Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[RedBeefBaron]

If Sheik is nerfed to the point where she is no longer top tier pikachu will be the best IMO.

Beats zss and Rosalina already, and as far as I know Luigi loses to mobility, a good projectile, and the ability to get early off stage gimps, especially if the character in question is hard to grab. Why does pikachu lose this, again?

How is Pikachu's matchup with fox though?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Nga is a better Mega Man than Daiki nowadays. Daiki only uses him in some matchups. Nga is the solo Mega Man with best results in Japan.

Yeah but Daiki has been around for a while whereas Nga has just made his breakthrough recently. So if he claims to never have seen a MM played so smooth I think it's kinda obvious that he hasn't heard of Daiki before.

Edit: Pikachu vs Fox was theorized to be in Pikachu's favor but is shaping out to be either even or in Fox' favor.

 

[Greward]

If Sheik is nerfed to the point where she is no longer top tier pikachu will be the best IMO.

Beats zss and Rosalina already, and as far as I know Luigi loses to mobility, a good projectile, and the ability to get early off stage gimps, especially if the character in question is hard to grab. Why does pikachu lose this, again?

How is Pikachu's matchup with fox though?

Pikachu is bad against walling and Luigi is very good at that (fair and jab are amazing). Combine it with Pikachu not being very good at pressuring Luigi safely and being super hit if Luigi gets anything in... Pikachu has to risk it when fighting Luigi and Luigi gets a way higher reward than pikachu.
Thunderjolt is not that good, unless Pika has a good lead it won't force Luigi to approach, and even then he can do it.

Luigi loses against strong wallers because of his lack of good approach (unless those wallers can't deal with fireball). Pikachu can't wall him cause he has no range and the full camp game isn't that good.

The matchup was actually evenish in Brawl and Luigi was a weak character in Brawl, in this game things just got way better for Luigi.

 

[Ghostbone]

Beats zss and Rosalina already, and as far as I know Luigi loses to mobility, a good projectile, and the ability to get early off stage gimps, especially if the character in question is hard to grab. Why does pikachu lose this, again?

Jolt isn't a good projectile, fireballs are way better.
Pikachu's mobile but quick attack doesn't work vs luigi cos up-smash and nair.
Everyone gimps luigi so that's not really relevant.

Pikachu loses because Luigi outrades pikachu super hard and has superior frame data all around, and then since Pikachu is floaty he dies early to d-throw > down-b.

 

[Reila]

Well smash players hate defensive gameplay, that includes camping,zoning, pokes, etc. Why you think the majority play aggressive characters like C. Falcon,fox, o ZZS.

SOME smash players hate defensive play styles. I have nothing against them and I think it would be a shame to have Smash 4 being entirely dominated by rushdown-oriented characters. Variety is a good thing.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Pikachu is bad against walling and Luigi is very good at that (fair and jab are amazing). Combine it with Pikachu not being very good at pressuring Luigi safely and being super hit if Luigi gets anything in... Pikachu has to risk it when fighting Luigi and Luigi gets a way higher reward than pikachu.
Thunderjolt is not that good, unless Pika has a good lead it won't force Luigi to approach, and even then he can do it.

Luigi loses against strong wallers because of his lack of good approach (unless those wallers can't deal with fireball). Pikachu can't wall him cause he has no range and the full camp game isn't that good.

The matchup was actually evenish in Brawl and Luigi was a weak character in Brawl, in this game things just got way better for Luigi.

Jolt isn't a good projectile, fireballs are way better.
Pikachu's mobile but quick attack doesn't work vs luigi cos up-smash and nair.
Everyone gimps luigi so that's not really relevant.

Pikachu loses because Luigi outrades pikachu super hard and has superior frame data all around, and then since Pikachu is floaty he dies early to d-throw > down-b.

Fair enough. I would imagine that pikachu could use his better mobility to play hit and run the whole time to slowly chip Luigi down or go for a time out but that would be one player just outplaying another.

 

[Browny]

If Sheik is nerfed to the point where she is no longer top tier Esam will be the best IMO.

Beats zss and Rosalina already, and as far as I know Luigi loses to mobility, a good projectile, and the ability to get early off stage gimps, especially if the character in question is hard to grab. Why does Esam lose this, again?

