I lost a lot of brain cells after reading a bunch of children complaining that their #1 character might become a #2 or #3 character, and realized that this is exactly why Nintendo doesn't do patch notes.
I was about to make a really angry post, but after a well-advised pause decided I don't want to get banned.
So instead here's a map:
You know what rank Diddy or Rosalina or Falco or Sonic deserves? #33. They ideally deserve to be the 33rd best character--dead center. So does Zelda, so does Lucina, so does poor Samus and Pac-Man. In a perfectly just world, we'd wake up and tomorrow to a bloodbath of a new patch, and that is where all of the characters would be.
The characters will never be perfectly balanced,
duh; thank you for that amazing piece of hard-hitting real-world facts, uncle Randy. But every single character who ranks higher than #33 should wake up every day and say a thankful prayer because in a competition that is intended to be fair, better than average is literally better than they deserve.
"Thank you for my brother, my mom and dad, and Flip Jump's invincibility frames."
But then some characters get to be
extra thankful, because they live on the other side of the Moat of Blood, Tears, Salt, and Johns, in the Land of the Privileged Elite--a fabled land where the springs taste like honey and all the d-throws lead to kills. They get to wake up every day knowing that 80% of the roster is worse than them, or otherwise just not winning events.
This is why you might notice that the Land of the Privileged Elite is
also labeled the Land of No Complaining. This is because the Land of the Privileged Elite is a magical and sacred place, and anyone who would defile this nirvana by complaining is automatically a
certified douchenozzle--exactly like a rich child getting upset when another rich kid gets a BMW that is newer than his.
"Sebastian also has 3 gold iWatches, while father would only buy me 2. Life is so unfair."
Sure, there are kids in Africa who don't have even
have Smash 4. Some don't even have a WiiU! This doesn't invalidate complaints, nor make me feel better about Sheik Needles. The fact that there will always be someone worse off than you doesn't mean that all complaining is bunk.
But it
does mean that complaining while on top of the the food chain makes one aloof and embarrassingly out of touch. Complaining that your top character got nerfed is
always implicitly stating that you feel entitled to an advantage.
"But no," you say in an indignant huff, "I just don't want other characters to have an advantage over me. It's not fair that my character got nerfed more than Sheik."
And your character having an advantage over others is somehow
more fair? Your character is somehow
more entitled to fairness than the entire rest of the cast? Sheik is somehow less deserving of the top than your character?
"But it'd be better if they nerfed Sheik!" Holy crap, shut the **** up and turn 10.
Your ability to imagine superior alternatives to an event does not lessen its utility or value. Giving money to charity is a good thing, even if Bill Gates giving money to charity is an even better thing. I can't believe I'm having to explain this, Jesus.
"Disney World would have been so much better with hoverboards and hookers."
The fact is, most people like the
idea of balance, but then experience a primal revulsion when they see it first-hand and realize that it
actually means that things will be balanced--just like everyone likes the idea of democracy until they realize that sometimes people vote for the wrong guy.
But balance
is one of the few
objectively good design principles in games, and crucial for healthy competition. It's
really good that so many of this game's 1540 matchups are fair, compelling contests for us to delve into and explore.
So whether it's a high-tier or low-tier, nerfed or buffed, just be grateful that your character is as good as they are, and that their worse matchup is no worse than it is. And if you want, ****ing change! There are currently 55 characters, and almost all of them are pretty solid--even the ones south of the Moat.
Having all those viable characters to choose from is the entire point of all this balancing malarkey, anyway.
"But what if I pick the new top character and they nerf them too?"
Then MISSION ****ING ACCOMPLISHED.
Above all, just remember: Patches exists because the devs know what they are doing and what the players to have as much fun with the game as possible. Smash 4 already had the best character balance of the series by a long shot
at launch, and the 3 cautious, conservative patches have only improved it. I'm really looking forward to see where things go, and I hope to encounter many of you along the way.
And if anyone says they just want to buff weak characters instead of ever nerfing strong ones, I will snap their Smash 4 disc in half and replace it with Brawl Minus.
a top tier then? what about 
). FYI in the post-tourney interview, Shaky said that he thinks 
.
