players statistically which match up they should study the most. Something being "low tier" based on usage stats has nothing to do with its viability it just means players could look at a list from top to bottom to actually see what characters are being played and which are less played. It's just an objective way to compose tiers rather than subjective.

 

[A2ZOMG]

This is only part of the picture. Link could have the worst throws in the game and still have a fine grab if his grab weren't a tether. Similarly, he could have an even laggier tether and still have a fine grab if his throws were amazing for setups and damage.

Options in neutral are all about risk vs. reward. Tether grabs are more punishable than other grabs, so that drives the risk of using them up; if the reward for landing a grab isn't proportionate to the risk (as it is in, say, ZSS' case because you can get up-air strings into up-b KOs), it becomes less viable to just throw out grabs during neutral footsies.

Basically, if an option involves a risk of taking 15% damage to the face, it had better offer a reward of 20%* on the opponent's face in order to be worthwhile

*numbers vary depending on weight and other factors

I mean, when I play Link, I don't really have trouble grabbing people. While it has longer ending lag, it's not that hard to know situations where throwing out your grab covers options that your opponent is unlikely to avoid even in neutral. I'm fine with the actual grab, and don't find it mechanically as problematic as say, Villager, Bowser Jr, or Pac-man grabs. But indeed, the reward you get versus the risk of grabbing really doesn't justify it.

To be honest though, a regular grab wouldn't help Link nearly as much as more rewarding throws. If Link were to get a regular grab, he would probably also at least need a completely reworked Dash Attack for his grab to be worthwhile, otherwise you would still run into the problem of people just shielding against you in midrange and just lacking threatening options to scare people. Even though Link's really crappy DA is a serious problem for him, his current grab more or less replaces the utility of a Dash Attack by covering most of those options. Just the fact Link relies on his grab in midrange, and the additional fact that his throws are terrible is where he has his biggest design issues.

 

[Saturn_]

That's my point why do you care what "tier" your character is in. If it's based purely off usage stats it will also show players statistically which match up they should study the most. Something being "low tier" based on usage stats has nothing to do with its viability it just means players could look at a list from top to bottom to actually see what characters are being played and which are less played. It's just an objective way to compose tiers rather than subjective.

Do we actually have full usage stats from Apex? From every entrant in the Smash 4 pools?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Ooh, link? I don't get to watch customs-on tournaments too often.

If he's talking about what I think he's talking about, it was TKBreezy on Twitch doing the "vs. viewers" thing. He used customs-on Doc a fair bit and was doing some work with him. Mega Capsules + Shocking Sheet.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I always feel wierd that I try to win with what I want to win with in any game even if I accept my picked option might be not the best or is bottom tier.

But it happens. I value enjoying what I am doing over winning at the tip top. If I don't enjoy what I am doing to some degree, I couldn't compete.

Still I understand and accept why people do it.

I say do what you enjoy, if it is winning, being the best at character X or having fun just do it.

 

[Balgorxz]

If he's talking about what I think he's talking about, it was TKBreezy on Twitch doing the "vs. viewers" thing. He used customs-on Doc a fair bit and was doing some work with him. Mega Capsules + Shocking Sheet.

not only TK, today a lot of streamers were testing custom moves for some reason even shofu is trying them now.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

i never understood why tether grabs were so laggy. honestly it woulda been a neat perk to the characters that had them if they were not so bloody crap in neutral. i woulda been neat if they had as much lag as an average grab.
though zzs can keep hers laggy. >.<

 

[Pazx]

i never understood why tether grabs were so laggy. honestly it woulda been a neat perk to the characters that had them if they were not so bloody crap in neutral. i woulda been neat if they had as much lag as an average grab.
though zzs can keep hers laggy. >.<

Are you aware tether grabs are much, much bigger than regular grabs?

@ Pyr the ol one-two is a pretty bad option in my opinion, his default up-b does the same thing (punishing, ending combos) but faster (I think) and is better for recovery.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Are you aware tether grabs are much, much bigger than regular grabs?

@ Pyr the ol one-two is a pretty bad option in my opinion, his default up-b does the same thing (punishing, ending combos) but faster (I think) and is better for recovery.

yes and they are much less usefull.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

i never understood why tether grabs were so laggy. honestly it woulda been a neat perk to the characters that had them if they were not so bloody crap in neutral. i woulda been neat if they had as much lag as an average grab.
though zzs can keep hers laggy. >.<

It's a trade off for the range and access to a Zair.