How is Esam's matchup with fox though?

That's how I read this.

How can anyone question ZSS being second best.

 

[DungeonMaster]

That video was annoyingly long, hard to read and factually incorrect in many places. Most of the interactions of 'broken' moves you described were completely explained by the attack simply not hitting and samus not having a disjoint on her body on certain attacks, like many characters dont.

Obviously it's impossible to please everyone, your opinion on the style seems to be in the minority.
I think you have short changed the video evidence, it's not merely "not having a disjoint" which is well understood. It's the fact that extended hurtboxes go first and after. I am not sure how this isn't clear after seeing Samus get popped up from attempting a b-air into zelda's up-smash and there are NO frames of the leg being extended at all. Likewise there is no reason that Ness should be able to grab the air after an f-tilt.

Zelda using nayrus love to fall through usmash and marios fsmash having 'priority' over samus' were not good choices to prove your points, since firstly zelda would fall through any attack with that and secondly, priority isnt a thing in smash.

The point which you missed is she first gets hit (covered in flames), then has enough time to execute nayru's love between the first and second hit. That is how bad that first hit linking to the second is. It's an extreme example from in-game.
You can take a training dummy, say villager, and do the same, repeatedly.

The section on charge shot again, its completely blown out of proportion. EVERY clip shown is completely explainable and affects EVERY character with a projectile, nothing unique there. mario/pk boys reflectors working backwards is a bit of a joke, but Charge Shot is an amazing move, its flaws affect every other projectile in the game except the likes of Thoron.

No it doesn't. Not every character gets killed at ZERO from oil panic. One good read and you die. The point was the number and type of counters to just throwing out a charge shot are MEGA generous in this game. The capes, the pk kids bats, even zelda's phantom all have very generous properties and effective boxes.
Thoron is a good example, it does not suffer from the same range of counters/avoidance. You're reinforcing my point.

I swear I wanna make a video acting as if Marth is the worst character in the game and make his flaws look ridiculous by deliberately missing moves and complaining about people airdodging my dair I bet I could make something as convincing.

You seem to have a bone to pick. Marth is no where near this bad.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

That's how I read this.

How can anyone question ZSS being second best.

Because even Nairo's Zss has dropped sets to Esam's pikachu and Nairo is much better than Esam?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Nobody is "much" better than Esam.

 

[Teshie U]

With sheik nerfed (if its a major nerf) wouldn't that leave Sonic as the best?

 

[PUK]

If sheik is nerfed to the point her importance in the meta disapear
Luigi will rise
Pikachu won't
ZSS will be dominant

 

[Strong-Arm]

That largely depends on what they change in the next patch. I can see them bringing the hammer down on Sheik tho, but theres always the possibility they could nerf Zss, Pika, and Luigi since a lot of voices have been behind it. Tho I think the only one at the top to be hammered on the 30th is Sheik. I don't think it'll be major, probably something akin to what they did to Diddy.

 

[DunnoBro]

No offense to seagull but seems really knee-jerky on his mu opinions for sonic and changes them a lot

He said custom dk was really bad for sonic but i beat average joe with my barely practiced one lol Pre-patch dk was free customs on or off

Also imo characters like duck hunt, pacman, and villager are more fun to watch when they're not playing each other lol

Fun to play tho

 

[HFlash]

With this logic, the only character that can EVER win a tourney is Shiek. Like tbh if you only have one bad matchup you're basically better than everyone that isn't Shiek.

Not when it's so much easier to pocket and have a decent Luigi compared to a pocket Shiek, ZSS, Rosa, or especially Pikachu.

 

[Jandlebars]

I was carefully watching the video until you said Samus has the worst grab in the game

As a Villager main, I am completely insulted that false claim

Villager's grab is barely larger than most grabs and i wouldn't be surprised if its smaller than bowsers is slower than fast tethers like Toon link's dash grab or Yoshi's dash grab even worse than that the move only has 2 active frames 2 ACTIVE FRAMES while having horrendous endlag sure maybe Samus's grab is a bit slower and has more endlag but at least that move has far more range and active hitboxes, which gives samus the ability to space herself to get people off guard with the range of her grab

I never touch Villager, so I'm not well-versed in the optimal way of playing the character(s), but does their game-plan rely on landing grabs like Samus' does?

