Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Rizen]

Samus's moves flow together super well and her combos are super damaging. Doesn't mean she isn't low tier.
Zelda's combos are half as good as Samus's, still decent combos, but doesn't mean she isn't the worst character. There are many other reasons she is the worst.

Samus and Zelda are bottom 10 for sure. I agree with what silver and tundra said about it being pointless to nit-pick tier places. We can tell good characters, bad characters and mid tiers but it's hard to order them specifically aside from Sheik. I pretty much agree with the list in the OP (for pre-patch).

 

[Vyrnx]

Not to refute anyone's statements, but people talking about Samus reminded me
A Samus got top 12 at DBZ7 today (Europe's biggest tournament). Great rep! Too bad almost all of the best Samus's are in Europe.
The buff to Samus's nair was great too, it's now amazing off stage. It kills Bowser off stage at like 90%, and because of its angle it gimps some recoveries much sooner.
Just misc thoughts, thought I'd share.

 

[UberMadman]

First of all, Smash 4 is pretty balanced. Second of all anyone could be good with anyone. All of the characters who are considered "the worst" were in a tournament. So it kinda depends on the players skill along with the character. So personally I believe that she is the worst.

For someone who seems to be so adamant about saying Palutena is the worst, you seem to know jack about her. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, but it's obvious that you have very little actual knowledge on Palutena, such as what you've said right here:

Palutena is extremely slow and barely viable without her custom moves.

Of all the problems Palutena has, mobility is not one of them. Palutena has the 11th fastest Dashing speed in the game, in between Yoshi and Meta Knight. A lot of her best options come out of dash as well, as she has a powerful Dash Attack that grants her invincibilty from it, as well as a great disjointed fair that autcancels from a short hop. She also posseses a really excellent grab range, and off of her grab she can not only combo into fair/nair, but she can also KILL with an up air. She may not have the best air mobility, but she posseses Warp, which allows her to zip around the stage by platform cancelling it. Zelda's Farore's Wind has a hitbox, but it's much laggier than Palutena's and has too big a range to effectively platform cancel it in the neutral.

So compared to Zelda, Palutena has better mobility, kills off of a grab, and better options in neutral. Her up tilt and forward tilt are bad, yes, but her down tilt is pretty good, and she can short hop fair to repeatedly poke the opponent, unlike Zelda. She's the better character, and has more results to back her.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Okay. We get it. Bottom line: Samus is bad, Palutena is bad, Zelda is bad.
Wanna win? Don't use them, use Shiek.
Enjoy playing as them? Keep doing what you're doing.
How much does it matter who's worse than who when they're all clearly ass?

 

[Wintropy]

Not to refute anyone's statements, but people talking about Samus reminded me
A Samus got top 12 at DBZ7 today (Europe's biggest tournament). Great rep! Too bad almost all of the best Samus's are in Europe.
The buff to Samus's nair was great too, it's now amazing off stage. It kills Bowser off stage at like 90%, and because of its angle it gimps some recoveries much sooner.
Just misc thoughts, thought I'd share.

That's great! I'm happy to hear that.

That said, maybe it's confirmation bias, but I have definitely seen more Palutena in high-level tourneys than I have Zelda or Samus. Which is unfortunate in a sense, because I love people getting results with weaker characters, but I do think that each of the three characters is totally usable. Just that there's no good reason to use them beyond character loyalty.

Incidentally, how viable is DK right now? I see quite a few folks putting him up there with Pit, if not higher, and I'm wondering it it's valid reasoning or we're still riding the hype train following 1.1.0.

 

[bc1910]

Also, just curious, but if ZeRo didn't exist, do you all think Sheik would be such a consensus number one? I'm not fishing for an answer, "yes" is perfectly ok, I'm just wondering what you all think.

Yes.

This is ZeRo we're talking about.

Sheik's not the best because ZeRo plays her, ZeRo plays Sheik because she's the best.

 

[Pazx]

PSA: DON'T FORGET THAT IT'S OKAY TO IGNORE PEOPLE WHO DON'T CONTRIBUTE TO DISCUSSION (eg. our "Zelda is good" friend over here)

You guys talking about cohesive movesets that "flow" and Palutena in the same sentence... What?