Granted I think this is the best balance I have seem for tether grabs in the whole series.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

It's a trade off for the range and access to a Zair.

Granted I think this is the best balance I have seem for tether grabs in the whole series.

thats true this is there best iteration yet.

i would also preffer that all tethers had lingering grab boxes like zzs

 

[Runic_SSB]

the ol one-two is a pretty bad option in my opinion, his default up-b does the same thing (punishing, ending combos) but faster (I think) and is better for recovery.

Also because it doesn't lead into the second hit if you hit them with the edge of the first hit, making it much worse out of shield (and default SJP is one of Doc's best OOS options).

 

[NairWizard]

Tethers are better in this iteration because grab armor is gone, so regular grabs got bopped by jabs now, while tethers don't.

 

[Saturn_]

Maybe the best way to go about a 'tier list' for Smash 4 is to just have a top 15. If we want something worrth a darn and not a complete farce, limiting the scope of the tier list we expect to be 'official' is a good idea, so it could have some credibility as a display of current information.

Everything below top/high should be understood as simply 'below the top 15'. Actually being so exact about mid-tier orders in the list makes the whole list much too ambitious and, as a result, incorrect/pointless. Below the A tier, everything is guesswork and feelings-based guesstimations based on lack of info. And it'll be like that for years to come. Deciding on exact placements for the rest of the 36 characters would be silly and inaccurate for years and years.

The only thing that will ever be 'clear' to the competitive community is who the obviously-more-dominant characters are. Ranking them in order will be possible, like it is in Melee due to the smaller cast. But an organized 51-character tier list with ordering? No way that'll ever communicate anything of actual learned worth. So, for the sake of having a somewhat-legitimate list, it should only really cover the top echelon of characters.

Top 15, everyone else in the 'grey area'. Baddabing.

It doesn't matter if you're 30th out of 51or 40th out of 51 - we could argue for days over those meaningless tier positions. Having the rest of the cast in this 'grey area' that's un-ordered communicates a more real truth - those characters have not yet proved themselves to be at the Top 15. Differentiating between 'top of mid' and 'middle of mid' is an egregious waste of time, and useless info as it will never be accurate/correct.

That's a humble and correct way to go about things - it's an agnostic approach to the rest of the tier list.

The Top 15 is the area that receives the most thought and is based on the most data, so creating an official Top 15 list is actually feasible as a result. That data will be more self-evident and clear a lot sooner.

Top 15 could be changed to 20, depends on how many characters are clearly at the same level of high-tier viability.

I think that hard cut offs, picked in advance, aren't going to lead to the best "cut off" point. As others have said, the distance between tiers matters more than the tiers themselves, if 14, or 16 characters are viable rather than 15, it'll be important to have a cutoff that reflects that. Separating the viable from the non-viable is what matters, not 15 from the rest.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Tethers are better in this iteration because grab armor is gone, so regular grabs got bopped by jabs now, while tethers don't.

Meh, spotdodge nerf imo is a bigger deal. Makes it way harder to consistently shieldcamp against tether grabbers when reactively spotdodging even the slower grabs is way harder in this game.

 

[Pazx]

I think that hard cut offs, picked in advance, aren't going to lead to the best "cut off" point. As others have said, the distance between tiers matters more than the tiers themselves, if 14, or 16 characters are viable rather than 15, it'll be important to have a cutoff that reflects that. Separating the viable from the non-viable is what matters, not 15 from the rest.

Did you read the very last line of his post?

 

[Shaya]

Tethers are better in this iteration because grab armor is gone, so regular grabs got bopped by jabs now, while tethers don't.

Tell that to all the tether grabbers ****ers who get Forward Smash tippered for their efforts automatically.
(Although I'm not sure this applies to anyone other than Olimar [something that came from Brawl] and Yoshi? but you don't have grab stun applied to you until you're "in them")

and what is your tier list?

I'm glad you asked.

Strong:
Good: everyone
(except) Weak: + (he's totally seriously so bad, wow, I feel more sorrow for Lucario mains than my dying kinsmen having their Falchions shattered by pixy dust and anaphylactic shock)
Underdeveloped:

Nah not really but http://smashboards.com/posts/18526920/

 

[Nocally]

My only wish is that there be some tier specific tournaments; as in only mid tier and lower be allowed. Characters like Ganondorf are really only unviable because of terrible match ups with the high tier characters. He can overcome other characters, just not when every player is using a Sheik or Diddy or something else that basically auto wins.