Samus starts a lot of combos from her down-throw, which makes it at least a substantial part of her strategy in playing as her.

However, as mentioned later in the video, the start-up and end-lag aren't really proportionately balanced, considering that the rewards gained from her grab aren't really a potentially centralising aspect of her character (something like Luigi's down-throw to Cyclone shenanigans, for example), nor is it a 'check' to make sure that she can't always land a stock-ending combo (ZSS' U-air to Boost Kick).

Being a tether-grab, it will of course be more laggy than standard grabs, but even Toon Link gets a back-throw that can kill, and he --to my understanding- has more of a competent projectile game than Samus does (his bombs are really good, his boomerang threatens by staying out a long time, and his arrows are kind of a filler tool that, while not stellar, seems to work okay).

Saying that Samus' grab is the 'worst' is an exaggeration, I agree.
But considering how she doesn't really get more out of it than some stronger characters do, and the fact that she doesn't really get compensated for it that well, it's not hard to see why it would be perceived as a very weak party of Samus' design.

(Villager's grab *is* pretty damn bad, though, definitely. You'd think swinging a massive bug-net down would catch more than air most of the time in this game.)

 

[HeavyLobster]

I doubt Sheik's going to disappear from the meta soon. Diddy's still relevant despite getting worse than what Sheik likely will. The ideal situation would be to tone Sheik down slightly to be on par with the rest of the top tiers and to be less polarizing for lower tiers. It's probably for the best that she keeps characters like Rosa and Luigi in check, but she does need slight needle nerfs and perhaps a weaker recovery.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Regarding Ryu, I have a lot of trouble seeing him as 2nd best in the game all things considered, but he's definitely in the upper echelon of the cast and pretty viable at a tournament level I believe. 2nd tho? That's a REALLY big accolade and one I'm going to say "no" on for now.

Of course if the character continues to keep doing better and better I might change my mind, but he just seems REALLY good but not like, 2nd best in the game.

Also I can't imagine a metagame where Sheik isn't the best. She kind of rounds out the top tier, even if they made her more "fair" (I think outside of giant goring she'd be the best still), IDK how to put it, but I feel like it'd mess with things. THE ORDER OF BALANCE and whatnot.

 

[Strong-Arm]

I think Ryu is in the top 10. He just has so many tools, and great stuff all around. I agree tho in the sense that he isn't 2nd. I think as it stands Sheik, Pika, Luigi, and ZSS are better than him.

 

[warionumbah2]

Well abadango has given up on Wario and is now putting metaknight as his real secondary.

 

[Nobie]

By the way, Mewtwo's worst matchup isn't Sheik or Fox or Captain Falcon, it's Pikachu.

Yes, Sheik, Fox, and Falcon all have the tools to annihilate Mewtwo, but at least they're roughly human-sized. Sheik has the Fair of doom, and is able to worry less about lacking kill moves because of how light Mewtwo is, but at least you can actually hit her. Pikachu's profile is often so low that not even Mega Man can grab him, and this is doubly painful for someone whose grab is as high up as Mewtwo's. While some people claim that Kirby is a really bad matchup for Mewtwo, Kirby at least suffers from having a bad approach game that Mewtwo can exploit through high mobility specs and disjoints, but that is certainly not a problem for Pikachu.

 

[Asdioh]

Regarding "Sheik will probably be nerfed next patch" (which we expected at least one patch ago) I think it's fun to consider this: http://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_conquests_(SSB4-Wii_U) the August 14th-21st conquest, which I noticed a couple weeks ago. Mario/Dr. with 43%, ZSS/Samus with 31%, and Sheik/Zelda with 26%. I don't know exactly how much weight the balancing team gives online play, but we do know they at least take online data into consideration. I also don't know if Zelda somehow "dragged Sheik down" with those numbers, and maybe Sheik by herself had higher numbers, but Mario/ZSS were also paired with their lower tier counterparts. So if we see Dr Mario nerfed next patch, and Sheik buffed, we'll know why.