I love Palutena, but her kit doesn't flow. She's carried by having a couple of somewhat flawed moves with good qualities that all serve their own individual purpose VERY WELL (dash attack, bair, fair, dthrow despite [dash] grab being sluggish) and the fact of the matter is that these 3 or 4 moves are legitimately strong enough to supplement the rest of her garbage kit (jab and uair are passable to good, the rest of her moves have niche use at best) to the point where she's better than quite a few characters.

PS. Zelda's buffs last patch (1.1.0 or 1.0.8 idrc) took her from "undoubtedly the worst" to "probably the worst", and now she has safe on shield lightning kicks or something (paging @Thinkaman)? Patches are kind to this woman.

 

[|RK|]

Even when Diddy was most dominant, there were rumblings about Sheik being the best, but underdeveloped.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Do you all realize sheik's results would be cut in half if ZeRo didn't exist? I mean, as much as we love to say that sheik is ridiculous and ZeRo picking her proves that, we also can't forget that it was ZeRo who developed her neutral heavily and that w/o him, she would be similar to ryu, where she'll have results, but a lot of theory craft.

 

[bc1910]

PSA: DON'T FORGET THAT IT'S OKAY TO IGNORE PEOPLE WHO DON'T CONTRIBUTE TO DISCUSSION (eg. our "Zelda is good" friend over here)

You guys talking about cohesive movesets that "flow" and Palutena in the same sentence... What?

I love Palutena, but her kit doesn't flow. She's carried by having a couple of somewhat flawed moves with good qualities that all serve their own individual purpose VERY WELL (dash attack, bair, fair, dthrow despite [dash] grab being sluggish) and the fact of the matter is that these 3 or 4 moves are legitimately strong enough to supplement the rest of her garbage kit (jab and uair are passable to good, the rest of her moves have niche use at best) to the point where she's better than quite a few characters.

PS. Zelda's buffs last patch (1.1.0 or 1.0.8 idrc) took her from "undoubtedly the worst" to "probably the worst", and now she has safe on shield lightning kicks or something (paging @Thinkaman)? Patches are kind to this woman.

Dtilt is also very good. F5, decent range, 24 frames total, combos into aerials.

Tilt stick is pretty much required to make the most of the 4 frame startup, but if you treat Zelda's Dtilt as her jab her CQC starts to make a lot more sense.

 

[NickRiddle]

No, the worst character in smash 4 is actually Zelda.

Like, is there any solid argument against it?

Well... I mean... Dedede's in the game...

 

[Emblem Lord]

If Zero didnt exist pre patch diddy results would be cut by 80%

 

[Meru.]

Do you all realize sheik's results would be cut in half if ZeRo didn't exist?

Do you realize we can say the same about every other character in the game?

 

[Wintropy]

You guys talking about cohesive movesets that "flow" and Palutena in the same sentence... What?

I love Palutena, but her kit doesn't flow. She's carried by having a couple of somewhat flawed moves with good qualities that all serve their own individual purpose VERY WELL (dash attack, bair, fair, dthrow despite [dash] grab being sluggish) and the fact of the matter is that these 3 or 4 moves are legitimately strong enough to supplement the rest of her garbage kit (jab and uair are passable to good, the rest of her moves have niche use at best) to the point where she's better than quite a few characters.

Ehh I disagree with that. Palutena's got a very clear gameplan: space, pace, bait and punish. Everything she does comes down to the basic impetus to get the grab and go ham from there. The fact that her best aerials (f-air and b-air) happen to be disjointed spacing options and her jab confirms into grab verifies it for me. Palutena's a defensive character that wants to keep you out, then grab when you try to get in. She's basically a grappler with pokey things.

Dash attack doesn't really fit into the paradigm, that's fair, but that's because it's a hail mary "get offa me" option rather than a confirm. Which, even so, fits conveniently into the defensive orientation that she's based on, since she basically has a reset button if things get difficult.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Ehh I disagree with that. Palutena's got a very clear gameplan: space, pace, bait and punish. Everything she does comes down to the basic impetus to get the grab and go ham from there. The fact that her best aerials (f-air and b-air) happen to be disjointed spacing options and her jab confirms into grab verifies it for me. Palutena's a defensive character that wants to keep you out, then grab when you try to get in. She's basically a grappler with pokey things.