Sounds like a fun Idea, then we could make separate tier lists for high, mid and low.

 

[RBreadsticks]

Do we actually have full usage stats from Apex? From every entrant in the Smash 4 pools?

We would need more data from more tournaments to make it work but I think it's certainly a more viable approach then voting on tier lists or having top players create tier lists. Months worth of usage stats will tell us who is actually being played and how well. This meta is so young there's really no point in making a community tier list or following a top players list.

 

[Yokoblue]

I think the best thing right now as of tier list building would be to do something close to what Cobbs said but I would add something.
Top 15, Bottom 5.

Like cobbs said, once we have that we can go deeper with top 20... etc Its pretty much agreed who is top 15 in the game. The position with the most discussion will be 11-15

Top 15 give the overall representation you'll see most at a tournament. Bottom 5 tells you which character you shouldn't play if you want to win anything

I think you can win everything but a national with characters between 16-41. I think a lot of characters in the 30-41 are just unexplored or underrated. Lets look at Bowser for exemple, If I remember right, there was somebody who mained him who placed top 32 or top 64 at apex... yet people rate him in that zone. Is the Bowser player just really good ? or is it the character ? We'll see.

 

[Antonykun]

This is only part of the picture. Link could have the worst throws in the game and still have a fine grab if his grab weren't a tether. Similarly, he could have an even laggier tether and still have a fine grab if his throws were amazing for setups and damage.

Options in neutral are all about risk vs. reward. Tether grabs are more punishable than other grabs, so that drives the risk of using them up; if the reward for landing a grab isn't proportionate to the risk (as it is in, say, ZSS' case because you can get up-air strings into up-b KOs), it becomes less viable to just throw out grabs during neutral footsies.

Basically, if an option involves a risk of taking 15% damage to the face, it had better offer a reward of 20%* on the opponent's face in order to be worthwhile

*numbers vary depending on weight and other factors

In that case might have to reevaluate who has the Worst Grab

 

[Luigi player]

Meh, spotdodge nerf imo is a bigger deal. Makes it way harder to consistently shieldcamp against tether grabbers when reactively spotdodging even the slower grabs is way harder in this game.

All of what you guys said plus most normal grabs' grabranges are so terrible that the range from tethers comes in handy as well.

And if they had as much cooldown as normal ones they'd be unbelievably broken..

 

[Kofu]

No

no no
In Pokemon there so few viable mons and even then people spam the easy to win with despite there being other options.
Also I rather not have to say Villager is low tier because so few pro players pick her

This is typical for high level competitive play in any game, though. Especially for ones where people don't have to use the same tools. Competitive chess and go are one sort of game where people have the same tools and victory is strictly strategy (although who goes first makes a difference). In Pokémon there are a huge number of characters to choose from and you can customize them further with moves, items, and abilities. It's generally accepted that there isn't one team that can consistently deal with everything at this point, but players try to build teams that will give them the best chance of winning consistently.

It's the same (or at least similar) in Smash: top players will use the characters that give them the highest likelyhood of winning. And in both games, sometimes those characters aren't necessarily easy to use. Do you know why Wobbuffet was banned in Gen 4? Not because it was widely used. No, it was banned because there were a handful a players who were skilled at manipulating its unique abilities to secure wins consistently. Smash is a different game, obviously, but there will be characters who are quite viable (maybe not the best picks, but viable) who are underused because they have a high learning curve.

This isn't really directed at you, Antony, it's just a general response.

I still don't get why Shaya feels Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings are so weak. They're not great, yeah, but they have massive disjoints and considerable damage output. Default Mechakoopa is also a very interesting tool for stage control that deserves more experimentation. Their customs also are quite potent. If anything they belong in the "underdeveloped" group if characters like Game & Watch and Kirby are there.

This comment about Bowser Jr. brought you you by @Thinkaman Enterprises

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Might as well throw out some thoughts .

In my experience, Shulks monado versatility isn't that flexible. It comes off formulaic.
Buster isn't that good. Not because it doesn't give him better reward on hits, but because Speed is superior and available most of the time. I'd argue that on-stage Speed is superior to all other options unless you're getting kill opportunity for Smash or the specific situation where you and the opposition simultaneously hit and Shield saves you. My opinion of the stances is Jump to recover, Shield occasionally while landing (but still have your jump available, AKA, those close kills), Smash to kill, Speed all the time.