 

[TTTTTsd]

So if we see Dr Mario nerfed

It already happened with pre 1.1.0 USmash, don't do this to me again man ;_;. If that happens my faith meter will skyrocket into the abyss foreverrrrr.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi won't rise much if Sheik gets nerfed the wrong way again (Let's reduce F-air's damage to like 0.5%). However, a good nerf to needles might make the MU not as stupid as it is right now. Sheik would probably still win but it's no longer 'ROTFL I press B and win' situation.

That said, Luigi is held back by his poor MUs against a few high tiers, and Rosalina, so don't really expect Luigi to be Top 3 anytime soon, unless the patch changed things a bit.

But then again the constant complains on Luigi being braindead might call nerfs or at least strength redistribution for the next patch, which may or may not affect his MUs drastically. But this isn't the 'nerf and buff X character' thread so I'll just stop here.

 

[KenMeister]

Regarding "Sheik will probably be nerfed next patch" (which we expected at least one patch ago) I think it's fun to consider this: http://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_conquests_(SSB4-Wii_U) the August 14th-21st conquest, which I noticed a couple weeks ago. Mario/Dr. with 43%, ZSS/Samus with 31%, and Sheik/Zelda with 26%. I don't know exactly how much weight the balancing team gives online play, but we do know they at least take online data into consideration. I also don't know if Zelda somehow "dragged Sheik down" with those numbers, and maybe Sheik by herself had higher numbers, but Mario/ZSS were also paired with their lower tier counterparts. So if we see Dr Mario nerfed next patch, and Sheik buffed, we'll know why.

Mostly because FG Sheiks are either rare or horrible. Don't think I ever ran into a good one once when I was on there.

 

[FullMoon]

Regarding "Sheik will probably be nerfed next patch" (which we expected at least one patch ago) I think it's fun to consider this: http://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_conquests_(SSB4-Wii_U) the August 14th-21st conquest, which I noticed a couple weeks ago. Mario/Dr. with 43%, ZSS/Samus with 31%, and Sheik/Zelda with 26%. I don't know exactly how much weight the balancing team gives online play, but we do know they at least take online data into consideration. I also don't know if Zelda somehow "dragged Sheik down" with those numbers, and maybe Sheik by herself had higher numbers, but Mario/ZSS were also paired with their lower tier counterparts. So if we see Dr Mario nerfed next patch, and Sheik buffed, we'll know why.

I'm pretty sure Conquests are not taken into consideration for patches because otherwise we would have seen characters like Mario get nerfed a ton and that never happened

Hell, Greninja won a Conquest vs Sheik and he still got buffed.

 

[Rikkhan]

Also imo characters like duck hunt, pacman, and villager are more fun to watch when they're not playing each other lol

Haha yeah your duck hunt is very entertaining to watch, same with Zage pacman, but when they figth each other is like :ResidentSlepper:

I don't know what is going in this thread but can people chill? Samus community makes a video about samus flaws, maybe it's not that good but does people have to be that negative? one guy gets so triggered because it says "samus has the worst grab in the game" when should be "samus has one of the worst grab in the game" and feel "completely insulted" by this mistake, other start his rant with "That video was annoyingly long", cmon people chill. If you are going to criticize at least learn how to do a constructive critique. Imo the guy who posted his tier list should have been received in a less aggressive way especially because it was the mod fault he posted here, kinda like Shaya did and not like ffamran did.

 

[DunnoBro]

I doubt FG even has as much effect on patches as umebura and tournament mode these days.

Most issues perceived within the FG environment would've been done so already.

 

[Man Li Gi]

It already happened with pre 1.1.0 USmash, don't do this to me again man ;_;. If that happens my faith meter will skyrocket into the abyss foreverrrrr.

U hate the angle too? Man I thought I was the only one. The Dr. Mario baords acted like it was one of the greatest things he got. I wish he had melee power/damage on everything bar his usmash and up b. It would make him decent.

 

[TTTTTsd]

U hate the angle too? Man I thought I was the only one. The Dr. Mario baords acted like it was one of the greatest things he got. I wish he had melee power/damage on everything bar his usmash and up b. It would make him decent.