Dash attack doesn't really fit into the paradigm, that's fair, but that's because it's a hail mary "get offa me" option rather than a confirm. Which, even so, fits conveniently into the defensive orientation that she's based on, since she basically has a reset button if things get difficult.

I do think Dash attack fits in because it's the ultimate anti-poke

Invincibility starts on frame 4, I think, and if you see the other dude short hop or press a button it beats out a lot of options. Works great against a ton of landing options, too.

I'd better stop saying nice things about Palutena before people start wondering if I got replaced by a shapeshifting alien

 

[Wiimas123]

For someone who seems to be so adamant about saying Palutena is the worst, you seem to know jack about her. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, but it's obvious that you have very little actual knowledge on Palutena, such as what you've said right here:

Of all the problems Palutena has, mobility is not one of them. Palutena has the 11th fastest Dashing speed in the game, in between Yoshi and Meta Knight. A lot of her best options come out of dash as well, as she has a powerful Dash Attack that grants her invincibilty from it, as well as a great disjointed fair that autcancels from a short hop. She also posseses a really excellent grab range, and off of her grab she can not only combo into fair/nair, but she can also KILL with an up air. She may not have the best air mobility, but she posseses Warp, which allows her to zip around the stage by platform cancelling it. Zelda's Farore's Wind has a hitbox, but it's much laggier than Palutena's and has too big a range to effectively platform cancel it in the neutral.

So compared to Zelda, Palutena has better mobility, kills off of a grab, and better options in neutral. Her up tilt and forward tilt are bad, yes, but her down tilt is pretty good, and she can short hop fair to repeatedly poke the opponent, unlike Zelda. She's the better character, and has more results to back her.

I meant her moves are slower. Also has a setup with a grab that ends in a kill move. Ok her neutral is not that great but that's not where she is strongest. She is a spacing character and in that level she wins. Some other reasons she's not better than Zelda is Palutena has a lot of startup and ending lag on her moves. She is a lightweight character with a large hurtbox, she doesn't have reliable kill moves besides a few, auto reticle is so predictable and her tilts are horrendous. Zelda can a lot of things Palutena can do but better and she doesn't have as much problems.

 

[ARGHETH]

Palutena has a lot of startup and ending lag on her moves.

Compared to the character with the frame 11 jab and frame 10 jab.

She is a lightweight character with a large hurtbox

You do realize Zelda's lighter than Paluterna, right?

she doesn't have reliable kill moves besides a few

"She doesn't have reliable kill moves besides her kill moves"

auto reticle is so predictable

So's Zelda's Side/Down B, what's your point?

Zelda can a lot of things Palutena can do but better

Like?

EDIT: Getting off this conversation now.

 

[UberMadman]

People are right, we shouldn't be continuing a conversation on who is worst when there's clearly not much point to it, but... goddamnit, misconceptions bother me. I'm sorry that I've helped continue this so long, so here's my final thoughts.

Zelda and Palutena are both characters with big hitboxes, light-ish weight classes, and mostly garbage kits. However, Palutena posseses better mobility and approach options, a kill setup off a decent grab, two moves with invincibility that she can use while moving, and a few reliable kill options, and Zelda has none of those. The two things I forgot to mention that Zelda has that are decent are Nayru's Love and a fast Downsmash, but the only purpose they really serve is quick ways to get opponents away from you temporarily, as she has no way to prevent them from closing the gap again. Palutena's kit gives her more options, so she is the slightly better character.

I promise these will be my final words on the subject.

 

[Amadeus9]

Ok I've had enough of this talk

Anti tho?

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Also has a setup with a grab that ends in a kill move

a kill setup off a decent grab.