There are a couple of exceptions. Monado art canceling presents interesting follow up opportunity, and possibility of counter-aggression. This warrants utilizing other arts, if you are fast enough at mashing it seems every art is available in a short hop, unfortunately my mashing isn't at that level to reach Smash, however you can also pre-set it from the ground or a full-hop. Jump is usable on-stage, it's my particular preference to avoid doing so unless canceling but I see the reasons for it, given the stat modifications. Art combo breaks remains under-developed knowledge at the moment though I am sure we will eventually get there. Finding out the breakpoints will increase reasons to use other Artes to avoid certain kill set-ups.

Now the reason I advocate Speed is that shulks start-ups if you ever take a chance to look, are well heavy class. Which isn't asinine given;
1) Shulk can be the heaviest character in the game .
2) Shulk has long reach, and many others with long reach have considerable start-up.

However Shulks dash-grab shares start-up with Captain Falcon and multiple other characters. His fastest options are Jab, standing grab and Dash-grab. The *easiest* way to land these options in the first place is monado Speed outside of straight canceling an aerial into them. This also creates a bit of a dilemma in my opinion against Jigglypuff. Shulks Jab-combo fails against Jigglypuff, and if it gets shielded, you'll be hit with rest. Jigglypuff is also short as hell and has the crouch to match, this can skew grab attempts...and lead to a rest. With Puff being trouble-some to deal with using his fastest options, Shulk has no choice but to consider straight spacing and punishing. This is fine since we have good anti-air, equivalent air speed (but not maneuverability) in Speed and Jump, plus long range disjoints. Generally speaking for the rest of the cast, Shulk doesn't face this issue. Shulk's grab and Jab (to a lesser extent) remain practical. Shulks walk in Speed seems to be faster than Kirbys dash, his dash speed is also one of the highest in-game. Shulk can very well land a grab to punish which makes him particularly threatening while landing. U-air covers tremendous range above him, if you aim to dodge it, then you may be grabbed and rethrown back in the air. He can keep up with your character in speed + his disjoints and he's rather potent off-stage as well. If I'm not in Speed I cannot maintain this pressure, because I'm not fast enough, the only other way of keeping up is Jump. Utilizing Jump on-stage removes me from being able to keep it in my pocket in case I need it to recover off-stage, it also means if I get them off-stage and was already in Jump I have to consider that it may *run out on me*, so I can't go as far. I have to consider that Jump is a 1.2x damage modifier against me which is higher then the damage I'd take in Buster. Between jump frames, landing lag and then the grab, it's not nearly as efficient at getting to their landing. Given that the oppositions fastest option upon landing is to shield except for what Lil Mac and ZSS(?), being able to threaten a grab upon their landing is rather important and none does that better then Speed.

Here is the deal with Buster. Buster deals higher damage and recieves slightly more damage. To this end it increases your ability to shield break, and the shield stun you deal, but your knockback is diminished. Decisive Buster is interesting at this point, for the shield stun and damage you will do being greatly increased. Regular Buster from my perspective does not increase shield stun by enough to make it more valuable then Speed, while you can come out favourably from trades, Speed remains the most practical art on-stage and Buster plays second fiddle to it. You are 'safer' in Buster but would you need to be that safe if you had just grabbed...maybe for Jigglypuff.

While there are multiple situations where one art would have been better to be in than the other, confirming a hit in the first place takes precedence to me and given the voices on Fatties vs speedsters, presumably a lot of other players as well. It's difficult to speak in a vacuum as a *lot* of things can play out differently when you're dealing more damage or taking more damage so I may be missing the objective truth, but It's rather clear that it's easier to *punish* in Speed.

My perspective is that @ Shaya , @san. and @Emblem Lord among others have greater knowledge and experience with spacing then I, but my conclusion since october is that Shulks prime endeavor is to be in Speed over anything else. Maybe I'm wrong. In the Sheik MU I've always gone Speed because I can follow her, my effective range is increased,so I can cover up my start-ups, re-position easily, and deal with needles confidently. The only thing similar is Jump, and Jump can't do it for my grab game, increases the % I can be killed at enabling thing like Ness/Sonic/Tink back-throw to become even more threatening, and then I lose my Shield + Jump synergy for stock sustain.