Well I don't hate the angle anymore because of how the move is now. As of right now it actually IS one of the best things he has. It kills earlier than Mario's (even earlier if you're anti-airing someone and they're near the edge) and it has INSANE hitbox coverage, it will NOT miss in front of him AT ALL, as low as crouching G&W (which is incredible). Before 1.1.0 the new USmash angle felt stupid. Now it has a purpose, increased KBG and INSANELY GOOD coverage. Like, really good.

Also damage would just make him annoying to fight and people would camp him mad hard. All I want on Doc is Pills having old IASA back, DSmash killing at the front and not the back, and Fair not having a sourspot at the early hit. D-Throw -> Fair Sourspot is already a thing (the sweetspot is MU specific AAGHHH) but yeah. I think he's really close to being a perfectly fine character honestly, his recovery isn't great but it's not horrible either once you use it properly, and he's REALLY dominant at edgeguarding (especially low, Dair, Down-B, even Bair which has one additional sweetspot frame vs. Mario's and has the power you know it for, it is WAY better than his Melee Bair). His neutral is a bit worse than Mario's (not SUPER worse because he does have a Bair that hits all shields on a SH and it's pretty safe too) he just really sucks in disadvantage which would only really be fixed by retooling Nair or boosting mobility, I'd rather they just made his neutral more stellar.

There, my semi-rant on how Doc is pretty close to being an ok character, really he is! He gets a pretty bad rep in most casual circles but he's not really far from being a solid ok character. His flaws are super evident but funny enough, it's the few insanely good attributes he has that keep me from really calling him outright terrible, which include one of the best OoS options in the game, Doctor Tornado as a move (it's seriously amazing), and Mario's frame data.

I might've put my focus into Ryu as my main but I will always secondary Doc and he's gotten pretty significantly better from the patches overall I think. TL;DR he feels like slightly undertuned harder hitting Mario, he's very close to actually being decent.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Well I don't hate the angle anymore because of how the move is now. As of right now it actually IS one of the best things he has. It kills earlier than Mario's (even earlier if you're anti-airing someone and they're near the edge) and it has INSANE hitbox coverage, it will NOT miss in front of him AT ALL, as low as crouching G&W (which is incredible). Before 1.1.0 the new USmash angle felt stupid. Now it has a purpose, increased KBG and INSANELY GOOD coverage. Like, really good.

Also damage would just make him annoying to fight and people would camp him mad hard. All I want on Doc is Pills having old IASA back, DSmash killing at the front and not the back, and Fair not having a sourspot at the early hit. D-Throw -> Fair Sourspot is already a thing (the sweetspot is MU specific AAGHHH) but yeah. I think he's really close to being a perfectly fine character honestly, his recovery isn't great but it's not horrible either once you use it properly, and he's REALLY dominant at edgeguarding (especially low, Dair, Down-B, even Bair which has one additional sweetspot frame vs. Mario's and has the power you know it for, it is WAY better than his Melee Bair). His neutral is a bit worse than Mario's (not SUPER worse because he does have a Bair that hits all shields on a SH and it's pretty safe too) he just really sucks in disadvantage which would only really be fixed by retooling Nair or boosting mobility, I'd rather they just made his neutral more stellar.

There, my semi-rant on how Doc is pretty close to being an ok character, really he is! He gets a pretty bad rep in most casual circles but he's not really far from being a solid ok character. His flaws are super evident but funny enough, it's the few insanely good attributes he has that keep me from really calling him outright terrible, which include one of the best OoS options in the game, Doctor Tornado as a move (it's seriously amazing), and Mario's frame data.

I might've put my focus into Ryu as my main but I will always secondary Doc and he's gotten pretty significantly better from the patches overall I think.

Dude I know the Dr added weight through his years as a medic. He got out of shape through the course of leaving combat for 6 years.....that being, I strongly agree with you here. Been playing doc before when he had a regular usmash and he was good in my eyes. Then the "buff" happened then I quit. Getting back to him now cuz of his now useful usmash. His damage output could be related to the fact he's rusty at fighting. Seriously though, if his damage output was significantly better than Mario, I would have no problem and would actually never complain.....but such is life.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

What dp ylu think about Megaman's Dsmash

 

[Zelder]

Powerful, way, way too laggy - pretty useless in a 1v1, because the reward doesn't outweight the risk. Besides, the only proper way to close stocks with Mega Man is uptilt.