If we're talking Palutena Dthrow -> Uair it's not real without lightweight

 

[NachoOfCheese]

The fact that Shiek's Fair beats Rosaluma's Usmash is hilarious

 

[LancerStaff]

I meant her moves are slower. Also has a setup with a grab that ends in a kill move. Ok her neutral is not that great but that's not where she is strongest. She is a spacing character and in that level she wins. Some other reasons she's not better than Zelda is Palutena has a lot of startup and ending lag on her moves. She is a lightweight character with a large hurtbox, she doesn't have reliable kill moves besides a few, auto reticle is so predictable and her tilts are horrendous. Zelda can a lot of things Palutena can do but better and she doesn't have as much problems.

The two characters at a glance are pretty similar. Powerful but lacking in frame data (resulting in both being surprisingly bad at KOing), large, light but a great recovery, lacking projectiles, reflectors, and they're even both magical waifu goddesses. (Zelda's a reincarnate but still.)

Probably the biggest reason Palutena works and Zelda really doesn't is because, IMO, rather then largely being chock full of rather mediocre moves like Zelda, Palutena has a bunch of good moves and generally better attributes but then everything outside of that is worse to make up for it.

Imagine you have two identical Marios. Boring right? So lets give the one something crazy and take something else away. Mario doesn't really have any bad moves, so we'll replace one's Fair with Sheik's but then replace Fireballs with Falco's lasers. On paper, effectively taking away one move and buffing the heck out of the other would be balanced. In practice, our modified Mario would body the daylights out of vanilla Mario because the loss of one move is irrelevant should the other be that much more powerful for it.

 

[L9999]

Indeed. This could be a good opportunity for Sakurai and his team to redeem custom moves in the face of the competitive scene. He seems to be aware there are people interested in using custom moves in a more serious environment, considering Tourney Mode now offers 1v1 For Glory tourneys with custom moves, but no equipment.

That and the patch was definitely a step in the right direction, but if they really want to persuade folks, they should:

1. Obviously nerf DK/Sonic/Villager's customs to hell and back
2. Make unlocking them much more easier
3. Add a variation of For Glory in With Anyone that allows for usage of custom specials only, no equipment (it's already coded in the game for pete's sake!)

Giving the DLC characters customs would help too.

I say this should have been since the 3DS version was released.

I think you mean Luma is still the dumbest character in the game and basically always will be.

Luma is the one who does all the work. Rosalina just stands there and watches. Without luma rosalina wouldn't even be top tier.



It just goes to show how balanced SSB4 really is doesn't it.

in the past games it's easy to tell who's the worst character in the past games

64: (before it was )

Melee:

Brawl:

Smash 4? : Nobody truly knows

Some say it's zelda, some say it's samus, some say it's palutena. Nobody truly knows.

Should we care? It's obvious those 3 characters are garbage, what's the point of discussion?

 

[Emblem Lord]

At ths point in the meta the game is basically Super Smash Third Strike Brothers.

You NEED hit confirms into death. If you do not have them, then you are not ever going to win a regional on a consistent basis. Zelda and Palutena dont even have functional tool kits. The **** we talking bout them for.

 

[Asdioh]

I don't know anything about third strike, but I agree. It's why Pikachu and Mario are a tier below the best. Same with a bunch of other characters. Same reason Ryu is REALLY good right now, because he has hit confirms into death at lower percents than pretty much any other character.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

*big house ends*
[Analysis] Is ZSS the worst character in the game?

 

[wedl!!]

[Analysis] Is Sheik Good?

 

[UberMadman]

*big house ends*
[Analysis] Is ZSS the worst character in the game?

I liked your original post a bit more.

EDIT: Oh ****, I broke the chain, uh...

[Analysis] Is Sonic secretly the best character?

 

[|RK|]

Emblem Lord Where does Roy stand currently? I'm trying to decide on a secondary/co-main, and it's between him and Lucario.

 

[ATH_]

After that performance, I think we can all agree that ZeRo is definitely a ridiculous contribution to current-day Sheik.
He didn't make the character good persay, Nintendo did with code. ZeRo took the character to a whole new level, though. As we see clearly in the difference of Vinnie and ZeRo.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I don't know anything about third strike, but I agree. It's why Pikachu and Mario are a tier below the best. Same with a bunch of other characters. Same reason Ryu is REALLY good right now, because he has hit confirms into death at lower percents than pretty much any other character.