I do want to put this in the air given the mention of Shulks potential. Is this really in managing the Artes, or managing his spacing demands with knowledge of the artes? While I feel like mastering Shulk in his entirety will take time due to unknown subtleties of arte effective in certain situations MU's. The main difficulty I see is that with Vanilla/Smash/Buster, Speed, Jump, Shield having different movement statistics you have to get the feel for optimal spacing at minimum four times with Shulk, potentially seven (not including learning custom Monado speeds), unlike most of the cast. Im aware this may come off as over emphasizing his frame data, but Shulk isn't a CQC character since he lacks any option to contest CQC characters once they're actually on him. So what's really more valuable for a character with his spacing demands?


I don't know if that actually makes a good, bad or great character after all is said and done and everyone develops their characters further, but I suppose this is an impression. Also colouring is hard.

 

[Terotrous]

For the record, customs aren't going to drastically shift the metagame. Four attacks is only a fraction of the big picture.

I wouldn't be so sure. Some characters are basically made by a single attack.

Gonna sound completly random but I think we could try taking a page from how smogon tiers work; just straight usage statistics.

That's not guaranteed to correlate to quality in any way since some characters who are harder to use will see fewer players, and also, where are you suggesting we get the data? We're not running online play servers like how Smogon does. We could maybe look at, say, how many times each character was entered into Apex, but I'm really not convinced that data would be useful.

Maybe the best way to go about a 'tier list' for Smash 4 is to just have a top 15. If we want something worrth a darn and not a complete farce, limiting the scope of the tier list we expect to be 'official' is a good idea, so it could have some credibility as a display of current information.

Everything below top/high should be understood as simply 'below the top 15'. Actually being so exact about mid-tier orders in the list makes the whole list much too ambitious and, as a result, incorrect/pointless. Below the A tier, everything is guesswork and feelings-based guesstimations based on lack of info.

I kind of agree, the problem is determining the last few slots. 1-5 will be super easy, but when you get to like 12-15, there's probably like 10 characters vying for those spots, and you kind of want to say "well, all of these characters are pretty good, I don't want to leave this character off the list because that implies he's no better than the worst character".

Maybe a better concept is "post who you think is high tier or better". Though then some people will post everyone. Hmm...

I mean, when I play Link, I don't really have trouble grabbing people. While it has longer ending lag, it's not that hard to know situations where throwing out your grab covers options that your opponent is unlikely to avoid even in neutral. I'm fine with the actual grab, and don't find it mechanically as problematic as say, Villager, Bowser Jr, or Pac-man grabs. But indeed, the reward you get versus the risk of grabbing really doesn't justify it.

I would just like to say that these are my feelings about Yoshi's grab too. People always say it's hard to land, but it really isn't. I land it a bunch. It's just not very rewarding.

It's probably the case that due to the low reward, people don't scope it out very much. That's the smart play, really, against Yoshi or Link you don't really care if you take grabs, it's way better than taking anything else.

Anyway, Link just needs DThrow to Dair from PM back. Instant good character.

Tell that to all the tether grabbers ****ers who get Forward Smash tippered for their efforts automatically.
(Although I'm not sure this applies to anyone other than Olimar [something that came from Brawl] and Yoshi? but you don't have grab stun applied to you until you're "in them")

On the subject of Olimar's grab, there's something I've been wondering. It seems to me that if you're at extremely low percents (0-10%, usually), you can actually mash out of his grab before he can input the throw, even with no pummels. Is this actually a thing, or am I frequently just inputting the throw at the wrong time?

I don't have this problem with any other character, only Olimar.

In that case might have to reevaluate who has the Worst Grab

Seems like Robin or Pac-Man are the frontrunners. Robin's grab is as slow as a tether, but it isn't a tether. Pac-Man's grab is just atrocious in general, it's super slow and has a ton of deadzones.

 

[Tagxy]

More thoughts on competitive pikachu as I figure things out:

While I think pikachu has a better ground game overall, head to head Fox and Falco make pikachus ground game feel underwhelming. Thank goodness the spacies are tall and pikachu has a decent SH aerial game or these MUs would be a nightmare even with the strong punish game on these two in particular.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for metaknight. How does anyone fight this character if he chooses to stick to the ground? Speaking of Metaknight, how scary is his punish game potential? Besides Diddy and sort of Sheik punishes are far from being optimized in this game and when it comes to metaknight the skys the limit (literally, I could see him having amazing potential to have legit combo's to star KOs). What a frightening character.