 

[juddy96]

If you haven't watched Ranai vs. Earth at Sumabato 5, it was a great set https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u7Zm0B02QI

 

[slavoslav]

Regarding "Sheik will probably be nerfed next patch" (which we expected at least one patch ago) I think it's fun to consider this: http://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_conquests_(SSB4-Wii_U) the August 14th-21st conquest, which I noticed a couple weeks ago. Mario/Dr. with 43%, ZSS/Samus with 31%, and Sheik/Zelda with 26%. I don't know exactly how much weight the balancing team gives online play, but we do know they at least take online data into consideration. I also don't know if Zelda somehow "dragged Sheik down" with those numbers, and maybe Sheik by herself had higher numbers, but Mario/ZSS were also paired with their lower tier counterparts. So if we see Dr Mario nerfed next patch, and Sheik buffed, we'll know why.

bruh

Conquest results are almost certainly not taken into account for balance patches because they are more of a popularity contest than anything else. http://www.ssbwiki.com/Conquest explains the point system. Hypothetically, in a Mario versus Sheik conquest, if there's 7 times as many Marios as Sheiks participating the Marios could afford to get 2-stocked in every single match and would still come out on top since entering any match with Mario is all it takes to contribute 1 point to the conquest regardless of the result.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Do you think Megaman will be a long way Top Tier

 

[TTTTTsd]

Dude I know the Dr added weight through his years as a medic. He got out of shape through the course of leaving combat for 6 years.....that being, I strongly agree with you here. Been playing doc before when he had a regular usmash and he was good in my eyes. Then the "buff" happened then I quit. Getting back to him now cuz of his now useful usmash. His damage output could be related to the fact he's rusty at fighting. Seriously though, if his damage output was significantly better than Mario, I would have no problem and would actually never complain.....but such is life.

A bit late but in defense of the character, he genuinely does regularly outdamage Mario and his jabs are much better for mixups/followups (they don't have to be spaced perfectly to have a regular knockback angle, etc.). I don't know if damage is his weakest point outside of like, Uair and Nair, probably.

 

[Nu~]

Do you think Megaman will be a long way Top Tier

No.

 

[DunnoBro]

Do you think Megaman will be a long way Top Tier

Yes.

If by "long way top tier" you mean "long way from top tier."

 

[NairWizard]

If Sheik is nerfed to the point where she is no longer top tier pikachu will be the best IMO.

Beats zss and Rosalina already, and as far as I know Luigi loses to mobility, a good projectile, and the ability to get early off stage gimps, especially if the character in question is hard to grab. Why does pikachu lose this, again?

Short answer is powershielding, and it's the same reason that Luigi beats most fast characters that he should otherwise lose to. Pikachu theoretically beats Luigi by camping with Quick Attack and d-tilts (which push Luigi back due to traction). But in practice, Luigi only needs to powershield one or two d-tilts and get the same reward out of those one or two powershields that Pikachu gets from tons and tons of hits combined. Luigi's initial dash is really good so if you Tjolt camp, he can just dash to shield your jolts effortlessly.

Additionally, Luigi's n-air makes it very difficult to combo him.

the risk:reward is just not in Pikachu's favor

Everyone gimps luigi so that's not really relevant.

But not everyone gimps Luigi safely. Luigi's so good as a character even offstage because you constantly have to fear Cyclone. Cyclone gimps/spikes when you're trying to edgeguard Luigi are really obnoxious and even characters with disjoints can fall into them depending on the nature of the disjoint. Airdodge -> Cyclone is really strong as a response to edgeguarding. Pikachu has it particularly easy in this regard because he can b-reverse Thunders and be nowhere near Luigi, so he won't get spiked. Tjolts also do pretty well. If Pikachu didn't win the offstage game so solidly then the matchup would be 90:10. As it stands though it's probably closer to 60:40.