 

[L9999]

After that performance, I think we can all agree that ZeRo is definitely a ridiculous contribution to current-day Sheik.
He didn't make the character good persay, Nintendo did with code. ZeRo took the character to a whole new level, though. As we see clearly in the difference of Vinnie and ZeRo.

Speaking of ZeRo, how did he performed after the Seagull match? Or it hasn't ended yet?

 

[|RK|]

Speaking of ZeRo, how did he performed after the Seagull match? Or it hasn't ended yet?

He won.

 

[TurboLink]

Like I've said before, everybody just needs to start using Sheik.

 

[Asdioh]

vidya

Who are the best characters though? Also let's play again sometime in glorious 1.11

Speaking of ZeRo, how did he performed after the Seagull match? Or it hasn't ended yet?

Apparently he got over what was troubling him, because he went back to being the best. It's insane @_@

 

[|RK|]

Like I've said before, everybody just needs to start using Sheik.

I still don't get this. Anti contended with Mario, ESAM with Pikachu, Nairo with ZSS, etc. ZeRo is quite simply the best player. The other matchups will (until people like Anti show data) remain in the realm of theorycraft so long as no one is on ZeRo's level.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I mean that broad you saw in the beginning with the billion and one ways to combo into super is pretty ok I heard.

lol. top 3 is Yun, Chun-Li and Ken.

And I'm free to play right now if anyone wants to throw down.

|RK| Roy is solid upper mid imo. He has jab confirm to angled Blazer for kills around 120%. He is rewarded less for hitting shields with spaced pokes now. He has less of his insane frame advantage he had before if he hits with the tip. But he is still top 5 footsie chars in the game. Nair too good. Dtilt is basically Brawl Marth dtilt. Jab too good. Grab game solid. Can pressure well due to high mobility specs. Thing is he struggles vs Sheik and ZSS which hurts his viability imo.

 

[L9999]

He won.

HE DID?! Incredible.

 

[ATH_]

Speaking of ZeRo, how did he performed after the Seagull match? Or it hasn't ended yet?

It ended, he won and he shredded through the rest of the competition.
Anti came VERY close to taking him out though. Nairo took him to game 5 (not counting the first set). It was a very good watch.

 

[Jaguar360]

At ths point in the meta the game is basically Super Smash Third Strike Brothers.

You NEED hit confirms into death. If you do not have them, then you are not ever going to win a regional on a consistent basis. Zelda and Palutena dont even have functional tool kits. The **** we talking bout them for.

I hate to drag on this conversation, but Zelda DOES have hit confirms into death. N-air to Elevator is the main one (and if the opponent manages to DI the elevator, D-smash and F-air are suitable N-air followups), along with D-tilt to F-air at mid percents, D-tilt to U-air at high percents and even Jab to F-air can kill near the ledge at mid percents on non-fast fallers.

Out of grab she has back throw to kill near the ledge. U-throw sets up for U-air nicely and even if the opponent jumps out, he/she still needs to respect U-air coming from below. D-throw to U-air is a true combo without DI, though it isn't the most relevant kill confirm since it's really easy to DI out of it.


@Whoever said that Zelda has a bunch of mediocre moves: Untrue, she has plenty of excellent moves. It's her attributes that are poor mostly combined with a lack of really quick moves outside of D-tilt. And no, I don't mean excellent for Zelda, I mean excellent 'relative to the rest of the cast'.

Zelda F-smash is probably one of the best F-smashes in the game. It's only really rivaled by Marcina's in terms of excellence tbh. Good range, great power, safe on shield, kind of quick for a smash attack. Excellent move. Farore's Wind is outstanding, DI-able Elevator or not. FW2 is still a good horizontal punish and FW is a good recovery move. There's also teleport cancelling, even if it's less consistent than with Palutena and Mewtwo. D-tilt's amazing as a poke and combo move, Naryu's Love is amazing as a roll and landing punish and has utility with its reflecting propertities and invulnerability frames. I'll even say that U-air is amazing with its range and power even if it's a bit slow. Fast fall U-air is really good since it autocancels near the ground and makes a whiffed U-air hard to punish. It's almost like an aerial, vertical, unchargeable Meta knight f-smash.