Still kind of meh on Shiek and Diddy. SH centric charaters who excel in the SH centric metagame carry-over from Brawl. As the game becomes more grounded I see pikachu winning both of these MUs. Sheik being heavy does her no favors. The only thing preventing diddy from getting roflstomped in this MU is banana, Ive yet to fully explore in what ways his banana nerfs can be abused. Also like metaknight pikachus punishment game has yet to be optimized and has outstanding potential in this area. The signs are there, including combo's to KO (kill set ups...Ill discuss those eventually but I already listed one earlier in this thread, fair > dash attack).

Heavies and hard hitters are legitimately hard and very scary for pikachu. I think this is just going to be a thing for pikachu. He might have harder MUs but early KO characters are by far his scariest.

 

[Radical Larry]

What makes you think that Link is good? He seems thoroughly average to me, maybe even below average.

(Honestly, whether or not you take me seriously, I still play a well-rounded Link in the game. I am not a professional with him, but I'm at least decent with him.)

You've pointed out the bad parts about Link well, but you also don't realize the good parts either, do you? Let me give a list that is short, sweet and to the point:

• Jab 1 is an infinite in and of itself if timed quite properly at the right damages, and ends up leading into a D-Smash to KO.
• The F-Tilt is faster than any other game it's been in, and is probably Link's best edge-guarding tool in the game.
• U-Tilt is capable of racking up major damage (~30% from 0%) and can juggle into itself at low damages, providing him with a good juggling option. It can also lead into U-Smash, which will give off even more damage.
• D-Tilt is fast and can poke shields, as well as lead up into a U-Air now, or even an F-Air at times.
• N-Air has far better properties and qualities than you've listed. In fact, let me explain this more in-depth. The N-Air has a wonky hitbox, which makes it a great attack, for if you land say, the sour-spot late hitbox, your opponent will be sent back low enough to where they will fall on their back and you can actually combo them with a DA, F-Tilt or F-Smash, and can lead into a KO in and of itself from this combo. It's also great at edge-guarding opponents, stage spiking opponents, and doing more things than one may even imagine. There's a lot of potential in just this move alone.
• F-Air is a decent attack that can be good with ending a combo started by D-Tilt, or even D-Throw. It's also one of the better edge-guarding tools thanks to its speed and range.
• B-Air can be a good and reliable combo tool if combined with D-Throw. You can easily just D-Throw > B-Air > B-Air and get a decent amount of damage.
• D-Air is good for piercing out opponents, due to it having some of the weirdest properties; whenever I'm sent high into the air, I activate a D-Air on an opponent who wants to use a U-Air on me, and I always activate the FF D-Air on them, which makes me not only go through them, but I also play a mind game on them and always get the reward due to their slow reactions. Also, D-Air meteor > D-Air late.
• People really underestimate Link's U-Air; it is the absolute safest U-Air in the game due to its incredible long range and long hitbox, as well as Link having a smaller hurtbox. It's also one of a couple U-Airs that stays out longer than an air dodge lasts! There's a lot of testability with this, so go wild with this attack. It is also a good juggle tool at certain percentages.

This is just a short list, based on how I've been playing the game against opponents. Take it seriously or not, I don't care, I'll still dedicate my time to my mains, and that's all that matters to me.

 

[RBreadsticks]

[quote="Terotrous, post: 18572904, member: 236459]
That's not guaranteed to correlate to quality in any way since some characters who are harder to use will see fewer players, and also, where are you suggesting we get the data? We're not running online play servers like how Smogon does. We could maybe look at, say, how many times each character was entered into Apex, but I'm really not convinced that data would be useful.[/quote]

The point is it's not supposed to corolate to quality. Mii sword fighter could be the best in the game(I know he's not it's an example) but it doesn't matter if no one uses him.

Making a tier list by quality is subjective and it will lead to new players overlooking characters because they're low tier and therefore "not viable". Whereas usage statistics will simply show who is playing what the most, which means the characters at the bottom aren't "not viable" they just aren't played as much in tournaments which means the MU is not as necessary to worry about snd no one gets butt hurt that their favorite character is low tier/non viable. Usage statistics is more rational as it is objective and allows people to prepare for the actual match ups they will go into.

Obviously the kind of tiering im proposing couldn't be completed any time soon. We would need data sets from several large tournaments but at the end of the day it will give an objective and more thorough look at which characters are being utilized the most on top level play.

 

[Antonykun]

I
Seems like Robin or Pac-Man are the frontrunners. Robin's grab is as slow as a tether, but it isn't a tether. Pac-Man's grab is just atrocious in general, it's super slow and has a ton of deadzones.

How much reward does Robin get off a throw exactly?